In der Welt der Sprache: Konsequenzen des semantischen Holismus (original) (raw)

Logical holism is the idea that each elementary proposition belongs to a system and is logically connected to other propositions of that system. In this paper I explore this idea and draw its connections to the nature of negative propositions and the 'problem of recognition' on the basis of Wittgenstein's Nachlass. In the first section I argue that in January 1930 the idea leads Wittgenstein to a better understanding of how the negative feature is expressed in propositions, thereby raising the problem of recognition to which he is not yet able to find a proper solution. In the second section I explore how the problem still persists during Wittgenstein's 'practical turn'. What he now calls the 'problem of representation' forces him to change again his conception of propositions. In the final section I argue that this change is mainly due to the modification of his conception of hypotheses which urges a solution to the problem of representation, though the problem remains unsolved in January 1930.

This article analyzes whether Brandom’s ISA (inferential-substitutional-anaphoric) semantics as presented in Making It Explicit (MIE) and Articulating Reasons (AR) can cope with problems resulting from inferentialism’s near-implied meaning holism. Inferentialism and meaning holism entail a radically perspectival conception of content as significance for an individual speaker. Since thereby its basis is fixed as idiolects, holistic inferentialism engenders a communication-problem. Brandom considers the systematic difference in information among individuals as the „point“ of communication and thus doesn’t want to diminish these effects of inferentialism. Instead, explains communication with a model of “navigating among perspectives without sharing contents”. The crucial element in this navigation-model is the functioning of anaphoric connections between tokens uttered in discourse that can be used by every individual speaker in their own perspectival semantic substitution-economies. The heart of Brandom’s semantics is the thesis of the purely inferential, hence non-referential nature of anaphora, coupled with the claim that anaphoric-inferential semantic mechanisms yield sufficient conditions for mutually successful “information-extraction” or interpretation. This article disputes the thesis and denies the claim. Regarding the former it is observed that all of Brandom’s plausible reconstructions of anaphoric discourse-structures rely on covert “reference-infiltrations” that can’t be eliminated. Regarding the latter, a new argument based on context-sensitive semantic phenomena in anaphoric settings shows that the crucial distinction between initiator or anaphoric antecedent and anaphoric dependent cannot be drawn according to Brandom’s own premises without overt and irreducible referential premises. The article concludes that either Brandom’s semantics can offer determinate contents, but then must accept genuinely referential semantic primitives, or else it leaves utterance-contents undeterminable and hence cannot explain communication.

Pleonasms in Contemporary German The present paper discusses diverse aspects of pleonasms in different types of German discourses. Pleonasm, similarly to tautology, is a strongly criticised phenomenon, not only by regular language users, but also by linguists, especially lexicographers. It does not change the fact, that it is widely used in different discourse types, especially in spoken and technical ones. It appears also on different levels of the language structure. It occurs that it is a mechanism of the language use and it should not be treated a priori as a mistake, because it is a specific language universal, present in different languages around the world. Key words: pleonasm, tautology, linguistic error

In: Thomas Nehrlich, Friederike Wißmann, Maria Zinfert (Hrsg.): Kunstkomparatistik. Zum Gedenken an Gert Mattenklott. Mit einer Rede von Eberhard Lämmert und einem Verzeichnis der Schriften von Gert Mattenklott. Berlin: Edition AVL 2012, S. 63–65.

Sprache am Rande des Schweigens. Lakonie und Aphoristik.

Um die Voraussetzungen dafür zu schaffen, bestimmte Verhaltensauffälligkeiten bzw. psychische Verfassungen von Kindern zu beschreiben und zu analysieren, soll der Begriff Nihilismus der Pädagogik verfügbar gemacht werden. Die Ausgangsthese ist, dass Nihilismus sich als ein Prozess in der Sprache vollzieht und sich zugleich auf die Sprache wie auch auf die Wahrnehmung auf eine bestimmte Weise auswirkt. Zunächst werden nihilistische Phänomene in der Literatur dargelegt, deren Gesetze und deren Einfluss auf die menschliche Existenz anhand der strukturalen Psychoanalyse Jacques Lacans und mit Bezug auf die Phänomenologie Maurice Merleau-Pontys untersucht und detailliert werden. Das damit gewonnene analytische Instrumentarium wird dann auf empirische Beispiele kindlicher Verhaltensauffälligkeiten angewendet.