ABSOLUTE REQUIREMENT A CENTRAL TOPIC IN WITTGENSTEIN'S "LECTURE ON ETHICS"

Ludwig Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics is reviewed as to its unsatisfactory aspects: its propositions are seen as nonsense, & questions expected to be answered by an account of ethical conviction are not even raised. A remedy is drawn from the ideas that an expression is meaningful if properly used; it may have secondary meaning; as a prerequisite of communication judgments must agree in general; & the certainty of very basic nonlogical propositions is not the result of argument. It is concluded that the lecture can be understood as saying what the recognition of ethical values means. C. Backhaus