How Rare Is Chairman Mao? Dummett, Frege and the Austere Conception of Nonsense

Abstract

One of the most important sources of the “resolute” approaches to interpreting Wittgenstein’s Tractatus is a view of nonsense originally developed by Cora Diamond as an interpretation of the views of Frege as well as of the early Wittgenstein. In the seminal papers in which Diamond’s interpretation was first set out, Michael Dummett’s reading of Frege appears as a foil, a representative of a conception of nonsense opposed to what she calls the “Frege-Wittgenstein” view. In subsequent developments of the resolute approach, primarily in the work of James Conant, this opposition has become known as one between the “substantial” conception of nonsense (hereafter Substantiality) and the Frege-Wittgenstein “austere” conception (hereafter Austerity). Most of this paper is an attempt to assess the true extent of this opposition. I focus mainly on Diamond’s two early papers: “Frege and Nonsense” (Diamond, 1991a; hereafter FN) and “What Nonsense might Be” (Diamond, 1991b; hereafter NMB), and on the parts of Frege: Philosophy of Language (Dummett, 1981; hereafter FPL) to which resolute interpreters tend to refer in characterizing Dummett’s views. My main conclusion, given a fairly leisurely examination of these texts, is that there is in fact much less opposition between Dummett’s views and Austerity than is usually supposed. In addition, this examination unearths some commitments of Austerity that are not fully or explicitly acknowledged.

The Beast had lurked indeed, and the Beast, at its hour, had sprung.

(H. James)