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70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Useful Little Book from a Very Substantial Philosopher, April 27, 2003
A compilation of loosely connected, aphoristic-like statements about the idea of certainty, taking off from G. E. Moore's famous assertion in favour of common sense, Wittgenstein here presents his thoughts, at the end of his life, concerning the question of how sure of anything we can ever be. Dealing with a fundamentally epistemological question, this little book follows the path Wittgenstein had defined for himself in the latter part of his career, concerning itself with language and how we talk about the ideas we have.
Some misread him very badly, which is not surprising given his penchant for cryptic brevity and his own tendency to avoid extensive explication of his ideas in favour of the brief observation or statement reflecting moments of insight. Indeed, insight seems to have been at the very core of his later philosophy . . . it's all about seeing things in a new way.
On the matter of certainty, his claims here, sometimes rambling and seemingly unconnected, seem to boil down to a couple of points, consistent with his general way of seeing things:
1) Being certain of anything, he seems to say, is a matter of what we mean in the context in which we are expressing certainty. That is, he suggests that "certainty" the word has different meanings, depending on the application, and that we can become too readily confused if we try to apply one meaning (or use) in a place where another is required. As a corollary of this, he clearly holds that there is no basic idea of "certainty" to which all can be reduced, but only a range of related uses of the word in our language. This is in keeping with his larger view of the world as "contained" in our knowledge of it, and our knowledge "contained" in the words we use which are, themselves, a function of our language, which last is a part of our behavioural continuum, representing a rule-governed activity in which we are embedded as what he called a "form of life". (There are significant metaphysical implications for this but he does not touch on these, either in this book or more generally elsewhere, since he felt that to do that was often to stray out of the bounds that language made for us.)
2) As an outgrowth of the above, his second insight here tells us that there are some things of which we can be certain in a way that does not require what we would normally expect, i.e., evidence or proof. That is, sometimes a statement is just grounded in the rules of the game itself, i.e., in order to play in the game we must just assert the certainty . . . and believe in it. While such assertions may look the same as assertions of empirical certainty ("there is a bird outside my window") they are not (e.g., "there is an external world," "there are other minds inside other human bodies," etc.). To doubt certain things like this would be to break the rules of the game in which we are operating, in which case everything else collapses and we can no longer play.
In keeping with his usual approach, Wittgenstein does not present an argument for any of this or even make these claims, quite as explicitly as I have just done, in this book but, rather, confines himself to musings and observations, examples and questions. But it is to these two main points that everything he is presenting in On Certainty leads.
A note: some seem to have concluded from Wittgenstein's penchant for aphorisms and indirection that he was saying things quite different than he really was saying. I note someone here who accuses Wittgenstein of solipsism and this is a woeful misreading of him. His philosophical approach, in fact, put paid to the solipsist argument if read aright! Others have thought he was just playing with words or posturing as some kind of faux mystic. I would suggest that such ideas are false but that they arise because he was so unwilling to explicate his thoughts in the usual discursive way and, perhaps because he thought to do that would just lead one in circles.
So when reading Wittgenstein, you have to do it as he thought it and join him in the gnawing of the intellectual bones he displays in his observations. It is a matter of our seeing his point and not of his establishing logically defensible claims and arguments which we can debate with him or ourselves.
Someone else here likened him to a Zen master and I would suggest that that is very apt, indeed. Although his philosophical interests were mainly epistemological and not "spiritual" (defined as trying to place the conscious self in relation to the world in which it finds itself a la Zen), his techniques were not much different from those of Zen and his outcomes, insights into what we really mean when we say things, were on a par with the Zen idea of achieving satori (the moment of enlightenment). Different focal points, indeed, but the same strategy and the same basic understanding of the way introspective knowledge is secured for both.
Still, this particular work is very incomplete, perhaps because he wrote it while ill and apparently died before he could "complete" it . . . . leaving us a very limited look at a very significant epistemological problem with a somewhat spotty analysis and "solution." The Philosophical Investigations, his last (and also incomplete) work written specifically for publication, has much more to offer on his overall view of things and relative to the basic insights he invokes here in understanding "certainty".
SWM
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33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Readable Wittgenstein, tackles epistemological relativism, February 9, 2001
On Certainty is an excellent introduction to Wittgenstein's thought, especially for those who may be turned off by the terseness and impenetrability of the Tractatus. This piece is still terse by any standard but Wittgenstein's, and many statements are just clever one-sentence aphorisms that float by themselves, seemingly disconnected from the main thread of argument. Assertions are often left unproven, and the numbered-statements style can be tiring. Still, some numbered statements are actually several sentences long (!), and many actually go into detail -- this makes it is somewhat unusual among Wittgenstein's works. As is often the case with philosophers' works, a beginning student would be well advised to proceed into Wittgenstein's works in reverse chronological order. The early Wittgenstein -- of perfect edifices of language and logic -- may be better understood in light of the later Wittgenstein, of social constructs and language games.Where does Wittgenstein come down on the question of epistemological relativism? In classical paradoxical Wittgensteinian fashion, he is both for and against, sort of. He admits that he is certain of some things, and that he often thinks that someone who is not certain of these things (e.g., "This is my hand." etc) as not "reasonable." But he does not go so far as to say there is an objective truth on a Platonic plane. Certainty is more personal than that (a la Michael Polanyi?), and in some deep axiomatic way, has to be taken on faith. We are ultimately certain of things just because we are certain of them, and, as Wittgenstein writes about the statement "this is my hand," any evidence we could muster to support such a statement is not as strong as the original statement itself. Overall, this is a fascinating look at the interplay of language, belief, and epistemology, from one of the 20th century's master philosophers.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite Wittgenstein, May 28, 2005
"On Certainty" represents a much more honed work than the more common "Philosophical Investigations," though the depth of its insights are no less than than that work. OC is, by far, my favorite Wittgenstein book because it focuses so much on epistemological issues. Some examples include showing the error realists _and_ idealists are making (showing the fly the way out of the bottle), why there isn't necessarily a clear division between mathematical certainty and other kinds, and the failures of unchecked skepticism. He does this in a manner similar to the one used in "Philosophical Investigations": by an analysis of how we _normally_ know and doubt things.
The remarkable depth of this technique in highbrow philosophy is a breath of fresh air. Though I am currently investigating phenomenology, I always return to Wittgenstein (quite literally, by rereading passages of this or PI) to get my bearings when I suspect my ideas are getting a little too big for their britches. Wittgenstein sometimes thought philosophy should be therapeutic, and I must say that when I find myself in a muddle, his works or at least his methodology helps me find my way about.
As with his other works, though he spends some time knocking down familiar walls he does not leave you standing in the rubble but instead paves the way for new construction. I have read (not here) many references to Wittgenstein as some kind of postmodern deconstructionist, though even a little time spent trying to understand his points should be sufficient to demonstrate that he would not be satisfied until a problem was _resolved_, not just exposed. It is not enough, for example, to call the realism/idealism debate nonsense (for after all, he comments, to those involved in it the debate is not nonsense, so such a thing, while possibly satisfying, is not sufficient) and show the problem for what it is but instead to show them the way out of the problem they've walked in to.
Throughout the work, Moore's work on common sense is used as a platform from which to tackle a great many epistemological issues, so while it does stand in direct contrast to that work, it is not exactly a piece that has nothing else going for it but a criticism.
If you want some ready-made ideas to wrap your mind around, I get the impression from this book that Wittgenstein was heading towards a coherence theory of truth with a side of epistemological relativism, but please be aware that Wittgenstein did not intend to be a theory-builder as he largely felt the problems of philosophy were caused from conceptual mistakes regarding everyday phenomena and did not feel that the proper response to such problems would be "shoring up" a theory in response. This line of thought also lends itself to naturalisms. If that helps you understand what you'll be facing in "On Certainty," then it is worth it for an introduction.
If nothing else, "On Certainty" serves as an excellent response to general skepticism as much as it stands as a response to unabashed assertion. A short, terse, and wonderful read. If you enjoy philosophy, I have no doubt that you will enjoy this book. Please do not rest contented with companion works or other philosopher's assertions regarding the man (Kripke, Searle, etc); his works, while challenging, are not unapproachable in themselves-read them for yourself before you see them through someone else's eyes.
If you are more interested in problems of will, I would suggest Anscombe's "Intention." She uses a style unashamedly like that of Wittgenstein (she came up under Wittgenstein and was greatly influenced by him) in both methodology and writing in that work. Amazon, at the time of this post, carries it:
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