CRITICALNOTICE Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Wittgenstein and On Certainty By Andy Hamilton Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon, 2014, pp. 340, £ 19.99. ISBN: 978-0-415-45076-8 (paperback). Reviewed by Derek A. McDougall First published in 1969 (1), Wittgenstein’s On Certainty (OC) received an early review in the following year from one of the work’s own editors, G.H. von Wright. In a short paper entitled ‘Wittgenstein On Certainty’ from 1970 (2) he succinctly presents some of its most important ideas: In every situation where a claim to knowledge is being established, or a doubt settled, or an item of linguistic communication (information, order, question) understood, a bulk of propositions already stand fast, are taken for granted (von Wright, Ibid., 171). Emphasising that these propositions ‘stand fast’ in that they form a kind of ‘system’ which acts, in Wittgenstein’s words, as the ‘point of departure’ for what we can legitimately claim to know or not to know, von Wright refers his reader to OC § 105 when making his further claim that it is precisely because of this that the concept of knowledge cannot itself apply to those statements which are included in the system (Ibid.) von Wright thinks of these as a ‘pre-knowledge’. Or perhaps reference to a certainty (OC§ 511) behind the practice of judging would be better, given that this term is not Wittgenstein’s. For von Wright, that certainty is expressed through fragments of a ‘world-picture’ underlying or ‘standing fast’ behind ordinary knowledge claims. Yet that ‘pre-knowledge’ is not propositional at all. It is a praxis. Consequently, if justifying evidence comes to an end, then that end cannot be a kind of seeing, but consists in our acting. It is this that lies at the bottom of the language-game, (OC § 204, and also § 110, § 229, and § 402). If I do not doubt that I have a body, and if this, as Moore would put it, is a fact that I know for certain, then the genuine reason for this, as von Wright’s Wittgenstein presents it, is that this fact is reflected ‘in innumerable things I say and do, and refrain from doing’ (von Wright, Ibid): Such as complaining of headache or of pain in my leg, avoiding collision with other bodies, not putting my hand in the fire or throwing myself out 1 of the window as if nothing was going to hurt me (Ibid.) On von Wright’s assessment, it is within this framework of certainties in his behaviour that he learns about his body, the names given to its parts and also about his bodily sensations etc. This general point is reflected much later on within the interpretation of On Certainty provided by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (3), who argues that what ‘philosophers have traditionally called basic beliefs, and what Wittgenstein alludes to as “hinge-propositions”, are merely heuristic, or artificial verbilizations of certainties that can only show themselves - in what we say and do’: The hinge certainty verbalized as:‘I have a body’ is a disposition of a living creature which manifests itself in her acting in the certainty of having a body........This occurrence of her certainty resembles an instinctive reaction, not a tacit belief (Moyal-Sharrock, Ibid., 93). This, according to Moyal-Sharrock, is comparable to a lion’s certainty of having a body as manifested in acting embodied, although in the human person it can also manifest itself in the ‘verbal references I make to my body’. She illustrates this point with the example of ‘My back is sore’ as an ordinary factual proposition ‘which uses the hinge “Ihave a body” as a grammatical, not a propositional underpinning’ ( Ibid., 99, Endnote 40). If von Wright’s paper can be seen to anticipate certain later non-propositional interpretations of what counts as a ‘hinge-proposition’, he may also be thought to have been rather prescient in his recognition that Wittgenstein’s reflections on Moore’s infamous claims about what he knew for certain, have also been taken to have equally important consequences for the philosophical idea that one might legitimately be sceptical about the existence of an ‘external world’: Through geophysical investigations we may come to know that the earth has existed, say, for at least 300 billion years - or that it could not have existed for more than 500 billion years...........But in all the grounds which we could give for, or against, these scientific propositions it would be presupposed - though not in the form of a geophysical 2 hypothesis - that the earth has existed for many, that is, ‘for a good many’ years past (Cf. OC § 138). (von Wright, Ibid., 172). According to von Wright, the implication here is that the ‘problem of the existence of the external world...is in fact solved before it can be raised’, for in order to raise it we must first acquire the notion of an external world. But to do this requires that we become acquainted with a ‘huge number of facts’ at least some of which will ‘stand fast’ for us in just that sense which presupposes ‘the existence of an external world’. According to von Wright, this shows that Moore’s famous gesture with his hands ‘was no “proof” of a contingent conclusion from contingent premisses’, but rather a recognition, albeit misleadingly expressed, that our very notion of an external world requires that we take certain ‘truths’ (OC§ 56, § 82, § 308) for granted. As von Wright puts it, ‘Moore’s “common sense” propositions...have the form of experiential propositions but perform the function of logical propositions or rules’ (OC§ 56. § 82, § 308)’ (Ibid., 173). Anthony Kenny in his Chapter ‘Of Scepticism and Certainty’ from 1973 (4) echoes this conclusion in the course of claiming that Wittgenstein is conducting a three-cornered argument with Moore and the Cartesian sceptic. Doubt makes sense within a particular language-game, but universal doubt outwith the context of any particular language-game ‘is impossible’, which is as much as to say that it makes no sense (Kenny, Ibid., 161). Referring to Wittgenstein’s belief that Moore’s claim to know such and such is really a misguided attempt to point towards propositions which have a peculiar logical role in the system of our empirical propositions (OC §§ 136 - 138), Kenny, following von Wright, states that these propositions form part of our ‘world picture’ insofar as they underlie, for Wittgenstein, all of our actions and our thoughts (OC 411) (Kenny, Ibid., 171). Norman Malcolm, in his Chapter ‘Certainty’ (5) follows Kenny in comparing Wittgenstein’s treatment of the concepts of knowledge and certainty to that of Descartes; and although his account of On Certainty is not as clearly focussed as those of von Wright and Kenny, he does recognise the importance and originality of the work’s ideas. The same cannot be said for A.J.Ayer’s reading in his Chapter ‘Knowledge and Certainty’ from his book on Wittgenstein (6), because Ayer simply 3 refuses to engage with the thought that there may be ‘propositions of grammar’, distinct from purely empirical propositions, which can be said to be certain in that they ‘stand fast’ for us in such a way that our awareness of their ‘truth’ is an entirely non-epistemic matter.Ayer treats together ‘I know that here is my hand’ and ‘I know that this is red’, as examples about the truth of which we are certain. It is, however, worth pointing out that whereas we do not identify our sensations by criteria, and for this reason cannot have knowledge of them, the reason for saying that I am certain that here is my hand, given that there are criteria by which I identify my hand, is that this statement has in this strictly philosophical context the ‘special role’ that allows it to ‘stand fast’ for us because it does not involve a claim to knowledge. Ayer will have none of this: I have conceded that it may nearly always be pointless and possibly misleading for me to say such things as ‘I know that I am seeing red’ or ‘I know that these are my hands’, but I have tried to show that this in no way entails that what I am saying in these cases is not empirically true (Ayer, Ibid., 117). On this view, the statement that I know that these are my hands may be said to be genuine on the grounds that it is so obviously true as not to be worth uttering ; and this is because it is being ‘used’ to express a perfectly valid empirical claim. Yet that claim, a point which Ayer fails to engage with, is now being made outwith any genuine context of use, where a context of use for this kind of example would be one, say, in which an ordinary question had arisen whether these hands were mine or someone else’s. As an example, von Wright cites a case in which his hands are torn off in an accident, so that there is genuine question whose hands they are; or I can imagine that there might be circumstances in which I find it difficult to identify which of two pairs of hands I can see poking above the bed covers is really mine if, under local anaesthetic, I cannot feel them. Yet, even if indirectly,Ayer is drawing our attention here to the fact that the role envisaged for the so-called ‘hinge-propositions’ of On Certainty is a peculiar one, in that it has nothing to do with any ordinary context of use of this kind. Consequently, from the perspective of at least one 4 conception of what ordinary language philosophy ought to be, this use is a strictly philosophical one in a sense that Wittgenstein can be understood in the Philosophical Investigations to have expunged. He might even be seen to be freely admitting as much when he imagines, in that very famous example OC § 467, that he is sitting with a philosopher in the garden who keeps repeating ‘I know that that’s a tree’. Far from being insane, as anyone suddenly coming upon this situation may be prone to suppose, this individual is only participating in a philosophical discussion. He would not be participating in such a discussion if, say, his statement was a rejoinder in an ordinary context of use to someone who was insisting that what they were looking at was not a real tree but a plastic replica, or a realistic portrayal of a tree on a cleverly positioned theatrical backdrop. But this raises a further question about the extent to which the Wittgenstein of On Certainty may really be ‘doing philosophy’ in a way in which the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations is definitely not: if the method of the Investigations is therapeutic, a way of dissolving philosophical problems completely through the identification of misleading pictures etc., instead of providing them with novel philosophical answers, then a question arises about a possible change in the direction of Wittgenstein’s thinking in his final years. This bears upon the more general question whether we are to agree with Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, for example, that On Certainty breaks new ground and points towards a ‘Third Wittgenstein’ (7) who makes a revolutionary contribution to epistemology, one which, as Avrum Stroll expresses it, ‘is the most important contribution to the theory of knowledge since The Critique of Pure Reason’(8). It is against this background, together with the publication, especially in more recent years, of a number of new volumes about On Certainty (9), that we can assess the welcome appearance of Andy Hamilton’s new book. The work is divided effectively into two parts: the first seven chapters reflect on Wittgenstein’s oeuvre in general, the content of On Certainty, his idea of a world-picture and his treatment of Moore’s claims to know, etc., whilst the remainder of the book concerns itself with the significance of On Certainty for scepticism in general, but especially within the context of 20th century epistemology. This gives the book a rather complex structure, and any reader may be given 5 to wonder whether it might not have been less complex than it actually is, and whether a great deal of the material in the second part might not have been considered within the first part, especially if we reflect that the topic of scepticism is only one aspect, and not necessarily the most important aspect, of On Certainty. Despite the fact that von Wright’s essay is now nearly 50 years old, it still manages within a very short compass to explain succinctly why the book is important. von Wright also successfully raises the specific questions that have continued to stimulate most of those commentators who have followed him. Andy Hamilton is only too well aware of the complex structure that he has provided for his book. Regarding On Certainty itself: It is relatively uncrafted material, that Wittgenstein did not live to re-work and structure. Yet it has over-arching themes, and was presented as a continuous publication by his editors, who also gave it its title. It is difficult to impose a structure, and so this has been a very difficult Guidebook to organise. Questions are examined from different angles in the light of the developing discussion. Appropriately for a book on Wittgenstein’s philosophy, the Guidebook raises as many questions as it answers (Ibid., Preface xiv). This Preface highlights what Hamilton calls ‘Moorean propositions’, those truisms that help to make up the largely ‘unspoken beliefs’ of an individual’s or of a society’s belief-system, one that forms Wittgenstein’s ‘world-picture’. Familiar examples of these truisms like ‘The earth is very old’, ‘I have hands’, and ‘I have not been far from the surface of the earth’ appear to be empirical propositions, yet are immune from doubt. Apuzzlingly diverse collection, according to Hamilton, these apparently empirical truths ought to be distinguished for this reason from the philosophical claims made by sceptics and their opponents about the existence or non-existence of external objects, a distinctively philosophical concept. Hamilton follows von Wright by treating scepticism according to Wittgenstein as something which is self-undermining, largely because knowledge-claims take place within a system of propositions which ‘stand fast’ insofar as they 6 form the framework within which genuine claims to knowledge can be questioned or confirmed (Ibid., xv). Andy Hamilton adopts a stand against ahistorical approaches to Wittgenstein’s work, and argues for ‘an interpretation that is moderately Analytic, combative, therapeutic and reconstructive’ (Ibid., xvii), no doubt on the assumption that this combination fails to generate a contradiction in terms. The first Chapter on ‘Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Development and Method’ begins with a survey of the kinds of considerations already raised by von Wright, and reaches the conclusion (Ibid., 6) that one of On Certainty’s key insights may be ‘that propositions that appear to function empirically are in fact framework propositions or rules’. Treating Wittgenstein’s rejection of ‘metaphysics’ as central to his entire philosophy, Hamilton sees Wittgensteinian therapy at work throughout On Certainty, ‘despite the suggestions of some commentators’ (Ibid., 11), and this is especially so in the treatment of Moore’s claims to knowledge, because what ‘appear’ to be empirical propositions are not ‘really’ making empirical claims. According to Hamilton, ’The “therapy” here involves working on the initial formulation in order to uncover the real problem or claim beneath’ (Ibid., 12). Whether or not this constitutes ‘therapy’ is really a matter of terminology, even if one is prepared to accept that propositions that have the appearance of empirical propositions may not be functioning as empirical propositions at all. There is,ultimately, something rather problematic about this idea, especially when it is realised that their functioning as rules occurs only within a philosophical context, and not within any quite ordinary context of use where day-to-day considerations are paramount. Nevertheless, and on a more positive note, Hamilton claims that ‘The sceptic’s challenge, and the search for foundations of knowledge, is one of the many long-standing philosophical problems that result from confusion in our use of language’ (Ibid., 12); and this point, followed by a few diversionary pages that discuss Kant, Locke and Hume, is encapsulated in the thought that ‘most philosophers up to and perhaps including Moore had assumed that we know what it is to doubt that I have hands, or that there is an external world’ (Ibid., 15). The Wittgenstein of 7 On Certainty succeeds in undermining the debate between Moore and the sceptic. Hamilton is led to say that ‘many philosophers have resented his fundamental criticism of their practices’ (Ibid.). The final section of this first chapter, ‘1.4 Wittgenstein’s Originality and the Question of a Distinct Final Period’, raises the question whether, with Stroll, On Certainty ought to be regarded as a work in which the therapeutic thrust of the Investigations is much diminished, or in which, with Grayling, Wittgenstein finally acknowledges the legitimacy of philosophy as an enterprise (Ibid.,19). Hamilton’s answer is that ‘Wittgenstein’s entire later philosophy, not just an alleged final phase - is epistemological through and through’ (Ibid., 20), although this claim admittedly depends on extending our notion of what is ‘epistemological’ well beyond what Descartes would have thought appropriate, an admission that allows Hamilton to draw the conclusion that there is no justification for saying that On Certainty presents us with ‘a distinct final phase’. If philosophy is an activity - an activity involving therapy - rather than a body of doctrine, and if Wittgenstein always agonised over how useful or destructive the activity of ‘philosophising’ can actually be, then On Certainty continues the therapeutic thrust of the Investigations, and even of earlier work as well (Ibid.). The issues here are again partly terminological, although they also partly depend on how closely the method of OnCertainty, subject to its highly provisional status as a finished work, can be seen to echo that of the Investigations; and on this point Hamilton directs us to OC § 31, § 33, and § 37, all of which draw our attention to ways in which ordinary language in a philosophical context is being plainly misused. Chapter 2, ‘Enduring Philosophical Motifs in On Certainty’, begins by relating the ‘rule-like’ nature of ‘Moorean propositions’ to certain general themes of Wittgenstein’s work, and claims that to treat these as empirical propositions results in ‘nonsense’. Insofar as they succeed in expressing the ‘presuppositions of our language-games and practices’ (Ibid., 23), our practices can be said to ‘rest on or assume these “certainties”’. The remainder of the chapter expands on certain general Wittgensteinian themes, beginning with ‘2.1 It is Only in Use that the Proposition has its Sense’, where it is emphasised that the context of utterance ‘of words’ serves to make ‘an essential 8 contribution’ to their meanings, and so, presumably, to the meanings of the statements which the sentences in which they occur are used to make (Ibid., 27). Wittgenstein’s notion of a language-game is claimed to be developed considerably in On Certainty, and this theme is related to the fundamental role of action as the basis for our language- games, which themselves ‘belong to a broader phenomenon that Wittgenstein terms a form of life ’ (Ibid., 29). However, Wittgenstein does not regard philosophy itself as a language-game, and it ‘could be that he learned from experience that philosophical language is confused. Wittgenstein would not say that there is a sharp boundary between everyday and philosophical language, but it is a definite and important one’ (Ibid., 30), a distinction said to be a central topic of Andy Hamilton’s book. This is clearly problematic, but things improve with the discussion in two related sections of the idea of ‘agreement in judgements’, where action within a social context is central to Wittgenstein’s general methodology.As Hamilton puts it, ‘agreement in the judgement “This is a hand” - speakers agree that this is a hand - underlies the determination of the meaning of “hand” in English’ (Ibid., 32). This has the consequence that any speaker of English who in normal circumstances expresses doubt that this is a hand, would be thought either to have an inadequate command of the language or to be defective in their ‘cognitive or sensory functioning’. The discussion of rule-following in the next section, in which Hamilton is forced to admit that his intention to offer a generally agreed interpretation regrettably fails, can hardly in the space allocated to it do much to further the discussion. This is equally true of the inadequate treatment of the ‘Private Language Argument’ in section 2.6, where ‘private ostensive definition yields no standard for correctly applying a term’. Here Wittgenstein is said to insist that no ‘private check’ could do the work of the required ‘public check’ in the use of a term like ‘pain’, with the consequence that the distinction between being right and seeming right has been annihilated. But it is evidently insufficient merely to repeat the wording of a passage like Investigations § 258 in any admittedly brave attempt to come to some understanding of what message this and related passages are actually conveying. 9 Having defined grammatical propositions towards the end of the Chapter as those that show which moves in the language-games make sense, Hamilton is led to ask whether his Moorean propositions, understood non-epistemically, can be included in this category, and concludes that because the latter ‘are more like presuppositions of a practice’ it would be a mistake to assimilate them to the former, or indeed to regard them as ‘senseless’ (Ibid., 45). Moorean propositions, of course, are sometimes spoken of as ‘grammatical’, purely to distinguish them from empirical propositions. Yet, even if the term ‘senseless’ is being used with a technical meaning here, the importance already attributed by Hamilton, following Wittgenstein, to ‘Moorean propositions’ within On Certainty, an importance that is not actually being put in doubt when they are said to be ‘difficult to make use of’ (OC203) or to cause ‘the feeling of saying something funny’ (OC 233), leads one to ask why in this role, as against Moore’s own, one should even question whether they have sense. This makes Hamilton’s comment that Wittgenstein does not say that they are senseless or nonsensical, rather otiose. This is immediately followed by an example whose relevance to the issue in hand seems questionable: When uttered in the twenty-first century, ‘I know that the Earth has existed for a long time’ is taken for granted, while in the late eighteenth century, it was a contested empirical proposition’ (Ibid. 45). Because it is not clear whether this statement is being made within a scientific context - even Newton’s famous thought experiment in the Principia could provide an estimate of 50,000 years for a molten body of the Earth’s size to cool - it is not certain what point it is being used to make, beyond perhaps the obvious one made in OC§§ 95 - 99 that what might once have been thought impossible can become an accepted scientific fact.(Cf. OC 111: ‘I know that I have never been on the Moon’). With a little thought, these anomalies could have been avoided and, indeed, the entire Chapter leaves the impression that within the space allocated to its themes, it is attempting to achieve far too much, and for that reason could even be dispensed with altogether without any obvious detriment to the book as a whole. Chapter 3, ‘Reading On Certainty:Text and Work’ begins with a brief biographical and historical 10