Ms-139a,8v

… of scientific expression they are a misuse of language in fact they are nonsense. The word “to wonder” has of course a good sense which we all understand if it means to wonder at a certain state of things to wonder that such & such is the case. It has a good & clear sense to say that I wonder at some unusually dressed man as I have never seen before or at some strange sound etc. etc. It is also clear what it means to wonder at the existence of say a building which you had thought had been pulled down long ago for here it has a meaning to say “I did not think that this building still existed” or to say that it does exist. On the other hand it's nonsense & not a proposition at all to say that colour & sound exist & for this reason it's nonsense to say that I wonder at their existence. Now the correct || right expression of what we mean when we say that colour & sound etc. exist is not a proposition at all but really the vocabulary

Ms-139a,9v

(2015–) Wittgenstein Source Bergen Nachlass Edition (WS-BNE). Edited by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen under the direction of Alois Pichler. In: Wittgenstein Source, curated by Alois Pichler (2009–) and Joseph Wang-Kathrein (2020–). (N) Bergen: WAB.