/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8670539]

>“If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty” (1969, §115). What makes possible doubting is “the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn” (1969, §341)

What did he mean by this? What are these hinges that he is talking off?

Let's consider the material skeptic, on what propositions are his doubts based?

Bib:
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1969. On Certainty, G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright (eds.). New York: Harper & Row.

[Anonymous No.8670555]

>>8670539

We don't have any certainty per se. Socrates knew that he knew nothing, whilst many people haven't got that far. (Of course, there are those who argue that in claiming to know nothing, he knew *something* - but whereas people like to think of that kind of wordplay as profound, I think of it as a mere failing of our language to communicate a wholly negative claim.)

What he's saying is that the things we hold and believe to be certain, are merely things we haven't yet questioned/doubted. It might simply be that in some cases, we have not yet gotten around to doing so - whereas in others, for whatever reason, we actively resist any questioning or doubt. In this regard, these 'certainties' are merely 'convictions'.

What we believe to be certainties, and 'certain' in general, are either things which have been hitherto unexamined - or convictions.

All in all, he's not saying anything that Nietzsche hadn't said prior.

[Anonymous No.8670579]

Wittgenstein's whole epistemology is based on the idea that thought, such as doubt, is NOT based on propositions in the sense of logic. Grammar precedes logic.

The idea that Wittgenstein is some kind of scientistic naturalist is an old one these days.

[Anonymous No.8670718]

>>8670555

>What he's saying is that the things we hold and believe to be certain, are merely things we haven't yet questioned/doubted.

No, that's not what it means at all. His argument was *against* the idea of radical skepticism, not in favor of it. He turned the idea of radical skepticism on its head by pointing out that you can't even have a concept of doubt unless you implicitly assume there exist things you don't doubt. Otherwise, the concept of doubt would have no meaning. It's like the observation that fish wouldn't have a concept for water since they wouldn't know of any state other than being in water.

[Anonymous No.8670902]

>>8670718
>He turned the idea of radical skepticism on its head by pointing out that you can't even have a concept of doubt unless you implicitly assume there exist things you don't doubt.
Thinking that this is revolutionary shows how retarded normies are