Wittgenstein’s Doubts About Doubt

By Paul Austin Murphy (May 2018)

 

n this piece, Ludwig Wittgenstein is taken to be a “anti-philosopher.” More specifically, what tackles Wittgenstein’s position on philosophical doubt—

 

Professor of Philosophy at The Open University.
 

••••••••••
 

As Wittgenstein himself puts it (in On Certainty):

 

The questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those [doubts] turn.

 

That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted . . .

 

My life consists in my being content to accept many things.

 

 

“properly ignored” (as the philosopher David Lewis put it).

 

anything. Doubt occurs in the context of non-doubt.

 

The Things We Cannot Doubt

 

there is some special class of privileged propositions that we simply can’t doubt.

 

What we choose not to doubt (indeed what we also choose to doubt) will depend on context. That context will determine the nature of our doubts. (Or, alternatively, our lack of doubt vis-à-vis particular propositions or possibilities.)

 

Chappell (again) gives some very basic non-philosophical examples of this. He writes:

 

. . . in each context, there is a very great deal that is not in doubt: the existence of the chessboard, the reliability of the atlas, the possibility of generally getting shopping sums right. This background makes it possible to have doubts, and possible (in principle) to resolve them. Where there is no such background, says Wittgenstein, the doubt itself makes no sense.

 

 

1a) The existence of the chessboard.

1b) The sincerity of our chess opponent’s naivety.

 

2a) The (general) reliability of the atlas.

2b) Whether or not the atlas is up-to-date.

 

3a) The possibility of (generally) getting our shopping sums right.

3b) That one’s hangover (today) is affecting one’s arithmetical judgement.

 

To put all the above another way:

 

 

 

Not only that: you can only resolve your lesser doubts if you simply disregard the more global (or extreme) doubts which might have proceeded them. That is, you can go ahead and defeat your chess opponent only if you simply disregard the possibility of the chessboard simply not existing in the first place.

 

unless the very act of doubting everything is itself the reason to doubt!

 

Descartes’ Fallacy?

 

Chappell then offers us a logical argument against Descartes’ global doubt. She argues that it rests on a fallacious argument. She writes:

 

the claim would be—Descartes’ system rests on a fallacy (the ‘any/all fallacy,’ as it is sometimes called.)

 

 

may be false – or even that they are all false. However, not all our beliefs are identical when it comes to their content (i.e., what they’re about); though there can only be one other person who’s identical with the Scarlet Pimpernel.

 

So, saying that

 

—indeed numerically identical.

 

The Language Game of Scepticism

 

The trouble with crazy sceptical hypotheses, according to Wittgenstein, is that they don’t crop up in any of the various language games that make up the texture of ordinary life in the world. That is why it doesn’t make sense to discuss them.

 

This is a repeat of the claim that “crazy sceptical hypotheses” don’t have any context. And if they have no context (outside philosophy!), then “it doesn’t make sense to discuss them.” However, the sceptic (or philosopher) may simply reply:

 

within philosophy—and, indeed, within Western culture generally. What better examples of a language game could you have?

 

In addition, shouldn’t a Wittgensteinian say that the very fact that “crazy sceptical hypotheses” have been discussed at all means that they must have been discussed in one (or in various) language games? Every discourse—crazy or sane—needs its own language game. Indeed, isn’t that one of Wittgenstein’s main points about language games?

 

Despite saying all that, Chappell states that

 

the sceptic isn’t playing any legitimate language game in his discourse, and so is talking nonsense.

 

So what! Why should I care about ordinary language or the ordinary man?

 

Perhaps Wittgenstein might have replied:

 

‘Yes, Virginia, There Is a Real World’ – favours religious language games; though he doesn’t like the language games of what he calls “relativism” or “scientism.”) If we truly believe in Wittgensteinian language games, then we simply can’t pick and choose which ones we accept and which ones we reject. If it’s a “human linguistic activity with its own rules,” then it’s also a language game. Indeed, according to the Wittgenstein himself (if only implicitly), it’s irrelevant if you or I agree or disagree with the other language games we don’t belong to. After all, all language games—almost by definition—are (at least partly) autonomous and thus beyond the criticisms of other language games.

 

 

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