A leading German philosopher offers his most ambitious work yet on the nature of knowledge, arguing that being wrong about things defines the human condition. For millennia, philosophers have dedicated themselves to advancing understanding of the nature of truth and reality. In the process they have amassed a great deal of epistemological theory—knowledge about knowledge. But negative epistemological phenomena, such as ignorance, falsity, illusion, and delusion, are persistently overlooked. This is surprising given that we all know how fallible humans are. Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity replies with a theory of false thought, demonstrating that being wrong about things is part and parcel of subjectivity itself. For this reason, knowledge can never be secured without our making claims that can always, in principle, be wrong. Even in successful cases, where we get something right and thereby gain knowledge, the possibility of failure lingers with us. Markus Gabriel grounds this argument in a novel account of the relationship between sense, nonsense, and subjectivity—phenomena that hang together in the temporal unfolding of our cognitive lives. While most philosophers continue to theorize subjectivity in terms of conscious self-representation and the supposedly infallible grip we have on ourselves as thinkers, Sense, Nonsense, and Subjectivity addresses the age-old Platonic challenge to understand situations in which we do not get reality right. Adding a stimulating perspective on epistemic failures to the work of New Realism, Gabriel addresses long-standing ontological questions in an age where the line between the real and the fake is increasingly blurred.

The aim of this study is to show how the philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and the later Wittgenstein serve to establish, in very similar ways, (1) that subjects (persons) and what is subject-dependent, or in short, 'subjectivity', must be categorically distinguished from objects and what is subject-independent, or in short 'objectivity' and (2) that the 'sense' of the world as perceived, including linguistic sense, is a matter of the appearance of things and is therefore perception-dependent, and as such is in the category of subjectivity, not objectivity. The first claim is established not only by a study of the content of the arguments of the two philosophers, but also by a study of the form of their arguments: the kind of fallacy detection they deploy against their opponents exploits a logic dictated by the subject matter. In the course of examining a wide range of issues in meta- physics, epistemology, and the philosophies of mind, language, and mathematics, the 'Gestalt Philosophy' of Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty can be seen to constitute a new sort of 'anti-realism'.

Philosophers have spent millennia accumulating knowledge about knowledge. But negative epistemological phenomena, such as ignorance, falsity, and delusion, are persistently overlooked. Markus Gabriel argues that being wrong is part and parcel of subjectivity itself, adding a novel perspective on epistemic failures to the work of New Realism.

The philosophies of Merleau-Ponty and the later Wittgenstein are shown to yield a common position opposing 'realist' attempts to reduce appearance, sense, and meaning to perception-independent objects and relations. Their 'Gestalt Philosophy' thus constitutes a new form of 'anti- realism'.

Who am I? Who are we? How are we to live? This book grapples with these perennial questions, primarily through a dialogue with Cornelius Castoriadis and Charles Taylor, using an interdisciplinary-hermeneutical approach examining issues of meaning, subjectivity and modern society.