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Document Details : Title: Alleen de zin heeft zin Subtitle: 'Satz', 'Sinn' en 'Bedeutung' in de nieuwe vertalingen van Wittgensteins Tractatus Author(s): VANRIE, Wim Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 84 Issue: 3 Date: 2022 Pages: 517-534 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.84.3.3291503 Abstract : I criticize three aspects of the new Dutch translations of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus logico-philosophicus by Victor Gijsbers (Boom) and Peter Huijzer and Jan Sietsma (Octavo). The first aspect is the translation of ‘Satz der Logik’ as ‘stelling van de logica’ (theorem of logic) by Huijzer and Sietsma. I argue that Wittgenstein wanted to do away with the association of logic with theorems à la Frege and Russell. Instead, his conception of logic revolves around tautological sentences such as ‘It is raining or not’, which no one would be inclined to call ‘theorems’. It is better to translate ‘Satz der Logik’ as ‘zin van de logica’ (logical sentence). The second aspect is the translation of ‘Sinn’ as ‘betekenis’ (meaning) by Gijsbers and Huijzer and Sietsma. I present two arguments why Hermans’s previous translation as ‘zin’ (sense) is better. The first concerns Wittgenstein’s comparison of sentences with arrows. The second concerns the unity of the terms ‘sinnvol’, ‘sinnlos’, and ‘unsinnig’. The third aspect, finally, is Gijsbers’ translation of ‘Bedeutung’ as ‘betekenis’, which causes the distinction between ‘Sinn’ and ‘Bedeutung’ to disappear in the translation. I argue that this distinction is central to the Tractatus: Wittgenstein employs his notion of ‘Sinn’ to characterize the sui generis nature of the sentence, as comes out in his statement that only the sentence (Satz) has sense (Sinn). |
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