Practically Nonsense. An Animated Examination of the Sense-Nonsense Divide(s)

Abstract

This paper explores the distinction between sense and nonsense starting from a notion of practical sense. Using the austere conception of nonsense associated with certain readings of Wittgenstein?s Tractatus as a foil, I argue that beginning with practically articulated senses brings into view a kind of nonsense ? practical nonsense ? which does not adhere to the austerity of the austere conception. Practical nonsense is not sheer nonsense, but instead can be understood as involving cartoon senses. Rather than a wholesale repudiation of the austere conception, the category of practical nonsense offers a further way of enlisting the category of nonsense as a form of philosophical criticism. Work by Cora Diamond and Stanley Cavell, both of whom appeal to animated cartoons at crucial junctures, is illustrative of this form of criticism.