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TimS comments on Tidbit: “Semantic over-achievers” - Less Wrong Discussion
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I read the point as saying that language is capable of greater depth than humans. Das nicht nichtet is a coherent statement despite the objection of the logical positivists, but it is really deep.
As an aside, I'm not persuaded that metaphysicians are saying anything useful. But the objection that their statements were incoherent is a stronger objection.
The interpretation of some of Heidegger's statements as incoherent isn't just something his enemies came up with; it is supported by other statements of Heidegger's (as Carnap notes in his criticism of Heidegger). I really am curious as to what coherent statement you think you can find in "the nothing itself nots."
Ok, so the statement is made as part of a mission to say something intelligent about noumenon. In other words, Heidegger is trying to say something about what things are, totally independent of our perception of them. As I alluded above, I think trying to grapple with perception-independent-thingness is . . . not a good use of one's time.
Anyway, Heidegger does lots of deep thinking about this problem, and ultimately says that there is "Nothing" as the basic characteristic of objects. To me, that's a plausible response to it's turtles all the way down. At this point, Heidegger needs to explain how to get back from this to objects as we experience them. The answer is that the "Nothing" nothings. To me, that's like saying the "Nothing" verbs. There's no other word we could use, because (by hypothesis) all there is . . . is Nothing. If you pull in something else to act on Nothing, then it's the problem of Cain's wife all over again.
That's quite counter-intuitive. But so is the assertion that there is a set that contains only the set that contains no elements. Or worse, the set that contains (the set that contains only the set that contains no elements) AND the set that contains no elements.
So, Heidegger may be wasting his time (my view). He said something quite counter-intuitive. It could easily be wrong. But I assert that it is not incoherent. That is, it makes an assertion with some content.