Wittgenstein's On Certainty

Rush Rhees (1905–89) was one of Wittgenstein’s closest friends and his literary executor. He taught at Swansea from 1940 to 1966. Amongst Wittgenstein’s posthumous works edited by Rhees are Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956), Blue and Brown Books (1958), Philosophical Remarks (1964), Lecture On Ethics (1965) and Philosophical Grammar (1969). Rhees is also the author of Discussions of Wittgenstein (1970, 1996) and Wittgenstein and the Possibility of Discourse (1998).D. Z. Phillips is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and Rush Rhees Professor Emeritus at the University of Wales, Swansea, and Danworth Professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate School, California. He has published widely in the philosophy of religion and ethics; some of his more recent books include Interventions in Ethics (1992), Wittgenstein and Religion (1993) and Religion and the Hermeneutics of Contemplation (2001). He is also editor of the Blackwell journal Philosophical Investigations.

"This book contains illuminating remarks and a novel perspective on an important and widely discussed classic. And it has a special authority, being the work of one of the author’s best students and closest friends." William Brenner, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia "This book contains two remarkable and original contributions by Rush Rhees and D. Z. Phillips to the burgeoning scholarship on Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. I recommend it strongly." Avrum Stroll, University of California, San Diego

• Preface viiPART I THE PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND TO ON CERTAINTY 11 On Certainty: A New Topic? 32 Saying and Describing 63 Concept-Formation 114 ‘Seeing’ and ‘Thinking’ 165 Thought and Language 276 Picturing Reality 347 What Makes Language Language? 408 The Logical and the Empirical 449 On Certainty: A Work in Logic 48PART II DISCUSSIONS OF ON CERTAINTY 5310 Two Conversations with Wittgenstein on Moore 5511 Preface to On Certainty 6112 On Certainty’s Main Theme 6713 Induction 7314 Wittgenstein’s Propositions and Foundations 7815 Language as Emerging from Instinctive Behaviour 9316 Words and Things 10617 Not Worth Mentioning? 11118 Certainty and Madness 118PREFACEAppendix 1: Comparisons Between On Certainty and Wittgenstein’s Earlier Work 125Appendix 2: Some Passages Relating to Doubt and Certainty in On Certainty 131Afterword: Rhees on Reading On Certainty 133D. Z. PhillipsNotes 183Index 192