Another turn on the screw: scepticism and propositional analysis

In order to consider whether Wittgenstein's strategy in relation to scepticism succeeds or fails, I examine his approach to certainty. As part of this general objective, I establish a comparison between the different uses of language that Wittgenstein mentions in On Certainty, and his distinction between what has sense (is meaningful), what lacks it (is senseless), and what is absurd (is nonsense) in the Tractatus. In my opinion, this comparison has three advantages: first, it allows the role of the so-called special propositions in On Certainty to be clarified; second, it illuminates the relationship between some features that belong to special propositions in On Certainty and the characteristics that define what is senseless in the Tractatus; and, last, it shows the status of what some interpreters, like Peter Hacker, have denominated 'insightful nonsense' in the Tractatus. On the nature of nonsense, I believe in an intermediate position between on the one hand the traditional or standard interpretations of the Tractatus in this regard of, for example, Peter Hacker (1986, 2000), Elisabeth Anscombe (1971), Robert Fogelin (1976), David Pears (1986), and Brian McGuinness (2002a, 2002b and 1993), and on the other, the so-called new, resolute or austere interpretations of it of Cora Diamond (1991, 2000 and 2004), James Conant (1993, 2000 and 2004), and Alice Crary (2000a), among others. In general, the results of this comparison support the thesis that Wittgenstein's work, beyond its distinction in different periods, has a conceptual continuity