Startseite The Elusive Third Way: The Pyrrhonian Illumination in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty
Artikel
Lizenziert
Nicht lizenziert Erfordert eine Authentifizierung

The Elusive Third Way: The Pyrrhonian Illumination in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty

  • Roger E. Eichorn EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 1. Dezember 2020
Veröffentlichen auch Sie bei De Gruyter Brill
Elenchos
Aus der Zeitschrift Elenchos Band 41 Heft 2

Abstract

I argue in this paper that, like the Pyrrhonism of Sextus Empiricus, Wittgenstein’s response to negative–dogmatic skepticism in On Certainty turns on the attempt to free us from the demands of traditional philosophy and is therefore not a philosophical position, strictly speaking. Rather, it is a therapeutic metaphilosophy designed to bring into view (i.e., to illumine) the relationship between our everyday epistemic practices and those of philosophy such that we simultaneously come to recognize (a) what I call the pragmatic–transcendental self–standingness of the everyday and (b) its philosophical–rational groundlessness. The Pyrrhonian illumination of the everyday is therapeutic in that it aims to purify our metadoxastic attitudes of dogmatism.


Corresponding author: Roger E. Eichorn, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank those who attended the session of the Wittgenstein Workshop at the University of Chicago at which I presented an early version of this paper. Special thanks must go to Amichai Amit, who, in addition to participating in the workshop, commented on several drafts of the paper and discussed it with me at length. In addition, I would like to thank the two anonymous referees for Elenchos for their helpful comments and Emidio Spinelli for his support.

References

Ainslie, D. C. 2015. Hume’s True Scepticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199593866.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Aristotle. 1993. Posterior Analytics, 2nd ed., translated by J. Barnes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Austin, J. L. 1970. Philosophical Papers, 2nd ed., edited by J. O. Urmson, and G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Baxter, D. L. M. 2006. “Identity, Continued Existence, and the External World.” In The Blackwell Guide to Hume’s Treatise, edited by S. Traiger, 114–32. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.10.1002/9780470776377.ch7Suche in Google Scholar

Baxter, D. L. M. 2009. “Hume’s Theory of Space and Time in its Skeptical Context.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hume, 2nd ed., edited by D. F. Norton and J. Taylor, 105–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CCOL9780521859868.004Suche in Google Scholar

Benson, H. H. 2000. Socratic Wisdom: The Model of Knowledge in Plato’s Early Dialogues. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780195129182.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Berkeley, G. 2008. Philosophical Writings, edited by D. M. Clarke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Berry, J. N. 2011. Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368420.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Bett, R. 1993. “Scepticism and Everyday Attitudes in Ancient and Modern Philosophy.” Metaphilosophy 24: 363–81.10.1111/j.1467-9973.1993.tb00201.xSuche in Google Scholar

Bett, R. 2019. How to Be a Pyrrhonist: The Practice and Significance of Pyrrhonian Skepticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108557603Suche in Google Scholar

Brochard, V. 1887. Les sceptiques grecs. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.Suche in Google Scholar

Burnyeat, M. F. 2012. Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511974069Suche in Google Scholar

Castagnoli, L. 2000. “Self–Bracketing Pyrrhonism.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Skepticism 18: 263–328.10.1093/oso/9780198250814.003.0008Suche in Google Scholar

Castagnoli, L. 2018. “Aporia and Enquiry in Ancient Pyrrhonism.” In The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy, edited by G. Karamanolis, and V. Politis, 205–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781316274293.012Suche in Google Scholar

Chisholm, R. M. 1941. “Sextus Empiricus and Modern Empiricism.” Philosophy of Science 8: 371–84.10.1086/286711Suche in Google Scholar

Clarke, T. 1962. The Nature of Traditional Epistemology. Doctoral Dissertation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.Suche in Google Scholar

Clarke, T. 1972. “The Legacy of Skepticism.” The Journal of Philosophy 69: 754–69.10.2307/2024672Suche in Google Scholar

Coliva, A. 2010. Moore and Wittgenstein: Scepticism, Certainty, and Common Sense. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan.10.1057/9780230289697Suche in Google Scholar

Conant, J. 2004. “Varieties of Scepticism.” In Wittgenstein and Scepticism, edited by D. McManus, 97–136. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203467794-4Suche in Google Scholar

Conway, D. W., and J. K. Ward. 1992. “Physicians of the Soul: Peritropē in Sextus Empiricus and Nietzsche.” In Nietzsche und die antike Philosophie, edited by D. W. Conway, and R. Rehn, 193–223. Trier: Wissenschaftenlicher Verlag Trier.Suche in Google Scholar

Crary, A. 2000. “Introduction.” In The New Wittgenstein, edited by A. Crary, and R. Read, 1–18. New York: Routledge.10.7551/mitpress/7265.003.0001Suche in Google Scholar

De Pierris, G. 1996. “Philosophical Scepticism in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty.” InScepticism in the History of Philosophy: A Pan–American Dialogue, edited by R. H. Popkin, 181–96. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-017-2942-0_13Suche in Google Scholar

Eichorn, R. E. 2014. “How (Not) to Read Sextus Empiricus.” Ancient Philosophy 34: 121–49.10.5840/ancientphil20143418Suche in Google Scholar

Eichorn, R. E. 2015. “Review of S. Charles and P. J. Smith (eds.), Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumiéres, Auflärung.” The British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23: 383–88.10.1080/09608788.2014.970511Suche in Google Scholar

Eichorn, R. E. 2019. Philosophy and Everyday Life: Thompson Clarke and the Legacy of Skepticism. Doctoral Dissertation. Chicago: University of Chicago.Suche in Google Scholar

Eichorn, R. E. 2020a. “Dialectical Pyrrhonism: Montaigne, Sextus Empiricus, and the Self–Overcoming of Philosophy.” unpublished manuscript.Suche in Google Scholar

Eichorn, R. E. 2020b. “Sextus Empiricus on Isotheneia and Epochê: A Developmental Model.” Sképsis: Revista de Filosofia 21: 188–209.Suche in Google Scholar

Fogelin, R. J. 1983. “The Tendency of Hume’s Skepticism.” In The Skeptical Tradition, edited by M. F. Burnyeat, 397–412. Berkeley: The University of California Press.10.1093/019507162X.003.0009Suche in Google Scholar

Fogelin, R. J. 1987. Wittgenstein. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Fogelin, R. J. 1992. “Wittgenstein and Classical Skepticism.” In Philosophical Interpretations, edited by R. J. Fogelin, 214–21. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/019507162X.003.0016Suche in Google Scholar

Fogelin, R. J. 1994. Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0195089871.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Forster, M. N. 1998. Hegel’s Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Forster, M. N. 2004. Wittgenstein on the Arbitrariness of Grammar. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Fosl, P. 2004. “Cracks in the Cement of the Universe: Hume, Science, and Skepticism.” InImagining the Sciences: Expression of New Knowledge in the “Long” Eighteenth Century, edited by R. C. Leitz, and K. L. Cope, 257–90. New York: AMS Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Fosl, P. 2020. Hume’s Scepticism: Pyrrhonian and Academic. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.10.3366/edinburgh/9781474451123.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Frede, M. 1987. Essays in Ancient Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Garfield, J. L. 1990 [2002]. “Epochē and Śūnyatā: Skepticism East and West.” In Id., Empty Words: Buddhist Philosophy and Cross–Cultural Interpretations, 3–23. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.2307/1399425Suche in Google Scholar

Guthrie, W. K. C. 1971. The Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511627385Suche in Google Scholar

Gutschmidt, R. 2020a. “Beyond Quietism: Transformative Experience in Pyrrhonism and Wittgenstein.” International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 10: 105–28. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105700–20191344.10.1163/22105700-20191344Suche in Google Scholar

Gutschmidt, R. 2020b. “Transformative Experience in Skepticism: The External Standpoint and the Finitude of the Human Condition.” Philosophy 95: 395–417. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819120000145.Suche in Google Scholar

Hiley, D. R. 1988. Philosophy in Question: Essays on a Pyrrhonian Theme. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Husserl, E. 2014. Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, translated by D. O. Dahlstrom. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.10.4324/9781315823577Suche in Google Scholar

Kant, I. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason, translated by N. K. Smith. London: Macmillan.Suche in Google Scholar

Kant, I. 2000. Critique of the Power of Judgment, translated by P. Guyer, and E. Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511804656Suche in Google Scholar

Kober, M. 1996. “Certainties of a World–Picture: The Epistemological Investigations of On Certainty.” In The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, edited by H. Sluga, 411–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CCOL0521460255.014Suche in Google Scholar

Kober, M. 2007. “‘In the Beginning was the Deed’: Wittgenstein on Knowledge and Religion.” InReadings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, edited by D. Moyal–Sharrock, and W. H. Brenner, 225–50. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230505346_12Suche in Google Scholar

Kripke, S. 1982. Wittgenstein and Rules and Private Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Kuhn, T. 2000. The Road since Structure, edited by J. Conant and J. Haugeland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Kuusela, O. 2008. The Struggle against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.10.4159/9780674033856Suche in Google Scholar

Livingston, D. W. 1984. Hume’s Philosophy of Common Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Lloyd, G. E. R. 2009. Disciplines in the Making: Cross–Cultural Perspectives on Elites, Learning, and Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567874.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Long, A. A. 1981 [2006]. “Aristotle and the History of Greek Scepticism.” In Id., From Epicurus to Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Monk, R. 1990. Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. London: Vintage.Suche in Google Scholar

Moore, G. E. 1939 [1959]. “Proof of an External World.” In Id., Philosophical Papers, 127–50. London: George Allen & Unwin.10.4324/9781315823560-7Suche in Google Scholar

Morawetz, T. 2007. “The Contexts of Knowing.” InReadings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, edited by D. Moyal–Sharrock, and W. H. Brenner, 165–88. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230505346_10Suche in Google Scholar

Moyal–Sharrock, D. 2005. Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230505346Suche in Google Scholar

Naess, A. 1968 [2005]. The Selected Works of Arne Naess, Vol. 2: Scepticism, edited by H. Glasser. Dordrecht: Springer.Suche in Google Scholar

Nietzsche, F. 2003. Writings from the Late Notebooks, edited by R. Bittner, translated by K. Sturge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Palmer, A. 2004. “Scepticism and Tragedy: Crossing Shakespeare and Descartes.” In Wittgenstein and Scepticism, edited by D. McManus, 260–77. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203467794_chapter_11Suche in Google Scholar

Park, T. K. 1985. “Pyrrhonism in Anthropological and Historical Research.” History in Africa 12: 225–52.10.2307/3171722Suche in Google Scholar

Parush, A. 1976. “Nietzsche on the Skeptic’s Life.” The Review of Metaphysics 29: 523–42.Suche in Google Scholar

Peirce, C. S. 1955. Philosophical Writings of Peirce, edited by J. Buchler. New York: Dover Publications.Suche in Google Scholar

Pihlström, S. 1998. Pragmatism and Philosophical Anthropology: Understanding Our Human Life in a Human World. New York: Peter Lang.Suche in Google Scholar

Pihlström, S. 2006. “Synthesizing Traditions: Rewriting the History of Pragmatism and Transcendental Philosophy.” History of Philosophy Quarterly 23: 375–90.Suche in Google Scholar

Phillips, D. Z. 2007. “Wittgenstein’s On Certainty: The Case of the Missing Propositions.” In Readings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, edited by D. Moyal–Sharrock, and W. H. Brenner, 16–29. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230505346_2Suche in Google Scholar

Plant, B. 2004. “The End(s) of Philosophy: Rhetoric, Therapy and Wittgenstein’s Pyrrhonism.” Philosophical Investigations 27: 222–57.10.1111/j.1467-9205.2004.00225.xSuche in Google Scholar

Popkin, R. H. 1955. “David Hume: His Pyrrhonism and His Critique of Pyrrhonism.” The Philosophical Quarterly 1: 385–407.10.1007/978-1-349-15271-1_4Suche in Google Scholar

Pritchard, D. 2007. “Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and Contemporary Anti–skepticism.” InReadings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, edited by D. Moyal–Sharrock, and W. H. Brenner, 189–224. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.Suche in Google Scholar

Pritchard, D. 2011a. “Wittgenstein on Scepticism.” In Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, edited by O. Kuusela, and M. McGinn, 523–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199287505.003.0024Suche in Google Scholar

Pritchard, D. 2011b. “Wittgensteinian Pyrrhonism.” In Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy, edited by D. E. Machuca, 193–201. New York: Springer.10.1007/978-94-007-1991-0_10Suche in Google Scholar

Pritchard, D. 2020. “Wittgenstein’s On Certainty as Pyrrhonism in Action.” In Wittgensteinian (adj.): Looking at the World from the Viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, edited by S. Wuppuluri and N. da Costa, 91–106. Dordrecht: Springer.10.1007/978-3-030-27569-3_7Suche in Google Scholar

Proessel, D. 2005. “Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Nonsense.” Philosophical Investigations 28: 324–45.10.1111/j.1467-9205.2005.00262.xSuche in Google Scholar

Rudd, A. 2003. Expressing the World: Skepticism, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger. Chicago: Open Court Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Rudd, A. 2007. “Wittgenstein, Global Scepticism and the Primary of Practice.” InReadings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, edited by D. Moyal–Sharrock, and W. H. Brenner, 142–61. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.Suche in Google Scholar

Sextus, Empiricus. 1985. Selections from the Major Writings on Scepticism, Man, and God, edited by P. P. Hallie, translated by S. G. Etheridge. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Suche in Google Scholar

Sextus, Empiricus. 1996. The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism, translated by B. Mates. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Sextus, Empiricus. 2000. Outlines of Scepticism, edited and translated by J. Annas, and J. Barnes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Sextus, Empiricus. 2005. Against the Logicians, translated by R. Bett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Sextus, Empiricus. n.d. ΠΥΡΡΩΝΕΙΩΝ ΥΠΟΤΥΠΩΣΕΩΝ, edited by E. Spinelli. http://ancientsource.daphnet.org/.Suche in Google Scholar

Sluga, H. 2004. “Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonism.” In Pyrrhonian Skepticism, edited by W. Sinnott–Armstrong, 99–117. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0195169727.003.0006Suche in Google Scholar

Spinelli, E. 2012. “Beyond the Theoretikos Bios: Philosophy and Praxis in Sextus Empiricus.” In Theoria, Praxis, and the Contemplative Life after Plato and Aristotle, edited by T. Bénatouïl, and M. Bonazzi, 101–20. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004230040_007Suche in Google Scholar

Spinelli, E. 2015. “Neither Philosophy Nor Politics? The Ancient Pyrrhonian Approach to Everyday Life.” In Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, edited by J. C. Laursen, and G. Paganini, 17–35. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442619722-002Suche in Google Scholar

Stern, D. G. 2004. Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139167185Suche in Google Scholar

Stern, D. G. 2010. “Another Strand in the Private Language Argument.” InWittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: A Critical Guide, edited by A. Ahmed, 178–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511750939.011Suche in Google Scholar

Stern, D. G. 2011. “Private Language.” In The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein, edited by O. Kuusela, and M. McGinn, 333–50. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199287505.003.0016Suche in Google Scholar

Stroll, A. 2000. Twentieth–Century Analytic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Tor, S. 2014. “Sextus and Wittgenstein on the End of Justification.” International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 4: 81–108.10.1163/22105700-03041125Suche in Google Scholar

Vogt, K. M. 2012. Belief and Truth: A Skeptic Reading of Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199916818.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar

Watson, R. A. 1969. “Sextus and Wittgenstein.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 7: 229–37.10.1111/j.2041-6962.1969.tb02057.xSuche in Google Scholar

Williams, B. 1978. Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry. London/New York: Routledge.Suche in Google Scholar

Williams, M. 1988. “Scepticism without Theory.” Review of Metaphysics 41: 547–88.Suche in Google Scholar

Williams, M. 1996. Unnatural Doubts: Epistemological Realism and the Basis of Scepticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Williams, M. 2004a. “Scepticism and the Context of Philosophy.” Philosophical Issues 14: 456–75.10.1111/j.1533-6077.2004.00038.xSuche in Google Scholar

Williams, M. 2004b. “The Agrippan Argument and Two Forms of Skepticism.” In Pyrrhonian Skepticism, edited by W. Sinnott–Armstrong, 121–45. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/0195169727.003.0007Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 1921 [1961]. Tractatus Logico–Philosophicus, translated by D. F. Pears, and B. F. McGuinness. London and New York: Routledge Classics.Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 1930–32 [1982]. Wittgenstein’s Lectures: Cambridge 1930–1932, edited by D. Lee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 1958. The Blue and Brown Books. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 1969. On Certainty, translated by D. Paul, and G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 1974. Philosophical Grammar, translated by A. Kenny and edited by R. Rhees. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 1993. Philosophical Occasions: 1912–1951, edited by J. Klagge, and A. Nordmann. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 1998. Culture and Value, Revised ed., translated by P. Winch and edited by G. H. von Wright, and A. Pichler. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.Suche in Google Scholar

Wittgenstein, L. 2001. Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Suche in Google Scholar

Wright, C. 2004. “Wittgensteinian Certainties.” InWittgenstein and Scepticism, edited by D. McManus, 22–55. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203467794-1Suche in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2020-12-01
Published in Print: 2020-12-16

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Heruntergeladen am 14.10.2025 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/elen-2020-0017/html?lang=de
Button zum nach oben scrollen