Shouldered In and Out of the Reality of Mortality
-
Ryan Manhire
Abstract
I consider two examples of experiences of being struck by thoughts that, upon initial reflection, both speakers suspect to be thoughts they must have surely already been previously aware of. The first is Allison Hope’s description of the thought, in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, “I could easily die sooner than later”. The second is Martin Gustafsson’s description of the thought, in relation to his then one-year-old daughter, “She is going to survive me”. Gustafsson draws on the work of both Ludwig Wittgenstein and Cora Diamond to describe his experience of the thought that struck him as both “unfathomable” to doubt, and as the kind of thought that involves “one’s whole view of, and mode of being in the world”. Though not explicitly mentioned by Gustafsson, I suggest there are important similarities between his description and some of Wittgenstein’s remarks in On Certainty, and that these similarities can also be seen in Hope’s case. This leads me to suggest that both Hope’s and Gustafsson’s experiences are instances of fundamental moral change that go beyond Wittgenstein’s “river-bed” metaphor as it is ordinarily understood. I suggest this insight highlights important differences between an account of moral certainty and moral change exemplified by Hope and Gustafsson, and the account of moral change developed by proponents of what I call the dominant reading of moral certainty, and their use of Wittgenstein’s “river-bed” metaphor.
© 2025 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Tractarian Nonsense and Literary Language
- The Middle Wittgenstein on Aesthetics
- The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus
- Waismann and Waismann’s Wittgenstein
- Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?
- Wittgenstein on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
- Wittgenstein über die Erkenntnis Anderer
- Shouldered In and Out of the Reality of Mortality
- On Deep Moral Disagreement Between Theists and Atheists
- Redrawing and publishing the graphics in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass
- Special Topic: Das erlösende Wort in dürftigen Zeiten – Wittgensteins Fortschritts-, Zivilisations- und Kulturkritik
- Einleitung
- Text und Kontext
- Wozu Philosophie und Kunst in Zeiten der Unkultur?
- „[I]ch sehe jedes Problem von einem religiösen Standpunkt.“
- Wittgensteins „erlösende Worte“
- Wittgenstein über die Bildung von Begriffen
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- David R. Cerbone: Wittgenstein on Realism and Idealism
- Peter Eigner: Die Wittgensteins. Geschichte einer unglaublich reichen Familie
- Raimundo Henriques: Self-Understanding in the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s Architecture: From Adolf Loos to the Resolute Reading
- Shunichi Takagi, Pascal F. Zambito (eds.): Wittgenstein and Nietzsche
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Titelei
- Inhalt
- Hinweis für Leser / Note for Readers
- Tractarian Nonsense and Literary Language
- The Middle Wittgenstein on Aesthetics
- The Question of Linguistic Idealism in the Tractatus
- Waismann and Waismann’s Wittgenstein
- Die Grenzen welcher Sprache?
- Wittgenstein on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
- Wittgenstein über die Erkenntnis Anderer
- Shouldered In and Out of the Reality of Mortality
- On Deep Moral Disagreement Between Theists and Atheists
- Redrawing and publishing the graphics in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass
- Special Topic: Das erlösende Wort in dürftigen Zeiten – Wittgensteins Fortschritts-, Zivilisations- und Kulturkritik
- Einleitung
- Text und Kontext
- Wozu Philosophie und Kunst in Zeiten der Unkultur?
- „[I]ch sehe jedes Problem von einem religiösen Standpunkt.“
- Wittgensteins „erlösende Worte“
- Wittgenstein über die Bildung von Begriffen
- Buchbesprechungen / Book Reviews
- David R. Cerbone: Wittgenstein on Realism and Idealism
- Peter Eigner: Die Wittgensteins. Geschichte einer unglaublich reichen Familie
- Raimundo Henriques: Self-Understanding in the Tractatus and Wittgenstein’s Architecture: From Adolf Loos to the Resolute Reading
- Shunichi Takagi, Pascal F. Zambito (eds.): Wittgenstein and Nietzsche
