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Saying and Showing: Radical Themes in Wittgenstein's On Certainty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Jerry H. Gill
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, Eckerd College, Florida

Extract

There are themes in Wittgenstein's later work which are extremely radical. By ‘radical’ I mean both that they cut to the very root of crucial philosophical issues, and that they tend to be ignored by the established philosophical positions of the day. More specifically, these themes focus on the understanding of epistemological bedrock, and they lead in directions about which it is difficult to get a hearing in major philosophical circles.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

page 280 note 1 On Certainty,(Oxford: Blackwell, 1969), #521. Cf. #37.Google Scholar

page 280 note 2 Ibid., #55.

page 280 note 3 Ibid., #155. Cf. #67–75, #195, #444–5.

page 280 note 4 Ibid., #176, #181.

page 280 note 5 Ibid., #18, #243, #325, #415, #555.

page 280 note 6 Ibid., #549.

page 280 note 7 Ibid., #4, #122.

page 280 note 8 Ibid., #24, #121.

page 281 note 1 On Certainty, #160, #354.

page 281 note 2 Ibid., #315.

page 281 note 3 Ibid., #191–2. Cf. #211 where the term ‘scaffolding’ is used.

page 282 note 1 On Certainty, #37.

page 283 note 1 On Certainty, #7.

page 283 note 2 Ibid., #427.

page 283 note 3 Ibid., #501.

page 283 note 4 Ibid., #94. Cf. #253, #449.

page 283 note 5 Ibid., #95. Cf. #341 where the world-picture is likened to the hinges upon which a door swings.

page 283 note 6 Ibid., #105.

page 283 note 7 Cf. Philosophical Investigations (New York: Macmillan, 1953), #241242.Google Scholar

page 284 note 1 Philosophical Investigations, #110: ‘As if giving grounds did not come to an end sometime. But the end is not an ungrounded presupposition: it is an ungrounded way of acting.’ #146:‘…somewhere I must begin with an assumption or a decision.’ #150: ‘Must I not begin to trust somewhere? That is to say: somewhere I must begin with not-doubting; and that is not, so to speak, hasty but excusable: it is part of judging’. #254: ‘Any “reasonable” person behaves like this.’ #344: ‘My life consists in my being content to accept many things.’

page 284 note 2 Ibid., #411, #204, #559.

page 284 note 3 Ibid., #7.

page 284 note 4 Ibid., #534–538.

page 284 note 5 Ibid., #287.

page 284 note 6 Ibid., #475.

page 284 note 7 Ibid., #495–498. To set aside doubts about bedrock beliefs with the admonishment ‘Rubbish!’ is correct, but to offer rational defence against such doubts is not correct.

page 285 note 1 Philosophical Investigations, #262.

page 285 note 2 Ibid.,609–612.

page 286 note 1 Polanyi, Michael, Personal Knowledge (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964), p x (preface).Google Scholar

page 287 note 1 Op. cit., On Certainty, #471.

page 287 note 2 The Logic of tacit inference’, Philosophy, XLI (01 1966), p. 14.Google Scholar

page 287 note 3 Op. cit., On Certainty, #378.

page 288 note 1 Op. cit., Personal Knowledge, p. 309.

page 288 note 2 The term was, I think, coined by Nielsen, Kai in his article by that title in Philosophy, July 1969.Google Scholar

page 288 note 3 Understanding a Primitive Society’, American Philosophical quarterly, October 1964, p. 309.Google Scholar

page 288 note 4 Two others worth mentioning are Hudson, W. D., Wittgenstein (London: Lutterworth Press, 1968)Google Scholar, and Holmer, Paul, ‘Theology and Belief’, Theology Today, 10 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 289 note 1 Phillips, D. Z., Faith and Philosophical Enquiry (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 4.Google Scholar

page 288 note 2 op. cit., pp. 205–6.