Wittgenstein's On Certainty: There - Like Our Life

by Rush Rhees, D. Z. Phillips (Editor)

Rush Rhees, a close friend of Wittgenstein and a major interpreter of his work, shows how Wittgenstein's On Certainty concerns logic, language, and reality – topics that occupied Wittgenstein since early in his career.

Genres: Philosophy

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Rush Rhees was an American philosopher. He is principally known as a student, friend, and literary executor of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Rhees taught at Swansea University from 1940 to 1966.

Not to be confused with his father (Benjamin) Rush Rhees, third president of the University of Rochester.

Reviews

[Philip Cartwright · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is largely based on Rhees' notes for a seminar he gave in 1970 about Wittgenstein's "On Certainty". So it is a posthumously published collection of notes about a posthumously published collection of notes. DZ Phillips (Rhees' former student, who attended the seminar) has done his best to work the material into a coherent whole, but it still feels fragmented and bitty.

Nonetheless, Rhees's central point comes through clearly enough: despite its title, "On Certainty" should be viewed as a continuation of Wittgenstein's concern with logic rather than as a late departure into epistemology. In particular, it is concerned with a serious of statements (eg, "I know I am sitting in a chair") that seem to have a curious status in our discourse. On the one hand it seems odd to say that I know such things because the possibility of knowledge is logically connected to the possibility of doubt and error and (extraordinary circumstances aside) those do not seem to feature in such cases. But, on the other hand, it seems equally wrong to say that I don't know such things. So although "I am sitting in a chair" is a proposition, its certainty (if "certainty" is the right word) does not depend on reasons or grounds. If anything, the certainty is simply reflected in the way I live: I do not wonder if maybe I'm wrong about being seated, or about what my name is; when I open my door I'm not relieved to find the same old street rather than something completely different; I don't count my hands to see how many I have; and so on.

There are plenty of interesting points in the book, and Phillips' lengthy afterword does a reasonable job of pulling the strands together, but I didn't feel either philosopher had completely nailed Wittgenstein's concerns and how they related to his "Philosophical Investigations".

Also, my eBook version was sloppily put together. There were plenty of scrambled parts and no hyper-links to the end-notes. Considering the book cost over £20 I thought that was pretty scandalous.

[Matt]

I have no memory of reading this, but I probably did.