Doubtful Certainties: Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism

226 Pages·2012·3.026 MB·

by  Jesús Padilla Gálvez (editor), Margit Gaffal (editor)

Jesús Padilla Gálvez | Margit Gaffal (Eds.)
Doubtful Certainties
Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism
APORIA
Apori/a

HRSG. VON / EDITED BY
Jesús Padilla Gálvez
(University of Castilla-La Mancha)

ADVISORY BOARD
Pavo Barišić (University of Split)
Michel Le Du (University of Strasbourg)
Miguel García-Baró (University of Comillas)
Margit Gaffal (University of Castilla-La Mancha)
Guillermo Hurtado (National Autonomous University of Mexico)
Antonio Marques (New University of Lisbon)
Lorenzo Peña (Spanish National Research Council)
Nicanor Ursua Lezaun (University of the Basque Country)
Nuno Venturinha (New University of Lisbon)
Pablo Quintanilla (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru)

Aporia is a new series devoted to studies in the field of philosophy. Aporia (Aπορία)
means philosophical puzzle and the aim of the series is to present contributions by
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emphasis on the publication of concise arguments on the topics studied. The
publication has to contribute to the explanation of current philosophical problem, using
a systematic or a historic approach. Contributions should concern relevant
philosophical topics and should reflect the ongoing progress of scientific development.

Volume 7
Jesús Padilla Gálvez | Margit Gaffal (Eds.)

Doubtful Certainties

Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism
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CONTENTS

Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ & Margit GAFFAL 7
Doubtful Certainties. Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism

André MAURY 13
Taking Language Games Seriously

Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ 25
Is there Certainty in our Form of Life?

Inês SALGUEIRO 41
Certainty and Forms of Life

Nicola CLAUDIO SALVATORE 53
‘Hinge Propositions’ and Radical Skepticism

Modesto M. GÓMEZ ALONSO 63
Animal Logic and Transcendental Arguments:
On Certainty’s two Levels of Justification

Michel LE DU 75
Über Gewißheit: a Textbook for Psychologists?

Livia ANDREIA JURESCHI 91
Wittgenstein, Pretence and Uncertainty

Margit GAFFAL 109
Was Wittgenstein a Relativist?

Jakub MÁCHA 121
Language Meets and Measures Reality

Sebastian GRÈVE 129
Beyond Relativism: Wittgenstein’s Method of Grammatical
Enquiry in Philosophical Investigations §§198-202
Niamh O’MAHONY 149
Russian Matters for Wittgenstein

Norberto ABREU E SILVA NETO 181
Common Sense and Language: Wittgenstein and Gramsci

Nuno VENTURINHA 203
Demystifying Mysticism: Brouwer and Wittgenstein

Arthur GIBSON 213
Wittgenstein and the Future of the Mathematical Sciences

Abbreviations 225
Doubtful Certainties
Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism

Jesús PADILLA GÁLVEZ & Margit GAFFAL

How are certainties expressed in words? To what extent can we doubt
certainties? Which language games convey some form of certainty? In
order to answer these questions we have to recall the method Wittgenstein
used in his investigations. As described in ‘The Big Typescript’, he viewed
philosophy as a collection of statements that are not proved:
“Philosophy is constantly collecting a stock of propositions without
worrying about their truth or falsity; only in the cases of logic and
mathematics does it have to do solely with “true” propositions.”1
This passage raises again several questions: What did Wittgenstein
understand by “stock of propositions”? When we look at language games
and forms of life as inseparable phenomena, do forms of life then provide
any certainty? On the other hand, do we automatically relapse into
relativism once we doubt certainties? Which formal structures underlie
certainty and doubt? Language games are complex entities embedded in
coherent activities. If we want to explain the meaning of language signs,
(Zeichen) we have to refer to these entities. Wittgenstein illustrates this
process by referring to children’s language acquisition and their use of
basic language games. In ‘Philosophical Investigations’, he says:
“We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of
those games by means of which children learn their native language. I will
call these games “language-games” and will sometimes speak of a
primitive language as a language-game.”2
In another passage, he reminds us that language game and reality are
not coupled in a rigid manner. Language game is rather a transitory

1 Wittgenstein, BT, 505, 357e
2 “Wir können uns auch denken, dass der ganze Vorgang des Gebrauchs der Worte in
(2) eines jener Spiele ist, mittels welcher Kinder ihre Muttersprache erlernen. Ich will
diese Spiele “Sprachspiele” nennen und von einer primitiven Sprache manchmal als
einem Sprachspiel reden.” Wittgenstein, PU, §7.

Doubtful Certainties. Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism, (Eds. Jesús PADILLA
GÁLVEZ, Margit GAFFAL), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2012, 7-12.
8 Doubtful Certainties. Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism
phenomenon, which comes into being and disappears again in the course of
time. He describes this peculiarity in the following quote:
“But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and
command?—There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of
what we call “symbols”, “words”, “sentences”. And this multiplicity is
not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new
language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become
obsolete and get forgotten. (…)
Here the term “language-game” is meant to bring into prominence the
fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of
life.”3
During his final years, Wittgenstein dealt with G.E. Moore’s
writings, especially with ‘Defence of Common Sense’ and ‘Proof of an
External World’ in which Moore stated he knew with certainty that a
number of statements were true. These include statements such as, for
instance, “Here is a hand”, or else “The earth had already existed long
before my birth”. A significant feature of such statements is their
contingency and that they are considered “…propositions which are not
self-contradictory and of which the contradictory is not self-
contradictory.”4
Against this background, Wittgenstein analyzed certainty and
provided an overview of the different ways in which it may be expressed.
These include statements such as “It is my unshakeable conviction that
etc.”5, or “Here I have arrived at a foundation of all my beliefs.”6, “I can’t
help believing...”7 Wittgenstein seemed to be particularly interested in
sentences of the kind “We know that…”, or “We cannot doubt that…”. He

3 “Wie viel Arten der Sätze gibt es aber? Etwa Behauptung, Frage und Befehl? Es gibt
unzählige solcher Arten: unzählige verschiedene Arten der Verwendung alles dessen,
was wir “Zeichen”, “Worte”, “Sätze” nennen. Und diese Mannigfaltigkeit ist nichts
Festes, ein für allemal Gegebenes; sondern neue Typen der Sprache, neue
Sprachspiele, wie wir sagen können entstehen und andre veralten und werden
vergessen. (…)
Das Wort “Sprachspiel” soll hier hervorheben, dass das Sprechen der Sprache ein Teil
ist einer Tätigkeit, oder einer Lebensform.” Wittgenstein, PU, §23.
4 S.G.E. Moore, Philosophical Papers. George Allen y Unwin Ltd., London, 1959, pp.
229ff.
5 Wittgenstein, ÜG, §103.
6 Wittgenstein, ÜG, §246.
7 Wittgenstein, ÜG, §277.
Doubtful Certainties. Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism 9
even spoke out against particular statements says this: “The propositions
which one comes back to again and again as if bewitched – these I should
like to expunge from philosophical language.”8
The questions posed at the beginning involve a skeptical approach
towards certainty. Its aim is to reveal the lack of agreement that exists
among experts referring the uncertainty of both, language games and forms
of life. A skeptic’s strategy is to demonstrate a recurrence ad infinitum in
the arguments used in this context. A skeptic would negate any specific or
definite relation between language and form of life and would intend to
that all arguments and questions result in a vicious circle.9
One of the most common errors committed by representatives of
academic philosophy is to set too much importance on recording
Wittgenstein’s proposals in index registers. The usual philosophical
method is to summarize the essential arguments used in debate, unify the
criteria used and rationally explain the doubts. A traditional academic
approach entails a compilation of Wittgenstein’s text repertoire in order to
arrange it in a formal structure. The aim of this method is to bring the
arguments to light that are used in philosophical debate. Yet this method
produces more obscurity than insights. Actually, the answers proposed to
Wittgenstein’s questions based on such method appear rather mechanical.
They are often just an unrefined imitation of the style and thoroughness by
which Wittgenstein addressed relevant issues.
Many answers given by academic philosophers do not meet the
standards set by Wittgenstein’s sophistic linguistic expressions. In fact,
many scientific discussions consist of fallacies. There are mainly three
reasons for these fallacies. Firstly, sporadically wrong translations of
Wittgenstein’s manuscripts result in an incorrect lecture. A second reason
may be incomprehension of Wittgensteinian manuscripts in German
language. Thirdly, in order to make a name some philosophers use
Wittgenstein’s writings as a false pretence to initiate polemic discussions.
The aim is to find entrance into the various citation indexes. Such
strategies are not new. Even Sextus Empiricus criticized them as one of the
disadvantages of academic science.

8 Wittgenstein, ÜG, §31.
9 Sexti Empirici, Opera. Recensuit Hermannus Mutschmann (Vol. I). Teubner,
Leipzig, 1912, p. 164.
10 Doubtful Certainties. Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism
Referring the problem of certainty, we are interested whether
doubtless language games exist at all. Can we call our language in
question? Again, a skeptic would translate these questions into an
epistemic problem. Let us see whether cognitive skepticism causes
Wittgenstein’s proposals to sway. According to his view, all knowledge is
mediate. We call this position the “mediate hypothesis”. It is explicitly
mentioned in a recently published manuscript, in which Wittgenstein says
this: ‘Alle Erkenntnis ist mittelbar’.10 Until the end of his life, he had held
on to this “mediate hypothesis”. Many philosophers who read Wittgenstein
are puzzled or irritated because they search for “Tatsachen” in
Wittgenstein’s works. However, Wittgenstein seems to be mainly
interested in language games as a key element in our language. He poses
the following rhetorical question in ‘On Certainty’:
“Ja, ist es nicht selbstverständlich, dass die Möglichkeit eines
Sprachspiels durch gewisse Tatsachen bedingt ist?”11
“Indeed, doesn’t it seem obvious that the possibility of a language-game is
conditioned by certain facts?”12
In the following passage Wittgenstein answers that matter of facts
(Tatsachen) are not a direct condition of language games. In fact, he
actually negates a possible connection between facts and language games.
He says this:
“Es schiene dann, als müsste das Sprachspiel die Tatsachen, die es
ermöglichen, ‚zeigen’. (Aber so ist es nicht.)”13
“In that case it would seem as if the language-game must ‘show’ the facts
that make it possible. (But that’s not how it is.)”14
This translation is erroneous because it uses the indicative instead of
the subjunctive mood. Consequently, the reader may erroneously conclude
that language games reveal those matter of facts upon which they based.
Wittgenstein denies this twice categorically, implicitly by using the past
subjunctive to express an improbable condition and explicitly by

10 L. Wittgenstein, Alle Erkenntnis ist mittelbar..., Dókos. Revista filosófica, 5-6, 2010,
pp. 87-94. See p. 87.
11 Wittgenstein, ÜG, §617.
12 L. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, ed. G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe.
Oxford, Blackwell, §617.
13 Wittgenstein, ÜG, §618.
14 L. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, ed. G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe.
Oxford, Blackwell, §618.