Carnap and Grice on nonsense

-----------By J. L. S. of the Grice Club
for the Carnap Corner


From an online source:


“Caesar times 17 is purple.”

---

indeed, but only under a certain light.

I think I do Like Carnap's syntactic period.

-- where 'period' is ambiguous.

"Caesar is and"

indeed is not a wff.

"Caesar times 17 is purple" is a different type of nonsense. I would not call ill-formed formulae "nonsense" because, to me, nonsense applies to 'semantic', not to syntactics.

----

Carnap compares:

Caesar is a prime number

with

Caesar is a general.

---

Oddly, Grice has

You're the cream in my coffee.

as a categorial mistake -- alla Caesar is a prime number -- and triggering a metaphor. But we are not here to find scenarios where nonsense becomes sense. We are here to provide an exegesis of ... Heidegger?

---

The Absolute is lazy

once repeated a few, becomes sensical -- O'Connor -- even if it may be difficult to see what sensory experience could verify it.

Chomsky's infamous

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously,

is "buttered with carnaps" all over again --.! (And without a credit!)

Etc.

When Grice was fighting for a def. of "... means ..." in one way or other, he must have been having Carnap's "nonsense" in mind, too. Etc.