This sort of situation is reminiscent of a moment in a short story, written in Yiddish by Sholem Aleichem in 1901: “The Pot.” The story is a monologue of a woman, Yenta the Henwife, who comes to ask for the Rabbi’s advice. Among many other things, she complains about her reckless and inconsiderate neighbor, Gnessy, who returned a pot she once borrowed broken. Yenta complained to Gnessy, and after some exchange on the matter, tells Yenta, Gnessy gave her the following response: “Now then, in the first place, I give you back the whole pot; in the second place, when you give me that pot it were busted already; and in the third place, I never took your pot ‘cos I got my own pot, so leave me and there’s a end!”
It can be comical for an argument to undermine itself—to lapse into nonsensicality with a straight face. And something of that sort happens too when in a philosophical discussion views are criticized for logical incoherence. The critic may fail to notice that the view she is attacking has thereby been criticized beyond existence, as it were—which has thereby undermined the very criticism she set out to launch in the first place. The criticism now seems to have nothing to be about. I move that we call this kind of paradoxical argumentation “The Pot Paradox.”
Pot paradoxes can be found all over in discussions between substantial and resolute readers of Wittgenstein—early and late. So, for instance, it is not uncommon for substantial readers to pronounce some idea nonsensical—saying that it fails to make sense, for it is in violation of the rules of logical syntax, or of the rules of the relevant language game. So, for instance, Peter Hacker claims: “‘formal statements’ . . . neither say nor show anything. They do violate the rules of logical syntax, for they wrongly employ formal concepts . . . the ‘formal’ statements that use them are nonsense.” (Insight and Illusion, 25-6). Crispin Wrights similarly claims: “We cannot give sense to the idea that our communal speech habits pursue objective tracks which we laid it down as our intention to follow” (Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathematics, 390). It is not uncommon for resolute readers to point out in response that such criticisms collapse on themselves. Thus, for instance, Cora Diamond criticizes Wright’s suggestion that the Wittgensteinian philosopher may still maintain “a sufficient grasp of the spirit” of the confused idea she attacks—grasp which allows for criticism. Allegedly, Wright here fails to see the full force of his own criticism: how the criticism is so forceful that it undermines itself.
The dilemma here, the pot, has a general shape: either the criticism is successful, in which case there was nothing to criticize in the first place, or the criticism is simply unsuccessful. From the point of view of the critic, both options are bad.