Doubtful Certainties

Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism

Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Margit Gaffal, Jesús Padilla Gálvez, Margit Gaffal

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9783110321609
• eBook ISBN: 9783110321920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Deconstruction in Philosophy

To what extent can we doubt certainties? How are certainties expressed in words? Which language games convey certainty? To answer these questions we have to recall the method Wittgenstein used in his investigations. 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? The book is intended to answer these questions.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• Doubtful Certainties Language-Games, Forms of Life, Relativism
• Taking Language Games Seriously
• Is there Certainty in our Form of Life?
• Certainty and Forms of Life
• ‘Hinge Propositions’ and Radical Skepticism
• Animal Logic and Transcendental Arguments: On Certainty’s two Levels of Justification
• Über Gewißheit: a Textbook for Psychologists?
• Wittgenstein, Pretence and Uncertainty
• Was Wittgenstein a Relativist?
• Language Meets and Measures Reality
• Beyond Relativism: Wittgenstein’s Method of Grammatical Enquiry in Philosophical Investigations §§198-202
• Russian Matters for Wittgenstein
• Common Sense and Language: Wittgenstein and Gramsci
• Demystifying Mysticism: Brouwer and Wittgenstein
• Wittgenstein and the Future of the Mathematical Sciences
• Abbreviations