Abstract

For Wittgenstein, as Cora Diamond interprets him in the essays collected in her recent The Realistic Spirit , there are no logical truths, and a host of other linguistic constructions, such as ‘A is an object’ are, contrary to appearances, nonsensical. In what follows, after outlining Diamond's account I argue that the position she ascribes to Wittgenstein is incoherent. I also reject some possible responses to this charge, among them an appeal to the distinction between what can be said and what can only be shown.