Nonsense and Irony: Wittgenstein's Strategy of Self-Refutation and Kierkegaard's Concept of Indirect Communication

In his preface to the Tractatus Wittgenstein states that the question of nonsense has to do with drawing the limits of language. Nonsensical expressions go beyond the limits of meaningful language and reside “on the other side” of what can be said. Yet, at the end of the book he declares that his own propositions are, strictly speaking, nonsensical. The present paper aims at analyzing early Wittgenstein’s self-refuting strategy as a mode of transcending the limits of language, comparing his concept of “nonsense” (Unsinn) with Kierkegaard’s view of indirect communication and Socratic irony.