Ineffability

There is an interesting parallel between Davidson’s arguments against the analysis of metaphor in terms of simile, and Wittgenstein’s way of arguing that religious expressions are not similes in ‘A Lecture on Ethics’. In both cases the point is that something ineffable is explained in terms of something that is expressible, or to put it differently, that something that does not have cognitive content is equated with something that has. Essentially, it is the distinction between showing and saying that is at stake in both cases.

Martin Stokhof
from: Interpretation
date: fall 2001