Saying, Showing, and Knowing: Epistemological Dimensions of Wittgenstein’s Response to Scepticism in On Certainty

Abstract

This paper evaluates a certain kind of response to philosophical scepticism that is broadly inspired by Wittgenstein’s discussion in On Certainty (OC). Special attention is paid to the idea that we show our certainty and belief in particular assumptions through our actions, practices, and language-games, and that due to their global, impractical, and largely context-free nature, sceptical doubts are not genuinely meaningful doubts. How successful is such a response? Wittgenstein’s own philosophy helps us to evaluate this type of response to scepticism. It is shown that Wittgenstein was well aware that a mere appeal to actions or practices, unaccompanied by a contextualist approach to meaning, would be insufficient as a satisfying response to scepticism. Moreover, the main thrust of Wittgenstein’s response in OC largely departs from foundationalism in that it is not an attempt to provide a ‘justification’ of our beliefs as with traditional forms of foundationalism. For this reason, this rationally reconstructed Wittgensteinian response to scepticism does not fall prey to the ‘myth of the given’ with which foundationalists are sometimes accused. Thus, this Wittgensteinian response to scepticism is a robust and successful one.