Talk:On Certainty

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(May 15, 2006) This article needs to be rewritten. Besides grammatical errors and dead links, the article is little more than a regurgitation of a sparknotes summary. A new version should adopt a more scholarly stance, and make clear that there is hardly a universal reading of On Certainty right now, for it has been subject to many diverse interpretations. For example see the collection of essays entitled "Readings of Wittgenstein's On Certainty", edited by Daniele Moral-Sharrock and William H Brenner.

(November 24, 2006) Calling Wittgenstein an "anti-foundationalist" is blatantly wrong. In the book, Wittgenstein holds that all doubting must come to an end: every epistemic language game has its own bedrock of propositions (although one that may shift in composition -- thus one may label his position "relative foundationalism" (see Addis 2006)) that serves as the method of testing for all other (contingent) propositions. It is the contingent propositions that we can "know", whereas under most circumstances it would be illegitimate use of language to say so of the necessary propositions that serve as the framework of our epistemic language game: for "knowing" implies being able to give evidence for or to doubt the proposition in question. One can gather this much already from the introduction by G.H. von Wright.

It is a tragedy that a unique and important piece of work by one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century does not yet have a decent wikipedia entry. --A.S.

[edit] This Article

As the posts above state, this article is wrong in many respects and needs a major rewrite. If I have the time, soon I will undertake this task. Enigma00 (talk) 05:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)