Nuno Venturinha: "Literary Nonsense and Philosophy"
In this paper I begin by analysing Wittgenstein’s views of nonsense in his early and middle periods, paying particular attention to his remarks on Heidegger and Carroll. Making use of Culture and Value and other passages in the Nachlass, I then claim that the failure of the Philosophical Investigations as a book is intimately connected with Wittgenstein’s recognition that philosophy should be written under the form of poetry. The consequences of this view are discussed in connection with Deleuze’s comments on Melville’s Bartleby and a criticism of the ‘new Wittgensteinianism’ is made.