About certainty

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On Certainty (ger .: On Certainty, in short LEL) is the last work of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein .

Emergence

About certainty marks the end of Wittgenstein's late work and was created in four phases between April 1950 and April 29, 1951, two days before the author's death. On the one hand, it is not a manuscript intended for publication, but it can be regarded as an independent work due to its extensive thematic and external delimitation from other topics. It was edited by Wittgenstein's administrators, GEM Anscombe and GH von Wright , and numbered according to paragraph.

context

ÜG arose out of a discussion of GE Moore's essays A defense of common sense and Proof of an external world , in which the latter responds to the skeptic by citing a number of things he knows:

The classic example of this is: "I know there is a hand."

ÜG connects directly to this example: "If you know that there is a hand here, we will give you everything else." (§ 1)

Certainty concept

Wittgenstein is aware that we can always be wrong. His concept of certainty does not aim to show where we have access to the truth, but to what extent doubts and the thought of an error can become meaningless or incomprehensible because they are rooted in the language game . He argues that the structure of our language can lead to the formation of doubtful sentences where there is no doubt.

Imagine the example in which someone says: “I don't know if I have hands.” According to Wittgenstein, the answer “Take a closer look!” Is constitutive for the language game, as it shows a way of convincing oneself that is rooted in the way of life .

The radical skeptic, who wants to doubt everything, overlooks that our doubts only make sense in a system of certainties. Linguistic doubt about something that exists in the outside world only makes sense because one does not doubt the meaning of one's own words. If someone does not accept these certainties but rather doubts them, the doubt itself becomes nonsensical. So that a meaningful doubt within the linguistic community is possible, a system of sentences must first be adopted which are not doubted.

However, this is not a rigid system, but one that can also change due to the dynamics of the changing forms of life. In this way, a proposition that previously formed the basis of judgment can now itself become an empirical proposition or vice versa. According to Wittgenstein, therefore, there are no indubitable sentences in an absolute sense. In ÜG this is illustrated using the picture of a river bed: “One could imagine that certain sentences of the form of the empirical sentences would have frozen and functioned as guides for the non-frozen, liquid experiential sentences; and that this relationship changed over time, with liquid sentences solidifying and solid ones becoming liquid. // The mythology [i. e. the undoubted sentences] can flow again, the bed of thoughts shifting. But I distinguish between the movement of water in the river bed and the displacement of it; although there is no sharp separation between the two. "(§ 96 and 97)

Belief in a sentence or a system of sentences has a normative character: if a person should discover something that contradicts one of their beliefs, they can always change the belief or the reference system (the “river bed”). However, the firm belief in a sentence does not show itself in a linguistically expressed conviction, but in action. Here the belief in unfounded sentences becomes clear.

An important innovation compared to the classic skeptical theses is that they always demanded a solution to the unfounded doubts, while Wittgenstein argues that reasons are needed to doubt. Therefore a radical, all-encompassing doubt, such as Descartes expressed, is not possible.

The role of language game and way of life

Doubt only makes sense in language games. However, this must not be understood as a speech act, so to speak as the smallest, essential element of language, but must be understood as an object of comparison for language. There is no element that is common to all language games, but these can be recognized as language games due to their family similarities.

The language game, in turn, is embedded in the life form. The mistake must not be made of identifying it with it. However, as the way of life changes, new language games also emerge while old ones disappear.

Summary

1. Basically we have no direct access to the truth.

2. However, we cannot carry out radical doubts at all because we need certainties for this and because we often lack the reasons to doubt. Doubt is only possible when a doubt is part of the language game and this in turn is an element of the way of life.

3. The skeptic who would like to doubt everything should not be given a classic answer. Wittgenstein is more concerned with a therapeutic treatment of the doubt, in that the groundlessness and the unnecessary as well as finally the impossibility of the doubt are shown.

literature

output

  • Ludwig Wittgenstein: About certainty. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984.

Secondary literature

  • Avrum Stroll: Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty . Oxford 1994.
  • Danielle Moyal-Sharrock: Understanding on Certainty . Palgrave, 2004.
  • Wulf Kellerwessel: About the concept of certainty in Wittgenstein's "About certainty" and its implications. A comment. In: W. Kellerwessel, Th. Peuker (ed.): Wittgenstein's late philosophy. Analysis and Problems. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1998, pp. 227–255.
  • Jesús Padilla Gálvez , Margit Gaffal (Eds.): Forms of Life and Language Games . de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-032190-6 . (degruyter.com)
  • Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Margit Gaffal (Eds.): Doubtful Certainties. Language Games, Forms of Life, Relativism. 2nd Edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-032192-0 . (degruyter.com)