Abstract
One of the central topics of concern for contemporary philosophers, both analytical and phenomenological, has been the nature of meaning. Members of both groups have intimated on more than one occasion that the domain of meaning(s) is the exclusive preserve and only battleground of philosophy. Many of these same philosophers have also suggested that the only way in which one can reach this domain is through an examination of language. What I wish to do in this paper is not so much to question these doctrines as to try to make them clear in the way in which they are held by particular philosophers. More specifically, I wish to discuss some of Heidegger’s views on meaning and language, and then, by some critical comparisons with both the “earlier” and the “later” Wittgenstein, to show the philosophical peculiarities of both men’s positions — positions which, as I shall argue, are intriguingly similar. If successful, my essay can be construed, then, roughly speaking, as a building block in the service of rapprochement. But rapprochement is only valuable as an ideal if it is in turn put in the service of philosophy. I shall conclude, therefore, not on a note of comparison but with a question which I think needs posing and for which I cannot provide an answer. My essay divides quite naturally into three sections. In the first I shall discuss Heidegger’s understanding of meaning.
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References
Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tübingen, 1957), g 151, e 192–193. (The English edition I refer to is the Macquarrie and Robinson translation, from which, with a few minor revisions, I have taken the wording for the quotations for this article. See Being and Time, trans, by Macquarrie and Robinson (London: 1962). Hereafter I will footnote references to Sein und Zeit simply by the letters SZ and the appropriate page numbers in both the German and the English editions.
SZ g 152, e 193.
Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics (Garden City: 1961), p. 70.
See Note 1.
SZ g 152, e 193.
See, for instance, Heidegger’s Gelassenheit (Pfullingen: 1959). There is an English edition also. See Discourse on Thinking (New York: 1966).
SZ g 161, e 204.
SZ g 151, e 193.
Heidegger, Kant und Das Problem Der Metaphysik (Frankfurt a.M.: 1965), g 20, e 15. The English edition I refer to is the Churchill translation. See Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (Bloomington: 1962).
SZ g 151, e 193.
SZ g 161, e 204.
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans, by G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: 1958) 7e. (Hereafter PI.)
PI 13e.
PI 13e (section 27).
PI 5e (section 7).
PI 4e (section 6).
PI 4e-5e.
PI 226e.
In this connection see Bernstein’s ‘Wittgenstein’s Three Languages,’ Review of Metaphysics XV (1961), 278–298.
Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality (New York: 1963), p. 6.
PI 8e (section 18).
The edition of the Tractatus I use for my quotes is the Pears and McGuinness translation. See Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: 1961), trans, by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness.
See note 18.
SZ g 157–158, e 200–201.
PI I4e-15e (section 30).
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© 1976 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Erickson, S.A. (1976). Meaning and Language. In: Durfee, H.A. (eds) Analytic Philosophy and Phenomenology. American University Publications in Philosophy, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1407-6_8
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