“If I cannot say a priori what elementary propositions there are, then the attempt to do so must lead to obvious nonsense.”

— Ludwig Wittgenstein

5.5571
Original German: Wenn ich die Elementarsätze nicht a priori angeben kann, dann muss es zu offenbarem Unsinn führen, sie angeben zu wollen.
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 16, 2025. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If I cannot say a priori what elementary propositions there are, then the attempt to do so must lead to obvious nonsens…" by Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

Ludwig Wittgenstein 228

Austrian-British philosopher 1889–1951

Related quotes

“Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions. (An elementary proposition is a truth-function of itself.) (5)”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

Original German: Der Satz ist eine Wahrheitsfunktion der Elementarsätze
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)

“Philosophy must be of some use and we must take it seriously; it must clear our thoughts and so our actions. Or else it is a disposition that we have to check, and an inquiry to see that this is so; i. e. the chief proposition of philosophy is that philosophy is nonsense. And again we must then take seriously that it is nonsense, and not pretend, as Wittgenstein does, that it is important nonsense!”

Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930) British mathematician, philosopher

"Philosophy" (1929) as quoted by Nils-Eric Sahlin, The Philosophy of F. P. Ramsey (1990)

“Notwithstanding their attacks on the basic conception of rationalism, on synthetic a priori judgments, that is, material propositions that cannot be contradicted by any experience, the empiricist posits the forms of being as constant.”

Max Horkheimer (1895–1973) German philosopher and sociologist

Source: "The Latest Attack on Metaphysics" (1937), p. 146.

“Wherever Mathematics is mixed up with anything, which is outside its field, you will find attempts to demonstrate these merely conventional propositions a priori, and it will be your task to find out the false deduction in each case.”

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (1804–1851) German mathematician

Vorlesungen über analytische Mechanik [Lectures on Analytical Mechanics] (1847/48; edited by Helmut Pulte in 1996).

“[Relativist] Rel. There is a well-known proposition of Euclid which states that "Any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side." Can either of you tell me whether nowadays there is good reason to believe that this proposition is true?
[Pure Mathematician] Math. For my part, I am quite unable to say whether the proposition is true or not. I can deduce it by trustworthy reasoning from certain other propositions or axioms, which are supposed to be still more elementary. If these axioms are true, the proposition is true; if the axioms are not true, the proposition is not true universally. Whether the axioms are true or not I cannot say, and it is outside my province to consider.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Variant: Your actions speak so loudly, I can not hear what you are saying.

“The longer he practised his craft, the more conscious he became of the dynamic of language, of speech and writing as events in themselves. The simplest and most obvious proposition, stated in the most elementary language, could so mutate itself in the mind of the reader that it could express the opposite of what the writer had intended. What he wrote as evidence for the defence could hang the man he was defending.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Reflection of Nicol Peters, journalist, in Ch. III
Lazarus (1990)

“It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so.”

Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) American theoretical physicist and professor of physics

As quoted in Play to Live (1982) by Alan Watts

“I just can’t sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it’s nonsense.”

James D. Watson (1928) American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist.

Scientific American Vol. 288, Issue 4 (2003), p. 54

“Some say we need to be more patient. What we cannot, must not do is sit back and hope for the best.”

Jo Cox (1974–2016) UK politician

We nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership. Now we regret it (6 May 2016)

Related topics