That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (the language which only I understand) mean the limits of my world. (5.6)
5.6 says that the limits of one’s language are the limits of one’s world. While Wittgenstein makes this remark with regard to the insights of solipsism, I would like to consider the statement on its own. In what follows, I wish to consider sentences that, at least according to Wittgenstein, are non-sentences, that is a sentence that lacks a sense. Sentences such as “orange flavored happiness.”
There are, I think, clear cases in which language does in fact limit one’s world. Practically, if I am told certain things and fail to understand them, then I will have a difficult time when such things would be important to know. For example, if I am told that there are 100 pages of reading due for next week’s class and I do not understand this, then come next week I will have a difficult time during class having not done the reading assigned.
My world is limited by not being able to take certain things to be true. I will not be able to feel or think certain important things as a result of not being able to understand certain linguistic expressions (I perceive class as being very little work when it is in fact not).
However, there are also cases in which language is able to surpass any of my faculties in relating to my world. For example, the sentence ‘orange flavored happiness’ is a sentence that, for Wittgenstein, is senseless. It fails to point out a logically possible point in the world and thus cannot be judge to be either true or false. Happiness is not the sort of thing that is capable of being orange flavored. In logical terms, there is no place in which the category ‘happiness’ cannot be predicated with ‘flavor’. But let us examine this sentence closely.
Each word has a referent. Orange flavored is something that is attributed to things that taste similar to oranges and happiness is a kind of feeling/emotion that is felt under certain conditions such as spending time with people one loves. Thus, no part of the sentence is unclear.
Further, grammatically the sentence is in working order. Orange flavored is something that can be predicated of many things such as candy or even paint. Happiness is also something that can be a subject, which is evident from sentences like “happiness is a great feeling.” There is then nothing in the sentence “orange flavored happiness” that leads to it not being able to be true or false.
Even for Wittgenstein, it is when these components are brought together that such a statement is capable of being true or false. In the case of “Orange flavored happiness,” something goes wrong when the valid components of language are brought together in a correct way. The end result, I want to claim, is a correct sentence.
However, what are we to make of the claim that it is a sentence without sense or meaning? I wish to say that this shows that language, while perhaps being a limiting factor to our world, is less of a limiting factor than thought or reason.
Language has the ability to say things that are not only incapable of being true or false, but also impossible and unimaginable. Language is a tool that can be used to distort the logical space of reality and push thought to its limit and then keep going. So, while sentences without sense or meaning may not say anything, they are far from unimportant.
Until next time.