Wittgenstein and the Sceptical Tradition (Lisbon Philosophical Studies – Uses of Languages in Interdisciplinary Fields) [New ed.] 9783034315951, 9783034341851, 9783035107791, 9783034341868, 3034315953

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Wittgenstein and the Sceptical Tradition

LISBON PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES uses of language in interdisciplinar y fields A Publicat io n from t h e I n st it u te o f Ph ilo so p hy o f Lan g u a g e at th e N e w U n i ve r s i t y of Lisbon edite d by Antó nio M a rques (G en era l Ed ito r) Nuno Vent ur inha (Exec u t ive Ed ito r) Edito r ia l B o a rd: G abr iele D e Ang e lis, Hu m b er to Br ito, Jo ã o Fo n sec a , Fra n c k L i h o re a u, Antó n i o M arques, Maria Filomena Molder, Diogo Pires Aurélio, Erich Rast, João Sàágua, Nuno Venturinha Advisor y B o a rd: Jean-Pierre Cometti (Université de Provence), Lynn Dobson (University of Edinburgh), Er n est Lepo re (Rutgers U n iversit y ) , R en ato Lessa ( IU PE -R i o d e J a n e i ro) , An d re w Lug g (Universit y o f O t t awa ) , Stefa n M a j et sch a k ( U n i ve r s i tät K a s s e l ) , J e s ú s Pa d i l l a G ál ve z (Universida d d e Ca st illa - La M a n c h a ) , Jo a c h i m S c h u l te ( U n i ve r s i tät Zü r i c h )

Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Wien

António Marques & Rui Bertrand Romao (eds)

Wittgenstein and the Sceptical Tradition

Bern · Berlin · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Wien

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Table of Contents List of Contributors ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  7 Introduction ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  9 António Marques On the Language of Memory: From Scepticism to the Therapeutics of Retrodictions ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15 Thomas Wallgren Queer Scepticism: Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein ������������������������������������������� 25 Paulo Tunhas Scepticism, Systems and Aspectual Dialectic ��������������������������������������������������������� 55 Jaime Ortueta Y Salas Belief in Ortega and Wittgenstein ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 83 Sofia Miguens Disquietness, Worldhood and Selfhood: Conant’s Wittgenstein and the Problem of Scepticism ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 103 Jesús Padilla Gálvez Scepticism as Philosophical Superlative ���������������������������������������������������������������� 113 Vicente San Felix Fools and Heretics. Some Sceptical and Relativist Traits in Wittgenstein’s Thought ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 123 Maria Filomena Molder Going Back Home? �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 139 Rui Bertrand Romão A Brief Remark on the Distinction between “Rustic” and “Urbane” Scepticism in Fogelin’s Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification ������ 151 Renato Lessa Scepticism and Lebensform: An Argument about Some Affinities between Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonian Scepticism ���������������������������������������������� 161

List of Contributors Vicente San Felix University of Valencia

Maria Filomena Molder Ifilnova and New University of Lisbon

Jesús Padilla Gálvez University of Castilla-La Mancha

Jaime Ortueta Y Salas Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Renato Lessa Department of Law, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Brazil, CNPq, Brazil

Rui Bertrand Romão Department of Philosophy and Institute of Philosophy, University of Porto

António Marques Ifilnova and New University of Lisbon Sofia Miguens Department of Philosophy and Institute of Philosophy University of Porto

Paulo Tunhas Department of Philosophy and Institute of Philosophy, University of Porto Thomas Wallgren University of Helsinki

Introduction All the chapters in this volume somehow and quite diversely, directly or indirectly, address the relation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, or at least of Wittgensteininspired philosophical thought, with scepticism, here generally envisaged as a many-sided tradition and not as a uniform and once for all established theoretical posture. The bulk of studies that have been published for the last decades focusing that relation or aspects of it naturally insists on Wittgenstein’s ways of dealing with the so-called Modern scepticism epistemological problems viewed as a challenge. This conception of philosophical scepticism is moulded in the wake of the Cartesian pattern, so to speak, though it arguably arose much later than Descartes’s time and from a strict point of view it should not be confounded with Early Modern anti-sceptical conceptions of scepticism (these conceptions being for the major part moulded on Descartes’s sceptical arguments made to overcome scepticism it is understandable that sometimes it is called Cartesian scepticism, though some authors prefer to call it “Cartesian” scepticism to make explicit that they do not subscribe to any sceptical interpretation of the philosophy of Descartes, an overcautious attitude really unnecessary because independently of the use and function ascribed to them by Descartes or by his followers, those arguments may inspire other arguments implying a kind of scepticism of radically negative and universal overtones). Those ways, in spite of leading to different solutions, somehow seem to remain at the centre of Wittgenstein’s preoccupations throughout different periods of his philosophical work. Post-Wittgensteinian philosophy and exegetical studies of Wittgenstein often prolonged them opening up to new problems and new solutions, to new issues or to reinterpretations of the old ones. Since the 1940s and especially since the 1960s the outgrowth of historical studies on scepticism, especially on Ancient scepticism but also on Early Modern scepticism (a trend of studies greatly impelled and motivated by the groundbreaking researches of Richard H. Popkin and of his disciples), drew many philosophers, historians and commentators to investigate analogies between historical expressions of that tradition and contemporary philosophical currents, trends and issues. Significantly only in the 1980s, more precisely, in 1983 a collection of chapters by several authors was published academically consecrating and divulging the recognizance of the expression “sceptical tradition”, where the editor considers that by “a ‘tradition’ [he means] a succession of thinkers whose thought

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is conditioned in one way or another by a knowledge of their predecessors in the line, and [he] would include in this description not only those who develop and modify previous ideas, but also those who attempt to overthrow a particular tradition and make a revolutionary break with the past” (Burnyeat 1983, 1). Though it was not the first time the expression was used, it took a particular importance not only because the collection bore it as its title, The Skeptical Tradition,1 but also because it focused it with special emphasis, the project of the book delineating a sort of systematic outline of the tradition. It should be noted that in spite of this broad sense of the use of the expression by the editor, he conceived that tradition as merely an Ancient and Early Modern one, or rather an Ancient one prolonged in Early Modern times, ending with “Kant’s introduction of the distinction between the ‘transcendental’ and the ‘empirical’ ” (Burnyeat 1983, 3), a point of view particularly sustained and developed by Barry Stroud, the author of the concluding chapter of the book “Kant and Skepticism” (Burnyeat 1983, 415–445). In the terms employed by Burnyeat, “in philosophical writing after Kant “skepticism” and “the skeptic” increasingly become schematic, ahistorical notions” (Burnyeat 1983, 3). The way Burnyeat explains why contemporary philosophers keep thinking they have something “to say about various kinds of skepticism” (Burnyeat 1983, 3) is simple: “the skepticisms they are talking about are a free creation of the modern philosophical imagination. They no longer descend from the ancient lineage of Pyrrho and the Academy” (Burnyeat 1983, 3). In a general way we cannot but agree with this last phrase, but we would not infer from it that the pyrrhonian tradition did not survive through Modern philosophy, though in most of the cases when that occurred it somehow was usually separated from the classic issues identified as Modern sceptical problems. In contrast to a narrower conception of the expression “sceptical tradition”, our employment of it englobes, along with Ancient and early modern uses of scepticism, post-kantian and contemporary ones. An outgrowth of studies analogous to the abovementioned one centred on sceptical issues occurred since the 1970s on almost every aspect of Wittgenstein’s philosophy leading scholars to variedly focused interpretations not only of Wittgenstein’s responses to scepticism but also of his partaking some features of the sceptical tradition when broadly conceived and namely as not limited to the radical modern epistemological varieties.2

1 We adopt throughout this book the British orthography of scepticism and related words. However, we preserve the United States English orthography in titles quoted. 2 In the impossibility of naming more than a couple of recent titles, we have to name here McManus 2014; Conant and Kern 2014; Wagner and Ariso (eds.) 2016; Pritchard 2017;

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The chapter by António Marques “On the Language of Memory:  From Scepticism to the Therapeutics of Retrodictions”, considering the solutions to “traditional problems of identity of the objects thought or of the representations in general” offered by anti-metaphysical philosophies which deconstruct “the identity of the subject and of the corresponding unity of experience”, first focuses Hume’s sceptical conception of memory as the source, along with imagination, of personal identity and then two “therapeutics of judgements of identity”, the Kantian one, revealing “the necessary particular use of the possessive indexical in the judgments of identity”, and the Wittgensteinian one “revealing the complex grammar of the indexical of ownership”. “Queer Scepticism:  Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein” by Thomas Wallgren is a text in form of a dialogue between the characters Day, Twilight and Night presenting an interpretation of pyrrhonian sceptical tradition (envisaged as a philosophical tradition alternative to the mainstream one issued from Plato and Aristotle, and represented by Socrates, Sextus and the later Wittgenstein) called by the Author “Queer Scepticism” to differentiate it from “negative scepticism”, thus emphasizing a distinction based in the attitude towards truth or knowledge,  the distinction “between scepticism as an aporetic, unending pursuit in which the commitment to search for truth is paramount and scepticism that turns around doubt and negation of claims to truth or knowledge”. The former is for Day (apparently voicing the Author) the “real scepticism” (characterized by the conjunction of three elements: “an aporetic notion of results in philosophy, high praise of the existential worth of philosophy and polyvocality in the procedure of philosophizing”) while the latter corresponds to the most common current interpretation of scepticism. “Scepticism, Systems and Aspectual Dialectic” is a comprehensive chapter by Paulo Tunhas on historical and contemporary scepticism and its several kinds according to the author. His standpoint is a comparative one, from which he tries to understand those kinds in relation to his own thought on philosophical systems. Thus, for him the only way to understand Modern scepticism is found, in the terms of the Author, “within a system which requires, by its very nature, a solution having the data of that very system as the starting point”. His interpretation of Wittgenstein places the Austrian as belonging to “the Pyrrhonian type of scepticism”, which is conceived as the real philosophical alternative to

Salas and Ariso (eds.) 2018 and the Brazilian journal Skepsis, corresponding to the project “Neo-Pyrrhonism: epistemological and historical questions” and available online (http://philosophicalskepticism.org/en/skepsis-journal).

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philosophical systematicity in a considerable part delving its roots in what Tunhas calls “the praxis of the aspectual dialectic” continually moving from one pole to an opposable one. Jaime de Salas in “Belief in Ortega and Wittgenstein” draws and develops a comparison between the conceptions of belief of Wittgenstein and of Ortega y Gasset (within the context of their respective philosophies), studying them in detail as contributions to a general theory of natural belief, both philosophers being seen as risen in the wake of Hume’s position and further radicalising it and both being envisaged as acknowledging a certain primacy of the concept of belief in their mature thought. For the Author:  “Language games in On Certainty in Wittgenstein and “Mundos interiores” (Inner Worlds) in Ortega are based on beliefs that allow them to exist”. Also centred on modern scepticism, the chapter by Sofia Miguens, “Disquietness, Worldhood and Selfhood: Conant’s Wittgenstein and the Problem of Scepticism”, explores the disquieting dimension of it through a critical reading of James Conant’s conception of its varieties (focusing in particular Cartesian, Kantian and Wittgensteinian ways of dealing with scepticism) and of the philosophical problems associated with it, as presented in a recent writing (Conant 2012, 1–73, Conant 2004, 97–136; cf. Conant/Kern 2014, 1–16), within the context of his “approach to philosophy, […] informed by the so-called ‘austere reading’ of Wittgenstein”. In “Scepticism as Philosophical Superlative” Jesus Padilla Gálvez focuses the notion of philosophical superlative, showing its use by sceptics and how Wittgenstein dismissed it. Putting this question – “How come that Wittgenstein developed such a critical attitude towards a philosophical superlative?”  – the Author sustains and explains that “it was especially this criticism that enabled him to argue against and later reject the programs of realism, idealism, and finally that of sceptics”, for Wittgenstein criticized in scepticism the use of “comparison applying the philosophical superlative”, and concludes that “sceptical arguments are insufficient tools to detect and reveal the mythological aspects of language”. “Fools and Heretics. Some Sceptical and Relativist Traits in Wittgenstein’s Thought” is an chapter in which its author, Vicente San Felix, taking in account the varied character of the sceptical tradition, discusses the attribution to Wittgenstein of some sort of sceptical or relativistic tendencies and closely examines the sometimes apparently contradictory conceptions on scepticism, solipsism and value-judgements expressed throughout his writings and sustains that in spite of Wittgenstein having “defended that scepticism and relativism are nonsensical philosophical positions, which he surely would have not claimed for himself, there are sceptical and relativistic traits in both the latter and the earliest Wittgenstein’s

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thought” and that “those traits have practical, theoretical and meta-philosophical dimensions”. In “Going Back Home?”, Maria Filomena Molder, taking into account as basis of her chapter an observation made by one of her PhD students, Isabel Bastos, also deals with Wittgenstein’s conception of scepticism and the possibility of comparing him to Pyrrhon, and develops a reflection on particularities of his method of philosophy, on his use of metaphors when talking about doubt and on the compatibility of philosophizing with being immersed in life’s wonder. The chapter by Rui Bertrand Romão, “Some Brief Remarks on the use of the distinction between “rustic” and “urbane” scepticism as intervening in Fogelin’s Interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Affinities with the Ancient Pyrrhonian Tradition”, consists in a critical consideration of the distinction between rustic and urbane scepticism made by Jonathan Barnes in 1982 and of its use by Fogelin in his 1994 Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification. The concluding chapter, “Scepticism and Lebensform:  An Argument about Some Affinities between Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonian Scepticism”, by Renato Lessa explores parallels and convergences between what the Author considers “one specific mode of configuration of a form of life, present in pyrrhonian scepticism, as presented by Sextus Empiricus” and “some of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s intuitions developed around the idea of Lebensform”. Lessa thus presents “an imaginative affinity, sometimes formal and other times substantial, between arguments that address the subject of the form of life of human beings”. The editors hope that this collection of studies, through the confrontation of various interpretations both of Wittgenstein and of the sceptical tradition will contribute to further studies exploring such issues as the relation of Wittgenstein with scepticism conceived as a multiform philosophical tradition that includes pyrrhonism under many of its avatars, the possibility of comparisons with other philosophers somehow related to scepticism or to pyrrhonism (especially if you think that pyrrhonism, although founding the sceptical tradition diverts so much and so often from the mainstream conception of scepticism that you should identify many of his ways as non-sceptical, at least in the commonest sense of scepticism) or to problems associated with them, the hypotheses that compare Wittgenstein’s and pyrrhonian notions, arguments and processes.

Bibliography Burnyeat, Myles (ed.) (1983). The Skeptical Tradition, Berkeley/Los Angeles/ London, University of California Press.

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Conant, James (2004). “Varieties of Scepticism” in Denis McManus (ed.), Wittgenstein and Scepticism, London/New York, Routledge. Conant, James (2012). “Two Varieties of Skepticism”, in Guenter Abel and James Conant (eds.), Rethinking Epistemology, Vol. 2, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 1–73. Conant, James and Kern, Andrea (eds.) (2014). Varieties of Skepticism. Essays after Kant, Wittgenstein and Cavell, Boston/Berlin, De Gruyter. McManus, Denis (2014). Wittgenstein and Scepticism, London/New York, Routledge. Pritchard, Duncan (2017). “Wittgenstein on Hinges and Radical Scepticism in On Certainty”, in H.-J. Glock and J. Hyman (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Wittgenstein, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell, 563–575. Salas, Jaime and Ariso, José María (eds.) (2018). Ortega y Wittgenstein. Ensayos de Filosofia Práctica, Madrid, Tecnos. Wagner, Astrid and Ariso, José María (eds.) (2016). Rationality Reconsidered: Ortega y Gasset and Wittgenstein on Knowledge, Belief and Practice, Boston/Berlin, De Gruyter.

António Marques

On the Language of Memory: From Scepticism to the Therapeutics of Retrodictions The ideas proposed in this article essentially came about from a reading I made some time ago on Wittgenstein’s remarks on the nature of memory, especially from his reflections on grammar, on some of the operations linked to memory, such as recollection, recognition and identification. Exploring these topics subsequently led me back to the classic problem of identity, identity of the subject, or inner/outer experience in general. Through these reflections, I also could not avoid the confrontation with Kant, and approaching Wittgenstein’s philosophy with its therapeutic characteristics based on his panoramic, grammatical method alongside the critical philosophy of the ­philosopher from Königsberg, which, in its own way, also contains therapeutic goals. We should remember that the principal motivation behind the Kantian critique is to bring order/peace/stability to philosophy, which had fallen into an endless battle of deluded disputes on the limits of the cognitive capacities of philosophy. The broader idea that motivated me was the following:  how is it that clearly anti-metaphysical philosophy and the deconstruction of the identity of the subject and of the corresponding unity of experience (to which David Hume can be added) solve these traditional problems of identity of the objects thought or of the representations in general? One encounters interesting contrasts that result in a better understanding of both the philosophical thinking in these differences and, what makes it even more stimulating, the continual rereading of these greatest works of philosophy such as A Treatise on Human Nature (1739), Critique of Pure Reason (1781), and Philosophical Investigations (1953). The problems related to identity are inseparable from the temporal flux of representations or living experiences, and these problems call for cognitive faculties whose treatment for a long time occupied classical modern philosophy. A remarkable consequence of this position is the fact that, by focusing on the problem of identity in the temporality of representations/experiences, we are forced to consider the question of identity as a double-sided coins  – that of the subject and object. In the modern age, the author who most clearly related the temporality of representations to the problem of identity, bringing to the spotlight a privileged psychological faculty – the imagination – for us to reflect on human nature, producing illusions as a necessity for life, was David Hume. It should be noted from the outset that, at least since Hume, it is not possible to separate the problem of

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identity from the problem of the temporal nature of representations/experiences. And Hume did not separate them either. However, precisely because the judgement of identity presupposes the temporal flux of representations, another faculty is needed – memory – which already constantly works in unison with the imagination. Imagination cannot produce fictions of identity without memory, which, so to speak, becomes the continuous and smooth flow of time in our minds. In other words, any judgement of identity is not possible for Hume without memory operating, considering that the “passage of the thought from the object before the change to the object after it, is so smooth and easy, that we scarce perceive the transition, and are apt to imagine, that’tis nothing but a continu’d survey of the same object” (Hume 1984, 304). And even more explicitly: As memory alone acquaints us with the continuance and extent of this succession of perceptions, ‘tis to be consider’d, upon that account chiefly, as the source of personal i­dentity. Had we no memory, we never shou’d have any notion of causation, nor c­ onsequently of that chain of causes and effects, which constitute the person. But having once acquir’d this notion of causation from the memory, we can extend the same chain of causes, and c­ onsequently the identity of our persons beyond our memory, and forgot, but suppose in general to have existed. (Hume 1984, 309)

I have already called to your attention this essential point – precisely because that what is here at stake is the identity of representations of external causes, which are the other side of a coin which corresponds to the identity of the subject. Let us leave Hume then for whom identity is a fiction, produced, one could almost say, by a faculty, an imagination/memory that shapes the mind, in his famous image from the section on ‘personal identity’ from A Treatise on Human Nature. In an explicit and decisive way, Hume adds: “The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and ­situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different […]” (Hume 1984, 301). But the final words of this passage clarify the extent to which the analogy of the mind in relation to theatre is only partially valid and reaffirms the illusory nature of a mind that remains as a type of space or stage where representations are appearing and disappearing. Thus, Hume warns the reader: “The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. They are the s­ uccessive perceptions only, that constitute the mind; nor have we the most distant notion of the place, where these scenes are represented, or of the materials, of which it is compos’d” (ibid.).1

1 It is unlikely that Wittgenstein had this passage in mind from the Tractatus … we cannot fail to find a great similarity, such as in the analogy and images, as in the propositions between what Hume said on the theatre of the mind and section 398 from Philosophical

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In Kant, the problems relating to identity, either of external objects or of the ‘I’ are in the first place not associated with memory or with other faculties working on empirical materials supplied by memory, as in the case of Hume with the imagination. This is the first important aspect to point out in understanding Kant’s argument. Another aspect is that Kant (here he completely appropriates critical inspiration from Hume rather than the Leibniz-Wolff rationalist ­tradition) discusses these issues in his new methodological framework explained in the Preface to his Critique of Pure Reason and he does it from an essentially ­therapeutic motivation. Without deepening the meaning in the way that I  use the term therapeutics, I  refer solely, in the wake of Hume, to Kant’s d ­ econstruction of the dogmatic thesis of a mind, soul or ‘I’ separated from its representations in ­continuous flow, while diverging from the sceptical position which argues that i­dentity is a mere fiction which ultimately conceals a rather natural and uncontrollable reality, the flux of time to which it is pointless to try to impose a continuity. Also for Kant, one could say that memory is an empirical faculty that can only operate in the flow of time in which our representations  – or any type of empirical determinations that affect us – occur. The issues of identity clearly find their own place in the form of time and only in this context do they find the solution. However, in the case of Kant, this solution is not an observation of the modus operandi of memory (as with Hume), but the demonstration of the existence of an ‘I think’ that accompanies all representation. For Kant, the expression ‘to accompany representation’ possesses the same meaning as an act of representing. Representation is not a simple passivity; rather it has a component of action, or as Kant’s calls spontaneity. Thus, this is how the first lines from §16 of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories should be understood: “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representations would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing for me” (CPR, B 134).

The terms used by Kant are susceptible to misinterpretation when it is suggested for example that we should put ourselves in the perspective of observers of an ‘I’ that thinks, at the same time that we represent, or, in other words, we should

Investigations, in which Wittgenstein uses the metaphor of the ‘visual room’ (visuellen Zimmer) with the purpose of elucidating the grammar of the use of the possessive on judgments such as ‘only I own this representation’. I will refer to this important section 398 later on in more detail, in the context of our theme.

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reflect on our representations through an ‘I’ that is separated from them. This is not what Kant has in mind in this passage and throughout this section on apperception. The ‘I think’ that accompanies the representations means that I am aware of those as belonging to me. This is an essential point for understanding the unity of the ‘I’ that thinks: the consciousness of possession of representation as their representations. I represent a face at different points of time, and I identify it with the help of a name, but the prerequisite is that one can say that these representations are mine and thus I operate a synthesis on them. The grammar of the possessive pronoun is unidirectional in Kant, and he does not reflect on the plurality of meanings of the use of possessive pronouns – an aspect that will lead us to Wittgenstein in a moment. Let us spend a little more time analysing Kant’s argument. Earlier I referred to the difference between Kant and Hume’s scepticism on the epistemic (not natural) legitimacy of judgements of identity and I mentioned that this scepticism consists in defending that identity is a mere fiction that ultimately conceals a rather natural and uncontrollable reality, the flux of time in which it is pointless to try to impose a continuity. How does one accomplish therapeutics from that position? From a Wittgensteinian perspective, Kant can be seen correcting, so to speak, the grammar of the use of the expression ‘to be conscious of one’s representations’. Correcting the understanding here broadens the perspective in the meaning that Wittgenstein gives to the concept of Uebersicht, a panoramic representation of terms entering this operation such as ‘accompany’, ‘representation’, ‘temporal succession’, etc., that is, the connections and uses between terms that the argument on identity mobilizes. Thus, we still find the following passage in paragraph 16 from the “Deduction”: For the empirical consciousness that accompanies different representations is by itself dispersed and without relation to the identity of the subject. The latter relation therefore does not yet come about by my accompanying each representation with consciousness, but rather by my adding one representation to the other and being conscious of their synthesis. Therefore it is only because I can combine a manifold of given representations in one consciousness that it is possible for me to represent the identity of the consciousness in these representations itself, i.e., the analytical unity of apperception is only possible under the presupposition of some synthetic one. (CPR, B 134)

It turns out to be very different in saying that I am aware of representations in the flux of time which I eventually identify by assigning an identity because, via memory (although Kant does not refer to this faculty in this passage, I do think that it is implicit here), I accompany them or I am aware of this succession in time because I call them my representations. This form of awareness or consciousness of the flux of representations that emphasizes the use of indexicals of possession (‘my representations’) only appears to be a subtle difference, but it is a massive difference for Kant.

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Identity for Kant requires more than placing this present representation in a past time: consciousness of identity, my representations and what is represented, claiming the spontaneity of a synthesis. In fact: Only because I  can comprehend their manifold in a consciousness do I  call them all together my representations; for otherwise I would have as multicoloured, diverse a self [Selbst] as I have representations of which I am conscious […] Combination does not lie in the objects, however, and cannot as it were be borrowed from them through perception and by that means first taken up into the understanding, but it is rather only an operation of the understanding, which is itself nothing further then the faculty of combining a priori […]. (CPR, B 134)

Thus, it becomes clear that what is grammatically (either explicit or implicit) in Kant’s judgement of identity, is the consciousness of his possession, or in other words the use of the first person possessive indexical. The therapeutic operation in relation to Hume’s scepticism on the identity consists then for Kant in revealing the necessary particular use of the possessive indexical in these judgements, without which these would not be possible. My dog is certainly conscious of the flux of images of things that identifies in this or that way through memory, but this apperceptive meeting of successive images of things is as if everything is regulated by the natural mechanism of memory. Kant intends to move away from this conception of experience, since wanting the experience to meet the objective requires the consciousness of an owner of ‘I’, in the sense that only the possessive indexicality can assemble and identify. The therapeutic constructed by Kant, according to what is possible and necessary, the use of the first person possessive in the present in judgements of identity, even implicitly, in judgements of this type: “this table is the table I saw two days ago” or “this pain is the pain I felt yesterday”, aims fundamentally at removing the scepticism at the basis of his argument. Or it is removing the assumption that representations/experiences are subjected to the temporal flux and that only through a fiction can we (deceptively) subtract them from this flux and give them identity, such as the same table, the same pain, etc. This is Kant’s central motivation. But it is not thought that this operation, therapeutic for him, will reintroduce the substantial entity of a subject that exists beyond its representations (the subject commonly identified with the Cartesian cogito) or the existence of simple substances that survive by themselves and can come back to us through memory. If it is certain that I am conscious of myself as the owner of my representations and the ‘I’ can only be a unit and not the fiction of unity of many ‘I’s’, the fact remains that ‘I’ cannot distance itself from itself to determine its unity in time. Its identity is the simple consciousness of accompanying the representations/experiences as my representations: “ ‘I’ must be a representation empty of content” (CPR, A346/ B404). Self-consciousness expressed by the operator of apperception ‘I think’ is

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a logical-transcendental operator, grammatically said in Wittgensteinian terms, the necessary experience or knowledge of the objects. Self-consciousness that is characteristic of pure apperception, from what Kant says in paragraph §16 from the “Transcendental Deduction” section in Critique of Pure Reason, is not consciousness of oneself as an object that I know as a substance independent of any empirical material. Self-consciousness does not mean observing myself as a thinking substance, such as a Cartesian cogito. If we understand self-consciousness as characterizing apperception it does not mean anything other than consciousness that, always from the perspective of the first person, accompanies and synthesises the diversity of representations as mine. Under these circumstances, we can speak about the unity and identity of the subject – ultimately the other side of the unity and identity of objects, whether they are internal or external.2 This inability of self-reference to distance oneself from an ‘I’ in order to describe it as the separable object of the flux of representations, approaches the Kantian form of the ‘I’ as Wittgenstein shows in various language-games, whose grammar generates the ‘I’. On the other hand, the grammar of possessives, essential to Kant as noted above, is subjected to a therapeutic by Wittgenstein, which extends moreover to all the indexicals and demonstratives, to fulfil the panoramic representations of their uses. Thus, it is now possible to speak of two therapeutics of judgements of identity (we must remember that the therapeutic does not consist in identifying a single correct or good use of a term or expression, but rather describes panoramas of uses of familiar terms and expressions and uncovers hidden connections). That is, firstly, for Kant, it is relatively narrow in its panoramic scope, consciously the possessive indexical operator in judgements of identity; and secondly, via Wittgensteinian therapeutics, it subjects the indexical

2 Consider the following sentence: “The AM that I know is not the same AM that I know now”. This sentence can only mean that the behaviour or the physical aspect of AM are so different in the past from what we now verify, that it is not possible for me to attribute an identity to AM, in the sense in that I cannot recognise it. But this sentence can be expressed by a sceptic such as Hume and, in this case, what it signifies is another thing, namely, independent of alterations of behaviour or physical changes, the representation of AM in the past, although in all similar to the actual representation, it does not allow me to attribute the identity to AM. This happens for the simple reason that the passage of time, as it were, erodes the ontology of representations. However, as a practical question, connected to life, I can make up an identity, this being equivalent to a product of the imagination. Thus, anyone else (who does not do philosophy) can perfectly related to and communicate with AM as if they were the same person. This appears to be Hume’s position.

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itself of possession to a wider panoramic representation. We will concretize more clearly this distinction by focusing more on Wittgenstein. Just as in Kant, the ‘I’ in Wittgenstein does not refer to a thing, a person, or even a name. ‘I’, as can be inferred from certain sections of Philosophical Investigations (PI 404, 405, 406, 410, 411), is not a referential expression, in the sense that a proper name is referential. ‘I’ does not refer to nor designate a person, body, or cogito in the Cartesian sense, but its use is primarily serving as an operator of any expression of the first person. Wittgenstein’s examples privilege the expression of pain. A cry of pain can be substituted by ‘I am in pain’ and the question ‘which of the people that you meet in this room is in pain?’ will have an answer such as: ‘I am!’. ‘I’ is in the case that anyone actually suffers a pain and wants to reveal this information to others. One can also think that it would be possible for someone to respond to the question with a cry of pain. Thus, the grammar of the ‘I’ undoubtedly possess a self-referential meaning: only I who speaks experiences pain and it is not possible to deceive me of this exteriorisation – ‘I’ then is infallible here (they are not considered cases of simulation, which points to other problems). However, this reference from the speaker itself is not, for example, self-referential in the same way that a name may refer to a person. Wittgenstein emphasizes that “ ‘I’ is not the name of a person, nor ‘here’ of a place, and ‘this’ is not a name. But they are connected with names. Names are explained by means of them” (PI 410). Thus, if ‘I’ does not name a person, it helps, on the other hand, to clarify the relation of names to people, in this case the AM with a person. Imagine that I am in the middle of a group and someone asks, ‘Who is the AM?’, and I say ‘I am’. With his response, rather than referring to a person, I am relating to a name, the AM, with a person, unknown to the one who asked about the reference of the name. Wittgenstein points out: When I say that ‘I am in pain’, I do not point to a person who is the pain, since in a certain sense I have no idea who is. And this can be given a justification. For the main point is: I did not say that such-and-such a person was in pain, but “I am […]”. Now in saying this I don’t name any person. Just as I don’t name anyone when I groan with pain. (PI 404)

This is an important point that we have reached and important to hold on, where I think two decisive points are made. Firstly, in the expression of the first person (in the case of pain, but it could also be an expression of belief, desire, etc.), we speak without understanding ‘I’. In a certain sense, Wittgenstein asserts that “I have no idea who is in pain”, an affirmation that seems to be counter-intuitive, but the truth is that I do not normally say that “I know that I am in pain”, but simply “I am in pain”. What was produced was an expression and not knowledge. Secondly, it is certain that the expression of the first person governed by the use of ‘I’ in the present tense precedes any other in which I observe myself and others. Of course,

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I can observe my behaviour of pain over time, or of other types at any moment, but the expression of pain, governed by ‘I’ in the present tense, is the most primitive fact, in that it predates all the other applications of the first person. These can be descriptive and not expressive uses, such as when I go to the doctor and want to describe my pain. The first person pronoun therefore has this function of being an indexical of the most basic expressive function of the subject. In fact, what is most important for our problem is that the first person pronoun does not designate an identity (i.e. a cogito ego) that pre-exists its use, although we find ourselves in an apparent contradiction, since its grammar functions as a unity operator of different occurring experiences in the first person. Above all, what is interesting for our purposes is to evaluate how it processes this unity, or how diverse experiences, living experiences, sensations or representations, produced in the first person, can be united and identified. The answer is that this multiplicity of experiences, necessarily produced in time, are successive, or in other words cannot be simultaneous; in fact we cannot simultaneously produce various expressions and be united just by having this mode of succession, we would say as belonging to ‘I’ itself. But this way of representing the unity of expressions referring to ‘I’ through ownership, comes close to Kant and Wittgenstein’s ‘I’. This is perhaps only an apparent proximity, since in Wittgenstein a consciousness of possession that produces the unity is not comprehensively found. We find rather a ‘language of memory’, with determined grammar. Let us explore a little bit more this idea of a ‘language of memory’ as playing a central role in the experience of the first person. The language of memory possesses the particularity that could only be generated in the first person and, for this reason, the use of the pronoun ‘I’ is there as actual or virtual. This point needs to be clarified. Simply defending a unity of expressions (lived experiences, and experiences in general) that is based on the consciousness of ownership, in terms formulated by Kant, greatly underestimates the grammar of the possessive pronoun of the first person and prevents a panoramic representation, or Uebersicht of its grammar. Without going further in this analysis, I propose that we keep to Wittgenstein here, where there is no possessor ‘I’ of representations/living experiences, which seems counter-intuitive, but signifies simply that he submits the indexical of possession to a therapeutic test. Or, in other words, while Kant sought through the disclosure of the use of this indexical to clarify how judgements of identity are impossible, Wittgenstein carries out a therapy revealing the complex grammar of the indexical of ownership, showing how it is not something that uniquely sustains judgements of identity.

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Bibliography Bennett, Jonathan (1974). Kant’s Dialectic, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Hacker, Peter (2012). “Kant’s Transcendental Deduction – A Wittgensteinian Critique”, Knowledge, Language and Mind, ed. A. Marques e N. Ventunha, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, pp. 11–35. Henrich, Dieter (1982). Selbstverhaeltnisse, Stuttgart, Reclam. Hume, David (1984). A Treatise on Human Nature, London, Penguin Classics. Kant, Immanuel (1989). Critica da Razão Pura, Lisboa, Fundação C. Gulbenkian. Kant, Immanuel (1998). Critique of Pure Reason, tr. & ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Marques, António (2013). O Interior – Linguagem e Mente em Wittgenstein, São Paulo, Ed. Loyola. Strawson, P. F. (1997). Entity and Identity and Other Essays, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1995). Tratado Lógico-Filosófico – Investigações Filosóficas, Lisboa, Fundação C. Gulbenkian. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009). Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. (abbreviated as PI).

Thomas Wallgren

Queer Scepticism: Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein Editors’ Note The text that we present here is based on a previously unpublished transcription of a tape recording of a seminar at D. The transcription was recently discovered at the Archives of Q at HB. The original tape has been lost. The speakers cannot be identified. Even though the transcription gives us a text about twice as long as the more well-known transcriptions Zü and Nb, we agree with Jackson et al. (without date) that it is likely that we are still dealing with a fragment of a much longer conversation. In the process of translating the transcription from the original Finland-Swedish we have done our best to combine two goals: We have wished to avoid unnecessary obscurities while remaining true to the overall tone of the original. We have corrected some errors that seemed obvious to us and added some footnotes. (Unless otherwise indicated the editors are responsible for all footnotes.) Many inconsistencies and strange or even outrageous claims remain. We think the document may nevertheless be of interest to some readers, if not now, then perhaps in a later civilisation that seeks to understand our times through an investigation of what we have placed in the margins of our discourses of philosophy.

Introduction Day: Scepticism is the pinnacle of philosophy. For a philosopher to become a sceptic is a home-coming, a transformative moment and a fulfilment in her search for a life with reason. This is conceptually almost trivial, as we shall soon see. The scepticism I speak of is not what most academic philosophers today seem to think it is: It has nothing to do with the notion that there are no truths, or that unassailable knowledge (“real” knowledge) or truth that leaves no room for doubt cannot be reached. The idea of such a scepticism, a scepticism that is negative and destructive and characterised by doubt and that may nevertheless be true or rationally invincible, has always struck me as shallow; as appealing to meek, morally corrupt liberal sentiment but not to the intellect. Of course, I  do acknowledge (and detest!) the fact that when philosophers speak of scepticism today they usually do not refer to the real or true, searching

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scepticism that I will be investigating here but rather, to negative scepticism.1 – I  have therefore, grudgingly, after consultations with both Night and Twilight, agreed to refer, in this conversation, to the kind of scepticism that we are interested in as queer scepticism. But I do hope that the reader will bear in mind that if what I say is right, if it points in a direction worth investigating, queerness really lies elsewhere and the radical, searching, “queer” scepticism I shall speak of would deserve to be called real scepticism. Twilight: You have been introduced to our topic by Day, the lovely daughter of Enlightenment. My name is Twilight. I am the cousin of Day and of Night. There are many of us. Many Days, many Twilights, many Nights. We are all the same and all different. This is wonderful and frightening. That is what I have heard. It is my task to decide who speaks. Today Day will speak. Night is also with us here today, as she often is. We all know her. Her presence is, as we must admit, always of the utmost importance. Whether Hope will also pay us one of her rare visits remains to be seen.

Part One: The Three Main Characteristics of Scepticism as Understood by Day Preview Day: We first offer an overview of some of the most basic features of the conceptions of philosophy developed by Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein. We show that they have some striking commonalities. In the next step we are astonished to note that with these few common features our sceptical classics all depart radically from most currently dominating ideas of what philosophy is. They also depart from the philosophical self-understanding

1 Weighty evidence in favour of Day’s claim is provided by the fact that in recent research on scepticism and its history, as well as in commentaries on the relation between Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonian scepticism scholars regularly fail to do almost anything of, often even to observe, the salient distinction between scepticism as an aporetic, unending pursuit in which the commitment to search for truth is paramount and scepticism that turns around doubt and negation of claims to truth or knowledge (see Bett 2000, Popkin 1960, Lammenranta 2008, Vogt 2014, and also the discussion of Wittgenstein’s relation between to Pyrrhonian scepticism in, for instance, Fogelin 1987, and Stern 2004).

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proposed by Plato, Aristotle and from almost all philosophers who have seen themselves as standing in a tradition in which Plato and Aristotle are towering classics. That leads us to suggest that it may be worth our while to reflect on what reasons Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein may have had for the unconventional views they shared. We must also ask ourselves whether it is true, as Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein seem to think, that in their departure from convention and thanks to it, they stand out as carriers of a salient promise of philosophy as a resource for freedom – of emancipation through enlightenment.2 These questions are approached here by looking, in the second step of our conversation, individually at some further characteristics of the conceptions of philosophy in Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein. I will then place before you a worry that remains:  How can we deal with our disappointment at how the world has reacted to the radical sceptical vision of freedom and the good life that Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein share? They killed Socrates, they marginalised Sextus or ignored the heart of his self-understanding and they instrumentalised Wittgenstein for constructive purposes that would have seemed completely alien and, probably, disgusting to him. Their queer scepticism has gone nowhere. Why has their vision of freedom been ignored? And why is it that Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein, who all sought, more than perhaps any other philosophers, to find company and form community through philosophy, have miserably failed to do so.

Main Characteristics of Scepticism Day: I will provide a primitive statement. Primitive means:  I will report only on some of what is most obvious and most important in the conceptions of philosophy explicated by our three heroes, Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein. I must, however, warn the reader about one thing. If what I report is obvious and therefore in some sense primitive, as surely it is, then we have a problem. In most traditions of ancient philosophy, in the dominating modern traditions since Francis Bacon and Descartes, as well as in philosophy today, the primitive statement I am about to make may seem quite peculiar and original as

2 By “later Wittgenstein” we refer to the first part of the Philosophical Investigations (including title, motto and Preface). For some elaboration of a conception of “later Wittgenstein” that is congenial to the one assumed here, see Wallgren 2013a.

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a view of philosophy. The things that I claim are obvious and important to how Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein saw philosophy are clearly not shared by most others who call themselves philosophers. It follows that when Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein are seen as philosophers among others in our dominant tradition they are claimed for a philosophy that is at least in some important ways foreign to them. It follows, too, that what was important to them in philosophy has been overlooked, forgotten, sidelined or simply ignored by most of their colleagues. Is it a mistake when we overlook something obvious? The answer will depend on how relevant the obvious is. And relevance is relevance with respect to something. To what? Freedom and Truth? What freedom? Which kinds of truth? But let me stop now before I  start speaking like Twilight. When she is not upset, which she, as we must admit, sometimes can be, she is usually very kind and considerate. And she certainly seems to be very honest, that is also true. But she almost never gets to the point. I sometimes even suspect that Twilight thinks there in no point in getting to the point. Twilight: (Interrupts): What nonsense! The point, as we have so often agreed, is that whenever someone uses the notion of not getting to the point it is already a sure sign that she has not understood the point of getting to the point by not getting to what we thought was the point. Day: But Twilight, you are rushing ahead of things. Please remain calm. Twilight: All right then, but don’t blame me if all your efforts will prove to be detours and you will find yourself coming back to the very point, the point of the point if you wish, and then we must start from scratch again. Day: Now, where was I. – Yes. I wanted to explain real, or queer, scepticism. This is a question of description or of characterising the phenomenon. If I wanted to be more bombastic I would say: I want to investigate what queer scepticism is. I will first place before you a sequence of quotes. The first two are from Plato’s Socrates, the next two from the main work of Sextus Empiricus, the next three from Wittgenstein’s writings and sayings. The citations will be extremely familiar to all who have spent time with scholarship concerning Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein. It is of some import for us that they are from key passages of each author; from the culmination of the Socratic Apology, from the concluding lines of one of the best known early (most authentically Socratic) dialogues by Plato,3 from the opening sections of the main work of Sextus, from the Preface

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to the Philosophical Investigations and from some of the most memorable reports from Wittgenstein’s friends about him. The sources are of such dignity that anything we say about the conception of philosophy typical of any of the three authors must be compatible with these passages. They also bear witness, as I shall explain, to the fundamental agreement on unusual points between the authors: If on the other hand I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and others is really the very best thing a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not worth living, you will be even less inclined to believe me. Nevertheless, that is how it is, gentlemen, as I maintain, though it is not easy to convince you of it. (Apology 38e) Well, Lysis and Menexenus, we have made ourselves rather ridiculous today, I, an old man, and you children. For our hearers here will carry away the report that though we conceive ourselves to be friends with each other – you see I class myself with you – we have not as yet been able to discover what we mean by a friend.4 (Lysis 223a) Those who are called Dogmatists in the proper sense of the word think they have discovered the truth – for example, the schools of Aristotle and Epicurus and the Stoics, and some others. The schools of Clitomachus and Carneades, and other Academics, have asserted that things cannot be apprehended. And the Sceptics are still investigating. Hence, the most fundamental kinds of philosophy are reasonably thought to be three:  the Dogmatic, the Academic, and the Sceptical. The former two it will be appropriate for others to describe: in the present work we shall discuss in outline the Sceptical persuasion. By way of preface let us say that on none of the matters to be discussed do we affirm that things certainly are just as we say they are: rather, we report descriptively on each item according to how it appears to us at the time. (Sextus 2002, 3; PH, I, 3–4) Now the Sceptics were hoping to acquire tranquillity by deciding the anomalies in what appears and is thought of, and being unable to do this they suspended judgement. But when they suspended judgement, tranquillity followed as it were fortuitously, as a shadow follows a body. (Sextus 2002, 11; PH, I, 29) The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks. [. . .] And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation. For this compels us to travel over a wide field of thought criss-cross in every direction. – The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of these long and involved journeyings. The same or almost the same points were always being approached afresh from different directions, and new sketches

3 For some discussion of the “Socratic problem”, or the problem whether we have access to a philosophy of Socrates that we can distinguish from the philosophy of Plato see Benson 2000, Brickhouse and Smith 1994, Vlastos 1991, 1994 and Wallgren 2006. 4 These are the concluding lines of Lysis.

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From these quotes we learn the following: 1. Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein agree on a queer view of what they claim to achieve and see themselves as aiming in their philosophical endeavour. Socrates and Sextus explicitly reject the notion that they will arrive at results in the form of truths, true statements, insights, theories or theses in philosophy or that they have achieved such results. When the quotes are read in context it is evident that it is important for them to do so. Wittgenstein has often been seen as sharing this outright rejection.7 Whether that is true is debatable, and interesting.8 But whatever our verdict on that topic is it is clear that Wittgenstein does not promise to deliver results in the form of truths, theses, theories or doctrines. At least he does not claim to do so.9

5 Our translation. 6 Told by Wittgenstein to a friend shortly before he lost consciousness, reported by Ray Monk in the last chapter of his Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (Monk 1990). 7 In the opening lines of the essay with which Cora Diamond inaugurated the so-called “resolute,” “new” or “therapeutic” tradition in Wittgenstein scholarship Cora Diamond writes: “Whether one is reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus or his later writings one must be struck by his insistence that he is not putting forward doctrines or theses” (Diamond 1991). The claim is exegetically awkward as Diamond does not provide any supportive textual evidence for it. Such evidence would in fact be hard to find. For instance the Philosophical Investigations, part  1, remark 128 does not quite support Diamond’s statement. But her discussion in the essay remains a pathbreaking contribution to Wittgenstein-research nevertheless. 8 Not rejecting anything may be helpful if one seeks for consistency in a philosophy that is not in the business of searching for views or truths about how things are, what concepts mean or such else. 9 It is very common in interpretations of Wittgenstein and also in philosophical research in which his work is used to assume that in the Philosophical Investigations there are remarks the point or truth of which its author subscribes to. This is highly problematic and leads, as we believe, to shallow readings of the work. We will not go into details

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We can say that Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein agree that the philosophy they engage in is aporetic: it does not deliver results. This is their first unconventional point of agreement. 2. If we turn our attention from what is rejected – a certain notion of the (theoretical) aims of philosophy – to what is accepted and embraced the convergence between Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein is equally evident. They all give great weight to the moral, or existential significance of the kind of philosophy that they pursue. This philosophy is nothing less than the way to a fulfilling life. (Later we will look into some differences between the three at this point. But so far our description aims only at bringing forth the similarities). We can say that Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein agree that the aporetic philosophy which they engage is existentially salvaging. This is their second unusual point of agreement. 3. Thirdly, and, as I suggest, most strategically from the point of view of the philosophy of philosophy, Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein agree on a how. None of the three work with anything that even remotely resembles current standard academic presentation in which the author argues in her own voice towards a position on the matter considered. In the case of Socrates the presence of several others is essential to his philosophy, as is the method of scrutinising views offered by his interlocutors but not by Socrates himself.10 Wittgenstein’s philosophy is also presented as dialogue with many voices. The first voice in the Philosophical Investigations is Nestroy’s (in the motto). The Preface is written in Wittgenstein’s first person and in this sense, formally, the most conventional part of the work. Immediately after the Preface Wittgenstein again disappears from the scene, the word is given to St. Augustine and in the comments that follow immediately after the quote, and, as I believe, in all the discussion that follows, through the whole text of the Investigations, we never know to what extent any of the voices in the work can be trusted as the privileged carrier of authorial authority. Sextus’s case is again somewhat different and perhaps more controversial than the two others for the view I am advancing. To make things simple I will simply refer the reader to Rosario La Sala’s detailed work on the topic and claim that it is central to the philosophy of Sextus Empiricus that he proceeds “dialectically” (La Sala 2003). In La

about the textual evidence here (on this see Pichler 2004). Let us note only this: there is no basis in the text of the Philosophical Investigations for telling which claim (if any) the author subscribes to. The attribution of truth and falsity to claims made in the text is wholly the responsibility of the reader. 10 For some details, see chap. 3.3. in Wallgren 2006.

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Sala’s terminology this means that Sextus never advances views in his own voice. He only considers views advanced by others.11 Various options offer themselves to identify by way of one concept, or by way of a formula, the shared sense of the how, or of method in philosophy, if you like, that is the point of convergence for Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein. Dialogue is too weak to capture well the richness of the distinct methodological agreement that is at stake. Pace the insightful early discussion by Stanley Cavell in the introduction to his Must We Mean What We Say the dialogue that Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein present always has many voices with no ­recognisable lead voice or voice of correctness (cf. Cavell 1976). Some other, more appropriate terms that have been suggested in recent discussion of Wittgenstein are polyphony (with Bakhtin’s theory of the polyphonic novel as referent), heteroglossi (with reference to Bakthin, again), and polyvocality (see Heyes 2003; Wallgren 2013b). I  shall today use the last of these, polyvocality. I use it as a descriptive term that identifies the fact that in their ­philosophical investigations Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein all carry out their philosophical studies through an interplay between many different voices – whether through the real presence of different persons as with Socrates, or through citation and indirect reference as with Sextus and Wittgenstein (at times), or through a playful encounter between various imagined personae as with Wittgenstein (often times) (see Janik 1992, 22–33).12 So, I  will say that Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein agree that their philosophical work proceeds polyvocally. These were our three main observations. I  propose that whenever these features – an aporetic notion of results in philosophy, high praise of the existential worth of philosophy and polyvocality in the procedure of philosophizing – occur together we have what I in the title refer to as queer scepticism and what I suggest we may also call radical scepticism, real scepticism and searching scepticism.

11 See also the interesting discussion of the techniques developed by Sextus for avoiding committing statements offered in Naess 1968. 12 Janik uses the term “internal theatre” to characterise Wittgenstein’s form of presentation and brings in Montaigne and Plato as congenial referents. Montaigne is important for us. One could argue that Montaigne, with his reaction to Sextus, stands out as the fourth great “queer sceptic” in our canon, alongside with Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein. In the modern world Gandhi’s method, especially in what we think of as his defining text, the Hind Swaraj (originally published in South Africa, in Gujarati language in the Indian Opinion in 1908/1909), would deserve study from the point of view of how it compares with the queer scepticism I attribute to Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein (see Gandhi 1936).

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I have now taken the first step in the characterisation of the philosophy of Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein. I will soon proceed to remarks on additional aspects of the views on philosophy that are unique to each of them and that I suggest that we benefit from in order to arrive at an enriched conception of queer scepticism at its best. So, I  will be aiming at an understanding of queer scepticism that builds on all our three heroes and supersedes the level of understanding achieved by any one of them. Before that I want to pause for some intermediate reflections.

Intermediate Reflections The three characteristics that define queer scepticism are simple and straightforward features of the philosophy of Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein. Nevertheless, very little of what we call philosophy today is describable (even at this level of abstractness) with any of the three terms we have identified. The conventional self-understanding that philosophers have of their craft is not of this queer sceptical kind. But should it not strikes us then as strange, and as uncanny and disturbing, that Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein remain part of the canon of Western philosophy. Socrates and Wittgenstein are not only part of the canon. They are central figures. Sextus has also at times been so (see Popkin 1960).13 I propose that we look at the observations of this paragraph as a riddle: We continue to place Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein at or near the centre our canon, but we place them there as a mute element. We claim them as part of our heritage, we like to think of ourselves as sharing something important and valuable with them, but the core of their understanding of what philosophy is utterly alien to us. We might ask: what lies did we have to tell to ourselves to arrive at this situation? How deep in us does this lack of attention, this lacuna in our self-image, this hole in our heart, go? One reason for our persistence in the paradoxical mix of respect and estrangement may be that we have listened too keenly to Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein themselves on a point of agreement I have not mentioned so far. They all predicted their own marginalisation and seem to have accepted it as their natural or inevitable fate. Socrates and Wittgenstein explicitly said that those who agree with them will be few in number.14 Sextus is less clear about seeing himself as speaking for a minority only, but as we have seen above, he reports without any

1 3 For Sextus’s formative role for Hegel, see Westphal 2013. 14 Cf. Plato, Crito, 49d; Wittgenstein, PI viii, and also CV 9.

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sense of regret or competition that his scepticism is one of three co-existing, major kinds of philosophy. In the light of the foregoing we may ask: – If it is true as a I say that Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and Wittgenstein are deviant, why are they part of our canon at all? – If it is true that they belong to our canon, why is the queer scepticism they so visibly share not central to the discourse of philosophy? – What is this phenomenon of the marginal that is difficult to erase?

PART TWO: Further Characteristics of Scepticism as Understood by Day Day: Aporetic, priceless, polyvocal: this is what sets queer scepticism apart in philosophy. It is also a thin characterisation of philosophy. I will now survey what we know about Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein and propose that we derive from each of them individually elements that serve two purposes. 1: We will be able to further specify our understanding of sceptical philosophy. 2: we will find strong warrant for our overall thesis (sic!) that queer scepticism is the pinnacle of philosophy in the following strong sense. THESIS: Queer scepticism is the kind of philosophy that any person who understands herself as aiming at satisfying the highest standards of reason that any philosophy or philosopher has ever aimed to satisfy ought reasonably to find herself committed to.

Twilight (quietly): I will stay in the background now. I know Day since many years. Her thesis is of course self-defeating. And what she will say now is likely to strike you as primitive. She is too slow in reacting to the pressure on her from the side of all non-sceptical philosophers to respond to their two most persistent underlying concerns. First: reason, especially the form of reason that philosophy stands for that is characterised by the highest possible generality or necessity and that therefore plays a foundational role in the enlightenment project, aims at truth. They say: If reason cannot give us access to truth with a capital T, if it cannot provide unassailable truth, we want at least to get as close as possible to that real thing.15

15 Twilight’s voice gets very quiet at this point. The transcript in our possession provides here an excursion with several alternative interpretations. There is general agreement

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Second, our commitment to reason has a moral root. We want reason because we think that without it there is no truth, no freedom and no dignity for us. Without reason we are no better than slaves, or women, or animals, or machines. At best we are children only. Infants who do not know. But it is our task to grow up and to know. That is the idea that we cannot give up if we want to be philosophers. Day’s is slow in attending to this kind of concern and hence, constructively oriented interlocutors are likely to think that her queer scepticism can do no good work and that it abdicates its first commitments and makes adulthood an unattainable chimera. I know well, that there is a path of learning, of reason, that will take the open mind from a position in which it is obsessed with these two underlying concerns to a realisation that sincere commitment to these concerns can only be maintained if we allow our views of what it is to be committed to them to mature and change as we go. Day is no good teacher. She never was. But I urge you to be patient. Your objections will be better cared for slightly later.

Section One: Elements from Socrates Day (in a rush, but with apparent confidence): Socrates, first aspect.

in recent commentary that Twilight mentions Derrida, Lacan, Foucault but also a few other philosophers when she speaks of “denial” of reason’s power and also that Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Rorty, Habermas are mentioned as examplary philosophers who defend non-foundational and “post-metaphysical” constructive reason through a “neopragmatic” synthesis of analytical and pragmatist ideas. Twilight’s basic idea seems to be that from the point of view of queer scepticism the denialists and the neo-pragmatists are equally far from understanding the advantages of queer scepticism on the terms they have set for themselves. The general reason for the failure on both sides to take queer scepticism seriously seems to be a reluctance to study self-critically the idea that there is something (Reason, True Reason, Knowledge, Truth . . .) that they are aiming at that traditional philosophers have also been aiming at that has to be accepted still as binding for our understanding of philosophy even if it we may need to recognise that something as unattainable. Wittgenstein puts this beautifully when he speaks of the idea of a something (a foundation? an Archimedean point?) that we (people searching for truth) cannot get. His notion of a something that is not a something and not a nothing either is of course also relevant. See Philosophical Investigations, part 1, remarks 304, 374 and passim. The enlightenment fetishism in philosophy that stands in the way of enlightenment!

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The question of the necessarily oral nature of philosophy: We do not have a single written word from Socrates. Nevertheless, we have reason to assume that he was not illiterate. We can deduce from the fact that ostracism was practised at that time that most free male Athenians of his generation would have known at least the basics of writing.16 The following counter-factual invites itself: if, then, Socrates knew how to write and if he would have thought that the written word can be a useful vehicle of investigation and communication in philosophy he would have made use of it. But he did not.17 Why? In the reports we have from Plato we want to draw attention to the following. The criticism of the written word in the Phaedrus and in the seventh letter18 corresponds and is in agreement with the emphasis on the here-and-now of the face-to-face discussion between (primarily) friends, in the description in the Apology of the philosophy that, as Socrates claims, was the centre of his life. These features of the Socratic practice must be seen in connection with the central insight of Gregory Vlastos’s interpretation of Socrates’ understanding of philosophy. According to it there is a principle of sincerity at the heart of Socrates’ views on philosophical method. This principle is required for logical and moral reasons. Only if we commit ourselves will it matter to us what we say in philosophy about concepts, about what our words means. The logical and moral are here two aspects of the same conceptual fact: the fact that our understanding of what the words mean that we wish to get clear about in philosophy are aspects of our understanding of self. – If I do not know what the words mean by which I orient myself I do not understand my life. If I do not commit myself to what I say about the topics we discuss I have said nothing. – But how can we know whether a person commits herself to what she says in a philosophical investigation? – That is a question of taking on the kind of moral freedom and responsibility that is involved in saying something and meaning it (and what is it to say something without meaning it?).19 What sincerity in philosophy amounts to is therefore a

16 Day owes the point about ostracism to Holger Thesleff (oral communication). It seems Day has not studied the burgeoning literature on the transition in Greek culture in the fifth century BC from oral to written cultural transmission. 17 Day takes for granted that it would be known to us that Socrates wrote even if his texts would have gone missing. 18 See Borutti 2013, Gaiser 1963 and the discussion in Wallgren 2006. 19 A voice can be heard in the background saying: “Day does not see that this is the exact point from which a defense is possible of the therapeutic interpretation of Wittgenstein that Day has often been keen to criticise.” The voice is probably Twilight’s. For reports on Days’ criticism of the therapeutic reading of Wittgenstein see the contributions by Wallgren mentioned in the bibliography.

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question that can be judged only by people who share life-journeys. And for this reason queer sceptical philosophy can only play a role in communication between people who belong to the same community. This is the core of the Socratic criticism of the written word. The suggestion that queer sceptical philosophy perhaps cannot unfold in other than oral dialogue between people who know each other may seem quite upsetting for us who live at a distance from Socrates of two and half millennia and in a time when literary remains and communication have become salient in our understanding of time, community and philosophy. To qualify Socrates’ idea and to understand it we might discuss it further. One important question is what kind of relation there is between the principle of sincerity and community. We may wish to emphasize that we partake in many communities and kinds of community. Hence, even if the sincerity of myself and other can only be tested in the practices of shared lives it need not follow that the kind of sharing that is relevant for putting philosophical sincerity to a test is only a thing that is real in the actual presence of the other close to me. These are fine topics but we have often discussed them, so let me proceed. Socrates, second aspect. The question of sincerity, will and argument. I already hinted at this. What Socrates does in his philosophy is, if we take him at his word, the following: he discusses “goodness and all [. . .] other subjects” and by so doing he achieves “examining [of] both myself and others”. The examination has, then, the peculiar feature that discussion of the topic, be it goodness or any other topic, the examination of self and the examination of others are all aspects of one and same activity. I will explain this very briefly, disregarding for now the question of how self, world and others are intertwined in language and the sharing of words and contest about words. The discussion of goodness or other topics in Socratic dialogues is a discussion of logic in the following sense. It is a discussion of what words mean, of their place in logical space, of what follows from them. But what follows from the meaning of words follows for us. There is no other thing for “follows” to mean here. So the meanings we attribute to words, or, the logic we attribute to them, is something we take on. I cannot mean something with a word and not want it to mean that. I can of course shy away from the meaning of a word. But then I fail to mean anything at all with it. That is how the meaning of a word that I want and the logic of the word are identical. I cannot want to mean something with a word that I cannot mean with it. But the test of logic and will is always the same: that I am sincere in what I say; that it matters for me what I say. Only when this is the case¸ when there is something I take on freely in what I say,

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do I mean something and only then does the word have a logic.20 Freedom of will here, obviously, does not need to be consciously intentional in the sense that I have made explicit to myself what I mean before saying what I freely say. The link between will, freedom and logic is responsibility. The responsibility of saying things may occur to us after the fact and we may then realise that we can not wish to mean what we have said. We realise then that we have been speaking irresponsibly, unfreely, without a logic that is answerable to reason. The Socratic examination of what words mean is an examination that seeks to move us from such irresponsible speaking and life with such speaking to a speaking and living that is more responsible by being more lucid to us than before about what the logic of our words is. Socrates, third aspect. The question of the unity of self and others. The logic of a word is, as we just saw, what I seek to understand when I inquire into the responsibilities my understanding and, therefore, my use of the word carry for me. But the responsibility unfolds in community. So, when I place the meaning of a word in my life it is an aspect of how I place myself in my community. That is one aspect of how examination of goodness and any other word about which Socrates spoke was an examination of self and of community, of both at the same time. But there is also another aspect. Words are not invented by me nor am I free to choose what they mean. They carry meaning to me and I carry the meaning further to me, to my life, and to the world. But I do not carry it unwittingly. I consider what to make of the meaning. This consideration is a transmission from what others may have meant to what I wish to mean. Take philosophy: if Socrates thought that philosophy needs to be aporetic and polyvocal what he thought is an aspect of what it is possible for me to mean with the word philosophy. But if I am Plato 2,400 years ago, or if I am Day today and find that I cannot take philosophy to be aporetic in anything like the way Socrates took it to be aporetic I  will be taking the word in a new direction. This new direction defines me and is always

20 Again a second voice, probably Twilight’s, can be heard in the background, saying: “Day is unsophisticated. It would be consonant with what she says here to read the unnumbered remark at p. 18 in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations as putting forward, through a rhetorical question the (true) thesis that I cannot say ‘bububu’ and mean ‘If it does not rain I shall go for a walk.’ See also Philosophical Investigations, part 1, remark 665. – The matter is, however, more complex than this as has been made clear by, among others, Stanley Cavell in his early title essay of his Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays (Cavell 1976)”. Apparently, Day does not notice this voice at all.

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also a suggestion to others and a contribution to the logic that defines the possibilities we share. That meanings are open to contest is then part of what it is for them to have meaning at all.21 The unity of self and others in philosophy is an aspect of the fact that contest about what meanings of our words we can take responsibility for is part of what it is for us to take responsibility for what we say, or: to be sincere in what we say. Socrates, fourth aspect. The existential necessity of philosophy. Socrates is clear. A life that is not spent philosophising (“examining oneself and others”) “is not worth living”. This idea is not available to us who live in a culture shaped since two millennia or more by the notion of the inalienable dignity of each human. Sextus and Wittgenstein pronounce attenuated versions of Socrates’ idea of the absolute existential worth of philosophy. In their versions more than in Socrates’ radical, original position we can recognise a living resource for us in our moral search. To Sextus and Wittgenstein tranquillity or peace of mind is the highest existential goal and queer sceptical philosophy as they think of it promises to deliver peace of mind, if not easily and permanently, then at least to a greater extent than is achievable by other means.22 If we ask what the promise rests on the Socratic Apology still appears to me to develop the argument more incisively than any other source in our tradition. Let us say a few words about this. What Socrates, in his own aporetic way, claims, is that all other ways to wisdom than the one he offers are defunct on one point:  They, all others than Socrates himself, who in his time have a claim to wisdom “deliver their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean” (Apology 22c). The examination Socrates engages in gains its legitimacy and urgency from the epochal distinction that he introduces here, the distinction between speaking with understanding of what one means and speaking without understanding of it. The main task of the Apology is to explain this distinction and its importance. Nothing less is at stake than the most important thing of all, “the perfection of your soul” (Apology 29e; see also Apology 20b and passim). The issue around which the investigation turns is the dependence of soul-perfection on two things: self-understanding and the

2 1 In the Apology and also in Cratylus this theme is prominent. 22 The case of Sextus should be uncontroversial. Whether the description fits the later Wittgenstein is more debatable. In Wittgenstein’s 1929 Lecture on Ethics “feeling absolutely safe” is presented as one of two examples of his “experience par excellence” (Wittgenstein 1993, 41).

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meanings of words. Socrates may strike us as rush, even arrogant, in dismissing traditional forms of wisdom on the basis of the charge that those who claim to possess it fail to understand themselves. But his historical achievement is to have offered an unsurpassed account of the dependence of the former, self-understanding or knowledge of self, on the exploration of the latter and of the unending character of that exploration. To Socrates, the meanings of words, to repeat, can be investigated and the lessons of these investigations can be taken on freely as our guide in life. Such taking-on is always also an offering to the community (or communities) we live out of and with. These offerings are always open to criticism and also risky, in the sense that what will happen to us and others in their wake is always unknown. Twilight: Bravo Day. I love it when you get carried away like that. You know that I will reproach you afterwards, but as for now, please go on. Day: Yes, of course. Don’t you worry. This is all plain sailing. And later we can talk. But our next steps will be less obvious, so please stay attentive. I turn now to Sextus.

Section Two: Elements from Sextus Day: In the work of Sextus we find three contributions that we can use to further enrich the characterisation of queer scepticism. The first aspect is that Sextus defines for us the place of queer scepticism in the field of philosophy in a way that answers to the situation in philosophy even today. Sextus is clearer than any other philosopher in our entire tradition on what may be the most basic and astonishing fact about queer scepticism when seen from the perspective of a culture marked by two things: by the search for progress and by the huge role of science in the cultural discourse of reason and knowledge. Let me refer you first again to the fact that Sextus begins his discussion with the statement about there being three kinds of philosophy, the Dogmatists, the Academics and the Sceptics. I also refer you to the ease of his pronouncement. This division of philosophy we can rest assured with as something uncontroversial, at least for the sceptic herself. It is a mark of the enormous distance in spirit between Sextus and our progressive, scientific age that this beginning that Sextus seems to be so comfortable with has been most difficult for modern philosophy to take in. In contemporary presentations of ancient scepticism it is commonplace to employ a perspective in which what Sextus identifies as Sceptics and Academics are not separated but grouped together and that what Sextus refers to as Dogmatic philosophy is seen as the opposite of

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both. For Sextus that must seems strange, as from his perspective the Dogmatists and Academics closely resemble each other while sceptical philosophy is equidistant to both. The distance between the approach of Sextus and the discursive regime that shapes the imagination of philosophers today is perhaps never clearer than when contemporary philosophers discuss the relation between Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonian scepticism. In these discussions it is still often said of Pyrrhonian scepticism (and of Wittgenstein’s philosophy) that it undermines trust in reason and philosophy.23 But that, clearly, is not how Sextus and Wittgenstein understood themselves. Their journeys, their search, may have an unending, aporetic character. But I think we must say that they, and Socrates, thought of their endeavour as an ever deepening engagement in reason, not as a betrayal or abandonment of reason. While there is agreement between Socrates, Sextus and Wittgenstein on this aspect of queer scepticism it is Sextus who is the clearest of them about this point and who feels most at home with it. Sextus, second aspect. The question of method. The idea of method has been a prominent topic in much recent research on Socrates and Wittgenstein.24 In their case it must remain controversial what their method is, if they have one (or many) and how important method is in their philosophical self-understanding. Again, Sextus is the clearest of the three on all these scores, or so it seems, as he goes through his legendary presentation of the ten, the five and the two modes in the first book of Outlines of Scepticism. The upshot of the presentation is well known. Systematic employment of the modes in a variety of cases is shown to induce a discursive process of learning through which we find that convincing arguments can always be found for opposing views about any topic we consider. In view of this experience we suspend judgement in all controversies and when we do so we find, to our surprise and delight, that peace of mind arrives. It should not escape our notice that it is only in Book II that we find the superior summary statement of the philosophical essence of the modes Sextus has presented in Book I. It is usually referred to as the dilemma of the criterion. This is the Bury translation of the key passage:

2 3 For instance Fogelin 1987. 24 For Socrates see Benson 2000, Brickhouse and Smith 1994, Vlastos 1991, 1994. For Wittgenstein see Baker 2004 and Conant 2002.

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Thomas Wallgren In order to decide the dispute which has arisen about the criterion [of truth], we must possess an accepted criterion by which we shall be able to judge the dispute; and in order to possess an accepted criterion, the dispute about the criterion must first be decided. And when the argument thus reduces itself to a form of circular reasoning the discovery of the criterion becomes impracticable, since we do not allow [those who claim to know something] to adopt a criterion by assumption, while if they offer to judge the criterion by a criterion we force them to a regress ad infinitum. And furthermore, since demonstration requires a demonstrated criterion, while the criterion requires an approved demonstration, they are forced into circular reasoning. (Sextus 1933, 164–165; PH, II, iv, 20, cf. I, xiv, 1–7)

There has in the history of philosophy never been a consensus about the possibility or about the impossibility of overcoming the dilemma of the criterion. The dilemma, as summarised here, both elegantly and definitely by Sextus, is therefore living proof of the rational advantage of queer scepticism as compared with Dogmatic or Academic philosophy.25 Nevertheless, what the modes of argument do and what the dilemma of the criterion achieves is, at best, almost a mechanical procedure that gives us reason to abandon the search of the Dogmatic or the Academic philosopher. The modes do not suffice to provide a method that tells us what we do when we “continue to search”. In this latter “constructive” respect Socrates and Wittgenstein may have more to offer then Sextus. We will not discuss their contributions here. We are satisfied to observe the following. Sextus’s dilemma of the criterion and the very fact that there is no agreement about how (or whether) dogmatists or academics can provide satisfactory responses to it is the foremost, single ground for our claim, in the beginning of our discussion, that queer sceptical philosophy is the pinnacle of philosophy if we measure it by its perseverance in its commitment to reason. To be precise, our claim is the following: the sceptical philosopher who understands herself as one who continues to search has the advantage over dogmatic and academic philosophers that the fact that her search has not terminated in any stable results, whether of a positive/constructive or a negative/destructive kind, is no sign at all of inconsistency, paradox or lack of achievement in her claim to reason.

25 For a review and comprehensive discussion of the tendency in modern philosophy after Hegel to claim happiness with deflationary epistemic standards in philosophy, as in many forms of “postmodernism” and “ironism” (Rorty, for example) but also in many varieties of pragmatism and neo-pragmatism as well as in the “quasi-transcendental” arguments offered by Habermas and for arguments to the effect that this tendency rests on false consciousness, see Wallgren 2006, ­chapters 4 to 7.

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Sextus, third aspect. The question of peace of mind. From the text of Sextus one may easily get the impression that peace of mind is the final result of sceptical philosophy and also its highest goal. In commentaries one often gets the impression that Sextus suggested that the peace of mind that sceptical philosophy can provide is a provision that comes after philosophy as a bonus and that it is external to the search itself. That may well be a false idea. To any reader of the works of Sextus it must be a familiar impression that the search itself, the many elaborate considerations of the pros and cons of various arguments, is important to him. But in what sense are we to understand their import? On one interpretation Sextus’s considerations are means to ends: Sextus himself has needed the work he presents in order for him to achieve, after the work, as the fruit of his labour, peace of mind. On another interpretation, however, Sextus has learnt, and wants to elucidate to us, that what he suggests awaits us at the end of the work, peace of mind, is always actually found on the way: It is when I struggle to consider the different arguments that I am at peace with myself. The struggle of the mind is where the peace of mind is. I think the latter interpretation is at least as well supported by the text of Sextus as the former. I also think it is more congenial than the former to the self-understanding that the three champions of queer scepticism that we here consider have in common. Consider Wittgenstein’s transition from his middle-period to his later philosophy. In what I like to call the middle-period Wittgenstein claimed to have found a way of setting his troubled mind to rest. At that time he thought of philosophical problems as dissoluble piecemeal. But later that kind of idea, or moral vision, plays no role. Important for us is this: When Wittgenstein gave up the idea that (at least some) philosophical problems can be solved or dissolve he did not become less optimistic about the value of philosophy than he was in the early 1930s. On the contrary, the more definitely he embraced queer, aporetic, searching scepticism, the more satisfied he became with philosophy as the heart of a happy, fulfilling life.26

26 What we consider as the most apposite description of Wittgenstein’s “periods” or his philosophical “development” will of course depend on our interests. For a description that fits Day’s narrative rather well, see Wallgren 2013. Consider also this: the image in the so-called Philosophy chapter of the Big Typescript of philosophical problems as “finite horizontal stripes” and not “infinite vertical stripes” occurs close to the remark where Wittgenstein says the his “real discovery is the one that makes me capable of stopping doing philosophy when I want to” (Wittgenstein 1993, 195). Later Wittgenstein told one of his friends that he once had claimed that he could stop doing philosophy but that this

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Consider Socrates, too. He is very clear. Not only did Socrates think that a life in which queer scepticism is absent is not worth living. He also argued that if there is any form of life available to humans that is better than “annihilation” then it may come to us, even perhaps with “unimaginable happiness”, but only if we “talk and mix and argue” with people, preferably with the great people we know from our legends (Apology 40e–41c).

Section Three: Elements from Wittgenstein Day (her voice is getting monotonous, tired): Elements from Wittgenstein, first aspect: Here is the modernist, ultra-individualist correction from Wittgenstein to the queer scepticism of Sextus and Socrates. (Day suddenly stops and looks around. It is as if she had just woken up and were surprised to see that others are still present). Twilight (quietly to herself): It is my fault that Day uses these terms “modernist”, “ultra-individualist” when she speaks of Wittgenstein. To people who come from literature, or to others, who look at the style of the Tractatus and the house Wittgenstein designed for the Kundmangasse in the context of Wittgenstein’s relation to Adolf Loos and Karl Kraus, and in the context of the struggle of Viennese modernism to liberate architecture and all other forms of cultural expression from the excesses of the ornamental of the Habsburg empire it will perhaps be natural to speak of Wittgenstein as a modernist. Maybe this kind of perspective will seem ­natural to many nonphilosophers. To them the style of expression and the form of ­presentation employed in the Philosophical Investigations, and earlier  in the Tractatus as well, will perhaps be immediately recognised as modernist in  the  everyday aesthetic sense: Wittgenstein aspires to transgress old norms so that the requirements of the present, including authenticity and the obligation of the present to reach for the eternal, can be met (cf. Perloff 1996, 2013). – But Day forgets how many years of conversation it took for us to place the word ultra-individualism in close range of our discussion of Wittgenstein and how strange it will seem to many to call Wittgenstein an individualist, or an ultra-anything. But that is how Day is, always so good at losing touch with the people around her.

is not true. In the Preface to the Philosophical Investigations there is no suggestion that the investigations may come to an end, nor is there anything in the text that renders support to the idea that arriving at an endpoint of the investigations would be an issue in the work.

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Day (has paused, perhaps she is listening to Twilight? She decides to continue, more relaxed now, it seems, and no longer in the slightly shrill voice that we have heard at some points before): Wittgenstein predicts that most people will not take much interest in how he works and that they will not understand him. This feature of his ­self-understanding is one he shares with Socrates and Sextus. But in his reflections on the moral valence of this prediction Wittgenstein is worlds apart from the two ancient sceptics. One aspect is that Wittgenstein does not say that what he offers is of value to all people. The moral distance between Socrates and Wittgenstein on this point is enormous. This distance can be accounted for quite simply.27 I mentioned earlier that it is part of Socrates’ idea of why the kind of philosophy he develops and that he thinks is necessary for the worth of the life of any human being that Socrates assumes that knowledge of self is a moral value. It is hard not to see Wittgenstein as sharing this aspiration, so typical of enlightenment idealists. What then is the source of his distance to Socrates? A strong case can be made for attributing to Socrates the idea that the search for self-knowledge and self-perfection are one and the same. I  think Wittgenstein is much more Augustinian on this point than Socrates is. At best, it is an open question for him whether he can become a better person through the philosophical effort that he invests so much of his energy in. Wittgenstein needs philosophy to overcome the specific kind of confusion that he is immersed in when his concepts are not clear to him. But from his diaries, especially from the notes published in the collection Denkbewegungen (Wittgenstein 1997), we learn that the moral problems that troubled him need not have the form of conceptual confusion. When Wittgenstein writes:  “Beschmutze alles mit meiner Eitelkeit” (“I dirty everything with my vanity” – transl. by editor – Wittgenstein 1997, 47) he does not have a problem with concepts. It is his personal weaknesses, we might say that it is his character (but, then, we do not want to imply any Aristotelian virtue ethical connotations!) that stands between him and the life he wishes to live. Wittgenstein shows no tendency to reduce characterformation, weakness of the will and such else to philosophy. The intellectualism that Nietzsche so eloquently scorns in Socrates, is not shared by Wittgenstein (cf. Nietzsche 1962, 951–956). But there is another aspect of the distance between Socrates and Wittgenstein that is of even greater interest to us: I said that Wittgenstein predicted that most

27 On moral distance vs moral difference, see Diamond 1997.

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people will not take much interest in how he works and that they will not understand him. We know that Socrates said similar things. But the differences and distances in moral vision that inform their reflections about the prediction they share cannot be wholly captured by discussion of the intellectualism of Socrates versus the Augustinian idea of the susceptibility to evil of the enlightened person. The other aspect is that there is no place in Wittgenstein’s world-view for the notion that all people can be helped to betterment with the same cure philosophical cure, or even by any philosophical treatment. In fact Wittgenstein did not share even to the smallest degree Socrates’ optimistic conviction that philosophical examination of the meaning of our words can play a positive, educative role in the lives of all people.28 (This is not a criticism of the idea, professed by Stanley Cavell and others, that Wittgensteinian philosophy can be interestingly characterised as “education of grownups” – see Saito and Standish 2012). Perhaps even more dramatic is another point of distance between Socrates and Wittgenstein. Socrates thought of himself as a gadfly and he had no problem with himself for this reason (Apology 30e). With Wittgenstein things are not like that. He is well aware that he has a remarkable gift for philosophy and that he is unusual in particular in his sensitivity to the root of problems that most people are not even aware that they have. (I will not argue for this here. Wittgenstein once wrote: “Where others continue I remain standing”. For many telling examples of how Wittgenstein excels in placing before us problems that other thinkers have passed over without a slightest sense where their problems begin I  refer you to the notes that have been published as his “Remarks on Frazer”, and to his lectures on the philosophy of mathematics – Wittgenstein 1976, 1993). Just like Socrates, in conversation with friends Wittgenstein often acted like a gadfly, responding intensely, sometimes with anger and even contempt at people who failed to see the problems with concepts that he saw or were le d astray when they failed to grasp connections between them that he pointed out.29

28 At least he was not an optimist about the positive value of academic philosophising. But did he think that philosophy in a more basic sense – self-reflection or thinking, also about concepts – is necessary for improvement of self and others and for the good life? We think there was a Tolstoyan strand in his moral views that persisted to late in his life. According to it, menial work or work dedicated to service of others, even if not accompanied by much effort that we would find natural to characterise with words such as self-reflection and discussion, may provide for many people the best route to a good life. 29 A well-known example is Wittgenstein’s fall out with his friend Norman Malcolm. See the account in Malcolm 1958.

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These reactions notwithstanding Wittgenstein often also shows another, reflective and even meditative attitude to the philosophical and moral failures of others. Let us assume that we have been in the right above when we have characterised philosophical problems about what words mean as moral questions about how to place words in our lives and also when we have said that this characterisation of philosophy is in agreement with Wittgenstein’s understanding of philosophy. On this description all philosophical problems are always also moral problems. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein sometimes makes it clear that he does not think a philosophical awakening to recognise a problem as a problem is always called for. For Wittgenstein it is not clear that there is a place, a helpful place, in our lives even when (or just because) we suffer from conceptual confusion. The most moving testimony to this utterly a-Socratic aspect of Wittgenstein’s views that is known to me is the following. Wittgenstein first writes: The fact that life is problematic means that your life does not fit life’s shape. So you must change your life, & once it fits the shape, what is problematic will disappear. But don’t we have the feeling that someone who doesn’t see a problem there is blind to something important, indeed to what is most important of all? Wouldn’t I like to say he is living aimlessly – just blindly like a mole as it were; & if he could only see, he would see the problem? (CV 31)

Drawing on my earlier remarks on the intrinsic relation between moral and philosophical problems I suggest that we read the passage I have just quoted not only as a reflection on problems of life separable from philosophy but also as a reflection on those problems of life that are also problems of philosophy (because they pertain to the difficulty of getting clear about words and their meanings). With this in mind consider how different the immediate continuation of the remark is as compared with anything we can imagine that Socrates could have written. This is how Wittgenstein moves on: “Or shouldn’t I say: someone who lives rightly does not experience the problem as sorrow, hence not after all as a problem, but rather as joy, that is so to speak as a bright halo round his life; not a murky background” (CV 31). Wittgenstein indicates here, among other things, the following. First, and more obviously, that he may be fair to himself by not being bothered and saddened if others are blind, like moles, to the problems that he finds important. Why, he asks himself, would he not see the failure of others who respond with indifference to his problems, and hence to him, the philosophical gadfly, as a bright halo round his life? Second, I take Wittgenstein to indicate, quite impossibly from the Socratic point of view, that someone who lives rightly need not see as a problem a philosophical problem that Wittgenstein sees as a problem. Twilight (interrupts): Day is rather speculative. But if he is right about Wittgenstein it shows Wittgenstein to be absurd and Socrates much more clear-sighted. Take any real

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example from philosophy. When Russell and Frege were satisfied to think that their idea that there should be some way of giving arithmetic a sound (logical) foundation and found joy (Russell) and a sense of purpose in their lives (Frege and Russell) when they looked at things this way even after Wittgenstein’s criticism, surely they were blind like moles and we have every reason to blame them for their blindness. To say that they may have lived rightly when they persisted in their blindness, even after the Tractatus ought to have made their blindness evident, is to give in to sheer obscurantism. (It does not matter here whether the mistake pertains to Day only or also to Wittgenstein.) Or think of Wittgenstein’s debate with Turing (in Wittgenstein 1976; see also Monk 1990, 401–430). Would you really say that it is no problem to him, Wittgenstein, or to us, that he, Turing, seems not to see the problems about mathematics that Wittgenstein sees and invites him and other students to see? Day: But Twilight, your examples only serve to underscore how right I  am. Wittgenstein always respected Frege immensely, and Frege’s failure to wake up to the problems proposed by Wittgenstein did not change that opinion. Wittgenstein’s harsh criticism of Russell also is hardly due to Russell’s philosophical blindness (even if I admit that it may have played a role). And think of Wittgenstein’s reaction to Turing. When Turing stops attending the lectures Wittgenstein misses him for the sake of the lectures, but there is nothing to suggest that he thinks Turing is to blame for turning his attention to other problems than the ones Wittgenstein wanted to alert him to and discuss with him. As you will recall from our earlier conversations, this aspect of Wittgenstein’s attitudes is an aspect of what I sometimes refer to as his ultra-individualism. The problems in philosophy – the problems about what your words mean – that your moral uprightness requires you to address, will be relative to who you are. Twilight: Well, to me that sounds a lot like the kind of tired moral relativism that dogmatists and academics so often fall prey to. I know you Day. I know that you do not want to imply that! But I warn you: It will not be easy for you to stick to the ultraindividualistic aspect of your reading of Wittgenstein and to convince anyone that your Wittgenstein is not just another postmodern relativist or a sophist in disguise. Day (upset, but enthusiastic, not angry): I know, I know! This is just the point where things get interesting. We would need to work on examples. A fine one could be the failed debate between P.M.S. Hacker and Daniel Dennett about the philosophy of mind and what we may learn from Wittgenstein about what we may learn about the brain, the mind and the soul from neuroscientific study (see Bennett, Dennett, Hacker, and Searle 2007).

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But let me say only this: my ultra-individualism is always open to reconsideration from the viewpoint of the shared, intersubjective nature of language […] Editor’s note:  The transcription reports that the tape becomes interrupted at this point. Whether this is due to an intervention by Night or not is probably not decidable. *** Day (neutral voice, as in a weather report): Elements from Wittgenstein, second aspect: My last point is a minor one. We agree with the standard Bakhtinian reading of the Philosophical Investigations. There is, as we have said, no voice in the work that speaks for the author. This is a marked difference as compared with Socratic dialogues where the voice of Socrates himself is always clearly identified (the case of Sextus is at least on the face of it more similar to that of Socrates than to that of Wittgenstein). But what does it mean to say that the Philosophical Investigations is a polyvocal, heteroglossic work, perhaps in a Bakhtinian sense? And what can this feature add to our portrait of queer scepticism? I want to close this first step in our inquiry of queer scepticism with some prelims on this topic. First some technical points. As I  have noted so many times before, there is no guide in the Philosophical Investigations itself to differentiate between voices in terms of authority. (I speak of voices. We could also speak of perspectives, or attitude, or we could use or introduce a more technical vocabulary relying for instance on discussion in literary theory about implied readers and so on.) There is also, as I said earlier, no veracity index that tells us where truth is spoken or where truth is suggested by implication, through a question or otherwise. But what should we make out of this descriptive fact? I  think we are well advised to take this formal feature of the text at face value. I mean “face value” in the following sense: we should not see it as a riddle that the text offers no guide to how to sift truths from falsehoods in the Philosophical Investigations. The text that Wittgenstein has given us does not care the least about the truths or falsehoods in what it says. It cares about us. This is why Wittgenstein wrote in the Preface: “I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own (PI 4e)”. Twilight: (Quietly to herself.) Well, well. The Philosophical Investigations engages us. Day wants to speak of care. But when is the care a disturbance? When a disruption? When a displacement? And again Day forgets the other side of the coin:  how the Philosophical Investigations is Wittgenstein’s work on himself (see CV 24).

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Day: Fine Twilight, but why are you so impatient today? That does not suit you at all. Remember, we are just setting the stage for our real discussion. I do not suggest that Wittgenstein’s form of presentation is the only form that does justice to the endeavour of queer scepticism. But I think we can see that the absence of any voice that seems to stand closer to truth than others can serve well this aspect of it: that queer scepticism is not about finding out how things are (not even how things are with words) but about searching and about inviting people to participate in the search. This is how philosophy always moves between the discovery of one’s loneliness and the creation of community. Think of queer scepticism and of the dynamics over time in the relation between self and community in the lives of Socrates and Wittgenstein. Surely Socrates could not as a young man have had the faintest idea that his sense and his way of being different would give him a place in his community with the very special qualities of hatred and love that it later acquired. That will be enough for now. I turn to the summary.

Summary We have now completed our sketch of queer scepticism. We have derived it from our interpretation of some aspects of what we know about Socrates, Sextus Empiricus and the later Wittgenstein. We have said that three characteristics are the core of scepticism. We have used the words aporetic, priceless and polyvocal as a shorthand for them. We have also referred to and reflected upon four aspects of Socrates, three aspects of Sextus and two aspects of Wittgenstein. With these references and reflections we have tried to elucidate some problems as well as some attractive features of queer scepticism as a conception of philosophy. If there is one point I suspect Twilight and I can agree on easily it is that what we have produced is only a sketch, not a portrait. We stand at the beginning of a long journey. That this journey may be the most promising journey on offer in the Western tradition of philosophy and that it has been set aside and ignored for far too long is our scandalous claim. Twilight’s comments on this and all other things we have said we will be happy listen to, but not today. Twilight: So be it. Before we take the next steps we would, however, need to step back. Day has suggested that queer scepticism carries a salient promise for all who are radically committed to reason. That suggestion has been left hanging in thin air. Even less has been said to flesh out the positive moral promise of queer scepticism. Once truth and progress can no longer give philosophy its legitimacy, how

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is philosophical work liberating? Take Sextus’s notion that queer scepticism is almost a mechanical practice, an automaton, that comes with a guarantee that it will terminate in aporia and then, by grace, in peace of mind. Is it a joke? A riddle? What is it? Some of the difficult concepts that deserve our study in this connection are “home for the self ” and “hope (for society)”. But we must have patience. And anyway now Day is already off to the sauna. With best regards from the editorial team, the technical team and from the typist.

Bibliography Baker, Gordon P. (2004). Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects, edited and introduced by K. Morris, Oxford, Blackwell. Bennett, Maxwell, Dennett, Daniel, Hacker, Peter and Searle, John (2007). Neuroscience & Philosophy. Brain, Mind, & Language, introduction and conclusion by D. Robinson, New York, Columbia University Press. Benson, Hugh H. (2000). Socratic Wisdom: The Model of Knowledge in Plato’s Early Dialogues, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press. Bett, Richard (2000). Pyrrho, His Antecedents and His Legacy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith (1994). Plato’s Socrates, New York/ Oxford, Oxford University Press. Borutti, Silvana and de Luise, Fulvia (2013). “Writing and Communicating Philosophy: Consonances between Plato and Wittgenstein”, in Luigi Perissinotto and Ramón Cámara, Begoña (eds.) Wittgenstein and Plato: Connections, Comparisons, Contrasts, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Cavell, Stanley (1976). Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of Essays, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Conant, James (2002). “The Method of the Tractatus”, in Erich H. Reck (ed.), From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytical Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Diamond, Cora (1991). “Throwing Away the Ladder: How to Read the Tractatus”, in Cora Diamond (ed.), The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. Cambridge, MA, MIT Press. Diamond, Cora (1997). “Moral Differences and Distances: Some Questions”, in Alanen, Lilli, Heinämaa, Sara and Wallgren, Thomas (eds.), Commonality and Particularity in Ethics, Basingstoke/London, MacMillan. Fogelin, Robert J. (1987). Wittgenstein, 2nd edition. London/New York, Routledge.

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Gaiser, Konrad (1963). Platons ungeschribene Lehre, Stuttgart, E. Klett. Gandhi, Mohandas K. (Mahatma) (1936). Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, Ahmedabad, Navaijvan Press [originally published in South Africa, in Gujarati language in the Indian Opinion in 1908/1909]. Heyes, Cressida, J. (2003). The Grammar of Politics: Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy, Ithaca/London, Cornell University Press. Janik, Allan (1992). “Montaigne: dialog som inre teater”, Dialoger 21, 22–33. Lammenranta, Markus (2008). “The Pyrrhonian Problematic”, in Greco, John (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism, Oxford, Oxford University Press. La Sala, Rosario (2003). Die Züge des Skeptikers: Der dialektische Charakter von Sextus Empiricus’ Werk, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Monk, Ray (1990). Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, London, Jonathan Cape. Naess, Arne (1968). Scepticism, Oslo, Universitetsforlaget. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1962). Werke in Drei Bänden, Zweiter Band, München, Carl Hanser Verlag. Malcolm, Norman (1958). Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, London/New York: Oxford University Press. Perloff, Marjorie (1996). Wittgenstein’s Ladder: Poetic Language and the Strangeness of the Ordinary, Chicago, Chicago University Press. Perloff, Marjorie (2013). “Towards Conceptualism: The Aesthetic of KRINGELBUCH # 52”, in Vossenkuhl, Wilhelm and Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (eds.), Kulturen und Werte. Wittgensteins KRINGEL-BUCH als Initialtext, Berlin, de Gruyter Verlag. Pichler, Alois (2004). Wittgenstein Philosophische Untersuchungen: Vom Buch Zum Album. Amsterdam/New York, Rodopi. Plato (1961). The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press. Popkin, Richard H. (1960). The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, Assen, Van Gorgum & Comp. Saito, Naoko and Standish Paul (eds.). (2012). Stanley Cavell and the Education of Grownups, New York, Fordham University Press. Sextus Empiricus (1933). Outlines of Pyrrhonism. In Sextus Empiricus, Works, vol. 1, tr. R. G. Bury, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Sextus Empiricus (1996). The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism, tr. B. Mates, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Sextus Empiricus (2002). Outlines of Scepticism, edited by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press [1994].

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Stern, David (2004). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Vlastos, Gregory (1991). Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Vlastos, Gregory (1994). Socratic Studies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Vogt, Katja (2004). “Ancient Skepicism” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet Resource, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ skepticismancient/#PyrSke [accessed 1 March 2014]. Wallgren, Thomas (2006). Transformative Philosophy; Socrates, Wittgenstein, and the Democratic Spirit of Philosophy, Lanham, MD, Lexington. Wallgren, Thomas (2007). “Overcoming Overcoming: Wittgenstein, Metaphysics, and Progress”, in Pihlström, Sami (ed.), Wittgenstein and the Method of Philosophy, Helsinki, Acta Philosophica Fennica, Helsinki, 97–130. Wallgren, Thomas (2009). “No Nonsense Wittgenstein”, in Munz, Volker, Puhl, Klays and Wang, Joseph (eds.), Language and World. Part One: Essays on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, Heusenstamm, Ontos Verlag. Wallgren, Thomas (2012). “Philosophy Without End: Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonian Scepticism”, in Somavilla, Ilse and Thompson, James (eds.), Wittgenstein und die Antike/Wittgenstein and Ancient Thought, Berlin, Parerga. Wallgren, Thomas (2013a). “The Genius, the Businessman, the Sceptic: Three Phases in Wittgenstein’s Views on Publishing and on Philosophy”, in Vossenkuhl, Wilhelm and Rothhaupt, Josef G. F. (eds.), Kulturen und Werte. Wittgensteins KRINGEL-BUCH als Initialtext, Berlin, de Gruyter Verlag. Wallgren, Thomas (2013b). “Radical Enlightenment Optimism: Socrates and Wittgenstein”, in Luigi Perissinotto & Begoña Ramón Cámara (eds.), Wittgenstein and Plato: Connections, Comparisons, Contrasts, New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Westphal, Kenneth R. (2013). “Rational Justification and Mutual Recognition in Substantive Domains”, Dialogue 52, 1–40. Canadian Philosophical Association /Association Canadienne de Philosophie. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1976). Philosophical Investigations, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as PI). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1976a). Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics (From the Notes of R. G. Bosanquet, Norman Malcolm, Rush Rhees, and Yorick Smythies), edited by Cora Diamond, Hassocks/Sussex, The Harvester Press, Ltd (abbreviated as LFM). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993). “A Lecture on Ethics”, in Wittgenstein, Ludwig (ed.), Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, edited by James C. Klagge and

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Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company (abbreviated as PO). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993a). “Remarks on Frazer”, in Wittgenstein, Ludwig (ed.), Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, edited by James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company (abbreviated as PO). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993b). “Philosophy”, in Wittgenstein, Ludwig (ed.), Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, edited by James C. Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Indianapolis/Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company (abbreviated as PO). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1998). Culture and Value: A Selection from the Posthumous Remains, edited by Georg Henrik von Wright in collaboration with Heikki Nyman, revised edition of the text by Alois Pichler, tr. Peter Winch, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers (abbreviated as CV). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1997). Denkbewegungen. Tagebücher 1930–1932, 1936–1937 (MS 183), edited by Ilse Somavila, Innsbruck, Haymann-Verlag. von Wright, Georg Henrik (1982). Wittgenstein, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. von Wright, Georg Henrik (1993). Myten om Framsteget: Tankar 1987–1992 med en intellektuell självbiografi, Falun.

Paulo Tunhas

Scepticism, Systems and Aspectual Dialectic What follows is an overview of an ongoing study on the relation between scepticism and philosophical systems, a study in which Wittgenstein’s thought occupies a paramount place. Due to the very schematic nature of the text, it has been divided into paragraphs. It is thus important to underline that it does not intend to propose “theses”. It is but a fall-back solution, the simplest medium  – and, I hope the most intelligible – to make known how some problems interrelate. The order will be as follows: 1) nature of the philosophical systems; 2) scepticism as opposed to philosophical systematicity; 3) varieties of scepticism; 4) distinction between global scepticism and local scepticism; 5) regional scepticisms. I shall end, 6), resuming the opposition between scepticism and philosophical systematicity. All these themes  – with the clear exception of 3), which deals with the various forms of scepticism – will be approached in a brief and schematic manner, almost solely programmatic. The central argument consists in the thesis according to which scepticism of the “Cartesian”1 type can only be understood within a system which requires, by its very nature, a solution having the data of that very system as the starting point. Contrariwise, the Pyrrhonian type of scepticism – and I shall advocate that Wittgenstein’s scepticism belongs to this type – corresponds to an effective alternative to philosophical systematicity, and that, to a great extent, has its roots in the praxis of an aspectual dialectic, in a continuous movement of for and against, which obeys a distinct logic of either that of the systems or that to which the “Cartesian” type of scepticism tends to bend. (The Humean scepticism would possess, according to this scheme, a mixed nature).

1. The Nature of the Philosophical System 1.1 Reality of the Systems The philosophical systems are constituted as organic wholes aiming to fill in the space of the thinkable (the Kantian system most likely remains the major

1 I write “Cartesian” between quotes throughout the text because, as it is known, there is no scepticism in Descartes: there are indeed forms of scepticism which indirectly use the arguments of the First Meditation in order to lead them to a realm which is not, by definition, ‘Cartesian’.

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example of such undertaking, but the ambition dates as far back as, at least, the Stoics). Unlike what happens in the field of sciences, those wholes do not acquire their legitimacy from a particular explanatory efficacy when confronted with reality. The legitimacy criterion of philosophical systems (of Plato, of Leibniz and of Berkeley) resides rather, as recalled by Martial Guéroult, in the very form of its reality, which in the great systems, indirectly supplies an accrued intelligibility of the outer world that sciences are directly confronted with. Thus, in relation to philosophical systems one should not speak of truth but rather of reality.

1.2 Fictionality The philosophical architectonic has a partly fictional dimension, in the sense that the creation of a perfect order, that of the system, strongly contrasts with the fragmented character of the human experience. Such an order is ­essential so that one can experience the system’s feeling of reality. Certainly, this p ­ hilosophical ­fictionality, the analysis of which would be up to some sort of poetics of ­philosophy, has strong constraints and is very diverse from the ­novelistic ­fiction or from delirious constructions such as those of Swedenborg or of president Schreber. However, despite that fact, it is nevertheless fiction, and that fi ­ ctional trace should always be taken into account in the analysis of philosophical systems.

2.  Scepticism Versus Philosophical Systematicity 2.1 The Denial of the Whole and of the Limits Due to its very nature, scepticism opposes itself to philosophical systematicity. It opposes itself, in the first place, to the very idea of an independent reality of the external reality which would aim at indirectly obtaining from the latter an increase of intelligibility. And it opposes itself, in the second place, to the fictionality that the internal organization of that reality carries along. Scepticism demobilizes what could be called the energy of the belief necessary to the provocation of a feeling of reality in the system. It so does, in the first place, by refusing the idea of the whole and – which is certainly not the same thing – that of the limits of knowledge self-imposed by reason. That same refusal is to be found in Pyrrhonian scepticism, in Cartesian “scepticism” or even in Hume’s mitigated scepticism (which can – I shall come back to this issue – be taken as a re-visitation of the New Academy scepticism). That refusal of the whole does not consist only in the refusal of the systematic whole, but it is also focused on what could be called “partial wholes” (the Self and the World).

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2.2 Rejection of the Truth Criterion Much as philosophical systems cannot be said to be true or false (they only ­possess a broader or narrower reality), they obviously keep dealing with the truth while proposing, implicitly or not, criteria for their determination. And that is, as it is known, one of the main objects of the sceptical critique. That is clearly manifest in Pyrrhonism. And even the New Academia, which in a ­compromise with stoicism accepted, especially since Philon, the existence of truth, refused to admit the next stage: the possibility of such certainty. Nowadays, such position has partially been recaptured by Popper.

2.3 Scepticism and Divisions of Philosophy The sceptic refusal of the systematic architectonic implies, at least tendentially, the unacceptability of the division of philosophy into separate provinces which articulate together. It is true that Antioch seems to have accepted it, but his p ­ osition cannot by any means be taken as an emblematic example of scepticism. Sextus’s criticism of practitioners from various philosophical provinces must ­certainly not be interpreted as an admission of the legitimacy of the ­philosophical project’s implicit architectonic.

2.4 Scepticism and Contingency Scepticism is a thought of contingency, and that is so not only in the sense, pointed out by Hegel, in which the sceptic dialectic would be exerted in a necessarily ­contingent manner. Jules Vuillemin, while trying to establish a classification of the philosophic systems having the modal notions of necessity and contingency as the starting point, envisages the philosophy of Carneades – that “ancient Hume”, as he refers to him – as a contingency system (the designation is, to put it in plain language, problematic). The refusal of a necessity thought seems to be in accordance with the central core of scepticism.

2.5 Scepticism and the Thought of the Singular Likewise, the idea of an absolute determination of the singular, which the various philosophical systems diversely pursue, is something entirely rejected by scepticism on the grounds of its unattainability. Francisco Sanches is a remarkable example of this tendency.

2.6 Stability and Instability When commenting on Pyrrhonian scepticism, Hegel noted that “everything is unstable”, and Montaigne’s philosophy does illustrate that doctrine in the most

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thorough fashion. It is precisely that instability which the philosophical systems aim to fully grasp. The medieval developments of the sceptical critique by Augustine (those due to Henry of Ghent’s, for example, or to Duns Scotus) perfectly evidence that preoccupation; and that is obviously an imprint of the whole philosophical systematicity.

2.7 Necessity of Scepticism for the Systems, Necessity of the Systems for Scepticism Scepticism is, undoubtedly, necessary to philosophy and, indeed, absolutely necessary to the systematic constructions. Among other philosophers, Kant and Hegel highlighted that very necessity. It is true that, in certain aspects, scepticism is parasitic of the systems, it needs the latter to constitute itself (e.g. the stoic system), but at the same time, the sceptic engine is, as above said, necessary to the systems. If parasitism there is, it is reciprocal. If necessity there is, it is reciprocal as well.

2.8 Scepticism and Systematic Construction The possibility of finding sceptic elements within a philosophical system can even lead, through an operation on the latter, to the construction of a new system. Two examples can be presented: the suspicion (partially justified) of sceptical elements in Locke’s philosophy (indeterminability of the primary ­qualities) led Berkeley to the construction of his own system; and the scandal of the “­essential ignorance” (unknowability) of the Kantian thing-in-itself, p ­ rovoked the ­anti-sceptic reaction of the German idealism, starting with Fichte.

2.9 Belief and Knowledge Up to this point, I have confined myself to outline some common traces to all forms of scepticism detectable in their relations with the philosophical systems. It is, however, convenient to underline a general distinction between two sceptical positions; a distinction that prepares the differentiation between the varieties of scepticism which I shall soon try to establish. In fact, the sceptic engine can fall upon belief or upon knowledge. In the former case – that of “Cartesian” scepticism – it is belief itself that is put in question: the reasons to believe are totally undermined. In the latter case – that of Pyrrhonism and New Academy, but also that of Montaigne and, in a very diverse manner, that of Popper – it is only the movement from belief to the affirmation of knowledge which is forbidden. In the former case, scepticism manifests itself in the epistemic plan and works as an obstacle to the cognitive activity. In the latter case, it only functions at the epistemological level, and in its own way stimulates the cognitive activity.

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2.10 Belief and Justification Whoever speaks of knowledge speaks of justification. The Pyrrhonian scepticism as well as that of the New Academy is a scepticism related to the justification practices, and it is a global scepticism rather than a local one – we think that the position held by Myles Burnyeat, unlike those held by Michael Frede and Robert Fogelin, is the correct one in what concerns those very practices. Pyrrhonism, in particular, abstains from adding judgements, that is, reality positions to our beliefs and, a fortiori, from finding rational justifications, or others, to those beliefs. But beliefs, as much as they are beliefs, remain untouchable and, even in what concerns perceptions, evident. On the contrary, the “Cartesian” scepticism is certainly not a scepticism of justification. As I have said, it radically focuses its attention on the beliefs themselves. Finally, scepticism of the Humean kind is no doubt closer to scepticism of the Pyrrhonian type than to that of the “Cartesian” type. Hume, in fact, does not question beliefs themselves; he only thrives ­desperately to obtain a rational justification for them. But, in so far as he, unlike the Pyrrhonists, asserts the irrationally of belief – Pyrrhonism does not declare that our beliefs are irrational, it limits itself to classify them as unjustifiable – Hume partially holds an attitude close to that of the First Meditation, that is, he has an ideal of rationality and absolute certainty as a starting point, which is alien to Pyrrhonism. Furthermore, Hume raises, at least indirectly, a problem which is “Cartesian” rather than Pyrrhonian: that of the existence of an external world. Humean scepticism is thus placed against the broader context of a “Cartesian” type ideal of intelligibility. All this points in the direction that, at least, three varieties of scepticism exist: “Cartesian”, Pyrrhonian, and Humean.

3. Varieties of Scepticism 3.1. “Cartesian” Scepticism 3.1.1.  “Cartesian” Scepticism and Systematic Fictionality The issue about “Cartesian” scepticism (which precisely makes the inverted commas necessary) is the fact that it is, from the start, integrated in a systematic project and that, due to the very systematic reality and the fictional nature of the system, the legitimacy of dissociating it from the latter appears as doubtful. The First Meditation is part of an architectonic whole according to which it is expressly conceived.

3.1.2.  “Cartesian” Scepticism Context In the First Meditation, Descartes starts off by a radical doubt. In fact, it is but the sceptic doubt taken to its extremes, as can already be found in Montaigne and in

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classical scepticism. Classical scepticism, it is worth remembering, limits itself to exert the doubt and the suspension of judgement in what concerns the objectivity of what our perceptions refer to, not to the perceptions in themselves. In fact, classical scepticism, such as Sextus Empiricus formulates it, is, paradoxically, a philosophy of the evidence of perception by which one should let oneself be guided in life. The data of the senses are evident: but evident are not the objects to which the latter refer to. Dissimilarly, in Descartes, the doubt enters the domain of the very perception, which is itself conceived as a source of error and illusion. The historians of scepticism conveniently highlight the difference between these two traditions. The Cartesian tradition possesses a radicalism and artificiality that the former does not possess. That radicalism and that artificiality are, however, necessary to Descartes for him to move on to his objective: the constitution of a metaphysics which irrefutably founds the veracity of our knowledge, that is, a basis for a faultless epistemology. It is in this context that the hypothesis of a deceptive God, and mainly that of a malignant genius, achieves all its weight. The importance that future epistemology is to grant to the figure of a malignant genius is widely known.

3.1.3.  Relation between the First Meditation and the Others The relation between the “First Meditation” and the remaining ones was complex from the start, as it is stated in several of the Objections and in Descartes’s responses to them. The separation between the First Meditation and the r­ emaining ones is carried out by both sceptic and “dogmatic” thinkers who ­oppose Descartes. In the former case, to show that the Cartesian system is contrary to the intuitions of the First Meditation (Gassendi in the Fifth Objections, or Mersenne in the Second Objections); in the latter case, to indicate that the doubt in the First Meditation contaminates and invalidates the constructions underlying the other Meditations (Father Bourdin in the Seventh Objections, or Voetius and Schoockius in the Utrecht quarrel). The first objection – the sceptical objection – can assume two forms. Firstly, it can mean that, according to the developments of the remaining Meditations, the First Meditation is not valid, thus betraying true scepticism. Secondly, it can recognize an effective autonomy of the First Meditation as well as its intrinsic value independently of the others. This second path is to become the dominant attitude among those who argue over the “Cartesian” scepticism.

3.1.4.  “Cartesian” Scepticism Immediate Posterity The critique to Locke initiated by Berkeley about the possibility to identify the internal characteristics of the substances (as well as the doubts already expressed by Locke himself in the Essay to that respect) places itself in line with a scepticism

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of the “Cartesian” type. The solution proposed by Berkeley, the “immaterialism”, constitutes the ultimate of the great moves around the Cartesian system which the second half of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth century will carry out. (In order to have a precise idea of how the scepticism criticized by Berkeley is the scepticism of the “Cartesian” type, one must only compare the response to the scepticism undertaken in the Principles with that developed by Augustine in Against the Academics in opposition to the New Academy).

3.1.5.  Liberty and Negation Hegel conceived scepticism as a moment of restlessness and, above all, of negation and of liberty of the spirit. The scepticism which he was most interested in was certainly the ancient scepticism, and preferably the Pyrrhonian one rather than that of the New Academy. The “modern” scepticism – that of Hume revised by Schulze  – was object of his great contempt:  “It is not even a peasants’ philosophy”. But what is interesting to observe is that the Hegelian recuperation of the ancient scepticism is carried out in a somehow “Cartesian” spirit. Just as the First Meditation represented the first architectonic figure that, within the Meditations fictional structure, would progressively be overturned by the subsequent Meditations, towards the attainment of certainty, scepticism also appears to Hegel an essential, though provisional, moment doomed to be overridden and integrated in a movement leading to the Absolut Spirit (the Hegelian position towards scepticism is extraordinarily interesting and deserves a long analysis which should go through the 1802 text about The relation of Scepticism with the Philosophy, the Phenomenology of the Spirit, certain paragraphs of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, as well as the sections about the New Academy and the Pyrrhonism of the Lessons about the History of Philosophy).

3.1.6.  Scepticism and Analysis of the Subjectivity Like Hegel, Husserl’s stand on scepticism is of Cartesian inspiration. But much more than in Hegel, scepticism is a central issue to Husserl (it would just suffice to think about the significance of Epochê for phenomenology). The first volume (Critical History of the Ideas) of First Philosophy, 1923/1924, is almost entirely constructed around the issue of scepticism, the “sceptic exercise” understood as an essential philosophical gesture, from sophistic, “a universal scepticism which denies the possibility of knowledge of an objective truth in general, and of all sorts of being true in general”, to Hume. For Husserl, the first effective meditations about the “cognitive subjectivity” – he thinks of Plato and Aristotle above all – are a reaction to the sophists’ scepticism presented as a driving force, a transcendental impulse, for “a systematic analysis of the elements of conscientiousness

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as conscientiousness of something”. It is precisely on such driving force, essential to “Humanity’s philosophical conscientiousness”, that the “immortality of scepticism” resides: “invincible spirit of negation”, it accompanies the development of the ancient sciences without ever ceasing to oppose to any form of new philosophy a new form of anti-philosophy irreducible and always renewed: “The Hydra of scepticism always engenders new heads and even those which are chopped off will immediately grow”. And the philosophical systems, in their turn, react to that driving force and live in a “constant struggle against scepticism”. According to Husserl, the decisive moment of that battle is the one that takes place with Descartes. The struggle against scepticism is now established on entirely new and much more radical foundations allowing them their definite overcoming through a “transcendental subjectivism”, and this is just because Descartes was the first to take the sceptical objections entirely seriously and to find in the cogito, in a more profound way than that of Augustine, the ontological foundation of such overcoming. In other words:  it is the sceptical doubt that, through its overcoming, allows the “systematic elevation” of true philosophy, of the authentic philosophy, of sapientia universalis.

3.1.7.  Scepticism and Fictionality We have run through some aspects of the “Cartesian” scepticism. We would like to retain the idea that, in its essence, it belongs to a systematic architectonics and, therefore, it possesses a fictional structure. And, in principle, scepticism is incompatible with fictionality. At least as far as Pyrrhonian scepticism is concerned, it is likely to be so, although in other cases, such as in Humean scepticism, that appears to be doubtful. Or even in the case of Nietzsche’s scepticism, to which we shall return, admitting that perspectivism can be envisaged as a variant of scepticism. In Nietzsche, we are entitled to points of view, tinged with fictionality, which oppose one another, but there is no system to integrate the whole of those points of view within a framework of a systematic peace. The fiction lies on the points of view not on a system where they would be subsumed. The fate of The Will to Power shows, amongst other things, also that.

3.1.8.  Contemporary Debates on Scepticism The contemporary debate, following Hilary Putman, mainly lengthens the duration of the “Cartesian” scepticism, or, in the happy expression of Robert Fogelin, uses “sceptic scenarios” of a “Cartesian” type. And the responses to scepticism, such as Moore’s, are responses to these scenarios (Wittgenstein in On Certainty might have been close to point out the fictionality of such scepticism by declaring that both “that scepticism” and Moore’s response

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to it make no sense at all; “that scepticism”, we highlight, because  – we shall try to demonstrate it  – there is another scepticism of the Pyrrhonian type to which Wittgenstein is close). It is true that Putman rejects the legitimacy of a “Cartesian” scepticism, but the mental experience of the brain in the vat is the current version of the malignant genius or, alternatively, of the dream, in the first of Descartes’ Metaphysical Meditations. The semantic externalism of Putman himself or Ernest Sosa’s epistemic externalism, as yet the contextualism of DeRose or David Lewis, or the concessivism of Peter Unger, of Thomas Nagel, or of Barry Stroud are attempts to respond to a scepticism of the Cartesian type. The same can be said of Heidegger and John McDowell. However, it is worth repeating:  the function of scepticism in the Cartesian system moves within the reality of the Cartesian system. It cannot be envisaged as reporting to a reality external to that very system. From that point of view, the proton pseudos would consist in exporting something which possesses a purely systematic status (and, therefore, participates in a partially fictional reality) to the domain of the indeterminate reality which that something only indirectly refers to. Hence, the mistake made by both the “Cartesian” sceptics themselves and those who attempt to fight that scepticism, while considering its virtues (Unger, Stroud) or, on the reverse, denying them (in Freudian terms:  philosophical systems only indirectly get in touch with the principle of reality, the proof of reality is averse to them; they feel more at ease with the principle of pleasure). From the moment the Cartesian scepticism is isolated from its natural context, two reactions are possible: preoccupation and indifference. Let us focus on the former, since the latter is philosophically less interesting. According to several authors, that preoccupation would only make sense within the framework of the traditional epistemological (ultimately:  Cartesian) project. Such seems to be Unger’s and Stroud’s thesis  – and, to a certain extent, McDowell’s. Let us consider the latter’s example. The Cartesian position is associated to a “loss of the world”, a “loss” which appears as a direct consequence of a mind theory that keeps states of mind and world apart: the mind – an “inner space” (the postulation of the mind with an “inner space” is also present in Davidson’s anomalous monism, in functionalism and materialism)  – would by no means attain the world. McDowell’s solution in Mind and World – that includes, amongst other things, affirming an interpenetration of mind and world  – possesses various common traits with Fernando Gil’s proposition in Mimésis e Negação. It attempts to show continuity between the subject and the world, which engage one another. For McDowell, that occurs through the articulation of the Kantian and the Aristotelian elements of his thought. The way out of the “traditional epistemology” may, however, appear as problematic, or even impossible. This seems to be Thomas Nagel’s opinion. There would be an inescapability of scepticism to

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our objective knowledge, regardless of the adopted epistemological framework. We would naturally dwell in the shadow of scepticism. Objectivity of knowledge itself calls for scepticism, which, in its essence, is irrefutable (and again, in Freudian terms: the principle of reality, and its concomitant claim for impartiality, would entail scepticism; the Id cannot be sceptic; the Self must necessarily be it and, ultimately, finds itself subject to the compulsion to doubt of the Rat Man). We aspire to find a way out of ourselves, but we cannot accomplish it. The appearances depend upon our human viewpoint, the individual is always to be found “behind the lenses”; there is a structural contingency of the viewpoint. And there is a problem of “underdetermination” too: there is a gap between our claim to knowledge and the testimonies we have at our disposal to assert it. The sceptical problems are underdetermination problems. Various strategies are nonetheless possible within the very context of “traditional epistemology”. One of them is Alvin Goldman’s “process reliabilism”: beliefs are constructed upon reliable procedures. Christopher Hill, Ernst Sosa and Robert Nozick seem to develop similar positions (according to authors such as Dominik Perler, medieval versions of reliability could be found – obviously distinct from the contemporary ones – in Thomas Aquinas and Jean Buridan).

3.2. Pyrrhonian Scepticism 3.2.1.  Pyrrhonism against the Systems Criticism to the New Academy’s division of philosophy into three domains (logical, physical and ethical) can be found in Sextus Empiricus. Such criticism is based on serious grounds:  to maintain such division would mean to admit an architectonic fictionality that Pyrrhonism does not accept (in turn, the criticism directed to the sceptical positions very often lies on the recognition of the specificity of the various objects of the thought; Augustine’s overcoming of scepticism, for example, is connected with the soul’s possibility of discovering in itself the three fundamental objects of the thought: truth, beauty and goodness, as corresponding to three possible forms of intuition), which does not necessarily mean that Pyrrhonian scepticism does not attack the arguments developed by the systems in each of these specific areas. Indeed, it does. In the sphere of logic, for example, Pyrrhonism seeks to refute two central theses. The first, supporting that the apparent, evident things, «enarge», the phenomena are known by way of a criterion which permits to distinguish trueness from falseness; the second, that of the unapparent, obscure things are known by signs and demonstrations. Identical refutations are to be found in the domains of physics and ethics. But such refutations do not apparently imply the acknowledgement of any systematic architectonic legitimacy.

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3.2.2.  Aspectual Dialectic. Pyrrhonism One of the fundamental traits of Pyrrhonism is what no doubt would be convenient to call “aspectual dialectic”: the continuous passage of the vision of one aspect to the vision of another aspect, for and against, one viewpoint to another viewpoint – without, unlike the Husserlian sketches theory, aiming at the complete determination of the object. The aspectual dialectic is absolutely not specific to Pyrrhonism:  elements of this dialectic can be found in, for example, Socrates, though mitigated due to a search for a definition, which is almost contradictory regarding the notion of aspectual dialectic itself. And, no doubt, the New Academy did practise it. The major examples of it were perhaps Carneades’s two memorable speeches. But it was Pyrrhonism that more emphatically practiced it. Unlike “Cartesian” scepticism, Pyrrhonism is above all a beginning of activity, and of a positive activity rather than an activity of negation (contrary to Hegel’s claim). As Sextus recalls, the fundamental principle of the sceptical recommendations is that according to which any argument should be opposed by another. Which is in accordance with the principle of the Methodist medicine, praised by Sextus, the allopathy: to restore the body’s balance by countering the pathological affection through the appearance of an antagonistic pathos. Aenesidemus’s ten tropes, like Agrippa’s five tropes, invite to the exercise of an aspectual dialectic. Aspectual dialectic does not act a­ ccording to continuities, but rather to discontinuities, to leaps. The tropes are, as above said, exercises of aspectual dialectic and lead to the suspension of judgement. They show the pros and cons and show one has no reason whatsoever to prefer a particular assertion to the contrary one. Unlike the Baconian criticism of the Idols, this is not about purifying the understanding aiming at its parsimonious use in the future: it has to do with showing that nothing exists, in what cognitive matters are concerned, beyond the alternation of points of view, of appearances. The sceptic aspectual dialectic forms a barrier to the transition from the visible to the invisible, from the sensitive to the intelligible, a transition which the whole of the Greek thought, though at different levels, tends to admit, with the exception of Democritus – a powerful influence for the sceptics, even if, amongst the pre-Socratics, the central influence on Aenesidemus had been, so it seems, Heraclitus. What can be seen are but aspects, and not what is to be found beyond them. Thought is obviously present in the aspectual v­ ision – it is thought in itself, as it will later be in Wittgenstein, as we shall yet see –, but it is exclusively thought of the phenomenon. It must be noted that another ­characteristic of Aenisidemus’s philosophy stresses the barrier between the visible and the invisible: his doctrine of signs, unlike the ones of the Stoics and of the Epicurists, explicitly asserts that it is an illusion to think that the ­visible signs reveal an invisible reality; in fact, the signs

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do not even have a reality which can be considered either sensible or intelligible. The singularity of the aspectual dialectic in Pyrrhonism resides in aiming at ataraxia. It somehow works as an analogue of the peace obtained by the conceptual determinations of the systems.

3.2.3.  A Problem: Zetesis and Ataraxia The immediate question that common understanding raises is: is ataraxia compatible with the zetetic, inquiring, nature of scepticism? The latter implies that it is not possible to have – if not de jure, as it happens with the New Academy, at least de facto  – “fixation of belief ”, to paraphrase Peirce. What peace, what ataraxia is there to be obtained? A “fixation in opposition to beliefs”? What is that supposed to mean? Or is it, on the contrary, that ataraxia would reside in the mobility of belief? But the very idea of mobility seems to go against the idea of peace, of rest… The solution would likely consist in asserting that zetesis and ataraxia are placed at two different levels. However, that would imply, brutally speaking, to split the subject into two: one that would continue the research, the zetesis, while the other, distinct from the former, would observe it undisturbedly. It does not seem that such solution would please the Pyrrhonists.

3.2.4.  The Three Levels of the Pyrrhonian Aspectual Dialectic and the Phenomenal Problem Plan Pyrrhonism is a thought of evidence , of the sensitive evidence (phenomenal) but not of impossible noumenal evidence obtained through the act of interpreting , or of an opinion applied to the former. Ultimately, ataraxia resides in contentment with the former – in the assentment to passions (or feelings, or dispositions) imposed upon by imagination (or impression of senses, or representation)  – and in suspension of the latter. However, the aspectual dialectic, the dynamis – ­faculty, power, skill, mental attitude, as you like it – of opposing every argument to another functions at both noumenal and phenomenal levels, as well as at the intersection of both. The fact that aspectual dialectic be placed at the noumenal level – at the level of the position of objects, at the level of objective determination: it is a chair, it is a table – raises no problem whatsoever to scepticism:  it is precisely on that particular issue that scepticism differs from dogmatisms. The same will be said of the opposition between phenomena and noumena (sensation-table, conception-chair). But probably an identical assertion cannot be said of the phenomenal level: if the sceptic criterion «kriterion» is the sensitive representation (the appearance, or phenomenon) «phainomenon», the dynamis, a function of imagination , a feeling (or persuasion, or conviction) and an involuntary

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state (or disposition, or passion, or ­affection) «pathos» of sensitivity It is not at all easy to imagine how each subject can within itself oppose distinct evidences regarding the same representation (sensation-chair, sensation-table). But the Pyrrhonian aspectual dialectic precisely consists also in it, beyond the opposition of intellectual representations as above mentioned, the result of judgements and of opinions, of positions. The subject must within himself oppose antagonist evidences that in spite of being antagonist remain evidences, though they cannot of course be both simultaneously. Aspectual dialectic, at least when exclusively applied to representations – which is, in the end, the most interesting case, because evidences are opposed to evidences –, implies, like in Wittgenstein (one cannot see the duck and the rabbit at the same time), the temporal succession. The problem here is that the introduction of temporality in its strongest sense – successiveness – gives rise to an element of supplementary indetermination: one can by no means be sure that his evidence will change, that I shall have in a later stage evidence that contradicts the former. In other words: one’s evidence is always bound to be absolute, unsusceptible to be faced with opposed evidence.

3.2.5.  Aspectual Dialectic: Montaigne We shall find in Montaigne one of the most eminent practitioners of aspectual dialectic such as defined before: constant move/passage between for and against. One cannot capture the being, only the passage, the continuous fluctuation of uncertainty, diversity and dissimilitude. The Self and the World are not seen from the same aspect. Every reason bears in itself its own opposite; everything has multifold aspects and distinct glows. That is to say: each appearance possesses its own evidence which captures the hunting spirit, and to that another one distinct from the former will follow and so on infinitely.

3.2.6.  Aspectual Dialectic: Pascal Pascal, Montaigne’s commentator (“Montaigne contre les miracles. Montaigne pour les miracles”), assumes some aspectual dialectical features by integrating them in the anthropological pessimism which characterizes him. The “Renversement continuel du pour au contre” which Pascal assigns to Montaigne can often be found in the pages of Pascal himself.

3.2.7.  Aspectual Dialectic and Perspectivism Nietzsche. Some of Nietzsche’s passages explicitly associate scepticism to decadence and nihilism. However his own perspectivism, formulated from the initial

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to the latest texts, very effectively corresponds to the Pyrrhonian aspectual dialectic. One could maybe speak of an “active scepticism”. We see things under certain aspects and we can also see them under different ones, the phenomena can be observed from various points of view. We can sometimes look out of a window, sometimes out of another (The Will to Power). The world as a thing in itself is not liable to be represented. There is a “faculty of maintaining in our power the for and the against” (Genealogy of Morals) “there is only one perspective vision, a perspective “knowledge”; and the more our affective state comes into play in relation to something, the more eyes we will have, different eyes for that thing and the more complete will be our «notion» of that thing, our «objectivity»” (Genealogy of Morals). But the task is likely infinite; the notion will never be complete. There are no facts, but only interpretations. There are only perspectives that individuals and societies build about the world, none of them having a privileged epistemological statute: more objective or closer to the truth. Perspective is life’s basic condition. All doctrines are determined by a particular viewpoint. Morality is perspective (Human, Too Human). The perspective every individual possesses about human reality depends upon his own characteristics (Beyond Good and Evil). Philosophy is the individual (hence the legitimacy of ad hominem arguments), the individual’s perspective.

3.2.8.  Aspectual Dialectic: Wittgenstein But Wittgenstein certainly is the greatest theoretician as well as practitioner, after the Greek sceptics, particularly the Pyrrhonian, of the aspectual dialectic. Let us recall the general contours of Wittgenstein’s aspect theory (the fundamental texts are found in Philosophical Investigations, in Philosophical Grammar, in Notes about the Philosophy of Psychology and in Last Writings about the Philosophy of Psychology).2 The aspect theory is constructed having as a starting point the famous image that viewed from a certain aspect is a duck, and from another aspect a hare. We see one thing one way or another; we see a figure as a border case or as a variant of another figure. Like the thought, the aspect is submitted to the will . Facing the aspect, the principal question to be asked is: do we see or do we think? Which is the relation between “to see an object” and “to think about it”? It turns out that the “glitter of an aspect” «das Aufleuchten des Aspekts» possesses a mixed nature: it is partly visual experience , and partly thought. In fact, aspect is 2 I here revisit some passages of my article “Between enigma and Banality: the aspectual dialectic of Wittgenstein and the question ‘What is to think?’” (Análise, 24, 2003, 43–94; cf. Tunhas 2012, chap. XI).

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allied to thought. When you capture an image only by eyesight, it appears as something dead. The similarity of aspect vision to thought consists in the fact that it is liable to be compared, not to a perception , but to a representation . Certain aspects are determined, in the first place, by thoughts (and in that case the aspect exists only in a “world of thoughts” ), others are merely “optical”. The experience of the “standing out” provoked by the aspect – and the experience of the “standing out” approaches the thought , in certain cases it is the thought – however, it is not the summing up of seeing and thinking. “Many of our concepts do cross here”. The aspect appears as the “echo of the thought” «ein Nachal eines Gedankens», the inarticulate echo of thought «eine unartikulierter fortklang eines gedankes», the echo of a thought in a vision . To interpret «deuten» is to think denken>, to act ; to interpret is an act of thought «ein Denken», an action . Thus, “to see the figure according to an interpretation is to think about that interpretation (…). I can really see an interpretation and an interpretation is a thought”. Certain aspects are “viewed interpretations” of the figure. In the aspect I have perhaps “a thought before my eyes” . It must be emphasized, it is not an intermediate phenomenon between “seeing” and “thinking”, but rather a concept which situates itself between that of “seeing” and that of “thinking”. When a “change of aspect” occurs astonishment occurs as well – and (Wittgenstein repeats an old philosophy theme), astonishment is thinking . In a certain sense, the glitter of an aspect is a “position-taking” , an oriented soul movement such as surprise and pleasure. Sometimes (and it is in it that consists the reaction of recognition which regards the essence of what is familiar ), something restful occurs. There is a rest of the look, the instantaneous capture of an aspect and arresting at it. It is worth adding that the aspect theory finds a particularly interesting application in Wittgenstein’s reading of Freud. In the Talks on Freud, Wittgenstein speaks of the change of aspect “the way its aspect changes” which the “dream images” (we are deep into the Freudian ) suffer under the interpretation. These appear as the fundamental elements of the aspect theory: to think, to interpret, and to see. “Once being interpreted, a dream could be said to be inserted in a context where it is no more intriguing – puzzling. In a certain sense, the dreamer goes back to his dream in such an environment that the dream changes its aspect”. The dream changes aspect when it is related to other things (previous day events, other dreams, childhood memories which one remembers). It is a very peculiar and perfectly legitimate application of the

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aspect theory. To see, to think and to interpret are joined together in a perfect manner. The aspect theory possesses a direct relation with Wittgenstein’s philosophical practice. What happens to Wittgenstein is, in fact, about almost all the questions  – the questions related to the nature of thought, for example, a perpetual change of aspect. Sometimes, a certain aspect shines more intensely – thought is a process; sometimes it is the other that more clearly appears before us – thought is not a process. The same aspectual oscillation is to be observed (and let us continue with the reflection about the nature of thought) about the relation between thought and signs, between thought and language, between thought and activity, and so on. If you accept – as, for the reasons stated above, I think it should be accepted – that one of the fundamental traits of the Pyrrhonian scepticism is its aspectual dialectic, the continuous passage between the pros and cons, there is no way one should fail to see in Wittgenstein a representative of the Pyrrhonian tradition.

3.2.9.  Kant’s Position It would be tempting to find in the Kantian Antinomies of the Critique of Pure Reason something of an aspectual dialectic. But it would be an abusive temptation. Because – like the Hegelian dialectic, though for reasons other than this one – the Kantian antimonies in no way represent an aspectual dialectic. One must only be reminded that, for Kant, both thesis and anti-thesis of the first two antinomies (so-called mathematical) are false and the two others (so-called dynamical) are both, each in its own way, true. We are far apart from any aspectual dialectic, to which such classification would be inadmissible.

3.3 Humean Scepticism 3.3.1.  General Framework of the Humean Scepticism Let us recall the general framework of the Humean scepticism. The human understanding, theme of Book I of the Treatise, deals with the immediate objects that present themselves to our mind, ideas and impressions, which Hume gathers under the general designation of perceptions. Perceptions do not represent (contrary to Locke’s idea, but somehow in line with Berkeley) the external world, although we cannot avoid thinking they do. In this “although” lies one of the most significant points of Hume’s philosophy. For Hume, both the idea of an external world and the idea of personal identity are indeed fictive ideas, products of imagination. There is nothing that allows me to theoretically justify the existence of either a substantial Self endowed with an absolute unity or of an external world independent of one’s perceptions. But, while fictive,

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those ideas are not optional, they represent beliefs which have an almost obligatory, compulsive, nature. We cannot justify them, but we cannot keep away from them either. Hume’s scepticism is the consequence of this initial attitude. What our mind originally perceives is a continuous succession of ideas and impressions which are, as seen above, the objects of our mind. Sometimes, those objects appear conjugated with one another in an irregular form, but nothing hinders that regular conjugation to be the product of hazard. However, our mind cannot prevent itself from believing that those regularities express a causality which is expressed in the world itself. Belief is compulsive. We project in the external world, based on our experience and on probability, relations of cause and effect which can be found only in our mind. If we do believe that there are causal relations in the world, it is neither the result of an intuition nor is it the result of a demonstration. It is the result of the association principles applied to custom as habit which operate in us. Nonetheless, that is enough to give our assent to certain conceptions and not to others. Belief has strength and vivacity which will allow us to distinguish it straight away from fiction, a mere figment of imagination, and it occurs because it is always associated with a present impression. That strength and that vivacity (Hume also speaks of vigour, intensity, clarity, and so on) allow us, from a constant and regular idea between two phenomena, to move on to the idea of a necessary connection and believe that what happened in the past will be repeated in the future. But it is always only a determination of the spirit, an act of understanding. Nothing in the world is liable to be used as a justification. Only in our mind, as it were, is there such thing as necessity. Its transposition to the world is not an act dictated by reason. It is an irrational imposition.

3.3.2.  Probabilism and Naturalism It is this general framework which will allow us to suspect that, unlike what an important trend in Hume’s interpretation says, his “mitigated scepticism”, has many more similarities to the academic scepticism than to the Pyrrhonist one. Hume, after all, uses “mitigated” as equivalent to “academic” and “Pyrrhonist” as equivalent to “excessive”, that is, “unmitigated”. A Pyrrhonist would probably never accept the general move towards the fixation of beliefs that can be found in Hume, and would be surprised with the absolute absence of aspectual dialectic in his thought. Furthermore, from the affections point of view, the difference between Hume and the Pyrrhonists is immense. The Humean destructive gesture is sensed as a melancholic, though calm, loss of a cognitive ideal (the word “melancholy” appears various times in Hume and exactly in this context). Nothing of this kind is to be perceived in Pyrrhonism. The Pyrrhonian affection, as it

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were, is entirely positive. There is no Pyrrhonian melancholy. In Pyrrhonism, there is no such thing as place to a feeling of loss, and this is an almost textual and tangible fact. It is rather to restore health. The Pyrrhonian scepticism – as later the Nietzschean perspectivism, and Wittgenstein’s philosophy  – has a therapeutic vocation (the proximity of Pyrrhonism and medicine is everything but accidental). Contrariwise, Hume’s scepticism is almost felt as an intellectual evil, something undoubtedly irrefutable, but that everyday life’s mission is that of subduing. Such general framework allows also detecting the alliance that exists between scepticism (probabilistic) and naturalism, a perennial theme in the disputes of Humean interpretation. Hume’s scepticism aims at undermining the rationalist justifications of knowledge (of the Self and the World) so that on the debris of those justifications a naturalist justification is bound to be erected which, after all, was already implicit in the mitigated scepticism upon which it is based.3 In this, he extensively manifests two things: the post-Cartesian character of his scepticism and his distance vis-à-vis Pyrrhonism, which, even if an interpretation of the Hegelian type is not adopted (it would be, and we repeat, a pure demonstration of absolute liberty and negativity of the spirit), it is not, emphatically, naturalism (a naturalist aspectual dialectic is not viable).

3.3.3.  Return to the New Academia Undoubtedly, the for and the against – that is to say aspectual dialectic – is considered by the Academics. But to the Pyrrhonist aspectual dialectic – and its extensions which can be detected as far as to Wittgenstein –, it is, at least in Carneades, an aspectual dialectic partly directed to the truth since it is oriented by the concepts of probability and verisimilitude. The Academics’ scepticism is, as certainly is that of Hume’s, a “mitigated scepticism”, and as that of Popper’s, “fallibilist”. The relevance the concepts of probability and propensity (or of disposition, or instinct) have in Hume reveals the meeting point between his academic scepticism and his naturalism. In fact, propensities are the naturalist features of the probabillist scepticism. The Academic scepticism is simultaneously less radical and more radical than the Pyrrhonist scepticism. Less radical because it points to a knowledge based on probability or verisimilitude – for the Academics these terms apparently should not be distinguished, unlike what occurs in Kant, where the former derives from mathematics and the latter from dynamics, – something that does not apply to the Pyrrhonists, because it countermands one of the fundamental principles of 3 Various authors would deny that this were a correct description of Hume’s position. Robert Fogelin would be one of them. For P.F. Strawson, it seems, it would at least be partially acceptable.

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the aspectual dialectic. Moreover, because alongside with Probabilism, it emphasizes the fact that it is impossible to reach truth, something that Pyrrhonism rejects, since it would be an assertion which would, from a Pyrrhonist point of view, violate the very foundations of scepticism. (The conjugation of these two aspects of the Academic scepticism enables an objection formulated by St. Augustine in Against the Academics: “If someone who does not know your father asserts that your brother takes after him does it not seem to you inept or insane?”. Objections like these were raised regarding the idea of verisimilitude in Karl Popper).

3.3.4.  Strawson and Hume I do not believe that this brief sketch of an interpretation of Hume is incompatible with P. F. Strawson’s proposals in Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties. According to Strawson, the Humean position vis-à-vis the “Cartesian” scepticism is coincident with that of Wittgenstein’s in On Certainty – which is to say that he would not so much need to be refuted (in Moore’s fashion or other) as, simply put, to be forgotten. The fundaments of our practice concerning Hume, and the Wittgenstein of On Certainty, are not founded beliefs nor are they beliefs liable to be doubted. There would be a naturalism common to Hume and to the latest Wittgenstein:  in the most fundamental domain, our beliefs would be, as it were, animal. The Cartesian objection, it is worth repeating, should be forgotten. But it should be added that oblivion does not indicate less than refutation a posterity (and concomitantly, a dependence) regarding what is being criticized. And that posterity, as I tried to show above, dictates that various traits of Humean scepticism can only be effectively understood in relation to Descartes. I do not believe Strawson would disagree with this. We may however diverge from Strawson in a very precise issue:  Strawson seems to place Hume’s position close to something like an aspectual dialectic and, consequently, to Pyrrhonism. (I am not completely sure that Strawson considers the present doctrine as a direct or indirect result of Humean naturalism; nonetheless, I assume that it is so). In Hume, we would find the acceptance of the possibility of envisaging various topics under distinct aspects, the opposing beliefs would be balanced and the concepts relativized. Thus, there would be equilibrium between common sense realism and scientific realism; the perspectives of the identity theory and of the folk psychology about the relation between the mental and the physical would express opposed but acceptable points of view (i.e. aspectual visions or perspectives); and so on. Summing up, it would be part of our nature to have the capacity to look at things in multiple manners. In this interpretation, Hume would indisputably be both Pyrrhonian or Wittgensteinian – in the fashion of Philosophical Investigations but not that

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of in On Certainty – or even Nietzschean, if we prefer. I do not believe, as I said above, that there are substantial reasons to think this way; moreover, such position does not coexist well with the previous assertion of a naturalist Hume.

4.  Global Scepticism and Local Scepticism 4.1. Global and Local Scepticism may be global or local; it may be applied either to the whole field of the objects of thought or just to particular regions of them. Here is the easiest example (which, however, refers only to one aspect of the local/global opposition):  one may be sceptic in knowledge and ethical-political matters (and also regarding aesthetic matters, although the question here seems to be more problematic – I shall come back to it), or then only in matters of knowledge, or in ethical-political ones. Notwithstanding the fact that the question is fundamental in itself, I  shall not discuss here the reasons that may lead us into choosing local scepticisms, and further on I shall just recall the problem. Such reasons doubtlessly derive from, among other things, the judgement one makes of the possibility of knowledge of certain objects and of philosophical decisions – and proto-philosophical ones, if such word makes sense – of various kinds. This is, within the opposition between global and local scepticism, what we could call the quantitative aspect of scepticism. I  believe that any of the mentioned variants of scepticism  – Academic, Pyrrhonian, “Cartesian” or Humean – tends to be global, although the situation is certainly complex. Michael Frede, among others, and in opposition to Myles Burnyeat, excludes from the Pyrrhonian sceptical field a certain type of objects (for him the global scepticism would be “rustic” and the local one “urban”) and Hume himself considered Mathematics unfettered from any sceptical exercise.

4.2. Global/Local and Total/Partial Different from this quantitative aspect, there is another one we could call qualitative. It is expressed by the total/partial opposition and concerns the intensive dimension of scepticism. The difference in this case resides in what would be convenient to refer to as the sceptic operator one chooses. The total scepticism operators are characteristically strong – malignant genius, brain in the vat, etc. – those of partial scepticism weaker – dreams, illusions of the senses, perhaps the deceptive God. Strength and weakness are measured on the basis of the ontological reach of scepticism. In total scepticism it is immense, in partial scepticism, it may amount to null, limiting itself to the epistemological level. “Cartesian” scepticism is a total scepticism. Academic, Pyrrhonian and Humean scepticisms (the latter reacting to total scepticism and the others falling short of the possibility to

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consider it) are partial scepticisms. In truth, “Cartesian” scepticism is the unique form of total scepticism. A  sceptical operator such as “dreams” can already be found, for example, in Theaetetus. It would be impossible to find in Greek thought an operator possessing the strength of the malignant genius. It must only be added that one of the most effective strategies opposing to a total scepticism is the one that draws upon the process reliabilism theses (e.g. Ernst Sosa).

4.3 Global/Local and Remote/Close The distinction, developed by Robert Fogelin, between remote and close defeaters introduces another level of analysis, close to the total/partial d ­ istinction, but not entirely coincident with it, since, while the former is basically epistemological (related to objects of thought), the Fogelian ­distinction operates at the epistemic level (at the level of the distinction of our attitude of belief in relation to our interest in using operators). Fogelin analyses the “sceptic scenarios” from what he calls defeaters of . A  defeater “is a relevant consideration which should be eliminated so that the knowledge-claim is acceptable”. But potential defeaters are not only r­ elevant or protruding – Gail Stine refers, in an approximate sense, to “relevant alternatives” –, they may be remote, or even ultra-remote. And what characterizes “sceptic scenarios” is exactly the massive use of the latter. “Cartesian” scepticism, unlike the Pyrrhonian one, isolates us from everyday world through the exercise of an unlimited rationality. And that is so because Cartesianism, as explained by Martial Guéroult, is a philosophy of the “all or nothing”. Descartes “did not set limits to the scope of the potential defeaters”. The “sceptical scenarios” (malignant genius, brain in the vat, etc.) are highly remote possibilities of defeat. And they are in principle non-eliminable, invulnerable to refutation. The “level of scrutiny” increases by means of the use of “remote defeaters”. “The act of philosophizing carried out in a certain way turns any possible defeater into a protruding one, and so, scepticism becomes inevitable”. Against the “Cartesian” scepticism, rules must be set – such as the ones practiced by science  – which are liable to govern the levels of scrutiny and apply the maxim:  “Do not raise the level of scrutiny in the absence of a reason that triggers it”. (The Wittgenstein of On Certainty would say ­something ­similar). “To raise the level of scrutiny involves costs of epistemic transaction, in which, as in the majority of costs, one is not willing to incur.” May we be allowed solely two comments:  The “Cartesian” scepticism is in fact the paradigm of a scepticism that works on the basis of remote operators. Indeed, the “Cartesian” scepticism extraordinary novelty resides in the fact that it is a scepticism of the belief simultaneously global, total and operating from sceptical scenarios founded in remote defeaters. The second comment concerns Hume

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and his relative dependence on the “Cartesian” scepticism. As seen before, the Humean scepticism looms against the background of an intelligibility ideal of the Cartesian type. Hence derives, as Fogelin noted, that Hume uses “remote defeaters” in his argument against induction.

4.4. Global/Local and Universal/Regional The global opposition must not by any means be confused with the universal/ regional opposition, with which, it is true, it shares common determinations. The former designates the simple extension of the sceptic field. The latter deals with the reasons that determine the possibility of scepticism in relation to systems of determined objects. It deserves an independent analysis, though very telegraphic and rather aiming at mentioning a problem, or a set of problems, rather than aiming at any substantive thesis.

5.  Regional Scepticisms 5.1. Regions While adopting the classification proposed by Robert Fogelin of six types of scepticism as a result of six different dimensions, Don Garrett considers, in the first place, the domain in which the sceptic operations are made. Such domain may be general – respecting all the sets of possible propositions – or limited – concerning only sets of particular propositions. We are not interested here in ­considering Fogelin’s thesis, as discussed by Garrett, according to which Humean scepticism would belong to the first type – being applied to all possible sets of propositions –, nor the articulation of that dimension with the r­ emaining five (character, object, origin, degree and persistence), but only the very possibility of the existence of forms of scepticism which would apply only to a well determined set of propositions, that is (and here we add something to what Garrett says) to propositions that would fall upon particular objects of thought. We can call these forms of scepticism regional scepticisms. Those regions were an almost constant object of questioning by philosophical systems from the Greeks to the present times. Its most developed form is found perhaps in the Kantian system and in the articulation between objects and their respective ways of thought of the three critiques: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Judgment and Critique of Practical Reason. On these grounds, it is possible to distinguish three types of regional scepticism:  epistemological, aesthetic and ethical-political (the Critique of Practical Reason opens to a horizon where Kant’s historical-political writings belong to). I shall briefly refer to the conditions of possibility of the epistemological, ethical-political and aesthetic scepticism, following this order.

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5.2. Epistemological Scepticism The autonomization of epistemological scepticism in relation to the other regional scepticisms occurs mainly in the context of the “Cartesian” scepticism ­tradition, though this is, as we have seen, a global scepticism. Certainly, the ancient ­scepticism, Academic or Pyrrhonist, was also, among other things, an epistemological scepticism. But, above all in Pyrrhonism, the frontiers between the p ­ hilosophical provinces, as we have also seen, were far less marked, which implied that a certain indistinctness would end up characterizing the r­ elation between the epistemological and the ethical-political realms. As to the “Cartesian” scepticism, it is a different question altogether. This explains the fact that in the current debate around scepticism, mainly in the context of the so-called a­ nalytical philosophy, which develops mainly themes of the “Cartesian” scepticism, it is the epistemological scepticism which appears on the centre-stage. Going back to some of the distinctions previously mentioned, scepticism relative to the knowledge of nature can, in epistemological terms, be either total or partial, and can, in epistemic terms set up from either remote or close defeaters. It will be total if the whole of the knowledge of nature falls under the power of strong sceptic operators, thus leading to an ontological doubt about the natural entities; it will be partial if that very knowledge is only subject to weak sceptical operators, thus keeping itself strictly at the epistemological level, with no ontological crossings. From the epistemic point of view, scepticism will be more or less demanding if the need of certainty is more extreme (use of sceptical scenarios appealing to remote or ultraremote defeaters) or less extreme (use of close defeaters). The process reliabilism, lato sensu, not necessarily compromised with externalism, will suffice in the case of the partial scepticism, especially if the latter is accompanied by the use of close and not remote defeaters. But what has so far been asserted will also apply to the ethicalpolitical realm and maybe to the aesthetic as well. The specificity of epistemological scepticism lies in the type of objects upon which it falls. And these – the objects of our spontaneous ontology (physical realities liable to be captured by the senses), as well as those of biology, chemistry and physics – define themselves according to a principle of determinability that, no doubt in a diverse manner, the common sense knowledge, biology, chemistry and physics aim to transform into effective determination, and to a greater degree into complete determination. The epistemological scepticism, in its weak or strong version, either in epistemic (certainty) or in stricto sensu epistemological terms (knowledge), is defined as a confrontation with such effective determination. Here resides its singularity.

5.3. Moral and Political Scepticism To say that the epistemological scepticism, inspired in the “Cartesian” scepticism, made its appearance on the centre-stage, does not mean that the ethical-political

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scepticism has disappeared. In fact, it is very much alive, and possesses a fair amount of questions of its own. All of them differ from the epistemological questions (stricto sensu, regarding the knowledge of nature) since, due to the specificity of its own objects, the possibility of a determinability being turned into an effective determination is not at stake here, let alone a complete determination. The epistemological questions, lato sensu (total/partial), as well as the epistemic questions (degree of certainty imposed, that have repercussions on the close and on the remote defeaters) are maintained. But, in the ethical-political domain, they suffer a substantial change. The total/partial opposition falls upon objects of a completely distinct nature. Let us take the example of moral rules, the strongest model being the Kantian moral law, which gathers universality and necessity; it may perhaps identically correspond to determination in the ethicalpolitical domain. At the epistemological level (lato sensu), a total scepticism will try to highlight the very impossibility of universality, and eventually, will reduce ethics to the plain manifestation of emotions, the so-called emotivism. (Bernard Williams suggested in his Truth and Truthfulness that such situation proceeds from the joint action of an intense desire of veracity and of a baseline scepticism vis-à-vis the truth. In this context, it would be interesting to analyse the psychological motives for scepticism. An eighteenth century sceptical critic, Jean-Pierre Crousaz, took that analysis very far by exploring what would today be called the sceptics’ mauvaise foi.) In turn, a partial scepticism will emphasize the inevitable contextualization of ethics, the moral rules diversity, and its essential dependence on certain conditions inherent in particular political communities. At the epistemic level, it is not universality, which is to be attacked, but the necessity of ethical obligation. It may be declared as null, by means of a remote defeater (“If God died, everything is possible”); or then, strongly soothed by resorting to exceptional cases which would put it in jeopardy and would constitute close defeaters (the opposition between Kant and Benjamin Constant around a hypothetical right to “lie on humanitarian grounds” revolves around that precise issue). But again here, as in the domain of epistemology, what is important is the specificity of the objects upon which scepticism falls. In the case of the region of epistemology, an aspectual dialectic would concentrate on the permanent move from an aspectual vision to another, which would hinder the object’s final determination. As for the ethical-political domain, such aspectual dialectic presents itself as totally distinct. Its objects are highly marked in time, the social beliefs. And the continuous move would fall upon, among other things, between positions whose forms are, more reified or more fluid, consecrated in the expressions “conservatism” and “progressivism”. A  phenomenology (I believe it is the right word) of the aspectual dialectic in ethical-political matters should describe the permanent oscillation, in the human spirit, between the desire to maintain, to

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preserve and the desire to change, to conquer. Naturally, the aspectual oscillation is greater in the ethical-political region than in the epistemology region, since the passional investment is stronger, and so delusion. It is no coincidence that such an oscillation preferably occupies the Montaigne of the Essais. Moreover, there is a specific problem linked to the ethical-political scepticism, foreshadowed by the ancient accusation of apraxia aimed at the sceptics, which contemporaneously has launched an intense debate between Myles Burnyeat and Michael Frede: will it be possible to live – to live on a daily basis – as a sceptic? Myles Burnyeat, in the wake of Descartes and Hume, asserted it was not; Michael Frede, following Sextus Empiricus and Montaigne, sustained that it was.

5.4.  Aesthetic Scepticism The question of aesthetic scepticism is singular to the extent that it is legitimate to question whether, in this field, the possibility of scepticism itself makes sense. Scepticism, in any of its forms, sets the impossibility of a move from the visible to the invisible, from the belief to the object’s position (in “Cartesian” scepticism, as seen before, it is the very possibility of belief that is in question). Thus, in the aesthetic judgement – when accepting the general traits of the lesson of the Kantian Critique of Judgment, there is no object’s position: belief (judgement) is valid only in the case of the relation between the subject and its representations. Hence, the possibility of scepticism is excluded from the start. We are here dealing with evidence akin to the one that the Pyrrhonists ascribed to the sensitive appearances. Furthermore, the aesthetic pleasure is a pleasure obtained through the imaginary capture  – established in the subject’s relation to his representations  – of something absolutely singular, similar to the complete determination of the object in the region of epistemology, but lacking any concomitant position or thesis. Thus, scepticism, as we have seen, and Francisco Sanches probably showed it better than anyone else, prohibits the capture of any irreducible singular (Hegel was right as to this matter). The aesthetic experience seems thus to be unbearable to scepticism. Moreover, it seems to be a perennial obstacle to scepticism itself – almost a refutation of scepticism. There are no malignant geniuses, nor deceiver gods, nor remote or close defeaters capable of putting it in question.

6.  Conclusion 6.1.  Scepticism and Philosophical Systems It is time to conclude. Generally speaking, there are two forms of scepticism possible to be established starting from their relation to the philosophical systems. The first one – which is fully represented in “Cartesian” scepticism, although in part

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Hume’s “mitigated scepticism” participates in it – arises from the demands of the systems themselves and finds its resolutions in them, to an extent that when seen from out of them, it becomes artificial. The second one – embodied by Pyrrhonian scepticism, by Montaigne’s and, again, partially by Hume’s, but also finding a prolonged presence in authors as diverse as Nietzsche and a certain Wittgenstein – has a very different origin: its appearance does not occur within the systems. It is this form of scepticism, and not the other, which appears as a true alternative to the philosophical systematicity. The aspectual dialectic supplies a sui generis intelligibility model, an intelligibility founded on a continuous change of aspects and on a refusal of philosophical fictionality of any kind, which, as we have tried to clarify, is a decisive imprint of the systems.

6.2.  Ataraxia and Systematic Rest Aspectual dialectic leads to peace of mind thus revealing itself as a competitor to the systematic rest, as abundantly theorized by Kant. The peace of mind, ­unlike the systematic rest, maintains the astonishment, the thaumazein, alive in its primitive stage, it does not seek to sublimate it – that belongs to the field of systematic philosophy, in Aristotle or Descartes (‘sublimate’ is truly here used in the Hegelian sense of Aufhebung, keeping for all that the presence of astonishment). But how should the quest – the constant and relentless research, the zetesis – be combined with tranquillity of mind? Peirce used to compare doubt to an irritation which should terminate through the fixation of belief. The systems are responsible for fixing the belief. On the reverse, the aspectual dialectic is a means of its de-fixing. If, on the one hand, Pyrrhonism (including Wittgenstein’s ‘Pyrrhonism’), prevents fictionalism in excess, a risk always present in the ­systems, on the other hand, it simultaneously suffers from a defect not present in those same systems: that of promoting a phantasmal ataraxia rather than a real one.

6.3.  Systematic Intelligibility and Aspectual Dialectic Once again, the ultimate opposition is the one established between the intelligibility of the systems and the sceptic experience of the aspectual dialectic. Both ‘Cartesian scepticism’ and, to a lesser extent, Humean (and Academic) scepticism cohabit with the systematic fictions. As I have tried to demonstrate, it is indeed inside them that the former genuinely makes sense. In contrast, by practicing the aspectual dialectic, and due to its nature, the Pyrrhonist scepticism places itself as an alternative to the systematic order with which it is incompatible: no system can cohabit with a continuous change of aspect of its objects and with the absence of every single teleological principle of determination of them. Ultimately, the question refers to the mind satisfaction classical problem. To this respect, the systems

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propose a strong model: the fulfilment of the whole area of thought. Contrariwise, the aspectual dialectic seems to lie on a much weaker model: that of a succession of imperfect and always partial fulfilments, tendentiously infinite in their own succession. It remains unknown if such solution genuinely satisfies the human mind. In other words: if the intelligibility it offers is in fact an effective intelligibility. Or still: if philosophy can do without fiction.

Bibliography Tunhas, Paulo (2003). “Between enigma and Banality: the aspectual dialectic of Wittgenstein and the question ‘What is to think?’”, Análise 24, 43–49. Tunhas, Paulo (2012). O Pensamento e os Seus Objectos. Maneiras de pensar e sistemas filosóficos, Porto, MLAG Discussion Papers, Edições da Universidade do Porto.

Jaime Ortueta Y Salas

Belief in Ortega and Wittgenstein1 As far as theory of belief is concerned, Hume is the most important forerunner of the present scene. One can say that he attempts to “save” common experience, that is, acknowledge its ethical, social and epistemological content, and that in this wide sense a central role is played by belief, natural belief, as it is studied in the first book of the Treatise, and convention as it appears in the third. However, despite the attention Hume pays to scepticism, the upshot of this ­attention to common experience is the thesis that certain forms of belief have to be accepted despite their epistemological limitations. Hume’s theory of belief occupies a middle ground between what he understands as knowledge (relations of ideas), and prejudices and superstition which he criticises. His anti-intellectualism implies that common life has its own natural level of meaning in which belief plays a major role. Between Hume and ourselves one has to take into account the nineteenth century and the impressive development of historical knowledge, and even of sensibility, which Hume could not foresee despite the signal contribution of The History of England. With these developments new forms of scepticism have arisen that are not directly related to scientific knowledge: nihilism and relativism. In both cases a theory of natural belief can play an important role and it is in this context that the contributions of Ortega and Wittgenstein to a belief theory should be taken into account. In both cases, they radicalise Hume’s position. Not only Philosophy but also Science is secondary to common experience. There is no definite term to history which nature can justify, just inherited beliefs. Language-games in On Certainty in Wittgenstein and “Mundos interiores” (Inner Worlds) in Ortega are based on beliefs2 that allow them to exist. Truth

1 According to the practice followed in this book, the references to passages of Ortega’s or Wittgenstein’s work are included in the body of the text and not in the footnotes. In Ortega’s case we cite volume and page number of the complete works listed in the bibliography at the end of the article. For Wittgenstein I have followed the standard practice and used the initials of the British translations of his works giving the number of the paragraph cited. In Ortega’s case I have translated the texts myself save the English version of The Rebellion of the Masses. 2 I am referring to hinge propositions as expressive of beliefs.

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and error would be secondary to certain beliefs. These make the former possible. In Wittgenstein’s case they are part of the underlying grammar of science and consequently acquire precedence over science, which was not the case in Hume. The present article will develop some of these issues. It is not difficult to appreciate the presence of belief in many developments of contemporary thought: Kuhn with paradigms; Heidegger with world conceptions; Taylor with frames and frameworks; Macintyre and Oakeshott on practices; Foucault and epistemes, all approach the same phenomenon from different angles. We enter here a vast subject which places philosophy at the heart of human sciences. In my case, it is important to take into account the centrality of the individual p ­ erspective and the process of identity formation. This article does not deal directly with the epistemic foundations of belief. We believe that ultimately both authors, each in their own way, appeal to common experience, and this limits the possible range of such a discussion. We are interested in the description of a belief concept which benefits from both the authors. The requirements and function of knowledge and belief in common existence have to be recognised. As to the political implications, this means that we must look for the best of ­possible worlds and not the instauration of utopia. In the article we shall begin with (I) an approach to On Certainty; (II) I shall then stress the importance of Ortega’s political experience for the understanding of his theory of belief. The next two sections (III and IV) present their respective concepts of belief in more detail. In V we return to Hume and the concept of belief in politics, to end in VI with a presentation of belief in which we try to compare and learn from the comparison of the two authors. There are many more important issues that could have been addressed in this comparison:  the problem of communication, the possibility and nature of ethical and religious beliefs, or a working concept of the self. However they must wait for another occasion What we present here is just a first approximation of a subject that requires further development.

I A reader with some knowledge of Ortega’s work could easily be surprised by On Certainty because of the similarity of many of its theses. The main point of agreement is the concept of belief, but also one finds analogies with other important concepts such as “ideas” and “use”, on which Ortega worked in the latter part of his career from 1933 onwards. For both authors, in most of our dealings with others we take for granted certain preconditions and we rely on them with

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complete certainty, even though on reflection they could be the object of doubt. This practical certainty is necessary for the development of our everyday life. We stand on them in our daily dealings with reality without even thinking of questioning their reality. Accordingly, both authors use the ­metaphor of the earth to describe this state of certainty (cf. Ortega 2004, 5–675; Wittgenstein 1974, 209). Ultimately, a common culture allows us ­self-knowledge and p ­ urposeful activity, even though in no way are we able to provide an epistemic basis for it. Hume’s understanding of man as credulous and essentially given to belief without complete empirical backing, reappears in our two authors. However, in Wittgenstein this vision is furthered by the linguistic turn that integrates different modes of experience into the workings of language-games. And in Ortega one can find something similar. In both cases Hume’s nature is substituted by instinctual and animal drives (Wittgenstein) or the permanent need to act as a self- justifying agent (Ortega) and in both cases one has to accept one’s inherited culture and work within it. A second reading reveals important differences. Ortega’s work is alien to the linguistic turn. Like Hume, he thinks of beliefs as contents of the mind, whereas Wittgenstein’s theory of belief can be characterised as the non-propositional form of hinge propositions. Wittgenstein’s analysis moves on the level of common language and is not refined with metaphysical distinctions. Attention to common language allows him to follow directly the thought processes of an agent. Ortega resorts to the use of hermeneutics, which arguably can prove to be less objective and rely on a choice of categories that distort the very experience one is trying to elucidate. On the whole, Ortega understands at least some of our beliefs as “deep”. “Radical” is the term he employs. The beliefs that Wittgenstein deals with are part of day-to-day experience. These views are not mutually incompatible, but I  think that outside a generic solidarity between beliefs, and therefore between hinge propositions, there is no sense for Wittgenstein in a deep and ordered structure organised around some specific beliefs. Some examples like that of a riverbed make one think of solidarity or permanence, but we can speculate endlessly on the subject of their possible unity without arriving at anything positive. On the contrary, the radical beliefs with which Ortega works are those whose absence explains historical and cultural crisis. The unity of beliefs seems to be drawn more tightly. Finally, the difficulties that hinder the acceptance of either view of belief also make the comparison harder. Wittgenstein’s concept of language-games is very intuitive, but it is also very difficult to be precise on its boundaries.3 It almost

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appears as a heuristic resort that shows up the structure of reality rather than a tool that one can apply to a specific historical situation. Ortega’s notion of “mundo interior” is also very generic and difficult to employ in a useful way. Wittgenstein’s form of life plays a role similar to Kant’s idea of pure reason, since it has only a very abstract characterization, and something similar could be said about the need to act in On Certainty, whereas Ortega’s efforts to carry out a hermeneutic analysis of life could always be considered as partial and an alternative to other similar attempts by Heidedgger or Sartre. On the whole, Ortega offers only a few examples of beliefs, and particularly of radical beliefs. He does mention the belief in reason (cf. Ortega 2004, 5–373) or the belief as to who has political authority in a community (cf. Ortega 2004, 6–92). However, On Certainty works with examples: that I have two hands (cf. OC § 1), I have a brain (cf. OC §§23, 24, 25), I have not been on the moon (cf. OC § 111), etc. One can only think that to maintain that first beliefs are radical one has to think not only of the context in which they are held, but also of the persons who can find their bearings in life through holding them. There is a case which illustrates perfectly the difference of method and theoretical ambition of the two. In On Certainty Wittgenstein annotates his text:  “and write with confidence “In the beginning was the deed” (OC §402), citing Goethe in contrast to the well-known opening of Saint John’s Gospel. However, Ortega commenting directly on Goethe maintains, “When Goethe said “In the beginning was the deed” he said something which he had not really thought about, because action is not possible if there is not a previous project, the image of an action, and this project is the preliminary idea” (cf. Ortega, 2004, 10–422). Ortega was worried by the appeal to action in the political thirties, while Wittgenstein was thinking of the underlying instinctive need to act, which brings with it an animal certainty at times belied by circumstances. The fact is that Ortega was working with a notion of action as made possible by projects and therefore thought, whereas Wittgenstein was thinking of the drive to action which originated in one’s animal nature. In VI,3 I shall try to make a case for Wittgenstein, but it remains true that Ortega is using a “strong” conception of life presented with the help of categories such as liberty, vocation, project, whereas Wittgenstein remains within the limits of ordinary language throughout.

3 It seems that one should talk about a language game specific to each person and each linguistic community, but it is also possible to interpret that a person can engage in several different language games at the same time.

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II In this case, as in others, there is a great difference between the two thinkers in their understanding of philosophy’s task. Ortega was basically a continental intellectual whose work, particularly in his early period, was conceived as an effort to renew and to contribute to the modernisation of Spanish society. The present article has been written in the light of a paradox, the possibility that starting from methods and interests so different, one can arrive at a theory of belief which in many aspects is similar. And this sense of a paradox is due to understanding Wittgenstein’s doctrine of belief as developed in the context of a discussion of Moore’s answers to idealism. Wittgenstein basically agreed with Moore and Bertrand Russell, but in On Certainty he provided new ways of formulating a realist position. On the other hand, Ortega arrived at his theory of belief through his political and historical experience. The question is whether Wittgenstein´s theory of belief can be developed in the context of political thought.4 To return to Ortega, I  consider him primarily a political thinker despite the interest of his thought from the viewpoint of Anthropology and the Social Sciences. But I should qualify this judgement by distinguishing three possible ways in which one can understand politics as an intellectual activity. 1. Following and writing on day-to-day Spanish politics, which in fact Ortega did until 1932. 2. Having a position on the classical subjects of political thought: the best form of government and, in a modern context, the rights of the citizen. He was adverse to dealing with these subjects in a contextless form, but he made it clear that he was favourable to democratic government.5 3. Finding concepts which can explain and evaluate the relationship between politics and society. This, in my opinion, is where his contribution is of the greatest value due to his efforts to provide his readership with the concepts necessary to understand both the contemporary Spanish situation and, with the publication of the Rebellion of the Masses, the European context of his time.6 The

4 The political implications of Wittgenstein´s thought is an open subject. Relatively recently, Cressida Hayes (Hayes 2003) made several attempts to give Wittgenstein’s work an application to progressive thought, and the Foreword mentions other more conservative interpretations. 5 This also should be qualified taking into account the distinction he himself makes between liberal and democratic. 6 In fact, his early work also contains an analysis of the current European context. For instance, The Modern Theme [El tema de nuestro tiempo] is conceived also as an analysis of contemporary culture.

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distinction between ideas, uses and beliefs is initiated in this context, but one can find other concepts that belong to this field of his work.7 It is possible to trace an evolution in Ortega’s understanding of what a society needs to sustain a modern state. In his early work of 1914, there are two concepts that the citizens of a modern state should possess: ideology and sensibility. His readership was non-academic and he wished them to develop their perspectives: to be governed by ideas would be to follow an ideology, a term which in that period Ortega used in its initial non-Marxist sense. It is important that one should be directed not by convention or whim but by ideas, hence the importance of ideology.8 Sensibility is another of the concepts that are central to Ortega’s thought. In a text of The Modern Theme, Ortega is not using the term “idea” in the more technical meaning that appears later, but the general understanding of culture as organised on different levels of profundity is already present: Historical reality possesses a perfectly organized hierarchy, an order of ­subordination, of dependency of different classes of facts: the industrial and political ­transformations are not very deep and depend on the moral and aesthetic preferences of one’s contemporaries. But at the same time, ideology, taste and morality are no more than consequences or determinations of the radical sense that one can have of one’s life, of how one feels globally about one’s existence. This is what we call “vital sensibility” and it is primary in history and what one has to define to understand one’s times […]. (Ortega 2004, 3–562)

During the same period he attempted to evaluate Pio Baroja, a novelist and member of an older generation, and he distinguishes between a “yo-artistico” and a “yo-ideológico” to make the point that art by itself, even if it criticises society, cannot remedy its ills (cf. Ortega 2004, 7–298, 300). Finally, we should mention the later distinction between the man of excellence and mass man. Whereas the latter lets himself be dominated by his needs, the former is permanently seeking to overcome the limitations of reality and to guide himself by values (cf. Ortega 2004, 4–413). In his later work the value of the individual’s efforts will continue to be central, but behind the theory of belief what Ortega is highlighting is something more collective:  the effectiveness of the current culture which can or cannot sustain

7 For instance “integration”, “project” or the distinction minority/masses. 8 I cite a very early text in which Ortega speaks of what he expects from his forthcoming first trip to Germany: “I’m travelling to Germany (to find myself,) and to take possession of my instincts and resources for the “Struggle for life” – in English- and at the same time to begin the construction of an ideology, firm, solid, robust and as deeply founded as I can manage” (Ortega 2004, 7–19).

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modern society. The Spanish word “vigencia” is important but difficult to translate in this context. The expression “to be in force” does not capture the necessity and spontaneity which we recognise in valid principles. Ideas and actions need a background of valid beliefs to acquire credibility. At the beginning of his career the limitation of the Spanish lower classes was deemed to be their lack of interest in politics. Spanish society had to be educated (cf. Ortega 2004, 1–151) and that was the role of the intellectual. But twenty years later the masses appeared ready to take an active part in politics and were favourable to totalitarian solutions (cf. Ortega 2004, 4–417). In this situation it becomes important to resort to reason, but that in turn requires the introduction or restoration of valid principles, that is the principles that have “vigencia”. Whoever wishes to have ideas must first prepare himself to desire truth and accept the rules of the game imposed by this. It is of no use speaking of ideas when there is no acceptance of a higher authority to regulate them, a series of standards to which it is possible to appeal in a discussion. These standards are the principles on which culture rests. I am not concerned with the form they take. What I affirm is that there is no culture where there are no standards to which our fellow men can have recourse. There is no culture where there are no principles of legality to which to appeal. There is no culture where there is no acceptance of certain final intellectual positions to which a dispute can be referred. There is no culture where economic relations are not subject to a regulating principle to protect the interests involved. There is no culture where aesthetic controversy does not recognise the necessity of justifying a work of art. (Ortega 2004, 4–417)

It is at this point where the concept of belief can play a role because the possibility of consensus always rests on some prior collective understanding. And the later Ortega will feel the difficulty of intellectualising and preparing a blueprint for a social order through abstract reasoning when it is really a question of lived culture. In a society subject to historical change the effectiveness of current beliefs can increase or decrease. And so, in contrast to Wittgenstein´s treatment of natural beliefs, these may or may not prove effective, that is to say functional. A society can find that it has lost its (cultural) way. The intellectual’s role will be to propose new forms but, as Ortega experienced, these may not be successful in a specific situation. The very context for accepting new cultural proposals may no longer exist. The upshot then will be anomia, violence, and the barbaric setting of collectivism. Initially, Ortega’s idea for the regeneration of Spanish society led him to think that it was enough if a small minority could make reason prevail, introducing the necessary reforms to transform society, but in his mature work his point of view was no longer essentially prescriptive but descriptive of a social setting that had proved insensitive to the humanitarian ideals of enlightenment and the action of intellectuals. More than Hume’s expectation that convention could bring growth and new forms of integration of society, it is Rousseau’s sense of the alienation of modernity

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that proved nearer to reality as experienced in the 1930s of the last century. In this scenario, with En torno a Galileo (Ortega 2004, 6–422) and Ideas y Creencias (Ortega 2004, 5–674) Ortega introduces his theory of belief specifically with the objective of understanding cultural change. The problem these works addressed was the sense of bafflement and uncertainty when radical beliefs prove no longer functional. “There are historical crises when the changes consist in the passage from a system of convictions of the previous generation to a situation in which man no longer has those convictions, and therefore loses a representation of reality”.9 (Ortega 2004, 6–421). This vision of belief highlights the internal strife of modern societies that have to face change and plurality, whereas the treatment of belief in On Certainty focusses more on the necessary acceptance of common beliefs. In fact, both visions of belief are compatible. In Ortega’s thought, in all societies there are accepted beliefs despite the polemics and cultural wars that seem inevitable.10 And Wittgenstein’s natural beliefs and hinge propositions are compatible with, and in fact are even presupposed by, the complexity of our representations of reality. Ortega is very conscious of history but Wittgenstein’s reliance on language and practices which also evolve, has an evident historical dimension. An important difference is that, in Wittgenstein’s view, individuals retain the need to act11 and with it the animal certainty that is prior to and independent of any intellectual consideration. Even if Ortega’s observation that in certain circumstances culture can prevail and guide one’s instinct (cf. Ortega 2004, 5–554) is acceptable, and this feature could be considered a defining characteristic of civilisation, it still remains true that on the whole we are moved to act instinctively even in a context that is highly mediated by culture.

III We should try to be precise about the concepts of belief, idea and use in Ortega. The initial pages of Ideas y Creencias are extremely useful in this context. Belief is characterised as:  1. Unconscious or at least unreflective representations of reality; 2. Inherited; 3. Valid within a social context; 4. Independent of one’s will; 5. Taken on trust by an agent in his actions; 6. Lived and identified by the agent

9 The text says literally “se queda … sin mundo” “mundo” being a technical term in Ortega to describe the image of one’s world which is constructed according to beliefs. 10 One should do justice to work done on Spengler’s possible influence on Wittgenstein (cf. Cavell 1987, 29 ff; and De Angelis 2007, 1 ff). Spengler was also read by Ortega and The Decline of the West is seen by Ortega as an alternative but unconvincing explanation for cultural decline. 11 We read: “In the beginning was the deed” (cf. Moyal-Sharrock 2007, 173 ff).

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as reality itself; and therefore 7.  Productive of the certainty necessary for all of our activities. One can add that some beliefs are: 8. Radical, allowing for different representations of reality and therefore 9. They play a role as foundation of our representations (cf. Ortega 2004, 5–666). Ideas contrast with beliefs. They are produced by our imagination though not necessarily in an arbitrary fashion. We can follow a rule or method to arrive at them. They are not only held consciously but can be discussed, proved, reformulated, falsified, and even consciously abandoned. They are secondary to beliefs and to our sense of reality which beliefs allow us to form. “The supreme truth is evidence but the value of evidence is just mere theory, idea or intellectual combination” (Ortega 2004, 5–666). Finally, uses are developed technically in the last version of El hombre y la gente, Man and People. They are: 1. Actions which are socially established; 2. Imposed on the members of a society; and 3. They have lost their original meaning for those who undertake them. Here also belief is superior. Belief implies that the agent decides his action taking into account a representation of reality and implicitly applying his beliefs. They can contribute to what Ortega terms interpersonal relationships, where the parties of a social exchange are present as independent agents, capable of acknowledging the individual reality of the other. When the agent resorts to social uses, he is just following the established conventions which are imposed socially. This in turn implies a form of self-denial that he describes thus: when I follow a use “I find myself, a human being, doing an act which lacks two of the characters that are characteristic of any truly human activity: that it should be conceived by the agent himself and willed by him. And so rather than human behaviour one must see in the use mechanical, subhuman movement” (Ortega 2004, 10–266).

IV In Wittgenstein’s case, the context for the development of his theory of belief was an analysis of common language. Even if it refers to what Ortega technically called ‘mundo’, that is the representation of reality according to our beliefs, in no way did Wittgenstein attempt a reconstruction of his personal and cultural situation similar to the one that Ortega attempts in Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations on Quixote). On Certainty makes no reference to David Hume, but the first book of the Treatise of Human Nature deals with what one could term natural belief before the linguistic turn. In Wittgenstein, human behaviour is seen from the concept of a language-game which in turn is understood as a form of life.12 A language-game 12 “Here the term “language game” is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of a language is part of an activity, or a form of life”, PI 23.

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has informal rules though these are not stated or transmitted as such nor the game learnt directly through those rules: “Not only rules, but also examples are needed for establishing a practice” (OC 139). But these implicit rules are essential for the development of the language-game itself: “… a language game is only possible if one trusts something” (OC 509). And Wittgenstein explains: “But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false” (OC 94).13 Among the conditions of a factual statement one should take into account beliefs, which can be stated as hinge propositions. “The questions we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were hinges on which those turn” (OC 341). For our comparison between Ortega and Wittgenstein this point is essential. Beliefs can give rise to grammatical propositions which are neither true nor false but belong to the grammar that, in turn, allows factual statements. Whereas factual propositions are bipolar, hinge propositions are atemporal. A belief conceivably could give rise to different statements in different situations.14 From the viewpoint of a theory of belief, the acknowledgement of hinge propositions is a huge discovery. In an informal way and eschewing any kind of metaphysics, belief is the principle that allows us to think reality. There is no difficulty that I can see, for extending Wittgenstein’s understanding of the concept to Ortega. He insists on the unconscious character of beliefs but it seems more precise to say that a belief will do its work independently of one’s being conscious of it; what is essential is that it does not need, nor can it afford, proof or intuition. Even if our beliefs do appear in our language, it will be under the form of a hinge proposition that one would try to dispute only if one were demented.15 The sole difference I can see is that the atemporal nature of the proposition does not imply that the belief in turn will also be atemporal. On the contrary, in Ortega’s vision the temporality of beliefs is central to the problems that a civilisation has to face. However, it is also true that we experience our beliefs as atemporal even if we are intellectually conscious that in the future they may not be relevant, or are open to

13 ““So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?”- It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not an agreement of opinions but in form of life”, PI 241. 14 Cf. Moyal-Sharrock 2007, 68. 15 “If Moore were to pronounce the opposite of those propositions which he declares certain, we should not just not share his opinion: we should regard him as demented”, OC 155.

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reformulation or even may turn out to be invalid,16 and meanwhile we have to face the weakening of certain beliefs that anticipates their decay. It remains the merit of the linguistic turn and of Wittgenstein’s work in On Certainty to have fixed an understanding of beliefs which improves the rather imprecise nature of the characterizations that I have given in Ortega’s work, for all of the latter’s merits. There is a parallel comparison to hinge propositions and beliefs, and related to beliefs that is provided by the concept of metaphor which organises our vision of the world. “A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside, for it lay in our language and seemed to repeat it to us inexorably” (PI 115). Here it is the picture that suggests a way of seeing things that allows factual propositions. In Ortega’s early work before the formulation of his theory of belief, we find that the notion of a metaphor plays an important role. Thus, he writes of two metaphors that have organised classical theory of knowledge and he would like to add a third one (7–662 and 2–505). Nonetheless, we would need to elaborate the terminology we are using if we are to be more precise regarding the similarities between the two authors. We certainly have to distinguish and also relate grammatical propositions and beliefs. Whereas we speak in Wittgenstein of factual propositions as opposed to grammatical ones, in the case of Ortega, beliefs are countered by ideas. I think that at this point the parallelism just does not hold, but it is interesting that possibly the notion of “ideas” comes to Ortega through phenomenology where the stress is on the interpretations of reality rather than the facts in their more positive meaning.

V It is time for some comparison of our two authors taking into account the role that a theory of belief plays in their thought. Both are in agreement as to the dependency of particular beliefs in a culture that is already formed. In that sense tradition and society make an important contribution to individuals. On the whole, the attention to natural beliefs on Wittgenstein’s part allows a description and understanding which, to my knowledge, is unparalleled in any other author. At the same time, Ortega’s early work on perspective and his general effort to develop an anthropological metaphysics allow us to take into account the impact of belief in identity formation, and the inevitability of pluralism in a modern society, since

16 The difference between a belief and the hinge propositions raises important issues as to the relationship between the two. Depending on the context, a proposition can be a hinge proposition or a factual one (cf. OC 98 and 622; RC 622).

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common beliefs are interpreted and played out by different agents who have their own idiosyncrasies, biographies and points of view. Limiting beliefs to natural beliefs, those related to sense experience and facts, and leaving out any belief related to value, tends to restrict the concept’s use particularly in the context of the connection of culture with politics. Ortega’s criticism of contemporary Spain and later of the European scene in general relates to the quality of communication. A country can have modern institutions but if it does not live a modern culture the former will prove to be superfluous, as Tocqueville famously observed in the case of the Mexican constitution. Without the proper cultural context, institutions are not really viable. The quality of exchanges between agents implies that the institutions are being effective. This “ideal” scenario relies heavily on shared beliefs.17 When one considers Wittgenstein and Hume in this context, one can but see them both lacking, particularly Wittgenstein. In the case of Hume, the idea of convention points towards the creation of culture by agreement between parties, but on the whole natural beliefs  – as opposed to prejudices and superstitionsappear as generated in the course of experience in each agent individually and following his own nature.18 We have seen that in Wittgenstein, we learn and apply language-games adapting them to our material or conversational necessities, but there is no sense of mutual acknowledgement, shared projects or common decision in the cases that he studies. Certainly, part of the explanation lies in the epistemic context of On Certainty. Nonetheless, the text of the Rebellion of the Masses cited above, points toward a situation that is of utmost importance for the quality of a society. It remains true that this intuition is also developed by Ortega in a very restrictive manner. As far as I can remember, beliefs are used by him in the context of crisis and intellectual renewal.19 The non-performance of certain beliefs in a specific context requires a renewal of culture. And it behoves each generation to find the ideas that can make this happen. In fact, with this vision, history is introduced into philosophy as a dimension of reality that has to be taken into account. Reality is conceived as

17 Ortega also works with the idea of integration. Politics should integrate the citizens due to the quality of project that it attempts to enact. (3–437) 18 For natural belief: Hume 2002, 1, 3, 7 ff; 65 ff SB 99 et seq.; 1-3-14; 105, SB 155. For convention: Hume 2002 3-2-2.- 311 et seq.; SB 708 et seq. The work on convention lacks the methodological quality of Hume’s study of belief. In this area, Hume also deserves acknowledgement for his work on public opinion. Hume 1985, 32. 19 I am tempted to relate belief to vocation in Ortega, but I cannot produce textual evidence for this. The idea would be that one interprets available culture in an individual fashion. This interpretation acts as belief, directing one’s activities and projects.

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historical in a post-hegelian manner which is replicated neither by Hume, despite The History of England, nor by Wittgenstein despite the sense of crisis occasionally reflected by his writings (CV 6). However, to my mind, Ortega’s vision of history as basically intellectual history is ultimately insufficient. It is not just a question of more progress to offset the imbalances of an historical situation. His solution to the crisis of the late twenties, the development of a European community (cf. Ortega 2004, 4–458), is still a possibility for future generations, but we are too apprised of the contingency of institutional arrangements not to think that we must look for intellectual and institutional security elsewhere. This involves a reformulation of the concept of belief. It is acceptable that to hold a belief is just to have some tacit assurance on how the world is, as On Certainty shows. But beliefs can imply or even consist of the acceptance of certain values. In that sense, it is not just a question of what I need to be certain about if I want to act in a certain way, but that to some extent I become a believer, that is I follow certain values or principles which justify the course of action that I have taken. To survive in a modern society one has to be a positive believer in many different contexts. An agent acquires social identity partly because of the values with which he manages to identify. From this point of view, it is clear that a society exists on some sort of consensus20 which is never a complete and unanimous agreement but important enough for its workings to be transparent to its members. Open to inefficiency, anomie and demoralization, the malfunction of the system can lead it to abandon its most cherished beliefs. On the contrary, the adoption of beliefs allows agents to act naturally, that is follow a second and acquired nature, which gives them social identity.

VI Taking these differences into account the temptation is to believe that Ortega and Wittgenstein are irreducible to one another. Seen from Wittgenstein’s standpoint, Ortega’s attempts to understand history would be merely an example of what cannot be said.21 Looking at Wittgenstein from Ortega, his analysis of common language would curtail the desirable range of philosophy. And yet both contribute to a general theory of belief. Both acknowledge a certain primacy of this concept in their mature thought. The recent work of Moyal-Sharrock Understanding 20 Ortega lauds Hume for having valued public opinion (cf. Ortega 2004, 4–456) and understands that his recommendations for Spanish society have to be adopted in some form by public opinion. The opening chapter of The Modern Theme is very expressive of this (cf. Ortega 2004, 3–561). 21 “What belongs to the essence of the world cannot be expressed in language”, PR 54.

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Wittgenstein’s On Certainty in ­chapters  4 to 7 presents a classification of hinge propositions that recognises its true extension to the concept of belief. I would wish to close this article with some comments on specific aspects of belief theory where the contrast between our two authors can prove to be profitable with a view to developing such a theory. 1. In the first place, one could point out a certain compatibility in the different versions of the way culture – and hence language – is formed. Ortega highlights the contribution of specific individuals to the process of creating new metaphors or concepts that in time become part of the belief structure of a society. In fact, the comparison brings out three different perspectives on the evolution of language and culture which do not contradict each other. A) I do not think that Ortega would object to the idea of a gradual formation of culture, and language as social intercourse, and language-games become more sophisticated as Wittgenstein’s vision seems to imply.22 B) However, Ortega’s basic position is to value individual contributions to history in the form of defending new theories, founding of institutions or inventing social roles which eventually become part of the established culture. Here as elsewhere Ortega shows an abiding interest in stressing the importance of creativity and innovation (Ortega 2004, 5–300/302) related to his appreciation of the individual and his role in history. And this in turn is compatible with the distinction between hinge and factual propositions which is pervasive in On Certainty. The attention given to the way agents actually speak is probably, as we shall see, more decisive than the attention given to innovation. As I shall argue below, the act of speaking, of living through a language-game would be the most decisive for the formation of a culture. These three approaches are compatible, but each makes different contributions. The evolutionary approach permits a sense of historical continuity; stressing innovation helps to give historical narrative a content and to distinguish different periods; whereas the study of ordinary language introduces us to specifics of the language-games and the level where changes really take place. 2. Ortega’s vision of culture tends to highlight the discontinuity and sense of crisis very much present in our historical consciousness, but the concept of languagegames emerges as the approach that brings us nearer historical reality. It is not sufficient for an idea to be proposed and argued for. To be accepted and become part of our stock of beliefs, it has to have other qualities relative to the day-to-day practices of those concerned. It should prove relevant to an existing

22 Cf. Moyal-Sharrock 2007, 184.

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situation and in some immediate sense offer an improvement on what there was previously. And all is done by agents installed in a specific situation. Often, innovation is achieved by the reformulation of a previous belief in the light of new circumstances. At other times we are faced with some new innovation, like electricity, which society may take over a generation to come to terms with. In all cases, what is called for is an adaptation to a way of life, as is fitting for societies that are dynamic and historic. The agent has to be able to go about his ways in a new and better fashion. By “better” one can mean more efficient, but it is also possible that the advantages can be symbolic, allowing for a better self-understanding and an enhanced relationship with one’s social surroundings. From this point of view, it is not enough to stress novelty and look on an innovator as an artist, as Ortega tends to do. One has to take into account the pertinence of an innovation that will be accepted in the light of the situations in which the agents find themselves. From this standpoint Ortega’s contextualisation is important. An example has been the understanding in the West of the relationship between genders, particularly since the Second World War. Female liberation has had its publicists, politicians and theorists, but in point of fact there has been what amounts to a quiet revolution in the space of three generations all over the West. What has been in play is not really intellectual evidence but ways of life which have changed drastically from many points of view. We are confronted with an almost anonymous process where society has given itself the rationale it needs to keep itself afloat. 3. Where I think that Ortega clearly loses out to Wittgenstein´s approach would be the distinction between uses and beliefs. In this case, for Ortega there is a difference in kind: a belief has an intellectual component even if it is unconscious, whereas a use is an action which is imposed on the subject by social pressure. The notion of a language-game is decisive here though, of course, Wittgenstein was completely alien to Ortega’s thought. It implies that no human action lacks a degree of thought on the part of its agent, even if it is tacit and unconscious thought, and no thought lacks some practical component, even if it can be of extremely modest dimensions. Human forms of life imply that knowledge and action blend, even if we should recognise that the proportions of both ingredients differ from case to case. As we saw in the context of the expression “In the beginning was the deed”, Ortega in his mature work distinguished three different moments: permanent alteration in which primitive man was subject to the requirements of the environment, reflection (‘ensimismamiento’) which allowed conscience to withdraw from the immediate stimulus of nature and reflect, and finally action

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where the agent pursues the projects that previously he had been able to prepare (Ortega 2004, 5–529 ff.). In this case, I find Leibniz’s formulations particularly apposite insofar as he maintained that perception and appetition were different dimensions of the same impulse. While acting we are thinking.23 It makes no sense to maintain that one just follows a plan previously thought out. Leibniz is also pertinent as he distinguished different – and yet related- levels of perception,24 being one of the first to allow for unconscious representation. The example of use that Ortega gives is the practice of greeting with a handshake. He is right that it is an established convention that, under certain circumstances, agents have to shake hands on meeting and therefore one can speak of a case of social coercion. However, one has to acknowledge that the agent implicitly is acting in the fullest sense of the term. He follows a protocol which has been pre-ordained, but he would be unable to follow it without paying attention to the circumstances in which he finds himself. And he decides how to apply this protocol, for instance whom to address first, and even if he is unaware of the origin of the handshake – the need to show that one does not carry arms – he can choose the way to carry it out expressing or hiding his feelings towards the person involved. To be fair to Ortega, the decision to distinguish use and belief has an historical explanation. One can recognise that he is addressing different problems in each case: one is the acknowledgement of the limitations of our conscious experience and of our reason. This requires the contrast between beliefs and ideas. The other would be the compulsive weight of common culture which a totalitarian government can use for its own purposes. Here Ortega is defending the right to an independent personality and to decide one’s own life, against the encroaching influence of a repressive society. Ortega speaks of the tyranny of the uses. But behind this position one must value the distinction between social and interpersonal relationships (Ortega 2004, 10–199 ff; 10–260) because he understands that a person is only really himself in a relationship in which each party recognises and deals with the other taking into account his personality and circumstances. He is also conscious of the weight of purely social relationships that can erode the development of the former.

23 “L’action du principe interne, qui fait le changement ou le passage d’une perception à une autre, peut être appellé Appetition” (Leibniz 1875, 6–609). 24 “il y a à tout moment une infinité de perceptions en nous, mais sans aperception et sans reflexion” (Leibniz 1875, 5–46).

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When Ortega worked on these issues in the last years of his life, he probably had in mind Sartre and L’Être et le Néant, where there is a reformulation of the master-slave relationship of The Phenomenology of the Spirit of Hegel and which Man and People implicitly rebutes. I  consider that a dialectical treatment is apposite for these issues involving communication and identity formation. He managed to reproduce the conditions that allow personal communication. The language-game, for all its merits, does not appear to be so effective in this more personal context. But even dialectic have a context of beliefs beyond the extreme formulations of Hegel, according to which the spirit autonomously and completely generates its own context. The issue that inevitably has to be raised is how do beliefs operate in these contexts? 4. Unlike Wittgenstein, Ortega worked technically on the concept of life, and any examination of his theory of belief benefits from some of his insights. Specifically, I would like to dwell on his awareness that one’s life experience was not just enacting different language-games. His historical sense led him to understand that there is a life story that should be taken into account, particularly in view of the ethical issues that beliefs imply. One can attempt to enumerate the beliefs of a person but Ortega thinks this enumeration will always be external. Beliefs as could be described by an outside researcher will be typical of a society at a certain stage and common to its members. But there is deeper way of conceiving beliefs, as interpreted by each agent in the context of his personal experience. This interpretation differs from person to person, from perspective to perspective, to the point that one can speak of a kind of rationality proper to each agent’s life. It is in the course of life experience where common beliefs acquire their real status. Ortega explains: The plurality of beliefs on which a person, a people, or an age agree, never has a completely logical structure. It does not form a system of ideas. […] Beliefs coexist in a life which they sustain, inspire and direct. They may be […] contradictory or unconnected. […] But they form an effective system within the life experience of the agent who has them. (Ortega 2004, 6–48)

These remarks are particularly important for beliefs that have ethical consequences, but in fact they can be applied to all beliefs. Ortega in his mature period wanted to find a unifying trait that would make life experience reasonable, though it can never be rational in a strong sense. Leaving aside a technical judgement of his work on this point, a case can be made in favour of looking for a personal context of an agent’s beliefs. There are other ways of conceiving the unity of our beliefs. One would be pragmatic and refer to the role beliefs play in the development of our actions. For instance, we each have a representation of the city or town in which we live,

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a map with parts outlined with more details than others according to the use one makes of it, in accordance with our needs. This would be plainly applicable to the natural beliefs both Hume and Wittgenstein deal with, as well as to Ortega’s view. Finally, from an ethical point of view the agent tends to find unity in his experience as a free agent who has to find his way in a specific social and historical context. This would be the process of identity acquisition in a social context. This position refers back to biographical unity, to which I  have referred above, but works from the point of view of the agent who has to choose and not from the standpoint of the subject who has already lived through the events of his life and can describe them. Faced by an open future, the past can only suggest to the agent a preferable course of action but certainly not impose it on him. Here, belief plays a somewhat different role: it does not bolster a sense of personal identity, but it is decisive in the act of choosing. It implies a certain commitment to values an agent is free to follow or ignore. This connection between beliefs and ethics supposes a vision of the subject in which Wittgenstein did not participate. Even if he writes on ‘Lebensformen’, there he had no intention to provide a metaphysical context to his theory of belief.

Bibliography Cavell, Stanley (1989). This New and yet Unapproachable America, Albuquerque, NM, Living Batch Press. De Angelis, William James (2007). Ludwig Wittgenstein. A cultural Point of View, Aldershot, Ashgate. Hayes, Cressida (ed.) (2003). The Grammar of Politics. Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy, Ithaca, Cornell University Press. Hume, David (2002). A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton, Oxford, Oxford University Press [with the initials SB we indicate the page numbers of the Selby Bigge edition of this same work, which for some time has been the one used by the academic community]. Hume, David (1985). Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, edited by Eugene F Miller, Minneapolis, Liberty Fund. Hume, David (1976). Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, edited with an introduction by Norman Kemp Smith, New York, Oxford University Press. Leibniz, G.W (1875). Die Philosophische Schriften herausgegeben von C.I. Gerhardt. 7 Bande, Berlin, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. Moyal-Sharrock, Danièle (2004). Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Pitkin, Hannah, F. (1972). Wittgenstein and Justice, Berkeley, University of California Press.

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Ortega y Gasset, José (2004). Obras Completas, Madrid, Taurus. Ortega y Gasset, José (1951). The Revolt of the Masses, New York, Norton. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1968). Philosophical Investigations, edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and Rush Rhees, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell [abbreviated as PI]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974). On Certainty, edited by G.E.M Anscombe and G.H. von Wright, translated by Denis Peral and G.E.M. Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell [abbreviated as OC]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1975). Philosophical Remarks, edited R. Rhees, translated by R. Hargreaves and Robert White, Oxford, Blackwell [abbreviated as PR]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1977). Remarks on Colour, edited by G.E.M. Anscombe, translated by Linda L Macalister and Margaret Schättle, Berkeley/Los Angeles, University of California Press [abbreviated as RC]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980). Culture and Value, edited by G.H. von Wright, translated by Peter Winch, Oxford, Blackwell [abbreviated as CV].

Sofia Miguens

Disquietness, Worldhood and Selfhood: Conant’s Wittgenstein and the Problem of Scepticism Is there still any gain to be had from reflecting on the nature and sources of scepticism? At the beginning of the Introduction to their 2014 volume Varieties of Skepticism James Conant and Andrea Kern claim that there is (Conant and Kern 2014, 1–16). The reason is that scepticism is not just any philosophical puzzle. There is something disquieting about scepticism: it threatens our sense of self and world and, precisely because of that, scepticism is, according to them, the proper starting point for making sense of what philosophy is. Although in the ConantKern collection this idea is pursued by looking at the cases of Kant, Wittgenstein and Cavell, here I am particularly interested in considering James Conant himself, that is, his reading of the ‘varieties of scepticism’, in particular Cartesian, Kantian and Wittgensteinian scepticisms. Such reading is a thread underlying Conant’s approach to philosophy, which is, as is well known, informed by the so-called austere reading of Wittgenstein. The austere reading involves a view of thought and language, sense and nonsense, of the nature of logic and of the nature of philosophy itself. Comparing and contrasting varieties of scepticism is, according to Conant, a useful way of inspecting relations between the very different problems philosophers call sceptical problems (e.g. problems about the existence of an outer world, about other minds, or about the possibility of meaning anything at all, as in S. Kripke’s famous 1982 interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations). Finding such relations is the reason why attending to varieties of scepticism might be illuminating.

Wittgensteinianism, Modality and Scepticism The interest in scepticism brings together apparently disparate strands of Conant’s work, such as for example, interpretations of German Idealism and positions on the epistemology of perception. It is an open question though how scepticism relates to Conant’s austere reading of Wittgenstein. One simple way to begin answering such question is to consider that the relation is simply exegetical and hermeneutical: Conant’s reading of scepticisms (especially of the Cartesian and Kantian varieties) forms a path ‘leading’ to the austere reading of Wittgenstein. It should be noticed that the very fact that an interpretation of crucial figures

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in the historical tradition of scepticism accompanies the austere reading per se shows that such reading is not (contra e.g. P. Hacker) just sterile commentary on Wittgenstein’s notion of Unsinn or nonsense. It is not just the contrast between Cartesian and Kantian scepticism though that is essential for understanding how things ultimately stand for Conant in relation to scepticism; the connection between Kant and Wittgenstein is also crucial. This is so because according to Conant, the Wittgensteinian way with scepticism is not an alternative but rather a supplementation of Kant’s way. It is thus important to understand Conant’s view of Kant and of Kant’s way with scepticism. For that Barry Stroud’s celebrated interpretation of Kant, centred on transcendental arguments, is crucial – and as we will see, Conant’s reading of Kant refers to Stroud and clashes with Stroud’s. At the very heart of Conant’s austere reading of Wittgenstein lies a claim about the nature of logic: the claim that there is no accounting for the necessity of logic from outside logic. One must account for the necessity of logic from within logic. This, for Conant, is the key to Wittgenstein’s view of thought, language and philosophy. Much discussion on the metaphysics of modality underlies this blunt statement about necessity and the comparison between Cartesian and Kantian scepticisms is one first step to get at what matters. I will start there. The question of the nature of logical truths comes up in discussions of the austere reading. Yet one may ask how scepticism may even start to relate to such question; the relation is anything but obvious. Conant’s idea is that they relate through the way a view of modality structures conceptions of experience. Scepticisms (namely the Cartesian and Kantian versions) are connected with what Conant calls Cartesian and Kantian views of experience – Cartesian and Kantian scepticisms make sense only given such views. Understanding Cartesian and Kantian views of experience is thus crucial for Conant’s dialectic and one thing Conant is doing in Varieties of Skepticism is spelling out the respective commitments regarding possibility and actuality in Cartesian and Kantian views of experience. As Arata Hamawaki comments, the problem for Conant is whether we can indeed make sense of the idea that our capacity to enjoy experiences that represent things as possibly being a certain way is prior to our capacity to grasp that things are actually that way. If we read Kant – as Conant does  – as giving a negative answer to this question, we begin to see how Conant interprets Kant as taking aim at a specific feature of the Cartesian conception of experience. The feature Kant takes aim at is not just any feature: it is an essential element in (Cartesian) sceptical scenarios. The idea is that according to the Cartesian conception of experience appearances may be a certain way but there is no assurance that reality is such. Inferential steps from experience to reality must be taken. According to the Cartesian conception of experience there is a gap between the most that we can ever find out on the basis of experience and

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the way things really are. In the paradigm case (for Conant) of Cartesian scepticism, the case of dreaming, I may suppose that I am dreaming and I do not have such hands and such body (those in the dream) at all. I ask myself: are things really as they seem to be? This is the Cartesian question. Notice that when one poses the Cartesian question  – for example, whether I can distinguish between dreaming and actually experiencing – the possibility of experiencing is simply being taken for granted. What is being inspected is knowledge – do I really know that p? (e.g. that these hands are mine). This is what we ask. It is because of such interest in knowledge that the veridicality of experience matters. Now in the Cartesian picture it is assumed that between a veridical and a non-veridical experience there is, in John McDowell’s term, a common factor. That common factor is precisely ‘experience’. Whether it be veridical or non-veridical experience is what it is qua experience – it may be the same. In such Cartesian circumstances, in order to know, you need not only the appearance, the experience, but also something extra. In order to know and to know that you know you needs to bridge the gap between mind and world, between inner and outer. Even in the best case, that is, when I take myself to be perceiving, or you take yourself to know something, you may be falling short of the fact, it may be the case that you are ‘caught’ in mere appearances and are not able to tell of the appearances that they are mere appearances. You are confined, confined to ideas. Such are the workings of the Cartesian view of experience. It is as such, that is, assuming a Cartesian view of experience, that Cartesian scepticism may apply not only to the case of the existence of an outer world, but also to other minds or to intentional action (how do I know that beyond my experience there is a real world? I ask. How do I know that these movements of human bodies are accompanied by any inner life, by any mental intentions? I ask). In all such cases an inference is required from how things seem to me (how I experience them to be) to how things really are. Now in a Kantian view of experience as Conant characterizes it, we cannot make sense of the idea that our capacity to enjoy experiences that represent things as possibly being a certain way is prior to our capacity to grasp that things are actually that way. What this ultimately means is that in a Kantian view of experience we cannot make sense of mindedness as simply having representations (a purely inner mental realm of ideas in which we are confined). In a Kantian view of experience there is no mindedness prior to exerting judgement. Since judgement is always exerted regarding what is the case a Kantian view of experience is a view not of a secluded inner realm of experiences but of mind in action, or active, in actuality. This is according to Conant one main lesson to be learned from a Kantian perspective on what is wrong with Cartesian scepticism: from a Kantian viewpoint Cartesian scepticism relies on what is an untenable view of experience.

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Of course, already in Descartes himself there are nuances. According to Conant, the Cartesian worry that I  might be deceived by a supremely powerful creator differs from the Cartesian worry that I might be dreaming, which is the paradigm example of Cartesian scepticism. The shape of the difficulty brought in by the evil demon adumbrates the sort of philosophical problem Kant worries about. Once the evil demon is in the picture, the question is no longer about seemings. The worry becomes a worry about whether what seems to me and what I take to be thinkable bears any relation to (the modal contours of) genuine possibility and impossibility. This is a hint in Descartes himself, according to Conant, of Kant’s worry. Kant’s worry does not concern seemings and veridicality of experience:  Kant’s worry concerns the very ­possibility of experience. Unlike Cartesian scepticism, where the possibility of experience is taken for granted, the question for (what Conant calls Kantian scepticism) is how experience is even possible and how it possibly is about something, that is, how it may have objective purport. Whereas the Cartesian question regards knowledge, and, because of that, for example, our ability to distinguish between dreaming and actually perceiving, in order that we may claim that I know that p (e.g. I know that these hands are mine), the Kantian question regards conditions for knowledge. Whereas the Cartesian worry is the veridicality of this or that experience, the Kantian worry regards the very intelligibility of experience (i.e. that there be experience). So the Kantian question is not how to go from appearances to reality; the question is the very possibility of experience, and thus for example, the possibility of a unity of experience, the sort of unity there has to be for there even to be appearing of world to mind – experience is not taken for granted by a Kantian. Kantian scepticism is thus about the possibility of as much as enjoying an experience, entertaining a thought, a thought having objective purport. How can this be? How is it even possible that I enjoy an experience? How is it even possible that I entertain a thought, and that my thinking has objective purport? Such is the Kantian framework, and such is the background against which a Kantian view of experience understandable. Things being so, a Kantian sceptic is very different than a Cartesian sceptic: a Kantian sceptic is concerned not with the gap between inner and outer but rather with the gap between pure impingement of senses, pure transaction in nature, and sensory episodes which are about something, which have objective purport. As Conant sometimes puts it the Kantian sceptic worries about the gap between ‘sensory blindness’ and ‘sensory consciousness’, that is, experiencing as involved in represented how things are). For there to be objective purport experience has to be possible, and for experience to be possible the question is whether our understanding might make as much as anything of what is given to sense.

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The important point anyway is that the shape of the Cartesian view of experience is simply at odds with a Kantian perspective upon experience. Now the step from Descartes to Kant, that is, the step from How do you know (that p)? questions to How is it even possible (that there be experience)? questions must be kept in mind in order to understand the link between Kantian and Wittgensteinian ways with scepticism. In Wittgensteinian scepticism the Kantian question How is experience even possible? becomes: How is it meaning anything at all even possible? This is nothing but the Kantian question in linguistic guise. More should be said though about the Kantian way with scepticism in order to make the differences between Cartesian and Kantian conceptions of experience clearer. Kant’s “Refutation of Idealism” in the Critique of Pure Reason is particularly important to understand Kant’s position towards the sceptic. There Kant addresses Cartesian scepticism, which he calls ‘problematic idealism’. Put very crudely problematic idealism denies the existence of objects in space outside us. The corollary of Kant’s argumentation in the passage is the untenability of such form of idealism. Kant’s argumentative strategy is to turn the game of idealism against itself. This gave rise to the literature on so-called transcendental arguments, a literature in which Californian philosopher Barry Stroud towers. According to Barry Stroud, the deployment of a transcendental argument is Kant’s strategy for answering the sceptic and arriving at this own “Kantian” alternative position with regard to the nature of human knowledge. Of course, there is a reading of Kant behind Stroud’s approach to transcendental arguments, and it is, Conant reminds us, not a reading he himself has ever had. This is so among other things because Stroud attributes to Kant a ‘Cartesian view of the senses’. The differences in the interpretation of Kant between Stroud and Conant are very important when it comes to what we think being a Kantian is (what being a Kantian is in fact something Conant is interested in). For Conant being a Kantian involves a certain take on (a good form of) idealism on one hand and a certain take on certain type of (untenable) idealism on the other, a type of idealism which Kant dismantles in the Critique of Pure Reason. But Conant’s and Stroud’s interpretations of what is going on in Kant regarding idealism are not exactly convergent. What then, Conant asks, are transcendental arguments supposed to be, and what are they supposed to show? In Stroud’s reading, transcendental arguments seek to show that the sceptic occupies an incoherent position. Transcendental arguments are supposed to answer the question of justification, and in so doing demonstrate the objective validity of certain concepts. The way Stroud sees it, this means that the concept “X” has objective validity only if there are X’s. Demonstrating the objective validity of a concept amounts to demonstrating that X’s actually exist. In other words, Kant thought that he could argue from the necessary conditions of thought and experience to the falsity of problematic idealism

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and so to the actual existence of the external world of material objects, and not merely to the fact that we believe there is such a world, or that as far as we can tell there is. Depicted as such, the argument has a Cartesian gap bridging function. It goes from a psychological fact about ourselves (we cannot help but think in a certain way and believe in the existence of certain objects) to a material existence claim (there is an actual external world of material objects). Stroud’s Kant strategy for answering the sceptic issues in transcendental idealism. Here is what Conant thinks about Stroud reading of Kant. According to Stroud, the transition from the premise to the conclusion of the so-called ­transcendental argument is a movement from one material claim to another. For Conant this already suffices to show that what Stroud is depicting is not an  exercise in the Selbsterkenntnis der Vernunft, as Kant understands it (it is not  an exercise in self-knowledge of our reason  – Kant idea of transcendental reflection as that through which we render some aspect of the formal character of our cognitive power reflectively self-conscious). What the argument as depicted by Stroud seeks is rather to show that what makes a certain material claim (about the existence of the external world) true should ultimately be traced to the truth of some further material claim (a claim about our psychological make-up: the claim that we cannot help but think in a certain way). The aim of a transcendental argument thus depicted would thus be to do what Descartes attributes to God – a transcendental argument would give us additional considerations to think that things are as they seem to be. But then idealism would be a disguised version of scepticism, as Stroud argues. This does indeed give the sceptic what he most desires, as Stroud thinks. If this is what idealism of a Kantian sort is, then it would mark the term ‘idealism’ with negative colours. What Stroud depicts Kant as trying to vindicate with transcendental arguments is close to what Kant is trying to refute as ‘problematic idealism’. If things were as Stroud describes them to be with transcendental arguments, his criticism would be devastating of Kant. But, according to Conant, Stroud’s Kant is not Kant. One very important reason is that in his way of depicting a transcendental argument Stroud is attributing to Kant a Cartesian view of experience. But we are not, never were, in a Cartesian position regarding experience, according to Kant. In fact, a Cartesian conception of experience is Kant’s very target of criticism – Kant does not share Descartes’ view of experience. According to Conant, the problem with Stroud’s conception of a Kantian transcendental argument is not just that it is wrong about how to spell out the details regarding its starting and end point, but rather that it appreciates neither the depth nor the angle at which Kant seeks to intervene in the standing controversies between dogmatism and scepticism in philosophy. Above all, according to Conant Stroud misses the fact that Kant does not have a Cartesian restricted view of sense

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experience. His famous criticisms of Kant rest on the charge that his conception of the transcendental method presupposes such restricted conception of sense experience. That is not fair to Kant according to Conant. Stroud does not get at what the aim of a transcendental deduction is for Kant. If he did, he would see why a transcendental deduction cannot take the form of an “argument”, meaning a demonstration that moves from premises to a conclusion. Kant’s aim in the Transcendental Deduction is precisely to show that Stroud is right about the untenability of (what Stroud calls) “idealism”. Kant is not an “idealist” (in Stroud’s sense of the term). In order to proceed here we need to be careful about terms such as ‘idealism’ and ‘transcendental’ – for much analytic philosophy they just smack of obscurantism but for Conant they are the key of the Kant-Wittgenstein liaison fundamental for the austere reading I am aiming at explaining. A philosophical investigation counts as transcendental in a sense that matters if it investigates the conditions of possessing and understanding certain concepts – those concepts that articulate our understanding of our rational capacities, we use them in ascribing knowledge to ourselves. Such an investigation, if successfully pursued, will yield a negative conclusion that is formally idealist in this sense: there is no understanding a capacity for knowledge, or the concepts such capacity for knowledges employs. There is no standpoint for comprehending what knowledge is from the outside – that is, apart from the perspective of a subject who possesses the concept of a capacity for knowledge in virtue of possessing and exercising the capacity itself. This insight – that there is no explaining something that belongs to the order of knowledge from outside that order– is what Conant calls the truth in idealism. And this is Kant, the Kant that maters to Conant. The concepts involved in our cognitive capacities and which we seek to elucidate in philosophy are not detachable from the first person, self-conscious perspective of the subject who exercises such capacities. This of course is also the insight of German Idealism: there is no vantage point outside thought  – Conant is very clear that the usual reading of idealism in analytic philosophy, which identifies idealism with material idealism, is a position German Idealists simply reject. That is not what is at stake, neither in Kant nor in other German Idealists. In these circumstances ‘idealism’ is clearly not, for Conant, a term of abuse. The Kant-Wittgenstein liaison is not so hard to formulate by now. A Wittgensteinian formulation of the truth in idealism is the idea is that there is no explanation of language from a standpoint outside of language. Language can only be explained in language; in that sense language cannot be explained. And since language makes thought possible, it is only from within language that a limit can be set to the expression of thought.

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Of course Conant and Stroud as readers of both Kant and Wittgenstein could converge here in one thing: they converge in speaking of not the problems of philosophy (in the plural) but of “the problem of philosophy” (in the singular) and taking this to be the problem of how there can be such a thing as philosophy – how there can be, or what can be the upshot of, philosophical reflection on such matters as thought, meaning, and understanding. There a “solution” to the problem of philosophy is “Kantian” to the extent to which the facts of human meaning and understanding can be understood and accepted only from within whatever meaning and understanding we are already capable of. A “solution” is “Kantian” to the extent that it vindicates its entitlement to the insight of “the truth in idealism”. Wittgenstein fits here; Kant and Wittgenstein ‘share’ or converge on a Kantian solution for the problem of philosophy Kant does not conceive our rational capacities as being essentially linguistic, but that is exactly what Wittgenstein brings into philosophical discussion. What is thought, in our thinking of it, can only be explained in thought, and so in this sense thought itself cannot be explained. (L) What is spoken, in our speaking it, can only be explained in language, and so in this sense language itself cannot be explained. (…)

Bibliography Conant, James (2012). “Two Varieties of Skepticism”, in G. Abel and J. Conant (eds.), Rethinking Epistemology, Vol. 2, Berlin, Walter De Gruyter, 1–73 [older shorter version: Conant, James. (2004), “Varieties of Scepticism” in Denis McManus, Wittgenstein and Scepticism, London and New York, Routledge]. Conant, James and Kern, Andrea (2014). Varieties of Skepticism. Essays after Kant, Wittgenstein and Cavell, Boston/Berlin, De Gruyter. Conant, James (forthcoming 2019). “Replies” in S. Miguens (ed.), The Logical Alien, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Hamawaki, Arata (forthcoming 2019). “Cartesian Skepticism, Kantian Skepticism and Transcendental Arguments”, in S. Miguens (ed.), The Logical Alien, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Kripke, Saul (1982). Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Miguens, Sofia (2015). “Could There Be a Logical Alien? – The Austere Reading of Wittgenstein and the Nature of Logical Truths”, in D. Moyal-Sharrock, V. Munz, and A. Coliva (eds.), Mind, Language and Action – Proceedings of the 36. Internationales Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg, Berlin, De Gruyter, Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, 283–295.

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Miguens, Sofia (forthcoming 2019). “On How History of Philosophy Can Be Illuminating”, in S. Miguens (ed.), The Logical Alien, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. Stroud, Barry (forthcoming 2019). “Varieties of Logically Alien Thought” in S. Miguens (ed.), The Logical Alien, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

Jesús Padilla Gálvez

Scepticism as Philosophical Superlative Introduction In one of his earlier remarks on the problem of knowledge acquisition, Wittgenstein points to the following relevant distinction: it is one thing to master a technique and another to describe this technique.1 Knowing-that is considered very different from knowing-how. This distinction also applies to the language knowledge as a whole. Someone’s ability to give a detailed description of the characteristic features and rules of language is very different from someone’s actual language skills that enable him to speak correctly by reference to grammar, phonology and appropriate use. Mastering a language and being able to express oneself clearly and distinctly in a language as well as understand others is of another knowledge type than, for instance, describing and explaining correct word usage. This topic is the starting point of our investigation. The question that arises is why descriptions of language usage are sometimes completely inaccurate. What obstacles obstruct our attempt to provide correct descriptions? In this context Wittgenstein made an interesting observation when he pointed to preconceptions that are in our way when intending to give accurate language description. He says that, we have to fight false descriptions that have been built on the basis of “preconception” (BEE 130, 35). At first sight, this remark appears related to language acquisition and therefore irrelevant to philosophy. The reader may wonder, however, what preconception Wittgenstein refers to in his remark? Generally speaking, preconception is based on a person’s attitudes, beliefs and convictions. A person’s unshaken belief in particular state of ­affairs (Sachverhalte) together with a specific language may create rigidity (“Starrheit”) in his concrete vision. But preconceptions produce also philosophical problems that require clarification. Wittgenstein claimed that philosophical problems should not be solved by giving explanations. He pleaded for a new and different ­approach to their solution and suggested solving problems by simply describing them. It is the only way to avoid the traditional approach of the “­philosophical superlative”.

1 I am very grateful to Peter Hacker for his valuable questions and useful suggestions to the paper, which was revised during a research visit at St. John’s College, Oxford.

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1. What Is the Philosophical Superlative? Wittgenstein presented his approach to the problem in the Philosophical Investigations when he remarked this: “You have no model of this inordinate fact, but you are seduced into using a super-expression. (It might be called a philosophical superlative” (PI 192).2 Several philosophers have commented on the notion of “Über-Ausdruck” (super-expression) using a psychological perspective and have thereby probably gone beyond the scope of its meaning.3 A different approach will be taken here.4 In Wittgenstein’s writings the super-expression seems to have a negative connotation as he considered words with prefixes such as “Meta-” or “Über-” generally as nonsense. Propositions that do not contain essential information on the essence of an object cannot be proved and are therefore considered non-entity “Unding” (BEE 196, II,102). Wittgenstein explained this on several occasions, for instance, by referring to numbers as a result of arithmetical experiments. On the other hand, the experiment is later used for the definition of numbers (cf. BEE 107, III, 119). Another example given is portrait of a non-existent person (cf. BEE 108, Iv, 251). One just needs to remember Wittgenstein’s polemic arguments against metalogic to understand his critical attitude. The question of what is understood by a superexpression is this: which expression is assumed to be located on a superior level than language itself? A response requires further investigation of what is actually understood by a philosophical superlative. The grammatical function of the superlative is to make comparative statements about the similarities and differences of objects in reality. In order to make a comparison we often ascribe a quality to an object and thereby we intend usually to say something true. An expression is described in such a way that expectations are created of what will happen in the future. How come that Wittgenstein developed such a critical attitude towards a philosophical superlative? It was especially this criticism that enabled him to argue against and later reject the programs of realism, idealism, and finally that of scepticism. More specifically, the typical context which gives rise to a philosophical superlative is when ideally rigid concepts are used (PI 194).

2 “Du hast kein Vorbild dieser übermäßigen Tatsache, aber du wirst dazu verführt, einen Über-Ausdruck zu gebrauchen. (Man könnte das einen philosophischen Superlativ nennen)” (PI 192). 3 Cf. Hallett 1977, 279. He defined “Superlative fact” as: “The mental act seems to perform in a miraculous way what could not be performed by any act of manipulating symbols (BB 42)”. 4 See Baker and Hacker 1985, 115–117.

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Wittgenstein exemplifies this in his analogy of a machine and the interest in its functioning. From a philosophical perspective one is interested in the possible movements such machine could make. A speaker would then say that the machine has a particular range of possible movements. We refer to an ideally rigid machine that moves in this or that way. A  philosophical superlative is closely related to responding the question of which possible movements the machine can make. But how is such possibility if movement then related to the actual movement? How does one arrive at the strange idea of a “possibility if movement”? It is typical for such comparisons that it produces always an ascent. Whereas for representatives of idealism this ascent is situated on a mental level, realists view it located in reality. The sceptic, however, doubts the relation between language and reality for which he uses the philosophical superlative. A detailed analysis of this strategy reveals the wrong premises involved. To sum up, all the theories mentioned have one thing in common, namely they take the philosophical superlative as a pre-condition and starting point of their assumptions. The method of comparison is actually a fundamental part of their epistemic perspective. In the following quotation Wittgenstein describes his point of view: “Der Gedanke, dieses seltsame Wesen” – aber er kommt uns nicht seltsam vor, wenn wir denken. Der Gedanke kommt uns nicht geheimnisvoll vor, während wir denken, sondern nur, wenn wir, gleichsam retrospektiv, sagen/fragen/: “Wie war das möglich?” – Wie war es möglich, dass der Gedanke von diesen Menschen diesen Menschen selbst handelte? Es scheint uns als hätten wir mit ihm die Realität eingefangen. (Und wieder wie merkwürdig dieser Ausdruck “es scheint uns als hätten wir […] Philosophischer Superlativ)” (BEE 230, II, 48 (179 (557)).

His comment “Es scheint uns als hätten wir …” (BEE 114, X, 222 f) seems to be the stumbling block in his argumentation. It seems as if we have automatically created a relation between the propositional content and reality in our thoughts. By using a proposition it appears as if we had captured reality in a net. If the speaker of such propositions later changes his viewing direction looking back on what he had said, he establishes a misleading ostensive relation. More specifically, he incorrectly assumes that what was said in the past has turned into a fact. This association has produced an imaginary link to reality which does not exist. What is the role of comparison in this process and what kind of misunderstandings or nonsense can it produce? We intend to reconstruct the argument outlined above. P expresses the proposition “Der Gedanke, dieses seltsame Wesen”. The recipient of this remark and his reflection on the content of the sentence “the thought, this strange being” seems to imagine ‘a being’, though merely in his thoughts. Wittgenstein describes this process as a legitimate transgression, the same as the move in a game (“[…] wie den

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erlaubten Zug eines Spiels” – BEE 114, X, 222). We could also support its negation ~P, which corresponds to a negation of a logically possible proposition. One could also argue that such ‘strange being’ does not exist. If we now ask how come that P (abbreviated: ◊P), it seems as if we had thought about reality. We realize that P and ~◊P are logically incompatible. The sceptic’s argument may have the following form (Brueckner 1994, 827–835; see Brueckner 2013): ( A1) (A2) (A3)

If I know the meaning of ‘P’, then I know the meaning of ‘~◊P’ I do not know the meaning of ‘~◊P’ I do not know the meaning of ‘P’

The philosophical superlative is an integral part of the sceptic’s argument. Not only the thought of a ‘strange being’ but also its negation involve a comparative link to reality. The content of such proposition seems to capture a part of reality. The model of the superlative has to overcome various objections. Our attempt to describe language use correctly requires a comparison, which inevitably results in a superlative. The immediate attempt to link language with the outer world without analysing the linguistic structures, makes the comparative method suspicious. The difficulty is this: The comparison of language & reality is like that of retinal image & visual image: to the blind spot nothing in the visual image seems to correspond, & thereby the boundaries of the blind spot determine the visual image – as true negations of atomic propositions determine reality. (BEE 201a1, b7)

Representatives of idealism, realism and scepticism uncritically accept the introduction of the two poles of language versus reality (retinal image vs. visual image). The link between both, language and reality is based on a grammatical misunderstanding due to a blurredness of vision and an imprecision of our language. A sceptic is misled by his presumption that a word corresponds to a certain object in reality. If this word is then used in another context the speaker believes that it refers to another aspect of reality. If we apply this to our example, we would probably determine “the strange being” in a similar way as if we were really describing a strange being. But in fact, we use “the strange being” to refer to a specific part of grammar. Neither is there such being as a “strange being” nor exists anyone who could claim to be the owner of such being. Consequently, the attempt to capture anyone’s reality by mentioning such an expression, results in nonsense. What leads us astray is the metaphor utilized in the comparison of contents of propositions. The mistake lies in the speaker’s attempt to establish a link to reality by way of thoughts. Representatives of scepticism should be aware of the fact that wrong sentences may produce fallacies and the risk of linking these sentences to reality.

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2. More on Scepticism In the secondary literature on scepticism we come across two major discussions. There is S.A. Kripke’s sceptical hypothesis about a change in word usage (Kripke 1982, 245; see Kripke 1984), which I  shall leave aside because of his erroneous use of a philosophical superlative. In his exegetic interpretation of Wittgenstein’s §§201–2 of the Philosophical Investigations he assumes a comparison between language and reality. Another interpretation is presented by P. M. S. Hacker who describes Wittgenstein’s sceptical argument in the following way:  “The skeptic agrees that we do know the truth of statements about subjective experience, but since they do not entail statements about objects, he denies that we really know anything about the material world” (Hacker 2001, 271). This interpretation is mainly a critique of Frege’s proposals.5 Wittgenstein seems to have been interested in a fundamental criticism of idealism, realism, behaviourism and scepticism. Actually, Wittgenstein discovered a fallacy that we will try to reconstruct in the following pages. One of the misconceptions of scepticism is its presupposition of a word or proposition being rigidly ascribed to an object or content. Let us take up the example of a machine which is designed to make certain movements. The problem arises once we start speaking about possible movements. The speaker talks about an ideally rigid machine which can move in this or that way. This new expression introduces the thought of possible movements. If these assumptions are incorrect, then the whole basis of scepticism is put into question. Since ancient times the model of naming has been the paradigm faute de mieux for a theory of meaning. As mentioned earlier, the sceptic does not reject the method of comparison, which is based on the philosophical superlative, but rather questions whether a meaning corresponds to the object to which it refers. The word use of expressions such as ‘meaning’, ‘sense’, and ‘conception’ suggests that a sign or word is closely related to an object. As such, the meaning of an arrow can be expressed faute de mieux by a sign. We could answer someone asking for the meaning of “→”, that arrow is the basement of an arc or else we could describe it as a straight line with a sharp tip. We could equally explain the function of an arrow which is to indicate a direction. A relation between language and reality is

5 The authors give the following explanation:  “Frege exemplifies such a superlative ‘grasping the whole use at a stroke’ without having a model for it. He conceived of the sense of an expression as an abstract entity with a variety of super-physical properties (determining a reference; combining with other senses to form a thought, which is a sempiternal object; being ‘complete’ or ‘incomplete’ and accordingly able to combine with some senses and not with others). This curious entity is what we grasp when we understand an expression” (Baker and Hacker 2009, 106).

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established whereby word and object seem unequivocally connected. However, the answer to the problem requires a representation (Darstellung) rather than the identification of an object. All the attempts to identify the arrow in the examples remain fragmentary and require completion (BEE 112, VII). Wittgenstein criticized this approach and compared the whole process to a ‘basket-model’, in which a number of apples are counted and put into a basket (BEE 211, 531). As this model was the basis of a theory of meaning in ancient times then Sextus Empiricus had to solve the following question: what happens if a word adopted another meaning than usual and its meaning became blurred? We shall explain this notion in more detail.

3. Ostensive Definition from a Sceptical Point of View Ostensive definition is a very complex process. At first sight, it involves a gesture by which one points to an object with a specific form, colour or size. We know also other forms of ostensive definitions that do not involve a gesture to denote a sound, taste or a smell. In the case of semantic blurredness or vagueness a clearer definition is required. We use periphrastic structures or examples to define what is meant to say. If we refer, for instance, to an arrow, we may use our finger and point to it. We may describe our proposition in the following way: „ ist ein →”. The second sentence would be a trivial representation of the first one, whereby the representation implies a pictorial convention. Sextus Empiricus viewed these sentences as propositions (Lekton – cf. Sextus 2002, 94–95; PH II, 107). His arguments aimed to reveal that ostensive definitions may cause misunderstandings and exemplified this by the sentence “If there is day, there is light”. Let us assume someone wanted to introduce the meaning of the word ‘day’ by pointing to daylight. For the recipient of that message the expression ‘day’ would then logically be linked to the experience of light. The word “day” is associated with a wish such as “Good day!” or the fact that the sun is shining. However, not all meanings of ‘day’ are linked to light, such as, for instance, that a new day starts at midnight although it is still dark. Consequently, both expressions are not replaceable salva significationem and do not always correspond. Strictly speaking, the proposition “If there is day, there is light” would therefore be wrong. In his argumentation Sextus postulated the conjecture of the philosophical superlative and showed that day and light have also a figurative meaning rather than a rigorous literal meaning. The argumentation of scepticism assumes that there exists a temporal reality. One could criticize rigorous scepticism for requiring that every object must be determined for every possible situation. However, this requirement of a fixation of meaning through indication appears incoherent because it goes beyond the

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scope of language. Most of the words that we use in our natural language are polysemous. As Sextus Empiricus rejects semantic vagueness of ostension for being incompatible with the reality, his argument becomes absurd. Let us come back to the example mentioned in which someone points to an arrow by saying its name. The ostension creates the illusion of a semantic ascent of the kind: here is the word that we call arrow, there is the object (thing) that is shown by the pictogram „→”. Still, we have not transgressed the limits of language. Although the ostension has created the illusion of having established a magic link between language and reality, we have still remained within the scope of language. We use conventional ostension and images to refer to objects. The radical sceptic mainly criticizes incongruences in the determination of meaning. Sextus Empiricus claimed, that for the successful proof of a hypothesis we need to demonstrate the correctness of its presumptions. However, this leads to an infinite chain of proofs, of which it is impossible to find its starting point. In this process he supposes the illusion of a bipolar system, which would eventually support his scepticism. Sceptics argue that there exists a counter-statement to each statement that can be supported by equally convincing arguments. According to the sceptic, it is relatively easy to expose alleged knowledge as pseudo-knowledge. This argumentation is used in the context of the sign (cf. Sextus 2002, 92ff; PH, II, 97ff). Unfortunately, it is not the sceptic’s mistake that he has detected the basketmodel but rather that he has drawn the wrong conclusions from it. In other words, we are not confronted with an epistemic problem but with using a wrong model that involves a philosophical superlative.

4. The Fallacy of the Philosophical Superlative If the use of figurative super-expression (Über-Ausdruck) emerges due to a lack of available models for the theory of meaning but instead of this a figurative superexpression (Über-Ausdruck) is used. Wittgenstein lists the following statements as examples for fallacies based on the superlative (BEE 119, 35f): A 1. Die aritmetischen Sätze sind ewig. 2. Also, die arithmetische Sätze sind wahr. B 1. Die Seele des Menschen ist unsichtbar, 2. Also, die Seele des Menschen ist durchsichtbar. C 1. Der Metermass ist unverändert. 2. Also, der Metermass ist Hart und Widerstandfähig.

One of the premises to construct the fallacy has to do with an argumentum ad antecedentem, whereby retrospectively is confirmed what was mentioned before. Why is the measure of meter tough and resistant? The answer is because it is unchanged (see BEE, 119, 35). Why are mathematic statements correct? – Because

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they are eternal (see BEE, 119, 36). All these answers confirm the questions which again confirm the relation to reality. Yet for our insight this rigid link creates confusion. At the same time the argumentation appears as irrefutable. Summarizing he said this: We are under the illusion (Täuschung) that what is peculiar, profound and essential to us in our investigation resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable essence of language. That is, the order existing between the concepts of proposition, word, inference, truth, experience, and so forth. This order is a super-order between  – so to speak  – superconcepts. (PI 97)

Wittgenstein suggests overcome this deception by scaling down the words “language”, “experience” and “world” by pointing to its use.

5. Critical Remarks on Scepticism Let us again take up the example of the arrow with someone pointing to an object and naming it arrow. If we assume that the recipient of this message does not understand German he might not be sure about what is expressed. After some time the hearer might have detected the meaning and has introduced the word “arrow” into his language. However, it is wrongly assumed that the pictogram of an arrow would represent a real object. But how could we make sure that speaker and hearer agree? Which quality would sender and recipient of the message equally have to identify in order to refer to the same object. These questions prove mistaken because they lead us on a wrong track. A single word without context cannot be understood. According to Wittgenstein, the sceptic does not generally question the philosophical superlative as a method but simply criticizes single cases of comparison. Sceptics criticize that identity word and object is not definite in some cases. But what Wittgenstein criticizes in scepticism is that it makes use of the comparison applying the philosophical superlative. Therefore he concludes that the insight that is gained from scepticism is nonsense. He says this: Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obvious nonsense if it tries to doubt where no question can be asked. For doubt can only exist where an answer exists, and this can only exist where an answer exists, and this can only exist where something can be said.6 (NB 44–44e)

6 “Skepticismus ist nicht unwiderleglich sondern offenbar unsinnig wenn er bezweifeln will wo nicht gefragt worden kann. Denn Zweifel kann nur bestehen wo eine Frage besteht; eine Frage kann nur bestehen wo eine Antwort besteht, und diese nur wo etwas gesagt werden kann” (BEE 102, 1.5.15, 82r).

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Even in his work On Certainty his position towards scepticism does not seem to have changed substantially: The queer thing is that even though I find it quite correct for someone to say ‘Rubbish!’ and so brush aside the attempt to confuse him with doubts at bedrock, – nevertheless, I  hold it to be incorrect if he seeks to defend himself (using, e.g. the words ‘I know’). (OC 498)

Scepticism uses a special privileged philosophical method to explain meaning. We have shown that the philosophical superlative is an ineffective method and does not provide any new insights. Wittgenstein claimed that there is no language outside communication. What Augustinus or other representatives of language models show is nothing more than a communication system. In the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein describes a series of holistic minimalistic models of communication which are all based on a wrong basis:  the philosophical superlative. All these models use unreal thought experiments that simpliciter are supposed to solve specific philosophical problems. They contain patterns of learning and acquisition that are all based on a bipolar system of reality and language. The orientation on such extreme bipolar model turns out to be an epistemological obstacle to insight. Wittgenstein managed to break this obstacle by placing the language-games in the centre of attention.

Conclusions Can the need of completion (Ergänzungsbedürftigkeit) of the word this’ be carried out by pointing to an object? It is the function of grammar to determine this need of completion and to be the “vollständige Geschäftsbuch der Sprache” (BT 526). The whole business has to be carried out within the scope of grammar. We have to ask how grammar explains the word ‘this’ which is to be found in the rules laid down for its usage. An ostensive definition does only make sense if it contains the rules for the additional completion. From this perspective the whole program of scepticism collapses and becomes irrelevant. The same as realism and idealism, scepticism has taken the superlative as its basis. This underlying superlative has proved incorrect. What is more, representatives of scepticism have always put forward arguments against idealism and realism by presupposing a comparative relation between language and reality. In the analysis of ostensive definition we must not orientate on an apparent reality and leave language through the back door. Unfortunately, ostensive definition does not allow for a clear definition and identification of objects. Sceptical arguments are insufficient tools to detect and reveal the mythological aspects of language. Surprisingly, representatives of realism and idealism tend to accept the underlying polarization between language and reality all too quickly and uncritically.

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Bibliography Baker & Hacker, G. P. & P. M. S. (1985) Wittgenstein. Rules, Grammar and Necessity. Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 2, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Baker & Hacker, G. P. & P. M. S. (2009). Wittgenstein – Rules, Grammar and Necessity: Essays and Exegesis of §§ 185–242, 2nd extensively rev. ed. by P. M. S. Hacker, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, p. 106. Brueckner, Anthony (1994). “The Structure of the Skeptical Argument”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 54, No. 4, pp. 827–835. Brueckner, Anthony (2013). Essays on Skepticism, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Hacker, P. M. S. (2001). Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies Oxford, Clarendon Press. Hallett, Garth (1977). A Companion to Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations”, Ithaca/London, Cornell University Press. Kripke, Saul (1982). “Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language”, in I. Block (ed.), Perspectives on the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, Oxford, Blackwell. Kripke, Saul (1984). Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Oxford, Blackwell. Sextus Empiricus (2002). Outlines of Scepticism, edited by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press [1994]. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1958). Philosophical Investigations, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and R. Rhees, tr. G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969). On Certainty, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1972). The Blue and the Brown Books, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1979). Notebooks 1914–1916, 2nd edition, ed. G. H. von Wright and G. E. M. Anscombe, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2000). L. Wittgenstein, The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001). Philosophische Untersuchungen. Kritisch-genetische Edition, ed. J. Schulte, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2005). The Big Typescript (TS 213), ed. and tr. C. G. Luckhard and M. A.E. Aue, Oxford, Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009). Philosophical Investigations, 4th edition with extensively modified translation based on G. E. M. Anscombe’s original translation, co-editor and co-translator P.S.M. Hacker and Joachim Schulte, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell.

Vicente San Felix

Fools and Heretics. Some Sceptical and Relativist Traits in Wittgenstein’s Thought Was Wittgenstein a sceptical? Was he a relativist? Obviously, our answer to these questions will depend on what we understand by “scepticism” and “relativism”. Unfortunately, what happens with these philosophical categories is the same that happens with many others, mainly: they are not free from some ambiguity, what might explain, at least partially, the dissent shared among the scholars of Wittgenstein when pronouncing on these issues. A way to avoid this obstacle would be perhaps to stick to Wittgenstein’s own conception of scepticism and then ask ourselves if, according to his own criteria, the Austrian thinker was a sceptic and a relativist. In principle, this route seems promising. The only time in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus appears the term “scepticism” it reads: “Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical (unsinnig)” (TLP 6.51). What else may be needed to conclude that Wittgenstein, at least the young Wittgenstein, did not count himself as a sceptic? Therefore, those commentators who have responded negatively to the initial questions in this chapter seem right. If we take into account what Wittgenstein himself understands by scepticism, we must say that Wittgenstein, or at least the first Wittgenstein, would not have counted himself as sceptic, since he considered this philosophical theory (note that we underline this term) as an example of evident “nonsense”. Of course, this conclusion is only acceptable if we suppose that Wittgenstein considered that his own philosophical thesis were not nonsense. But at least, as per the author of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is concerned, this presupposition is, to say the least, problematic, since in a passage of this book we read: “My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical (unsinnig) […]” (TLP 6.54). That is to say that, if we talk about the first Wittgenstein, to point out the nonsense in his eyes of a philosophical position, is not enough yet to conclude that, somehow, he was not to subscribe it. In fact, in the same Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, and about solipsism it reads:  “This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means (meint) is quite correct; only it cannot be said (sagen), but makes itself manifest” (TLP 5.62).

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Why then it would not occur that in some kind of scepticism, according to young Wittgenstein, there was some truth, even that it were in what “it means, quite correct”. In fact  – shall we remember it?  – the solipsism is but a kind of scepticism, mainly: an extreme kind of scepticism with regard to the existence of other minds. We see now how our questions, if we stick to the first period of Wittgenstein’s thought, cannot be answered, without further ado, negatively. Perhaps, the young Wittgenstein saw scepticism as a nonsensical philosophical theory, but at the same time, this did not prevent him from considering it, at least in some of its species, correct if not true. This is the case of solipsism. But, is it only about this case? I suspect not at all. Starting from TLP 5.135, Wittgenstein begins to draw some consequences that his conception of the proposition as a truth–function has in inference and in the status of the causal nexus. Here is what he says: 5.135  There is no possible way of making an inference from the existence of one situation to the existence of another, entirely different situation. 5.136  There is no causal nexus to justify such an inference. 5.1361  We cannot infer the events of the future from those of the present. Superstition is nothing but belief in the causal nexus. 5.1362  The freedom of the will consists in the impossibility of knowing actions that still lie in the future. We could know them only if causality was an inner necessity like that of logical inference. – The connexion between knowledge and what is known is that of logical necessity. (TLP 5.135–5.1362)

That is, we cannot know any future event (not even our actions) because such knowledge can only be achieved as a result of an inference that has no logical nature. This inference is traditionally known as induction of which Wittgenstein says: 6.363  The procedure of induction consists in accepting as true the simplest law that can be reconciled with our experiences. 6.3631 This procedure, however, has no logical justification but only a psychological one. It is clear that there are no grounds for believing that the simplest eventuality will in fact be realized. (TLP 6. 363–6.3631)

Reason why he concludes:  “6.36311 It is a hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow: and this means that we do not know whether it will rise”. In short, that every proposition established by an inductive inference, and those which assert the existence of causal nexus would be a species in that genus, does not exceed the status of mere hypothesis, and we can never say that they are the subject of knowledge. Conclusion that, will be agreed, would gladly have subscribed Hume, one of the few philosophers in history that took for himself the title of sceptic, but most likely the Scottish thinker would have

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never gone as far as to claim that “superstition is nothing but belief in the causal nexus”. What at the moment we have is, then, that Wittgenstein subscribed two quite radical types of scepticism: one about the existence of other minds, some version of solipsism; and other type about induction, of which he claimed that in no case could provide knowledge. On the other hand, and since this last conclusion should necessarily affect the statute of any empiric theory, neither should be a surprise what Wittgenstein said talking about the mechanics: […] the possibility of describing the world by means of Newtonian mechanics tells us nothing about the world: but what does tell us something about it is the precise way in which it is possible to describe it by these means. We are also told something about the world by the fact that it can be described more simply with one system of mechanics than with another. (TLP 6.342)

That is, rather than understanding scientific theories as a reflection of the world it would be better to understand them as networks – this is Wittgenstein’s simile in 6.341 – which we project onto it in order to obtain a unified description of it. This distances Wittgenstein of any kind of harsh scientific realism and brings him closer to the type of scepticism – although for sure, much more mitigated than the ones mentioned before – that is the instrumentalism. On the other hand, if we take into account that the simile Wittgenstein uses to describe the relationship between the scientific theories and the world coincides with the one he previously stated in 4.063 to illustrate the concept of truth, it is most likely that Wittgenstein had subscribed a relative conception of truth. I mean: he had considered that a proposition is true in relation to the theory of which it was part; not being able to say of the theories that they were true or false in a strict sense, but at most, that they offered descriptions more or less simple of the world. Be that as it may, I do not expect this interpretation to be accepted, since I agree it does not have the obvious textual support than the rest of the so far mentioned ones to reasonably take for granted that Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, subscribed several species, some considerably radical, of epistemic or theoretical scepticism. Only of this? The answer to this question, I  suspect, needs to be negative again. After having expressed his views on induction Wittgenstein asserts: 6.371    The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. 6.372    Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages. And in fact both are right and

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both wrong: though the view of the ancients is clearer in so far as they have a clear and acknowledged terminus, while the modern system tries to make it look as if everything were explained. (TLP 6.371-2)

Probably, these are the two observations of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that are closer to expressing what we would consider the point of view of Wittgenstein, at that point of his life, on the culture of his time, culture that he contrasts directly with the ancients’ (die älteren). I do not know if they could be considered evidence of his support to some kind of cultural relativism, because, although he states, “both are right and both wrong”, he eventually ends up siding with the ancients’ greater clarity of view, so perhaps he should more accurately be tagged as “decadent”. What it does seem obvious to me is that these observations now reveal something that, as we shall see, will become more evident over the years: the opposition of Wittgenstein to all kinds of convergent and progressive views on the history of cultures, a view that usually characterizes the views of the anti-relativists. And, what is there to say, when we decidedly enter the purely practical field of ethics? In a long letter dated January or February 1914 that Wittgenstein addresses to Russell, it reads: During the last week I have thought a lot about our relationship and I have (come) to the conclusion that we really don’t suit one another. THIS IS NOT MEANT AS A REPROACH! either for you or for me. But it is a fact. We’ve often had uncomfortable conversations with one another when certain subjects came up. And the uncomfortableness was not a consequence of ill humour on one side or other but of enormous differences in our natures. I beg you most earnestly not to think I want to reproach you in any way or to preach you a sermon. I only want to put our relationship in clear terms in order to draw a conclusion. Our latest quarrel, too, was certainly not simply a result of your sensitiveness or my inconsiderateness. It came from deeper – from the fact that my letter must have shown you how totally different our ideas are, E.G. of the value of a scientific work. It was, of course, stupid of me to have written to you at such length about this matter: I ought to have told to myself that such fundamental differences cannot be resolved by a letter. And this is just ONE instance out of many. Now, as I’m writing this in complete calm, I can see perfectly well that your value-judgments are just as good and just as deep- seated in you as mine in me, and that I have no right to catechize you. But I see equally clear, now, that for that very reason there cannot be any real relation of friendship between us. (CL 74)

This means that for the young Wittgenstein when what is at stake is a difference of value-judgements (Werturteile), once guaranteed the sincerity and authenticity of the contestants, the discrepancy is faultless. But precisely this, assuming that in a subject, in this particular case the ethical, the discrepancy is not guilty, is what characterizes a relativist position. Maybe it is quite right to say that this long letter, on which we shall return, belongs to the strictly private sphere and only reveals how Wittgenstein took his

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personal disagreements on certain value-judgements, so that it cannot even be considered as an indication, much less as a proof, of what Wittgenstein thought about ethics. But there should be a double reply to this objection. First, that for Wittgenstein, philosophy was never understood as an abstract discipline unrelated to life. Many years after writing this letter to Russell, he wrote the following to Malcolm: I then thought: what is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is to e­ nable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic etc., and if it does not impr[ove] your thinking about the important questions of everyday life, if it does not make you more conscientious than any [. . .] journalist in the use of the dangerous phrases such people use for their own ends. You see, I know that it’s difficult to think well about “certainty”, “probability”, “perception”, etc. But it is, if ­possible, still more difficult to think, or try to think, really honestly about your life and other ­peoples lives. And the trouble is that thinking about these things is not thrilling, but often ­downright nasty. And when it’s nasty then it’s most important. – Let me stop preaching. (WCLD – Letter 320 to Malcolm 16.11.1944)

The second reason goes straighter to the heart of the objection, since it is arguable, from the texts Wittgenstein left where he explicitly addresses ethics, that his point of view may well be characterized as sceptical and relativistic. Let’s go back, to see it, to the proposition of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus about scepticism, recall: 6.51. The context in which this proposition is positioned, maintained from the Proto-Tractatus, is clearly ethical. Wittgenstein is considering from 6.5  “Things That cannot be put into words”, that is, what finally, in 6.522, will be identified with “the mystical”; and what he actually warns us 6.51 that – that so far had only been partially quoted- there is no place for scepticism in this area: “Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said.” Then, it will be said that what Wittgenstein defends, against our reading (interpretation), is that there is no place for scepticism in the field of ethics. And indeed, strictly speaking, this is what Wittgenstein defends. But let us see the consequences this deactivation of scepticism has. The first cost to pay is to leave the field of ethics, of the valuable, outside the scope of what can be said, that is, outside the scope where propositions have truth value. So for Wittgenstein, the propositions of ethics, the absolute value-judgements, are not sensible propositions but nonsensical pseudopropositions. An issue explained and developed by Wittgenstein in his Lecture on Ethics.

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What follows here, in my opinion, is that if something can be categorically stated is that Wittgenstein has a non-cognitive conception of ethics. However, not only non-cognitive but also unrealistic, because since what makes a proposition true or false are the facts that conform reality, the (pseudo) propositions of ethics which are neither true nor false, do not describe any facts in the world. And not only unrealistic but also anti-naturalist, as the pseudo-ethical propositions not only do not describe, truly or falsely, any fact in the world but neither can they be result of them, thesis which once again appears explicitly stated in the Lecture on Ethics: “no statement of fact can ever be, or imply, a judgment of absolute value”. In short, if the scepticism has no place in ethics is because doubt can exist only where knowledge exists, but in the field of ethics there is nothing to know. This is a strategy to neutralize the sceptical threat, as we have just seen, at the expense of anti-cognitivism, anti-realism and anti-naturalism … and that, I suspect, would satisfy the most demanding sceptical. And probably not only the sceptical but also the relativist, because how could the dissensions be resolved on the value-judgements from these coordinates? If these judgements cannot be questioned, neither can they, by the same token, be justified. Or in other words, it cannot be adduce any reason in favour of any valuejudgement. As Wittgenstein reminds Waismann, quoting Schopenhauer:  “To moralize is difficult, to establish morality impossible” (WVC, 118). Therefore, between two alternative ethical systems there would be no rational way to choose. It is better this that we accept. As shortly before he reminded the very Waismann: At the end of my lecture on ethics I spoke in the first person: I think that this is something very essential (ganz Wesentliches). Here there is nothing to be stated anymore; all I can do is to step forth as an individual and speak in the first person [“Hier läss sich nichts mehr konstatieren, ich kann nur als Persönlichkeit hervortreten und in der ersten Person sprechen”]. (WVC 117)

Or in other words: what is left to do is to take charge of our own words and… actions. That is it. As there was no more in the evaluative dissention of Wittgenstein to Russell about the value of a scientific work, since both of them took charge of their own points of view, respectively. In fact, rather than a relativist position, what we have here is a radical form of ethical subjectivism. An ethics non the less solipsist than solipsism, “quite correct”, in terms of metaphysics. In short, the early Wittgenstein is well served with sceptical and relativist positions, positions that are deployed in the epistemological field, in his understanding of culture and in the field of ethics … and also in his own conception and practice of philosophy.

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Indeed, as it is well known, the metaphor of the ladder that must be thrown once we have climbed to get to “see the world aright” (TLP 6.54), even when Wittgenstein could have borrowed Mauthner’s, refers ultimately to Sextus Empiricus, and is one of the literary devices used by the supporters of the sceptical tradition to try to mitigate the paradox of a way of philosophy that denies the possibility of understanding philosophy as a theory; that criticizes the philosophical sects, without willing to become a sect itself; or seeking to destroy the dogma without, in doing so, falling in the dogmatism. The famous paradox that 6.54 states, I mean, it has all the flavour of the same performative contradictions to those that sceptics – and incidentally relativists as well – of all times, have had to face. Just from reading the first book of Outlines of Pyrrhonism it is enough to perceive this common atmosphere. So far, we stated what had to say about the early Wittgenstein but, what about the latter? Can these conclusions be kept when we look into the Philosophical Investigations or at On Certainty or, more generally, into the subsequent writings of 1929, when Wittgenstein gradually begins to retract many of the views he had held in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus? In my opinion, the answer to this question must be absolutely affirmative. Certainly, the mature Wittgenstein had also considered scepticism, while philosophic theory, nonsense. In the first paragraphs of On Certainty we see him ask himself: “But is it an adequate answer to the scepticism […] to say that […] is nonsense (unsinn)” (OC 37). This means that for the latter Wittgenstein, scepticism was also “nonsensical”. But this condemnation of scepticism should not be much consolation for those who want to attribute him an anti-sceptical thesis, for the same “nonsense” that threatens the sceptical assertion, threatens the dogmatic assertion that opposes it. So, in paragraph 37 of On Certainty, if indeed condemned the scepticism of the idealist that denies the existence of physical objects as nonsense … not least is condemned as nonsense “the assurances of the realist” that such objects exist. To begin with the last point we covered when considering the sceptical points of view of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, those referring to the meta-philosophy, we can appreciate at this point the strictest continuity in Wittgenstein’s approaches. What he regarded as “nonsensical” was any philosophical theory – “And we may not advance any kind of theory”, can be read in paragraph 109 of the first part of the PI – which, when assimilated, allows to understand any strategy that wants to label Wittgenstein’s thought doomed to failure beforehand: whether as a naturalist, pragmatist, idealist … or even sceptical. Which does not mean that in his philosophy cannot be found aspects that bring Wittgenstein closer to naturalism, pragmatism, idealism, or even, and that’s what we are here concern about, scepticism and relativism.

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And one of those aspects, is what we said, is in its very own conception and practice of philosophy as a complaint of every philosophical theory, every sect, every dogma. This understanding of philosophy, so often described as “therapeutic”, has no other objective than peace of mind: “The real discovery is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to. – The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question” (PI,133). Does not this sound very similar to the eagerly awaited ataraxia that sceptics long sought as a result of their philosophy? When Wittgenstein says about philosophy that “It leaves everything as it is” (PI, 124), is he not saying, in the end, something very similar to what Sextus Empiricus says when recognizes that the sceptic must admit phenomena (except that from the Philosophical Remarks Wittgenstein thinks the phenomena to which philosophy must adhere are the ordinary uses of words)? I do not mean to dogmatize. I do not want to say that Wittgenstein had a sceptical view of philosophy, among other things because the sceptical tradition itself is not monolithic and it is not, for example, the same conception of philosophy that Sextus, Montaigne and Hume have. What I  defend is, pouring of the concepts of mature Wittgenstein himself, that his understanding of philosophy has traits that make it reasonable to find a familiar resemblance with the sceptical approaches (but should not be forgotten that one always has more than one family, and therefore my position does not exclude that Wittgenstein’s points of view could be linked with other traditions). If we continue going back the path we travelled in context with the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, it would be now the turn of ethics. Unfortunately, after his Lecture in 1929 and his conversations with Waismann in 1930, Wittgenstein hardly said anything about it. The position we have outlined previously – anti-cognitive, anti-realist, anti-naturalist, subjectivist, etc. – is the last position he explained. And yet, there are grounds for believing that although many of the logicalgrammatical supposition that were applying in his Lecture, still inherited from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, were going to be more or less immediately discarded, his perspective of the value-judgements continued to present sceptical and relativistic features. Let us revert to the letter addressed to Malcolm in November 1947. Obviously it is about a practical, ethical issue: the responsibility, in this case, that we ought to have in the use of certain “dangerous phrases”. And what does Wittgenstein say about it? Well, he warns his friend about the difficulty of – and now we should remember Schopenhauer’s quote that was put forward before Waismann:  “To moralize is difficult, to establish morality impossible”– “to think, or try to think, really honestly about your life and other peoples lives”.

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Please note, it is not about how hard it is to find a fact which might represent or imply the truth of those “dangerous phrases”, but about how difficult it is to think, or try to think, with true honesty about our own life and others’. It seems, then, that Wittgenstein continues in line with the individualistic coordinates where his first reflection on ethics was. There is also another striking aspect of this letter. And it is that Wittgenstein, aware of being moralizing, asks his friend, to change the subject, permission to “stop preaching”. That is, moralizing becomes something similar to “to preach” … or “to catechize”, which he had no right to do with Russell as his “value-judgements” were “just as good and just as deep-seated” as his own. In On Certainty, in a series of notes dated just six days before his death, Wittgenstein considers to his understanding, what happens when people holding two irreconcilable principles face to each other (“zwei Prinzipe […], die sie nicht mit einander aussöhen”); two principles in opposition which, strangely enough, have some bearing on the issue which led to his dispute with Russell, recall: the value of a scientific work. Let’s read Wittgenstein: 608. Is it wrong for me to be guided in my actions by the propositions of physics? Am I to say I have no good ground for doing so? Isn’t precisely this what we call a ‘good ground’? 609. Supposing we met people who did not regard that as a telling reason. Now, how do we imagine this? Instead of the physicist, they consult an oracle. (And for that we consider them primitive.) Is it wrong for them to consult an oracle and be guided by it? – If we call this “wrong” aren’t we using our language- game as a base from which to combat theirs? 610. And are we right or wrong to combat it? Of course there are all sorts of slogans which will be used to support our proceedings. 611. Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and heretic. 612. I said I would ‘combat’ the other man, – but wouldn’t I give him reasons? Certainly; but how far do they go? At the end of reasons comes persuasion. (Think what happens when missionaries convert natives). (TLP 608–612)

This is about deciding between guiding our actions by physical predictions or the auguries of the oracle. For us, as for Wittgenstein, the answer is obvious. So obvious that we consider “primitive” the person guided by the oracle. But by calling their behaviour wrong, as Wittgenstein points out, we are not doing anything other than “using our language-game as a base from which to combat (bekämpfen) theirs.” Or conversely, we are considering better the one we accept, as we said before it happened when two systems of value confront. Certainly we will be able to give reasons in this struggle, but these have an end and then only persuasion remains, something similar to religious conversion (similar to “preaching” to Malcolm, to “catechizing” Russell). It seems that the position of the last Wittgenstein on ethics was less schematic or harsh than that he held up to 1929 and 1930. But there is no shortage of reasons

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to continue calling it sceptical and relativist. Perhaps the following quote, taken from the annotations that Rhees wrote about his conversations with Wittgenstein in 1945, on “this question of ‘the right ethics’ ”, finally dispels doubts: Someone may say, ‘There is still the difference between truth and falsity. Any ethical judgment in whatever system may be true or false.’ Remember that ‘p is true’ means simply ‘p’. If I say: ‘Although I believe that so and so is good, I may be wrong’: this says no more than what I assert may be denied. Or suppose someone says, ‘One of the ethical systems must be the right one – or nearer to the right one. Then I am making a judgment of value. It amounts to adopting Christian ethics. It is not like saying that one of these physical theories must be the right one. The way in which some reality corresponds  – or conflicts– with a physical theory has no counterpart here. Or if you say there are various systems of ethics you are not saying they are all equally right. That means nothing. Just as it would have no meaning to say that each was right from his own standpoint. That could only mean that each judges as he does. (Rhees 1970, 101)

Wittgenstein opposes to the senseless relativistic thesis – “the various systems of ethics are all equally right” or “each was right from his own standpoint”  – but, however, he does not grant the existence of any rational election process between them. The existence of various ethical systems, in the end, only means that “each judges as he does” … and perhaps, it is the eventuality referred to in On Certainty, that make those who subscribe to it fight each other. And what about the cultural relativism, which hardly appeared outlined in the decadentism of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus? Here we can go faster because the testimonies are, I  think, more emphatic. Thus, since his conversations with Waismann, Wittgenstein affirms that sociology should describe our actions and assessments with the same detachment as those of black people are described, without appearing in such descriptions the proposition “this or that means progress” (“Das und das bedeutet eine Fortschrift”) WVC 116. We can consider what Wittgenstein says here as a formulation of the basic principle that encourages cultural relativism which rules the socio-cultural anthropology own method: describing cultures on their own by refraining from evaluating them. But Wittgenstein goes further. Rhees gives us the following testimony: Wittgenstein attended a meeting of the College Philosophical Society in Swansea, in 1943. Professor Farrington read a paper on ‘Causal Laws and History’ […] In the discussion Wittgenstein said that when there is a change in the condition in which people live, we may call it progress because it opens up new opportunities. But in the course of this change, opportunities which were there before may be lost. In one way it was progress, in another it was decline. A historical change may be progress and also be ruin. There is no method of weighing one against the other to justify you in speaking of ‘progress on the whole’. (Rhees 1981, 222)

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If he defended cultural relativism before Waismann as an heuristic principle – we must not talk about progress when describing societies; now he advocates a thesis, a conceptual thesis – there is no justification to speak of “progress on the whole”. If anyone still has doubts about the relativist character of Wittgenstein’s position, can finish reading the story of Rhees: Farrington thought this was not a reason against saying that there has been progress on the whole. ‘With all the ugly sides of our civilisation, I am sure I would rather live as we do now than have to live as the cave man did’. Wittgenstein: ‘Yes of course you would. But would the cave man?’ (Rhees 1981, 222–223)

If doubts persisted, we could still get to gauge the influence of Spengler on Wittgenstein’s understanding of the history of cultures. To close the circle we would only be addressing the possibility of finding in latter Wittgenstein’s thought the traces of an epistemological relativism; probably the dimension of relativism, of every we have considered, that has received more attention from the scholars of the Austrian philosopher’s thought. Of the many related issues we could address, we are going to focus on two that we consider particularly relevant: the theory of justification that Wittgenstein reveals in On Certainty, and his understanding of truth, especially explicit in his Philosophical Investigations. As for his theory of justification, occurs here as with moral scepticism in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I mean: that prima facie Wittgenstein’s perspective seem to have a clear anti-sceptical meaning. Against the Cartesian hyperbolic doubt, Wittgenstein asks himself whether it is really possible “be in doubt at will?” (OC 221); if at all, “Doesn’t one need grounds for doubt?” (OC 122). His answer to this last question is yes, so that the answer to the first question is negative. It is not possible doubt at will; doubt no less than knowledge, needs justification. And that being so, when we doubt it follows that what justifies our doubt has to be considered true. It is not possible, therefore, a universal doubt: “A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt” (OC 450). Wittgenstein uses a metaphor to characterize the situation in which we find ourselves when we doubt. Precisely, what we are certain of and enables the doubt or simply the inquiry are the hinges on which the door turns: That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn. (OC 341) That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are indeed not doubted. (OC 342) But it isn’t that the situation is like this: We just can’t investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put. (OC 343)

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In short, the question implies the existence of “hinge propositions” (as they have been baptized in the secondary literature, the propositional expression of these certainties) that are not doubted. Or if preferred:  that the doubt itself implies certainty. So far, the anti-sceptical implications of Wittgenstein’s views on justification but, we can ask, and what happens about those certainties that we never doubt, with the type of propositions, for example, with which Moore wanted to defeat scepticism, with the famous proposition “I have two hands”? Can we maybe say of them that they are at the same time justified and that, therefore, they are equivalent to knowledge? Wittgenstein responds: “My having two hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything that I could produce in evidence for it. That is why I am not in a position to take the sight of my hands as evidence for it” (OC 250). What occurs with belief occurs with doubt. For something to count as a justification or principle of them both, it has to possess greater certainty than the belief (or doubt) that justifies or supports. By the same token, our basic certainties cannot be justified in turn by others. The grounds of our justified beliefs will always be our unjustified certainties (and the difficulty lies in realizing it:  “The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing” (OC 166). They are the “hinges” that enable the door of justification to turn (cf. OC 341); the “worldpicture […] the inherited background against which [we] distinguish between true and false” (OC 94–5). One might think: well, but those certainties are so because they reflect evident truths. But Wittgenstein reverses the terms of this reasoning: I want to say:  it’s not that on some points men know the truth with perfect certainty. No: perfect certainty is only a matter of their attitude. (OC 404)

Thus, we cannot say that we know these basic certainties while unjustified. They form the groundless ground that underlies at what we say we know, at the language-game in which we speak of knowledge: You must bear in mind that the language-game is so to say something unpredictable. I mean: it is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unreasonable). It is there – like our life. (OC 559) And the concept of knowing is coupled with that of the language-game. (OC 560)

So the theory of justification of Wittgenstein seems to lead to scepticism, an scepticism that we could call of foundation, in which the rationally justified, that which we legitimately can say we know, refers to a set of certainties-hinges, to a vision of the world, that neither can be rationally doubted nor can it be rationally justified. Ultimately, what holds our entire system of beliefs is nothing but a groundless act:

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“An empirical proposition can be tested” (we say). But how? and through what? (OC 109). What counts as its test? ‘But is this an adequate test? And, if so, must it not be recognizable as such in logic?’- As if giving grounds did not come to an end sometime. But the end is not an ungrounded presupposition: it is an ungrounded way of acting. (OC 110)

In a way, Wittgenstein is in On Certainty, with regard to epistemological scepticism, very close to the position he held in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, with regard to moral scepticism. There is no scope for doubting our moral principles or our epistemic principles, because neither is there place for a justified affirmation of such principle. In either case, if we think they are true we mean we accept them. I think it is not required to abound in the relativistic consequences of scepticism, since it is obvious that nothing prevents the existence of alternative pictures of the world; and from their collision, as we saw earlier, a rational resolution cannot be expected. Wittgenstein is also aware that our “world-pictures” not only are variable in space but also in time: The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology. And their role is like that of rules of a game; and the game can be learned purely practically, without learning any explicit rules. (OC 95) It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid. (OC 96) The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river- bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other. (OC 97) But if someone were to say “So logic too is an empirical science” he would be wrong. Yet this is right:  the same proposition may get treated at one time as something to test by experience, at another as a rule of testing. (OC 98) And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or deposited. (OC 99)

Finally, let us now tackle the issue of truth. In well-known passages of the Philosophical Investigations one reads: ‘So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?’. What is true or false is what human beings say; and it is in their language that human beings agree. This is agreement not in opinions, but rather in form of life. (PI 241) It is not only agreement in definitions, but also (odd as it may sound) agreement in judgments that is required for communication by means of language. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so. It is one thing to describe methods of measurement, and another to obtain and state results of measurement. But what we call “measuring” is in part determined by certain constancy in results of measurement. (PI 242)

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If we learn from On Certainty that what we think is rational or irrational, true or false, depends ultimately on our groundless actions, what the Philosophical Investigations tell us is that what we believe as truth depends on our way of life. The way this conception of truth introduces relativism can be illustrated, in my opinion, with an example that Wittgenstein himself imagines in his Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics: the case of a group of people selling firewood following different ways of calculating from us: Those people – we should say – sell timber by cubic measure – but are they right in doing so? Wouldn’t it be more correct to sell it by weight – or by the time that it took to fell the timber – or by the labour of felling measured by the age and strength of the woodsman? And why should they not hand it over for a price which is independent of all this: each buyer pays the same however much he takes (they have found it possible to live like that). And is there anything to be said against simply giving the wood away? (RFM 148) Very well; but what if they piled the timber in heaps of arbitrary, varying height and then sold it at a price proportionate to the area covered by the piles? And what if they even justified this with the words: “Of course, if you buy more timber, you must pay more. (RFM 149) How could I shew them that – as I should say – you don’t really buy more wood if you buy a pile covering a bigger area? – I should, for instance, take a pile which was small by their ideas and, by laying the logs around, change it into a ‘big’ one. This might convince them – but perhaps they would say: “Yes, now it’s a lot of wood; and costs more” – and that would be the end of the matter. – We should presumably say in this case: they simply do not mean the same by “a lot of wood” and “a little wood” as we do; and they have a quite different system of payment from us. (RFM 150)

Do two piles contain the same or different amount of firewood? For us it is clear that the answer to this question will be resolved checking the mass of wood contained in each pile. But remember OC 110 and let’s put it in relation to IP 242, it is not because something is obvious that we act in a certain way, but because we act in a certain way something becomes obvious to us – “und Schreib getrost/‘Im Anfang war die Tat’ ” – it is only because we share certain methods measurement that we also share some evidence. If there is no agreement in the praxis there will be no alignment of intuitions. In the examples of Wittgenstein there are various gradations. In the first of them discrepancy is not, so to speak, physical-mathematical but economic. The price of wood does not depend on the weight, as it seems logical to us, but depends on variables as bulking, or the effort employed in piling it, or the conditions of age and skill of the lumberjack, or in the end is independent of the amount you want to buy; simply, the price is fixed as much wood as you take. These cases may be more or less shocking to us given that the logic behind our application of mathematics on the calculation of the price of a commodity is often regulated by other principles. In a market economy, no one would pay more for the same amount of wood for the simple fact that the lumberjack who cut out the wood

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was old or employed more time doing it. However, in our way of life, we can find situations, intermediate cases, similar to these ones and they are made intelligible. For example, free buffets where you pay a fixed price regardless of what you eat. The most disturbing example from a philosophical point of view, more difficult to understand, is the last, in which difference now seems to lack common sense from the economics, physics and mathematical fields. Since here natives do not recognize the validity of certain operations – dispensing the gathered wood in a wider area –, as proof of an equivalence which for us is obvious (but perhaps we should think of the children, for whom a kilo of straw weighs less than a kilo of iron); to the point that, Wittgenstein concludes, we must simply admit that apart from “they hav(ing) a quite different system of payment from us”, “they simply do not mean the same […] as we do”. Now, if they do not mean the same, perhaps they mean something else. That is, we have made a mistake in translating their expressions as equivalent to ours “a lot of Wood” and “Little Wood”. And maybe if we refined our translation until matching what they really mean, we would discover that, in the end, their behaviour is in line with our own criteria of rationality. Or, in other words, one could suspect that where we believe we could be facing a discrepancy of “irreconcilable principles” of “logic” (in the sense that the latter Wittgenstein uses the term) alternatives, we are actually facing a faulty translation. From similar considerations, a well-known anti-relativist argument is conceived, on which validity I am not going to pronounce myself here, which hinges on the validity of the principle of interpretative charity: to make intelligible the statements of the other, to be able to translate them, it is said, we have to attribute it a shared rationality. And the truth is that also in Wittgenstein we can read observations that could be used in this regard. In paragraph 206 of the first part of the Philosophical Investigations it reads:  “Shared human behaviour is the system of reference by means Of which we interpret an unknown language” (PI 206). So for Wittgenstein there is a “shared human behaviour” (gemeinsame menschliche Handlungsweise), a form of human life, in the singular, which is what enables us to interpret the languages that are not our own. Does not this shared dimension eliminate, either interpreted in terms of naturalist or transcendental, the apparent relativism of many observations of Wittgenstein (the ones we have quoted, for example, but there could be adduced even more)? To my understanding, there is a reflection in the second part of the Philosophical Investigations that should be taken into account to answer this question. It reads: We also say of a person that he is transparent to us. It is, how- ever, important as regards our considerations that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. One learns this when one comes into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and,

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what is more, even though one has mastered the country’s language. One does not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We can’t find our feet with them (wir können uns nicht in sie finden). (PI 325)

That is, for Wittgenstein the intelligibility of linguistic behaviour of the other does not have to make his non-linguistic behaviour less enigmatic to me. I can understand what he says … and as result, we are going to use the expressions of Wittgenstein himself in On Certainty, realize that their principles are irreconcilable with mine and, therefore, “combat them”. The shared form of human life is embodied in many different forms of life with idiosyncratic characteristics that may be irreconcilable between them. In summary and to conclude, although Wittgenstein had defended that scepticism and relativism are nonsensical philosophical positions, which he surely would have not claimed for himself, there are sceptical and relativistic traits in both the latter and the earliest Wittgenstein’s thought. And those traits have practical, theoretical and meta-philosophical dimensions.

Bibliography Rhees, Rush (1970). “Some Developments in Wittgenstein’s View of Ethics”, in Discussions of Wittgenstein, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Rhees, Rush (ed.) (1981). Personal Recollections, Totowa, NJ, Rowman and Littlefield. Waismann, Friedrich (ed.) (1979). Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as WVC). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969). On Certainty, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as OC). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London/New York, Routledge (abbreviated as TLP). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1978). Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as RFM). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1993). “A Lecture on Ethics”. Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1995). Cambridge Letters, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as CL). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2000). The Bergen Electronic Edition, Oxford, Oxford University Press (abbreviated as BEE). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2008). Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911-1951, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as WCLD). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009). Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. (abbreviated as PI).

Maria Filomena Molder

Going Back Home? Motto I imagine that, after decades devoted to philosophy, reading and studying Wittgenstein is like arriving to the Promised Land: at last someone confirms that, after so many theories, problems, questions, difficulties, theses and ever resumed discussions, the essential of philosophizing is, ultimately, living. And to live as we all do – forgetting that it is a problem for philosophers, watching us, the ones studying philosophy, once again immersed in the world’s wonder. As if, after a long journey, we were brought back home. Is that how you see it? We can then carry on. But to carry on is to go back to the beginning, to the Greeks and the medievals. That is what I take from Wittgenstein: I don’t believe that it is possible to make something out of him, carrying on or “researching” his thought. Wittgenstein is a closed box: useless to be opened for those who understand him. How to replace a good interpreter of Mozart by a musicologist talking about the form of the Sonata? Ana Isabel Bastos, PhD Student1

In the following I will seek to correspond to the chosen motto, taken up as a challenge whose acceptance bears risks believed to be undefeatable such as, first and foremost, to continue writing about Wittgenstein. Is there a way of doing it without “researching his thought” if, for those who understand him, “Wittgenstein is a closed box: useless to be opened”, that is, a life? “Will” the ones living life – “to live as we all do”, “forgetting that it is a problem for philosophers” – “be”, as Ana Isabel Bastos states, “immersed in life’s wonder”? Or are there some philosophers  – and Wittgenstein perhaps more than any other – who try to live immersed in life’s wonder through the effort of unravelling the muddle that he and others like him created by turning life into a problem? Or is it possible to live immersed in life’s wonder without turning life into a problem?

1 This text is originated from an email received in 13 December 2012 addressed to the author, who at the time was leading a PhD seminar entitled “Methodologies in Philosophy”, in which the key philosopher was Wittgenstein and the main work under analysis was On Certainty.

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I  could swear that the latter case cannot be true except precisely for the philosophers, who wondered about the problem of life (of course they must have been already touched by unproblematic life, but it barely touches them and it is already a problem). It is not unlikely that all these possibilities of interpretation (and several others) are magnetically welding those words. To this philosopher it is a matter of dissolving  – in an ever more evident fashion  – theories, problems, questions, difficulties, theses and discussions, in order to put philosophy at peace with itself, and not to dissolve philosophy once and for all (although there was sometimes a powerfully re-emerging attempt, in the Tractactus, to put philosophy in brackets), but to put it aside whenever he wants – it is a matter for the will – to suspend the torture of being tormented “by questions that bring itself into question” (PI 133). The method – because there is a method – is a multiple activity of exemplification (Gedankenexperimente of different order), thus several methods – which can also be called therapies – whose operators are consideration and comparison: […] the real discovery is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want, – The one that gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself in question. – Instead a method is now demonstrated by examples, and the series of examples can be broken off. – Problems are solved (difficulties eliminated), not a single problem. There is not a single philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, different therapies, as it were. (PI 133 & 133d) […] (We want to replace wild conjectures and explanations by quiet weighing of linguistic [sprachliche] facts).2 (Z 447)

A closed box as a good interpreter of a Mozart’s sonata, says Ana Isabel Bastos, as a whole united to itself, radiant, self-expressive, not requiring explanation (i.e. someone talking about the sonata form in Mozart). But if he himself is not back at home, that is, if he has never stopped talking with himself and with his students and friends and arguing  – although without concluding, doing without inferences and deductions – how could we manage to go back home? In this instance, this means going back to early historical landmarks, that is, the Greeks and the medievals. That is, we would jump to the outside of what Wittgenstein is trying to do: to devote himself to the understanding of being alive, now. He was not in the least interested in the history of philosophy, he never conducted lengthy studies on any particular philosopher, and what he wanted was “to replace wild conjectures and explanations by quiet weighing of linguistic facts”. If he found a good 2 It is noteworthy that there is no coincidence between Wittgenstein’s use of sprachlich and the set meaning of “linguistic” due to the omnipresent influence of the so-called linguistic science.

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formulation for his unrest in any thinker, philosopher or poet, he would make it his own or made it an object of questioning. This notwithstanding, we feel that the things stated in the chosen motto cannot be overcome, in the sense that Wittgenstein’s writings were not born in order to constitute a school,3 and to read him we have to constantly forget what we have read about him, a thing which, although not exclusively restricted to him, only he demands in a more pressing way. As is the case with Nietzsche (Colli dixit), perhaps he does not need to be interpreted; and also because he published so little while he was alive – in which he is different from Nietzsche. And when we interpret him we sometimes feel like we are betraying him, making him say this and that, and sometimes this against that.4 The frugal, ascetic, suspensive, destructive element of Wittgenstein’s thought is recognizable since the Tractactus. This element will be absorbed by the movement of his own discoveries in the Sprachspiele, taking on increasingly unique forms: what to do with a philosopher who considers that philosophy does not interfere with the common, everyday use of language, that it cannot justify it, that it “leaves everything as it is”? (Schulte has already mentioned this), a philosopher that starts from an injunction toward silence and ends with the acceptance of some things, among which is not deciding about what can or cannot be said (an acceptance that has nothing to do with the accommodation mentioned by Cavell). I think that Ana Isabel Bastos’ belief that “there is nothing one can do with Wittgenstein” springs from here, as well as the hypothesis of a sui generis scepticism: “to give philosophy peace” or a “quiet weighing”. Skeptikós is, literally, the one-that-looks-around, considers, weighs, and reflects. The opposite of the sceptic is the unbalanced, the deranged; above him, the only one that is superior to him, the inspired, the rishi,5 o navi,6 the prophet (see Ceronetti 1979, 110).

3 “Is it just I who cannot found a school, or can a philosopher never do so? I cannot found a school, because I actually do not want to be imitated. In any case by those who publish articles in philosophical journals” (CV 69e). As can be seen, Wittgenstein understands school in the framework of the academic editorial model. 4 During discussions with Professor Thomas Wallgren he often focused on this aspect: the need of reading Wittgenstein without his several schools of interpretation or in spite of them, while we are, at the same time, also throwing some fuel into the fire, i.e. increasing Wittgensteinian bibliography. This paradox can only find its resolution if one stops publishing and even so… 5 Word that, in Sanskrit, means “wise”, “poet”, “mystic” (see Renou 1961). 6 Word that, in Hebrew, means “prophet”: “[…] the prophet unconsciously and passively realizes (in such circumstances that he cannot even understand the meaning of what he

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It is not hard to imagine that Wittgenstein would subscribe to this etymological immersion in Greek culture (allied, in its own surpassing, to the Indian and Hebrew cultures), without assuming, for that reason, a sceptical point of view in a more restricted use of the concept, which he made his own and criticized in the Tractactus. One must start out with error and convert it into truth. That is, one must reveal the source of error, otherwise hearing the truth won’t do any good. The truth cannot force its way in when something else is occupying its place. To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth. I must plunge onto the water of doubt again and again. (BEE 110, 63)

This is the opening statement of the “Remarks on Frazer’s The Golden Bough”. Let us begin with the last sentence. Firstly, we will seriously consider the image Wittgenstein finds to talk about doubt: water, the water into which one plunges, deep water (that seems to suppose washing, cleansing, catharsis, but also risk). Let us linger for a while in the way Wittgenstein uses the images he uses. We have to take them seriously, not only the ones he discovers, but also the ones taught to him, as is the case with the waters of doubt into which he must plunge. For example: “The word is on the tip of my tongue” [“Mir liegt das Wort auf der Zunge”]. According to Wittgenstein, it is not necessary to concoct subtleties about what goes on in our consciousness when we state this, it would be better – it would be closer to the truth – to take the expression seriously and strive to see/feel what is said: “The word is on the tip of my tongue”7: the word that belongs to you as escaped, your tongue as let it slip, but perhaps we can catch it: “The word is on the tip of my tongue” [“Mir liegt das Wort auf der Zunge”]. What is going on in my mind [in meinem Bewusstsein] at this moment? That is not the point at all. Whatever went on was not what was meant by that expression. What is of more interest is what on in my behaviour [in meinem Benehmen]. – “The word is on the tip of my tongue”

is saying) a knowledge, a message, a prediction coming to him from God without using his rational apparatus. At this stage of prophetic inspiration, the etymon navi (prophet), which properly means the one bearing (the word), seems be entirely realized” (Laras 2006, 26). I thank Claudio Rozzoni for his precious help. 7 In Portuguese, the equivalent expression to “the word is on the tip of my tongue” [“Mir liegt das Wort auf der Zunge”] is “to have the word under the tongue”. And in this case we feel that the word is stuck, cannot get out, that maybe if we do not push it too hard, it can get unstuck and swiftly get out through the mouth without being called to judgment. It is also noteworthy that in Portuguese one also uses “the word is on the tip of my tongue”, although it has the exact opposite meaning: the word is ready to be said: “it is on the tip of the tongue”.

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tells you: the word which belongs here has escaped me, but I hope I find it soon. – For the rest, the verbal expression does not more than some kind of wordless behaviour. […] (Ask yourself: “What would it be like if human beings never found the word that was on the tip of their tongue?”). (PI 298, 300)

The final remark, between brackets, is the example of a Gedankenexperimente, an imagined scene which shows that it is the use and the fulfilled expectation sustaining it that justifies the meaning of the images populating our language, and that what we are meaning is being meant through the way in which we are saying it. It is an argumentative recourse, a powerful touchstone of the fact that our language was not born through reasoning, but is practice in action. Let us return to the excerpt of “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough” in order to consider its first lines. In this context, it is appropriate to mention that Wittgenstein writes, more or less at the same time, a note in which he states that he is now less interested in truth than in meaning. In the excerpt of “Remarks” it is obvious that there are no reservations regarding truth, which is not opposed to falsity but to error, in the framework of a movement that goes from error to truth (in opposition to the reception of truth through hearsay) and supposes obstacles preventing truth from going on its way. It is convenient to keep in mind that we are not in the formal framework of truth-values in the scope of a propositional logic (as was the case of the Tractatus and it is very likely that Culture and Value envisaged to emphasize that difference). By this time that is not Wittgenstein’s concern; we can see that there is an expectation of finding the path that goes from error to truth and we witness the transition that makes truth and meaning inseparable. This is not about making statements on truth, but a genuine movement of metamorphosis, a movement of transition (we will later on focus our attention on Wittgenstein’s uses of meaning and signification). It seems acceptable to consider the water of doubt into which he has to constantly plunge as a way of speaking about the difficulty in finding the path that goes from error to truth, that is, to find that path it is necessary to clean, to clarify, to remove obstacles. That plunge into the water of doubt, which will not be far from his purpose (pointing towards 15 years later) of daily plunging “into the old chaos” (BEE 136 51a; CV 71e), does not make a sceptic of him (unless we have Ceronetti’s sense in mind). Therefore, it seems to me that Wittgenstein’s doubt is part of a constant, never-ending exercise of clarification, consideration, comparison, usually manifested in his resorting to the invention of dramatic scenes, the Gedankenexperimente, an exercise which prevents – if we are to believe Ceronetti – the unbalance of our mind, madness. Since Wittgenstein founded no school, it is not possible to be a Wittgensteinian. To be a Kantian is not tantamount to make the same life choices Kant made; in Wittgenstein’s case it would seem like a kind of disloyalty not to make them. Some

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think that this puts him in the neighbourhood of a certain ancient, Greek manner of dedication to philosophy, particularly in the case of the sceptics. When considering all sceptical positions of Antiquity, it stands out that all of them were turned into schools, even though the sceptics could not reach an agreement between themselves regarding the boundaries of the sceptical territory. But the modern concept of school is not the proper equivalent to the Greek one, which presupposed a common life, a way of living. I mean, it will not be possible to be a sceptic, for instance, a Pyrrhonist, without settling on a life and philosophy equivalent to those of Pyrrho. Let us make an exercise in comparison, confining ourselves to Pyrrho. On the basis of the small amount of extant documentation on him,8 it is known that he has not written a single line of text, whereas Wittgenstein spent most of his life writing them. Pyrrho founded a school, had followers, faithful disciples and opponents – in this context, school means a common life, a withdrawal from the world, a vow of silence, etc. Although he also had a good share of followers, faithful disciples and opponents, Wittgenstein founded no school, and periodically sought to isolate himself. The ancient Greeks did not like isolation and the ones from Pyrrho’s time always isolated themselves while in company, that is, it was always a life in community. Both of them lived in difficult times, in the midst of major changes and convulsions. If we were to establish a hierarchy between them, Pyrrho would win the first place because during the time he lived in – one marked by Alexander, the young prince, king, warrior-emperor – the decline and irreversible dissolution of the Greek polis took place. It is extraordinary to observe how scepticism engenders itself in a historical moment of incurable instability, a moment of exacerbation of living argumentation, of public discussion constituting the sumptuous and lethal power of the logos as the Greeks have put it into practice. All this will have to do with the difference of times, with their degree of invincible incommensurability, in which we come upon unexpected similarities; for instance, Pyrrho, while in his mature years (in his 40s), accompanied Alexander’s army to India, and at 84 years old, the time of his passing, he had retired to the country with an army of followers. Wittgenstein, for his part, voluntarily enlisted in his early 20s and fought in the Great War. He died at the house of a doctor who was his friend, admired – sometimes worshiped – by those who had had the privilege of being his students or at least of having debated with him. He had just turned 62; two days before his death he still wrote on issues regarding certainty, while Pyrrho did not write anything. Neither one nor the other had a stable home, they moved around

8 For all references to Pyrrho I follow the work by Marcel Conche, entitled Pyrrhon ou de l’Apparence, published in 1973 (Conche 1973).

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frequently, both seeking to pacify the anguish tormenting them. Pyrrho intended to escape it through ataraxia; in Wittgenstein, however, we do not come across such an objective, in spite of the possibility of occasional analogies being found. It seems both were given to rages or at least had little patience for dogmatic attitudes, that is, for theoretical claims either excessive or timid. These philosophers seem the heirs of the eros-philosopher, the character in Plato’s Symposium, wandering about with no place to go. However, there is a small difference: while Wittgenstein has dispensed with and distributed, through a third party, the immense fortune inherited from his father, Pyrrho did not part with the nice sum he had been offered by Alexander as payment, one assumes, for notable deeds. Let us ponder on the matter of writing. Not to write was not an uncommon gesture even amongst the Greeks of the Hellenistic period (in fact, Socrates is not an isolated case in the Classical period). Oral tradition remained strong.9 The teaching of that tradition was paradoxically institutionalized. It suffices to consider Aristotle, for instance, who, we must keep in mind, was the master of Alexander (having prepared a beautiful copy of the Iliad for him, a poem the king read with passion, as did Pyrrho  – Homer was considered the one who would awaken others for the inconstancy, the instability, the meaninglessness of human life; while in the trenches, Wittgenstein, on the other hand, devoted himself to reading Tolstoi’s Gospels and to reviewing his Tractatus). The same cannot be said of the Moderns. Montaigne is the ultimate case of devotion to writing, along with Nietzsche (both dispensed with disciples, albeit Nietzsche had been a professor in his youth, and it is not by chance that Human, All Too Human is already a long resounding effect of his abandonment of teaching, however the idea of a community of free spirits to be built was dear to Nietzsche until the end of his sane life). Wittgenstein also did not stop writing, even if he only published one work while alive. If it is certain that all attempts to publish the Philosophical Investigations were bound to be abandoned, it is not less certain that he never stopped reviewing and rewriting that work and many other related texts, also unpublished in his lifetime; in short, he never gave up writing. On the other hand, the living word was never put aside. The relation between both dispositions is certainly one of the signs of this philosopher’s singularity.

9 This was reinforced in Alexander’s time by meeting with the Persian and Indian ascetics and wise (see Conche 1973, 20–21, 26–27).

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Development My life consists in my being content to accept many things. (OC 344) Only by thinking much more crazily even than the philosophers, can you solve their problem. (BEE 137, 102a)

In my philosophical concerns one exercises the conviction, always looking to be put to the test, that philosophy is an effort of health – therapy is the technical term in Wittgenstein and his commentators – a struggle against the bewitchment of the tendencies inherent to our understanding, to wit, solipsism (the other has the burden of proving his existence), scepticism (all is uncertain, nothing can be known) and nihilism (nothing is worth knowing, nothing is worth the work it takes). The best formulas for solipsism can be found in Fernando Pessoa’s Fausto: “one lives, if others live?” and in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus: “6.431 So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end” (TLP 6.431). In the case of scepticism, let us linger on the second part of the dialogue Parmenides; we see the parties in the dialogue precipitating themselves into an abyss from which they will not be rescued in the self-same dialogue. A thesis and an anti-thesis are facing each other. The second replies: there is only the many and the one is an illusion. For each of them one can find good arguments and touchstones. There is no third way to be resorted to; Parmenides ends with scepticism devoid of any temperance and with nihilism lurking. Lastly, in the treaty On the non-being or on nature, Gorgias provides an insurmountable synthesis of the three tendencies: “first, nothing is; second, if something is, it is unknowable to man; third, even if it is knowable, it is incommunicable and inexpressible to others” (AM VII, 65; fr. 82B3 DK). Going back to the aporetic climax, without exit, of the Parmenides, if instead of sensible and intelligible entities, Plato had chosen human language, which is only recognizable in the multiplicity of languages, perhaps he had not been stuck in that rock (temporarily, for he will go on to write the Sophist).10 On the other hand, the Wittgensteinian vision of language as an activity is somewhat premature; it

10 This assumption is, in fact, otiose, for in making it we are already in the atmosphere of the Moderns. Wittgenstein is one of them and immediately appears on the horizon. As a matter of fact, if Plato practiced the love for Greek language – his way of writing thoroughly proves it – he did not regard language as an object of wonder, but rather accentuated its ephemeral, deceiving and conventional character, playing with etymologies (see his Cratylus). On the other hand, his suspicion was unrelenting in regard to writing, going to the paroxysm of warning the reader against what he was reading, which is a testimony in favor of the enigmatic greatness of the one who wrote and did not give up writing. Furthermore, historically speaking it is not easy to find someone before Dante who makes a sweet apology of the loquella, of the native language, of the native languages

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never appears to him as a system of conventional signs.11 Wittgenstein loves the multiplicity and diversity of languages, he calls our attention to the multiplicity and diversity of language-games and to the energy uniting them, configured in the shape of life, at the same time as a given and a desire. The tower of Babel is not a Wittgensteinian motif and the invention of Esperanto – the artificial language which would surpass the multiplicity of languages and their language-games doing without the native language in the expectation of a true human community – caused him nausea (BEE MS 132 69). This does not invalidate the fact that the suspicion of an irresoluble does not haunt him (which regards what is most important to him and which, from the beginning to the end, was never science); for instance, the incompleteness of the synopsis of the uses of the verb to be or the consciousness of being the lost link of a tradition are kept intact, at least until a given moment in time. However, it seems like a great calmness descended upon him during his later years, a calmness that is not incompatible with the feverish enthusiasm in regard to what he cannot yet formulate once and for all. Anyway, the musical motto, which he cannot identify and is rendered by the repeated motif: “I destroy, I destroy, I destroy” no longer makes itself be unmercifully heard. Since the Tractatus that Wittgenstein’s relation with scepticism – as he explicitly refers to it – could not be formulated in a clearer way: given that it is irrefutable, scepticism is unsustainable, that is, absurd, for in case a question can be asked, an answer can be given and there are only doubts if there are questions (see TLP 6.51). The irrefutability of scepticism perchance reflects the scandal of which Kant talks about, that Heidegger misread and that Cavell reminds us of. In fact, it is not convenient to dismiss this consciousness in favour of a self-ignored practice of scepticism. Being an anti-dogmatic thinker does not imply being a sceptical thinker. He is more an anarchist than a sceptic: his decision, we should recall, is “thinking much more crazily even than the philosophers”, in a way as to “solve their problem”. Already in the Tractatus he wants to leave everything as it is, that is, to give up philosophy, to prevent that philosophy turns into an act of self-destruction (or self-fascination?). This interpretation makes manifest an unexpected bond between the Tractatus and the Philosophical Investigations. set free, prodigally springing from the Latin, into the heart of multiplicity and variety of the “vernacular” languages. 11 One should have the double use of Sprache in consideration: language and tongue. In most cases, Wittgenstein talks about languages, living, concrete languages, about the native language, and since the beginning (since the Tratactus) that language is an activity and not a system of signs. Moreover, from my point of view, the watchword of the historical evolution of philosophy in the twentieth century, to wit, “the linguistic turn”, is inapplicable to the Wittgensteinian conception of Sprache.

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Nevertheless, we also cannot ignore Flaubert’s saying “je suis mystique au fond et je ne crois à rien”. And at the end of the Tractatus (as well as in other passages dispersed in it) we can hear an echo of this confession. We will return to this in regard to solipsism. It is my opinion that his way of considering solipsism in that work (as well as in his last notes, for example the ones composing On Certainty, although with other formulations and perhaps even with other consequences) is linked to a certain idealist point of view on the possibility of knowledge of the world and on the existence of a world so und so. What would be the difference between the teachings of a realist and the ones of an idealist to a child? he asks in the Zettel. He replies: in regard to fairies (or elves) it would be enough for the first to omit them (the problem would arise when another told a fairy tale to the child). In regard to chairs and other less worthy things, the idealist would abstain from promptly initiating a period of argumentation about the existence of the real world, and would teach the word “chair” to the child, because he would not like that she did not know what to do with chairs, namely sitting on them (an habit of which not even the most hardened of idealists would deprive himself unless he was a Stylite12). We stand before the relation – decisive for Wittgenstein – between the concept of teaching how to speak and the concept of signification. “Am I doing child psychology? – I am making a connection between the concept of teaching and the concept of meaning” (Z 412). In the game of learning the native language there is still no place for the issue of uncertainty: “Remember: they are learning to do something” (Z 416). No, it is not the kind of empirical argument of Zeno’s listener, who rose from his chair and walked around to rebut Zeno’s paradoxes on movement. Above all, it is a reminder of the logical-grammatical character of certain evidences, based on the condition of learning to speak.13 This anti-scepticism surely follows a first and never shaken conviction of realism, concept with which we will have to spend some time given the idiosyncratic, original use Wittgenstein makes of it,14 that is, a non-empiricist realism that constitutes, so to speak, the tone (and the substance) of the whole Tractatus. That is to say, the possibility of representing the world and the way the world exists are the objects of inquiry: they are evidences from which one starts from 1 2 See Luis Buñuel’s film, Simon of the Desert (Simón del Desierto). 13 In On Certainty and in The Last Writings of Philosophy of Psychology, Wittgenstein often resumes this way of arguing, which is always of a dramatic nature, that is, it is inserted in a web of actions and reactions between characters that he condensed in the concept of Sprachspiel. 14 An affinity with Fernando Gil’s “transcendental materialism” can be established.

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(that logic fulfils the world, that logic is before the Wie and not the Was, follows from those evidences). Also in this his life “consists in my being content to accept many things”. This original kind of realism will remain whole even outside the framework of the Tractatus. The more concise and expressive future formula will be: “Not empiricism and yet realism in philosophy, that is the hardest thing (Against Ramsey)” (RMF VI, 23; BEE 164, 67). We find another premature disposition of Wittgenstein’s thought accompaning this anti-scepticism and its idiosyncratic form of realism: solipsism, showing itself in the following propositions of the Tractatus: 5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. 5.61 The logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its limits […] We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either. 5.62 This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsism means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world:  this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of the language which I alone understand) mean the limits of my world. 5.621 The world and life are one. 5.63 I am my world. (The Microcosm). 5.634 […] There is no a priori order of things. 5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of the solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.15 6.43 […] The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy world. 6.431 So too at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end. (TLP 5.6–6.431)

Statements like: “at death the world does not alter, but comes to an end” or “I am my world. (The Microcosm.)” – the first was already cited – lack the logical conditions to be true or false. In fact, only a certain way of considering the world can cease without changing itself, to wit, “my world”, the one of which it cannot be said that it is true or false, that is, that has meaning, for it lacks its logical operator, that is, das Bild. In short, logic does not fulfil the world that is my own, “my world” is fulfilled by ethics and aesthetics, and its expression is sentimental and not propositional. Later on, in the elaboration of the Philosophical Investigations and in other texts of the same period, the grammatical conception of logic enables my world, which is shareable with others, to be fulfilled by a non-propositional logic, a grammatical logic in its modalities as language-game and way of life, presuppositions of any life, including mine (see On Certainty).

15 In the Notebooks he also coordinates idealism with reality.

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Moreover, in many authors  – but not in Wittgenstein, we emphasize it once again – scepticism and solipsism often appear as twin brothers, hard to be distinguished: could the world be nothing but a dream, my dream, could everything be nothing but a dream? It is surely the inscrutable character of life and death that provokes this dreamlike vertigo. Wittgenstein does not suspect that life is a dream. Indeed, he always accentuated the difference between being awake and dreaming, adding that to take our life for a dream changes nothing in that same life (but since the Greeks there are those who think it does: Heraclitus, Pindar, the Orphics, Plato, certain Sceptics; going back, we could add the Hindu and Buddhist thoughts, the later being a contemporary of the first Greek philosophy). My world is my life is not tantamount to “my life is a dream or a chimera”.

Bibliography Ceronetti, Guido (1979). Il silenzio del corpo. Materiali per studio di medicina, Milano, Adelphi. Conche, Marcel (1973). Pyrrhon ou l’apparence, Villers sur Mer, Éditions de Mégare. Laras, Giuseppe (2006). Storia del pensiero ebraico nell’ età antica, Firenza, Giustina. Renou, Louis (1961). Anthologie sanscrite, Paris, Payot. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969). On Certainty, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as OC). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1970). Zettel, Los Angeles, University of California Press (abbreviated as Z). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, London/New York, Routledge (abbreviated as TLP). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1978). Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell (abbreviated as RFM). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980). Culture and Value, edited by G.H. von Wright, translated by Peter Winch, Oxford (abbreviated as CV). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2009). Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, Basil Blackwell. (abbreviated as PI).

Rui Bertrand Romão

A Brief Remark on the Distinction between “Rustic” and “Urbane” Scepticism in Fogelin’s Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification In a short and ground-breaking article called “Sextus Empiricus and Modern Empiricism” which was published in 1941, the then young philosopher Roderick Chisholm, who later became one of the most influential epistemologists of the twentieth century, upheld for the first time (to our knowledge) the existence of strong affinities between Ancient Pyrrhonian philosophy and some trends and figures of contemporary philosophy, including among them Wittgenstein. An important trait of Chisholm’s interpretation of Pyrrhonism centred in the texts of Sextus Empiricus consists of his choice of three main aspects within Pyrrhonian philosophy he wants to underline due to their contemporary resonances: the adoption of a positivistic and behaviouristic attitude as to the Stoics’ theory of signs, represented in Sextus’ refusal of indicative signs and the exclusive acceptance of commemorative signs; the circumstance of being a sort of philosophy based on a phenomenalistic epistemological perspective; the fact that a discussion of the principle of extensionality in logic anticipating twentieth century positions may be read into Sextus: An account of his [Sextus’] position may be of some pertinence at the present time, for a striking parallel can be drawn without any distortion. His most significant contributions are: first, the positivistic and behavioristic theory of signs which he opposed to the metaphysical theory of the Stoics; secondly, his discussion of phenomenalism and its relation to common sense claims to knowledge; and, thirdly, his account of the controversy over the principle of extensionality in logic, where the anticipation of contemporary doctrines is perhaps most remarkable. (Chisholm 1941, 371)

Thus, according to Chisholm some Ancient Pyrrhonians’ arguments and attitudes were analogical to contemporary ones: Sextus and the Diodorans also rejected the extensional interpretation of some of the other types of statement composition. The Philonians held that a conjunction is true if all the component propositions are true and that it is false if any one of them is false. Sextus objected that, if we are “to give heed to the real nature of things, it is surely logical to say that the conjunctive which has one part true and one part false is no more true than false […] just as what is compounded of white and black is nor more white than black” (ii, 305). Moreover, he claimed to detect metaphysical difficulties in the matrix- definition of

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“not-p”, for it rendered the negative such that it could make the true false and the false true (ii, 291, f.). (Chisholm 1941, 371)

The parallel worked in more than one way for at the same time that the Author (whose own theory was then a clear statement of the essential principles of positivism, pragmatism, and behaviourism) shedded light on a formerly unaccounted historical precedent of Modern empiricism, showing the roots in History of Philosophy of the attitude it presented, he also seemed to claim, although not without caution, that Ancient Philosophy can sometimes be reread under the focus of contemporary philosophy. Besides the three above pointed traits Chisholm highlighted another characteristic present in both Sextus and Wittgenstein: Finally, this further anticipation of Wittgenstein may be noted. The conclusions of both Sextus and Wittgenstein are such as to render nugatory the arguments upon which they are based. Thus Wittgenstein concludes his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus with this remark:  “My propositions are elucidatory in this way:  he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it. He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.” (p. 189.) And Sextus makes this comment at the end of his treatise Against the Logicians: ‘Just as it is not impossible for the man who has ascended to a high place by a ladder to overturn the ladder with his foot after the ascent, so also it is not unlikely that the Sceptic after he has arrived at the demonstration of his thesis by means of the argument proving the non-existence of proof, as it were by a step-ladder, should then abolish this very argument’ (ii, 489; cf. i, 27I). (Chisholm 1941, 383–4)

With this direct comparison between Sextus and Wittgenstein Chisholm seems to make a point not previously made by the other analogies, of a more general kind, he had already stressed. He now highlights a comparison between the using of the same metaphor for similar philosophical purposes by the two philosophers, a metaphor that expresses that the “conclusions of both Sextus and Wittgenstein are such as to render nugatory the arguments upon which they are based” (Chisholm 1941, 4). It is interesting to note that Chisholm tackles the analogy while his knowledge of the Austrian Philosopher seems limited to the reading of the Tractatus LogicoPhilosophicus, after all the only book he published during his lifetime, that would end a decade after the aforementioned article by Chisholm was printed, 1941. More than twenty years later Philip P.  Hallie, an independent United States twentieth century philosopher blending a unique mixture of Michael Polanyi’s philosophical influence with an original interest on Ancient scepticism, in the preface to his anthology of texts of Sextus Empiricus, Skepticism, Man and God, Selections from the Major Writings of Sextus Empiricus, first published in 1964,

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somehow tried to develop the comparison between the philosophies of Sextus and Wittgenstein, understandably giving this time more attention to the Philosophical Investigations than to the Tractatus.1 And yet just like Chisholm he just highlights a few affinities between the philosophy of Wittgenstein and Greek Scepticism: “Both philosophies contend that when men twist or ignore their ordinary way of talking and thinking they get into hopeless puzzles or Sackgassen, blind alleys” (Hallie 1964, 37). In 1966, the same philosopher, in an altogether idiosyncratic study, much less known than his preface to the aforementioned anthology, which seemed to have a rather didactic purpose, The Scar of Montaigne:  An Essay in Personal Philosophy, restated his previous claim and tried to explore new dimensions of his former allusion to what he considered a great philosophical tradition from Sextus to Wittgenstein. He there particularly developed some aspects of a parallel of Wittgenstein and the French Late Renaissance philosopher, Montaigne,2 envisaged as precisely a link between ancient scepticism and modern philosophy: It is not necessary at this stage in our study […] to point out in detail the important similarities between Wittgenstein’s use of metaphor and Montaigne’s use. All we need say in general is that Sextus’ purgative and Montaigne’s preservative are part of the great tradition that lies behind Wittgenstein’s notion of philosophy. A doctrine of philosophy that sees language as a part of life, for good and for evil, is what they share. (Hallie 1966, 91)

Thus, Hallie, pinpointing the observation of affinities between the handling of metaphor in Wittgenstein and the one displayed by Montaigne in the Essais offers an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s and Montaigne’s philosophies that emphasizes their belonging to the same philosophical tradition delving its roots in the Ancient Pyrrhonian orientation, as represented by Sextus. Taking into account the period when it was written, it seems a quite original and insightful remark. Moreover

1 It will be interesting here to recall the critical opinion of a reviewer of Hallie’s book precisely disparaging the comparison established by the author between Sextus and Wittgenstein (along with another between Sextus and Berkeley) which we are focusing: “But the frequent parallels that are drawn between Sextus and e.g. Berkeley and Wittgenstein are rarely happy” (Hamlyn 1966, 89). 2 We have to stress here the novelty in the 1960s of this approach of Hallie’s dressing the parallel between the two philosophers, a parallel that later was to be fruitfully pursued by many authors including among others Janik (Janik 1992, mentioned by Wallgren in his essay in this book) and Toulmin, who in a famous book of his alluded to “Montaigne’s restatement of classical skepticism in the Apology, with all its anticipations of Wittgenstein” (Toulmin 1992, 42), and especially by the French philosopher, Christian Cavaillé the author of an extended and developed reflection on the subject (see Cavaillé 2008).

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it has the merit of focusing as a central part of that tradition the conception of language as part of life as well as the thought process represented by metaphors akin to Sextus’ purgative. The notion of tradition there displayed seems however a relatively loose and enigmatic one that needs some sort of verification from the standpoint of history of philosophy and a more developed philosophical argumentation than the one there offered by Hallie. If the Sextus anthology twice reprinted and often referred to in articles and books on Ancient Scepticism had a relatively mild success, the never reissued book on Montaigne by Hallie did not receive but the attention of a handful of Montaigne scholars, the majority of them related to the area of literary studies and not really to philosophy. But even that mild success of the anthology did not mean that much attention was given to Hallie’s suggestions contained in the introduction and his remarks and intuitions, as Thomas Wallgren recently observed on this subject, have “[…] mostly gone unnoticed for some time […]” (Wallgren 2012, 168). If indeed they went unnoticed, the situation did not last for too long, for a renowned exception broke the silence cast over the parallel: it was the article on “Sextus and Wittgenstein” published in 1969 by Richard A. Watson, who was a disciple of Richard Popkin, the great renovator of the studies of early modern scepticism since the 1940s (Watson 1969). Watson is himself a major living historian of philosophy and philosopher who among other subjects has written extensively on Early Modern Philosophy, and especially on Descartes and Cartesianism. However it was only in the 1980s that the parallel became known to many readers beside the small circle of scholars dealing with the early Modern revival of Ancient Scepticism, or just with Ancient Scepticism envisaged by itself when another American philosopher, Robert J.  Fogelin divulged a similar relation. Unlike Chisholm and like Hallie Fogelin focused on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Moreover he conferred to the analogy another amplitude and development. Comparing Fogelin’s position with Hallie’s, we may say that he almost exclusively focuses the relationship linking Wittgenstein to the Ancient Pyrrhonians underplaying his similarities with Montaigne a philosopher who seems to us in many aspects more akin to the Austrian, especially when we consider his [Wittgenstein’s] later philosophy, than Sextus Empiricus.3 In an article published in 1981, called “Wittgenstein and Classical Skepticism”, Fogelin argued that Wittgenstein’s “closest antecedents [we]re the Pyrrhonian sceptics” (Fogelin 1987:  xiii) and in the 1987 2nd edition of his book on Wittgenstein written for the series The Arguments of the Philosophers,

3 A similar point of view somehow formed the basis on which stands the philosophical reflection by Cavaillé above referred to (see Cavaillé 2008).

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first published in 1976, he added a new chapter “examining the place of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy in the history of philosophy” where he reiterates and substantiates the theses sustained in the article (cf. 226–234), thus bringing before a wider audience his consideration of the claim that Wittgenstein’s philosophy was in some aspects kindred to the Pyrrhonian tradition. Interestingly, Fogelin’s own philosophical development, which he does not hesitate to characterizes as pyrrhonian or neo-pyrrhonian, explores many aspects implicit in such an association. It essentially consists of an effort to deal with present epistemological issues on justification mingling a philosophical research that stems from Wittgensteinian themes and reflections to what may be called an updated version of Sextus Empiricus’s scepticism from the viewpoint of late twentieth century philosophy. Fogelin’s account of Ancient Pyrrhonism seems informed by many of the varied mainstream interpretations of it published by United States and British historians of philosophy in the 1970s and in the 1980s, such as Charlotte Stough, Myles Burnyeat or Jonathan Barnes, for instance. Contrariwise to other philosophical accounts published at the same time, it attempted to ground itself upon historical accuracy and it showed some kind of philosophical sympathy if not attraction for Pyrrhonism. Fogelin’s reading of Wittgenstein affinities with Ancient Pyrrhonism presented in his 1994 celebrated book Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification naturally shows a considerable amount of upgrading when compared with his former texts treating the subject. And yet, just like these ones, it may now seem somewhat disappointing from the viewpoint of the interpretation of pyrrhonism. Anyhow it addresses the issue of the identification of pyrrhonism as a sort of scepticism and its connection to other sorts of scepticism, including the Modern ones. A trait that naturally originates confusion is of course the very term of scepticism, with which a group of Hellenistic philosophers, the Pyrrhonians apparently also identified themselves. The two terms, sceptics and Pyrrhonians, seemed to function as early as they acquired philosophical relevance to designate this particular philosophical orientation highlighting two aspects of their way of thought and life:  the persistent attitude of careful examination of objects and subjects (skepsis) and the reference to the role model of the Hellenistic figure of the oral philosopher and sage Pyrrho of Elis.4

4 I here recall the reader that the other names that Sextus presents in the Outlines of Pyrrhonism as designations of the skepsis are also related to aspects of this identification, zetesis, meaning “enquiring”, ephectic, standing for “suspensive” and aporetic, that can be literally rendered as “without way out”.

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In a way the main motive that seems to guarantee the existence of a recurrent Pyrrhonian tradition throughout the history of philosophy along with the persistently inspiring force of the figure of Pyrrhon and other Pyrrhonians, as well as the notions and examples associated with them, resides in the fortuitous circumstance of the survival of Sextus Empiricus’s texts. Most of what we now know about this Ancient school comes from his preserved books. As is well known, Sextus, in spite of being kept to the posterity as a rather mysterious figure (in what strictly concerns him as a historical person), as an author he is one of the few ancient philosophers who left a quite relevant corpus of texts of which a major part is at present known. There was a time when he was considered as an author without any really original thought, who was more interesting for what he transmitted about other people’s thinking than for his own arguments and thoughts. Indeed many historians would then fain classify him as a doxograph and not as a real philosopher. Nowadays, most scholars who have studied him tend to correct that underestimation of the worth of his work. Many factors led scholars to thus underestimate Sextus. Among them we may name here as a likely candidate the circumstance that his way of thinking, discussing and writing, what we may call his philosophical style, is somehow self-erasing in accordance to the spirit of the philosophical orientation he was attached to. In a famous passage of the first book of The Outlines of Pyrrhonism (PH I, i, 4) Sextus for instance says: Of the others systems it will best become others to speak: our task at present is to describe in outline the Sceptic doctrine, first premising that of none of our future statements do we positively affirm that the fact is exactly as we state, but we simply record each fact, like a chronicler, as it appears to us at the moment. (Sextus 1976, 5)

I have just quoted Sextus in the old Bury translation. The same text appears in the more recent Annas/Barnes version in a quite different fashion: The former two [philosophical orientations of the dogmatic schools and the school of the Academy] it will be appropriate for others to describe: in the present work we shall discuss in outline the Sceptical persuasion. By way of preface let us say that on none of the matters to be discussed do we affirm that things certainly are just as we say they are: rather we report descriptively on each item according to how it appears to us at the time. (Sextus 1994, 3)

These two English translations, from the viewpoint of the interpreter of Pyrrhonism, present qualities as well as defects. For instance, the choice of ‘persuasion’ to render the Greek term agoge, though far from perfect, is certainly preferable to ‘doctrine’, which enters in disagreement with the interpretations of

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Pyrrhonism that insist on the centrality of the absence of “doctrine” in its philosophy. However “we report descriptively”, as rendered by Annas and Barnes seems less straightforward as a translation of hystorikos than the expression favoured by Bury, “record […] like a chronicler”. Anyway, the important trait I want now to stress consists in that the Sceptics according to Sextus “record like chroniclers” or “report descriptively” things or facts as they appear to them at a given moment. Pyrrhonists do not pretend that they affirm that the things they speak about are completely as they say they are. They only pretend to report them like historians chronicling events, as they seem to them to be. Sextus uses the adverb hystorikos as in other occasions he similarly employs words also related to the verb to historein, which may refer to a narration involving inquiring. The Author could have stressed the contrast between saying what appears at a given time to the observer to be and saying that is really like he says it is without contrasting affirming something for sure and reporting it like someone who cares only to describe. In other words he could perhaps declare the orientation of the Pyrrhonists to focus the study of phenomena without highlighting their narrative style. He could have just underlined the contrast between what appears to be and what is supposed to really be. Instead, he draws the attention of the reader to the way the Pyrrhonists speak of things. The fact that Sextus emphasizes the detached self-erasing description attitude he attributes to the philosophers of his orientation must of course be linked inter alia to the circumstance that he was a philosopher that sustained some sort of phenomenism and to the training he must have had as a physician whose philosophy is closely related to the practice of the art of medicine and does not hinder it in any way. Sextus indeed does not seem to have really been “rustic”, showing indifference “to any distinction between scientific theory and everyday opinion” and directing “ἐποχή towards every issue that may arise” (Barnes 1998, 61) as a philosopher and “urbane” (according to Barnes, the “urbane Pyrrhonist is happy to believe most of the things that ordinary people assent to in the ordinary course of events” (Barnes 1998, 61) and “directs ἐποχή towards a specific target – roughly speaking towards philosophical and scientific matters” (Barnes 1998, 61–62) as a doctor or the other way around mainly because his philosophical posture seems to really have been “a philosophy for the whole of life” (Burnyeat and Frede 1998, x), his medical practice not being insulated from his general attitude. Fogelin treats this theme of the rustic/urbane Pyrrhonian opposition introduced by the polemics debating whether Pyrrhonists had beliefs or not between, on one side, Jonathan Barnes and Myles Burnyeat and on the other side Michael Frede, and takes the side of the German scholar, considering Sextus’ Pyrrhonism as urbane (see Burnyeat and Frede 1998; Fogelin 1994, 5–9).

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In truth, it seems to us that readings of Sextus as a rustic Pyrrhonist belie a reluctance to depart from the identification of ancient pyrrhonism as a prefiguration of modern scepticism, in spite of the adaptations made necessary by trying to avoid straightforwardly anachronistic interpretations. While not completely keeping away from some projection of modern sceptical overtones into his representation of ancient pyrrhonism, Fogelin could not really fall into that trap. His insightful conception of the ancient pyrrhonian stance as described by Sextus and his will to revive it in some form calling his own “Reflections” pyrrhonian stress the identification of his personal philosophical perspective with it. Thus, in spite of putting forward some good arguments against the interpretation of ancient pyrrhonism based on the distinction introduced by one of its adversaries, Galen, and favouring Frede’s conception of “urbane” pyrrhonism, he seems to fail as to the essential task of calling into question this very distinction. One needs perhaps to go further than dismissing the qualification of Sextus’s enterprise as one of “rustic” pyrrhonism and simply classifying it as “urbane”, we should overcome the barrier imposed by this distinction (that is what we think Frede has somehow done), although Fogelin himself suggests the labelling is one-sided:  “Michael Frede has defended the urbane interpretation  – though he does not use this (somewhat tendentious) label” (Fogelin 1994, 5). The label really seems meaningless when applied to ancient pyrrhonism unless we want to adopt a clearly anachronistic viewpoint and use it mainly if not exclusively to discuss contemporary issues. The fact is that, insisting on a modern characterization of sceptical radicalism, the distinction itself only fits perfectly interpretations of Pyrrhonism conceived as some kind of radical post-Cartesian scepticism in the wake of David Hume’s reading of Pyrrhonism and of his analogous distinction justifying his mitigated solution. It really derives from the application of a modern scepticism framework to the understanding of Ancient scepticism, and particularly of Ancient Pyrrhonism.

Bibliography Barnes, Jonathan (1998). “The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist”, in M. Burnyeat and M. Frede (eds.). The Original Sceptics: A Controversy, Indianapolis/Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 58–91. Burnyeat, Myles and Frede, Michael (eds.) (1998). The Original Sceptics: A Controversy, Indianapolis/Cambridge, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Chisholm, Roderick (1941). “Sextus Empiricus and Modern Empiricism”, Philosophy of Science 8(3), 371–384.

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Fogelin, Robert J. (1981). “Wittgenstein and Classical Skepticism”, International Philosophical Quarterly 21(1), 3–15. Fogelin, Robert J. (1987). Wittgenstein, 2nd edition, series The Arguments of the Philosophers, London/New York, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Fogelin, Robert J. (1994). Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press. Hallie, Phillip P. (ed.) (1964). Scepticism, Man and God. Selections from the Major Writings of Sextus Empiricus, trans. Sanford G. Etheridge, Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press. Hallie, Phillip P. (1966). The Scar of Montaigne: An Essay in Personal Philosophy, Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press. Hamlyn, D. W. (1966). “Review of Philip P. Hallie, and Sanford G. Etheridge ‘Scepticism, Man, and God’”, Philosophy 41, 89–90. Sextus Empiricus (1976). Outlines of Pyrrhonism, volume I of Sextus Empiricus in Four Volumes, transl. R. G. Bury, Cambridge, MA/London, Harvard University Press/William Heinemann. Sextus Empiricus (1994). Outlines of Scepticism, trans. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wallgren, Thomas (2012). “Philosophy Without End: Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonian Scepticism”, in Somavilla, Ilse and Thompson, James (eds.), Wittgenstein und die Antike/Wittgenstein and Ancient Thought, Berlin, Parerga. Watson, Richard A. (1969). “Sextus and Wittgenstein”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy 7(3).

Renato Lessa

Scepticism and Lebensform: An Argument about Some Affinities between Wittgenstein and Pyrrhonian Scepticism1 Even the devil in hell has one form of life; and the world would not be complete without it. Ludwig Wittgenstein (LE 127) Because they are patterns, regularities, configurations, Wittgenstein calls them forms; and because they are patterns in the fabric of human existence and activity on earth, he calls them forms of life. Hanna Pitkin (Pitkin 1972, 132)

1.  Consonances, as well as dissonances, between the sceptical tradition and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy have been mostly held regarding the issue of knowledge – what and how much we know – and its ostension – what one should/can speak about. This preferred orientation towards the epistemological and expressive dimension can be explained and justified by an emphasis present in the usual treatment of what turns out to be the tradition of philosophical scepticism. Throughout the history of its interpretations, scepticism has been thought of less as defining a specific way of life and more as a suspensive philosophical stance in the fight against cognitive claims of dogmatic character; claims that hold that it is possible to say what things are by nature, irrespectively of how they appear to observers. In fact, the core of pyrrhonian argumentation, as originally presented in the Ten Tropes of Aenesidemus, formally expressed in the third century CE by Sextus Empiricus, is a set of suspension (epoché) arguments and stances in face of such claims. This orientation towards suspension, besides refusing dogmatism, shows the inclination of the sceptics towards more contained assents that consider how phenomena seem to be instead of what they supposedly are by nature. In all arguments presented in the Ten Tropes suspension results from the equipollence 1 I would like to thank the generous and enlightening comments made to this essay by Maria Filomena Molder, António Marques, Diogo Pires Aurélio, Paulo Tunhas and Rui Bertrand Romão.

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(isosthenéia) established between concurrent judgements regarding the ultimate nature of things, on something that always evades ordinary perception. The definition of appropriate criteria for the determination of which of the concurrent judgements has the key to establish what things are by nature does not escape the scope of equipollence – in fact, it is part and parcel of it. An undetermined series of grounding attempts, tending toward an infinite regress, is added to the equipollence established by the conflict between judgements. The ensuing image is one of a regressive abyss of the search for ground, always subjected to further excavation. In face of the problem raised by the regression, the arguments put forward in the Ten Tropes show a set of reasons for not saying certain things, for not being implicated in the dual agony of regressive and abyssal search for ground and its unequivocal fixation in language: the sceptic, in fact, chooses a minimalism regarding predication by limiting himself to say that the things of the world appear to him in a particular and contextual way, without stating that they are as they seem to be to him by nature and necessarily. Therefore, it is undeniable that the orientation toward the suspension of judgement has cognitive implications since it links the limits of judgement to the jurisdiction of the world of phenomena, taking the latter to be the justifying criterion for statements with minimal predicative burden. This can be drawn from the evocative statement by Timon, Pyrrho’s disciple, regarding the seemingly sweetness of honey:  “I do not assert that honey (really) is sweet, but that it appears (sweet) I grant” (Aristocles, Poetics, fr. 74 apud Stough 1969, 6).2 However, one of the questions also present in the history of the interpretations of scepticism is to know if it is possible, for the Sceptic, to live his own scepticism by applying to himself all the batteries contained in the war machine he mobilizes against dogmatism.3 This inquiry clearly points to the relevance of the subject of forms of life regarding a reflection on the existential implications of scepticism. This is not the case of examining different interpretations of this aspect,

2 The same example appears in Sextus Empiricus as a form of deflation of predication: “[…] it appears to us that honey sweetens (we concede this inasmuch as we are sweetened in a perceptual way); but whether (as far as the argument goes) it is actually sweet is something we investigate – and this is not what is apparent but something said about what is apparent” (Sextus 1994, 8; PH, I, x, 20). 3 Two almost classical papers are important references for the discussion on the possibilities of a Sceptic form of life, Burnyeat’s “Can a Sceptic Live with his Scepticism?”, and Frede’s “The Sceptic’s Two Kinds of Assent and the Question of the Possibility of Knowledge” (see Burnyeat 1980, 117–148 and Frede 1985, 255–278). I have addressed this issue in an essay entitled “Vox Sextus: dimensões da sociabilidade em um mundo possível cético” (Lessa 2000, 113–168).

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thus turning this chapter into a collection of arguments that are both subjects and victims of a considerable equipollence. My purpose – of a less partisan and hermeneutical nature  – is to explore some parallels and convergences between what I deem to be one specific mode of configuration of a form of life, present in pyrrhonean scepticism, and some of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s intuitions developed around the idea of Lebensform. By doing so, I am deviating from the proclivity toward understanding scepticism exclusively and primarily based on its cognitive-deflationist side, to suggest the presence in the sceptical corpus of positive statements concerning the human form of life. I will try to show that the original sceptic’s sensibility regarding the subject of the form of life may depart from two significant textual references in Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism, namely: (i) The presentation of the sceptical criterion of assent and of the sceptical nonindifference principle regarding a set of extant things in relation to which a stance of automatic and unconsidered adherence is taken as compulsory (Sextus 1994, 9; PH, I, xi, 21–24); (ii) The argument about the diversity of forms of life as described in the tenth Trope of Aenesidemus, one of the fundamental tenets in the recovery of scepticism in Modernity (Sextus 1994, 37–40; PH, I, xiv, 145–163). To my mind, some of the characteristics of the sceptic way of life, as presented by Sextus Empiricus, point out to a convergence with the wittgensteinian theme of the Lebensform, namely with interpretations that emphasize its implications regarding a natural-historical-cultural perspective of human ordinary experience alongside the pregnancy of the concept for the subject of language. First and foremost, something must be said concerning the nature of the affinity I am posing: it is not the case of postulating the presence of a sceptic “influence” on Wittgenstein or of carrying out a juxtaposition and a detailed comparison of text excerpts. Instead, I  intend to suggest an imaginative affinity, sometimes formal and other times substantial, between arguments that address the subject of the form of life of human beings. An imaginative affinity, in turn, is the outcome of a reading effect. Although based on text excerpts, this effect functions as a supplementation or fitting operator over the letter. Thus, in spite of not being juxtaposition, both sides must be “prepared” for such matching. This is my goal in the following sections of this chapter. 2.  One cannot say that the concept of “form of life” (Lebensform)  – or in its plural “forms of life” (Lebensformen) – has a large occurrence amidst Witgenstein’s works. Although the scrutiny of the occurrences of the term is problematic, given its possible association with other expressions also present in his work, it is undeniable that its appearance as a distinctive conceptual mark is rare. Despite that,

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important researchers of the wittgensteinian corpus acknowledge that the concept is one of the main traits of Wittgenstein’s second philosophy, starting with the Philosophical Investigations. The occurrence of the term would thus be in inverse proportion in relation to its relevance. For instance, P.F. Strawson defines the concept as one of the three cardinal principles of the Philosophical Investigations, granting it a similar importance to that of the concept of Umgebung, a concept with which it maintains a strong affinity (cf. Strawson 1966, 62). Stanley Cavell, for his part, stated the following in regard to the concept of Lebensform: “Human speech and activity, sanity and community, rest upon nothing more, nothing less than Lebensformen” (Cavell 1962, 67–93). Not surprisingly there are dissonant voices such as Hilary Putnam: “The fondness for the expression ‘forms of life’ appears to be directly proportional to its degree of preposterousness in a given context” (Putnam 1970, 60). Max Black stated that the notion is not particularly important for Wittgenstein. In fact, Rudolf Heller considers Black a relevant interpreter to counteract the “tendency to overestimate the importance of the concept in Wittgenstein’s thought” (Haller 2014, 130). Hence, there is no consensus amongst Wittgenstein interpreters neither regarding the meanings, implications and relevance of the expression nor regarding the number of its occurrences throughout the work. There is, however, an agreement regarding its rare occurrence. A useful selection made by Nicholas Gier on the basis of Wittgenstein’s works Philosophical Investigations (PI), Lectures and Conversations (LC) and On Certainty (OC) shows the following occurrences (see Gier 1980, 241–258):





1. It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in battle… And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.4 (PI 19) 2. Here the term ‘language-game’ is meant to being into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. (PI 23) 3. So you are saying that human agreements decide what is true and what is false? – It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreements in opinions but in a form of life. (PI 241) 4. Can only those hope who can talk? Only those who have mastered the use of language. That is to say the phenomena of hope are modifications of this complicated form of life. (PPF 1) 5. Mathematics is indeed of the highest certainty though we only have a crude reflection of it […] What has to be accepted, the given is – so one can say – forms of life. (PI 226) 6. Why shouldn’t a form of life culminate in an utterance in a Last Judgement? (LC, 58) 7. Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality, but as a form of life. (OC 358). But that means I want to conceive it as something beyond being justified or unjustified; as something animal. (OC 359)

4 The underlining of forms of life in italics in these quotations is ours.

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In a recent paper, Stephan Majetschak relates the concept of Lebensform with the variegated series of expressions used by Wittgenstein – such as patterns of life or simply Gestalt – that would show the same kind of problem: […] it becomes definitely clear that a ‘life-form’ in Wittgenstein’s understanding is nothing other than a ‘life pattern’: a recurring and recognizable order of action, situation and linguistic utterance features, which the speakers of a language apprehend as structuring regularities within their life and thus designate by a word. (Majetschak 2010, 89)

This passage suggests that the questions and difficulties arising around the term Lebensform also make them known amidst analogous expressions, thus making the thematic set relevant beyond the occasions in which the concept is explicitly mentioned. Regarding the idea of Lebensform and its use by Wittgenstein, Nicholas Gier, in the abovementioned paper, starts his reflection from a set of four possible interpretations of the concept, based on the classification proposed earlier by John Hunter (Gier 1980; Hunter 1968, 233–243). The framework of possibilities can be summed up in the following sequence: (i) The Language-Game Account: based on the identity between Lebensform and language-games. According to Wittgenstein’s texts, the following excerpt of the Philosophical Investigations  – often referred when it comes to thinking about the Wittgensteinian Lebensform  – seems to provide immediate support to this interpretation: “It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in a battle […] And to imagine a language-game is to imagine a form of life” [PI, 19]. Gier persuasively argues in the following direction:  “We can conceive of many possible language-games, but we would not necessarily find them being played in ordinary life” (Gier 1980, 244). That is, although it can be said that the idea of forms of life implying the presence and operation of language-games is consistent, this does not mean that language-games are a sufficient condition to determine a form of life. Put in this way the argument suggests that the concept of form of life contains more than one linguistic dimension, in fact reversing the implicative meaning:  language-games, as operative forces in ordinary life, demand the denser presence of forms of life. The following passage of the Philosophical Investigations seems to support such an interpretation:  “Here the term ‘language-game’ is meant to being into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity or of a form of life” [PI, 23]. (ii) The Behavioural-Package Account:  The second interpretation singled out by Hunter attributes a performative dimension to the idea of form of life, based on the proposition sustaining Lebensformen as “formalized behaviour

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packages” correlated with language-games. According to Hunter, “we are jointly inclined to engage in the behaviour (and in appropriate circumstances) to say the words” (Hunter 1968, 276). The behavioural dimension seems to be similar to the Wittgensteinian proposition that the act of speaking a language is the integral part of an activity identified as a form of life. ( iii) Accordingly, The Cultural- Historical View: Lebensform is […] a way of life, or a mode manner, fashion, or style: that it has something important to do with the class structure, the values, the Religion, the types of industry and commerce and of recreation that characterize a group of people. (Hunter 1968, 276)

(iv) The Natural-Historical Theory [or the Organic Account]: while the previous versions emphasize, according to Gier, the Form aspect of the term Lebensform, a naturalist perspective would be focused on the idea of life itself – Leben. Its outcome is a search – or detection – of what is “typical of a living being”. In Hunter’s words: It is like ‘something typical of a living being’: typical in the sense of being very broadly in the same class as the growth or nutrition of living organisms, or as the organic complexity which master them […] to react in complicated ways to their environment. (Hunter 1968, 278)

A concise account of that perspective can be found in Newton Garver:  “The Wittgensteinian forms of life are those of natural history: the cow-like, the fishlike, the dog-like and the human” (Garver 1984, 33–54; see also Haller 2014, 129). Based on this fourfold classification of possible interpretations, Gier proposes an integration of the different aspects involved by picturing the concept of Lebensform, in Wittgenstein, as a composition of four levels arranged as follows (e.a.): (i) a biological level from which (ii) unique human activities like pretending, grieving, etc., are then expressed in (iii) various cultural styles that in turn have their formal ground in a (iv) general socio-linguistic framework. The advantages of this assembly are presented by Gier himself: “virtues of comprehensiveness, flexibility, and as much justice to the texts as possible” (Gier 1980, 245–246). In fact, to avoid adherence to any of the hypotheses and particular viewpoints as defining the ultimate meaning of the image, the set of Wittgensteinian passages regarding Lebensform could, in principle, be integrated into Gier’s comprehensive framework. This would avoid a selectivity effect on the detection of texts supporting to the interpretation. Although it is not Gier’s intention to

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establish the interpretation of interpretations, this arrangement seems to assume the presence of a principle of attraction capable of fitting together the different aspects associated by Wittgenstein to the idea of Lebensform. 3.  This notwithstanding, it seems difficult to hold that a pattern of distinction of discrete interpretation alternatives is present. Instead, both by Gier’s and Hunter’s arrangements, the fourfold mentioned levels seem to maintain between themselves a pattern of relation in which differentiation does not exclude complementarity and the latter, when occurring, does not grasp the integrity of involved parts. The aesthetic of the idea of Lebensform seems to exhibit an open form with nucleus of meaning shared by different aspects – linguistic, behavioural, historicalcultural, organic-naturalist, and so on. At the same time each one of those “partial” aspects contains a conceptually content independent of the amalgam that is being put together. The abovementioned difficulty, pointing toward a distinction of arguments, can also be detected in the attempt to link specific passages of Wittgenstein’s work to specific interpretations. Gier, for instance, presents three passages that, according to him, would support the Organic Account – in Hunter’s terms (Gier 1980, 248) –, namely: 1. I want to regard man here as an animal, as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. (OC 475) 2. Our language-game is an extension of primitive behaviour. (For our language game is behaviour. (Z 545; cf. Z 570) 3. Commanding, questioning, recounting, chatting, are as much part of our natural history, as walking, eating, drinking and playing. (PI 25)

The first – with an undisguised Rousseauian flavour – seems to bring us closer to the naturalist bedrock. As in Rousseau’s reflection – particularly in the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men  –, the observation of ratiocination habits shows more than bare natural state. After all, in accordance with Rousseau’s intuition, the meditating man is a vicious animal, removed from his original and natural circumstances. On the contrary, we have to go beyond – or below – the reasoning operation to touch the bedrock in which the animality of man is engraved, constituted by his peculiar instincts. Can this pre-linguistic bedrock constitute a language-game? To be circumvented, the question seems to demand the inclusion of language-games in the bedrock, indicating a connaturality between language and existence. The effect is inevitable: if language-games are part of a greater activity – endowed with performative and cultural aspects –, the border between the naturalist and the culturalist arguments simply vanishes. This being the case, to consider human beings in their animality is more an expression of a figurative intention than a fixation of a form of life. The connaturality here indicated is convergent with the following proposition by Hacker:

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One cannot attain a proper grasp of e.g., the meaning of ‘pain’ without appreciating the role which sentences containing the world play in our life, in entreaties and pleas, requests for mercy, help or alleviation, threats or warnings, expressions of sympathy, prayers and exclamation. (Hacker 1972, 241)

According to the second excerpt, however, language-games appear as an extension of our primal behaviour, with the proviso that “language-game is behaviour”, thus linking the Organic Account to the Behaviour-Package View without in any way excluding the Language-Game Account. In this sense, the passage is consistent with every one of the arguments mentioned above. The third passage seems to be strategic, given the necessary linkage it establishes between what would be an organic-naturalist view and a historical-cultural view. The idea of a natural history of humans links strictly organic dimensions to other dimensios that bring with them the performance of social actions (commanding, questioning, recounting, chatting, and playing). There seems to be no emphasis on the organic-naturalist aspect that, no matter how great it is, overshadows the co-presence of the historical-cultural dimension as stated in the Cultural-Historical View. 4.  Rush Rhees, in his English translation of the Philosophical Investigations, elected the expression ways of life as corresponding to the concept of Lebensformen. Wittgenstein, to whom the translation was submitted, not only approved Rhees’ solution but also added the complement of human beings by his own hand. In accordance with this formulation, Lebensform can be understood as the way of life of human beings. The expression links the concept to human experience, thus putting aside an essentially biological interpretation according to which such form of life would be part of a series that would include the wide zoological series in which each animal would correspond to a form of life. However, this does not imply the inexistence of a natural dimension in the form of life of humans, which would thus be exclusively fulfilled by the cultural aspect. Rather, what seems to be implied here is the coextensivity of both components. The opposition between the organic-naturalist and the historical-cultural perspectives seems not to hold: the nature of the animal in question presupposes the effectiveness of a Lebensform endowed both with linguistic and cultural attributes, as the variety of Lebensformen presupposes the invariance of that “natural” fact. The resulting scenario could reveal the image of a natural history of humans grounded on its own basic form of life, from which an undetermined plurality of forms of life can be conceived. Two extracts in Wittgenstein seem to be relevant to establish the linkage between the image of the Lebensform and a historical-cultural perspective:

1. Imagine a use of language (a culture) in which there was a common name for green and red on the one hand, and yellow and blue on the other. Suppose, e.g., that there

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were two castes, one of the patrician caste, wearing blue and yellow garments…We could also easily imagine a language (and that means again a culture)…. (BBB 134) 2. The words we call expressions of aesthetical judgement play a very complicated role, but a very definite role, in what we call a culture of the period. To describe their use or to describe what you mean by a cultures taste, you have to describe a culture… What belongs to a language-game is a whole culture. (LC 8)

Intriguingly, the affirmation of the cultural dimension makes itself seen through those passages without the involvement or description of any specific cultural form as such. It could be said that they are rendered into a culturalist meta-language instead of being established in a descriptive perspective regarding the concrete encompassing mode of cultural operation of the language-games and form of life. Hence, Gier’s remark seems to make full sense: The concept of Lebensformen is not to be taken as a factual theory, one dealing with certain biological, psychological, or cultural facts. Forms of life are the formal frameworks that make society and culture possible, but they cannot serve any sociological theory. (Gier 1980, 257)

The character of formal framework permits to hold a convergence between naturalism and culturalism regarding the determination of what a form of life of humans is. Such fusion, however, surpasses the framework of a model according to which the natural dimension would reveal what is necessary and invariant, while the cultural dimension would be related to the variety of human experience. Instead, more than the sum and juxtaposition, what seems to present itself is a model through which the naturalist argument can be perceived as meaning more than one of the possible particular interpretations of what is a form of life. Besides regarding necessary attributes whose absence would therefore eliminate the possibilities of any form of life of humans, the naturalist argument contains in itself, first and foremost, the model for the fixation of cultural attributes. The latter adhere to humans as if they were natural, but not in their innumerable substantial meanings. What seems to matter to Wittgenstein, as well as to pyrrhonism, is to make the bedrock be seen: not any particular example of the cultural variety of humans, but the original fact of having a culture. To state that the bedrock contains the model in a specific way would mean to take the particular – any particular – as the prototype of the universal. That is something that both Wittgenstein and the pyrrhonians seem to be inhibited from doing. On the contrary, it is about of recognizing the principle of variety linking it, however, to a common substrate. There is no possible regression from it: we entered the domain in which the image of the abyss of infinite regress no longer assaults us: the matter and form of the “Form of life” is the bedrock in its sense of substrate and permanence. Therefore, it makes sense to bring together the notions of form of life and language-game as

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basic images of a stability, which is not suppressed by the fact of both giving leeway for the innumerable variety of derived forms of life. As a sociological object, it is not the Lebensform as the ground that is striking to the analyst, but the variety of Lebensformen. Surely the analyst is not forbidden to ask about the bedrock and the form of life of humans in its generic and transcendental sense, but he will do so en philosophe since all phenomenological reduction is the result of a philosophical operation.5 In the next sections I  will intend to present three modes of affinity between Wittgenstein’s arguments and classical pyrrhonism regarding the subject of the form of life. The first line of affinity concerns the common presence of a will to describe as an alternative to the Aristotelian prescription of knowing through the causes. The second line concerns the recognition of a strong naturalist dimension – an attention to the perspective of a natural history of mankind – present in both orders of arguments. Lastly, one has to add a strong convergence in what would be the historical-cultural implications of the idea of Lebensform. In guise of (un)conclusion, I intend to suggest that a greater intelligibility of the subject of forms of life demands the mobilization of anthropological and metaethical arguments insofar as it permits a glimpse of the dystopic and negative spectre of living outside the experience with a form of life. Such impossibility has strong anthropological grounds and does not do without imperatives of a moral order. 5.  In one of his most beautiful chapters on Wittgenstein’s works, Jean-Pierre Cometti calls attention to the presence of a will to describe as a characteristic of Wittgensteinian philosophical undertaking, an alternative disposition to a will to explain (Cometti 2001, 26). What can be found here is the presence of a meaningful nexus with Wittgenstein’s concept of Übersicht as alternative model to causal explanation: instead of detecting causes and laws of a given set of phenomena, the Übersicht perspective intends to show formal connections between things. Its result is the view of a descriptive phenomenology of the forms of life and not an explanation of causes and events. Cometti’s expression can be applied to a practice of philosophy that does not hold any thesis but is rather occupied observing the “uses and choices related to a form of life” (Cometti 2001, 26). A first sphere of affinity between the Wittgensteinian reflection on the idea of Lebensform and some of the arguments of pyrrhonian scepticism can be presented here. The will to describe spirit seems to posses a strong convergence toward Sextus Empiricus’ depiction of the cognitive behaviour of the ancient 5 “Lebensformen perform a transcendental function” (Erickson 1970, 111). “Lebensformen are therefore primarily the formal conditions, the pattern in the weave of our lives, that make a meaningful possible. They are the existential equivalent of Kant’s Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der Erfahrung” (Gier 1980, 257).

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Sceptics facing phenomenal life. According to Sextus Empiricus, the Sceptic is a historikós, someone that conveys the world as it seems to be: “[…] let us say that on none of the matters to be discussed do we affirm that things are just as we say they are: rather we report descriptively on each item according to how it appears to us at the time” (Sextus 1994, 3; PH I, i, 4).6 The sceptic description of the world can be seen as the residue of the suspension of assent regarding dogmatic propositions. This is the existential ground for a sceptical exercise of language, a practice that avoids both the dogmatic obsession with true predication and aphasia. Hence, there is a legitimate domain for a practice of language resulting from a specific pattern of silence, the one ensuing from the observation of dogmatic disputes. But outside of the noise of dogmatic squabbles – the uproar we imagine to hear while admiring The School of Athens by Raphael Sanzio, for e­ xample – there is a place for a mitigated and minimal predication according to which things seem to be, which is sufficient for them to have names and be linked to common rules of enunciation. Will to describe versus will to explain: the antinomy also brings to mind Pierre Bayle’s sceptical distinction, in the seventeenth century, between two distinct cognitive stances: (i) the one practiced by the avocats and (ii) the one used by the rapporteurs (Bayle 1734, I, 580a).7 The sceptic chronicler, as we were told, narrates what he sees. But insofar as the act of narrating presupposes some exercise in observation, what is exactly such activity? On what objects is it focused? The elucidation of this point deepens the line of affinities mentioned here:  the sceptic does not research what appears to him, since he considers that dimension as a given, but only what is said about the form and the meaning of the appearance of things: “[…] what we investigate is not what is apparent but what is said about what is apparent – and this is different from investigating what is apparent itself ” (Sextus 1994, 8; OP I, x, 19). This passage is extremely relevant since it permits us to move away from an image of the sceptics as pure “phenomenalists”. Instead, what is suggested is the presence of an acute perception that the research regarding claims of truth should

6 The translation used is the one by Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, who translate the word historikós as the one that reports what he sees in a descriptive way. Reverend Bury’s translation is more concise, choosing the word “chronicler”: “[…] we simply record each fact, like a chronicler, as it appears to us at the moment” (Sextus 1976, 5). 7 “Notez que l’Antiquité avoit deux sortes de philosophes. Les uns ressembloient aux avocats, & les autres rapporteurs d’un procès. Ceux-là en prouvant leurs opinions, cachoient autant qu’ils pouvoient l’endroit foible de leur cause & et l’endroit fort de leurs adversaires. Ceux-ci, savoir les sceptiques ou les académiciens, représentoient fidélement & sans nulle partialité le fort & le foible de deux parties opposez” (Bayle 1734, I, 580a).

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consider, first and foremost, what is said to be the truth. The sceptics do not reveal – nor could they do so – the uncertainty of statements on the basis of presuppositions of non-correspondence between the language and the world. What is revealed through that disposition is the concern about distinguishing what can/ should be said from its contrary, that is, from the excess and impudence of predication held in presuppositions of apprehension of essential and hidden dimensions of existence. The expression “to research what is said” also indicates the presence for a will to observe the uses of terms that have implications on the fabric of common life. Sceptic epistemology is focused on what is said, paying attention to the implications of statements on the constitution of life. Hence, it pays attention to the productive aspect of language: if the latter is part of the form of life, then what is said is relevant to indicate the modes of human action. It is a choice for intelligibility. It is not the case of the Sceptic seeking a language that reveals the phenomenon. It is rather an attention to the intelligibility of what is said, and this can only be assured by being both a part of the experience and of the modes of naming it. The will to describe reveals more than the force of a mental habit or the preference for a particular angle for the observation of human affairs. More than this, it is about the defence of a form of life in which statements and phenomena appear interlinked. The requirements put forward by Hacker in order that the word “pain” be meaningful are once again valid here: the meaning of a term cannot be learnt without considering its meaning for our lives. It should also be added that such meanings are presented according to orders of corollaries, simultaneously verbal and performative. In short, it seems to be possible to draw from the sceptics’ will to describe – as well as from the one present in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of the forms of life – a sort of refusal regarding the experience of de-signification, of dissolution of ordinary forms of association between terms and meanings. 6.  A second order of affinity between Wittgenstein’s reflection on Lebensform and pyrrhonian scepticism seems to be engraved in what could be called a natural history of mankind. Although the idea of Lebensformen has, in Wittgenstein’s lexicon, an undisputable historical-cultural dimension, there are other layers at stake. Among these it is important to recognize the relevance of the already mentioned interpretation presented in the terms of a naturalist argument. When applied to humans, the term life necessarily carries with it the subjects of culture and history as well as the innumerable variety contained in both aspects. But it is reasonable to assume that it also has a pre-cultural and pre-categorical burden, so to speak. This is what seems to be suggested by the already mentioned statement by Wittgenstein:  “I want to regard man here as an animal, as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state” (OC 475).

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This does not mean that there was an actual state preceding the acquisition of culture and language whose demography was filled by natural men, as primal beings without reasoning. This is not about historical judgement. Before anything else, what is affirmed is a desire for perception – an “I want to regard” clause – of human conduct guided by the expectation of being able to say something about the bedrock, about what is at the very bottom of human experience. This is a crucial point: if I am able to touch the bedrock I will stand before what is necessarily and irrecusably human. By opposition and addition, any concrete and specific cultural form belongs to the domain of contingent existences, par définition well beyond the bare bedrock. One of the more important sets of arguments of the tradition of pyrrhonian scepticism is present in The Ten Tropes by Aenesidemus, glossed and defined by Sextus Empiricus in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism. The Tropes collect ten configurations – or circumstances for observation – over which a suspension of judgement is imposed. Such circumstances invariantly oppose perceptions to objects laid out in different scenarios in the face of which a necessary suspension of judgement or assent must follow. Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes formalized the common logical kernel of the ten arguments in the following way:

(1) The phenomenon x appears as F in the situation S (2) The phenomenon x appears as F * in the situation S*. […] (3) We cannot prefer S to S*, or vice-versa, as privileged forms of observation; […] (4) We cannot affirm nor deny that x is F or F*. (Annas & Barnes 1985, 24–25)

Proposition (3) configures a state of equipollence according to which the claims of truth contained in F and F* are considered equivalent. Facing a situation of equipollence, proposition (4) defines a state of suspension of judgement or non-assent (epoché). The customary interpretation regarding the meanings and implications of The Ten Tropes emphasizes the presence of reasons for the suspension of judgement. More straightforwardly, it’s commonly assumed that the tropes contain containing a comprehensive set of different motives to carry out the suspension of judgement. The meaning of the tropes is thus interpreted from the perspective of their intended effects:  from all tropes suspension ensues as a corollary; in that sense, suspension is taken to be the key to understand the meaning of Aenesidemus arguments. But is this all that can be said regarding that powerful set of arguments? It seems reasonable, at this point, to introduce the following order of questions: from what state of the world – from what original situation – emerges the framework from which the suspension appears as an effect? In other words, what state of affairs

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gives rise to the suspension? What are the components of this pre-suspensive state? What is their ontological status? How are they presented? In a single formula: if the suspension comes from something, what is this something preceding it? We know that the aim of sceptic research is what is said about phenomena and not their intrinsic existence. Therefore, the Tropes are recommendations of silence as a barrier against the excess of predication, meaning the obsession of saying what the phenomena are by nature. In that sense, what does silence leave behind? What objects constitute such equipollent world, so to speak? In a nutshell: what are we silent about? To let those items of the world be seen it is necessary to read The Ten Tropes not on the perspective of their effects but on the perspective of their structural components. What can be revealed by such reorientation? Primarily the choice of making circumstances and situations present as if they were natural and did not require grounding. It seems that the intention was to exhibit the natural and original scenario of cognition through the presentation of the tropes, a kind of natural history of knowledge starting from a state of the world filled with sensations and objects. Sextus Empiricus presents us with a synopsis of the series of tropes held by the “ancient sceptics”: “They are:  first, the mode depending on the variations among animals; second, that depending on the difference among humans; third, that depending on the differing constitutions of the sense organs; fourth, that depending on circumstances; fifth, that depending on positions and intervals and places; sixth, that depending on admixtures; seventh, that depending on the quantities and preparations of existing things; eight, that deriving from relativity; ninth, that depending on frequent and rare encounters; tenth, that depending on persuasions and customs and laws and belief in myths and dogmatic suppositions” (Sextus 1994, 12–13; PH, I, xiv, 36–37).

The first nine tropes congregate items that can be linked to a larger argument of a naturalist quality. They are closer to the perspective of a natural history of mankind, which includes a clear-cut coextensivity with the animal dimension. It is possible to identify two sets or argument, in the overall set composed by the nine first tropes. These two subsets deal with Sensations and Objects. The first trope is the most generic: the diversity of animals is given as a basic state of the world; that is a fact of nature, inscribed in the appearance of things. We already know the sceptic drift of such acknowledgement: to suspend judgement regarding which animal to hold as criterion to determine what things are by nature. But that is not the issue: what is relevant is to detect a movement in the sceptic narrative in which the matter at hand is stated and what is the case is determined. In this sense, the original case is constituted by the diversity of animals, moved by their sensations (cf. Sextus 1994, 13; PH, I, xiv, 40).

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The three subsequent tropes maintain the perspective of sensations, by humanizing it. What matters are the differences between men (cf. Sextus 1994, 22–25; PH, I, xiv, 79–90) – bodies and souls –, sense organs (cf. Sextus 1994, 25–27; PH, I, xiv, 91–99) as perceptual units and the circumstances affecting the subject in the act of observing the world (cf. Sextus 1994, 27–31; PH, I, xiv, 100–117). Besides the suspensive drift, once again it is all about establishing what is the case. What can be seen here is a universe made out of bodies with different shapes, affected by a variety of humours and with peculiarities involving from different forms of digestion to several sensibilities to poisons (cf. Sextus 1994, 23; PH, I, xiv, 81–82). It is a world of sensible recipients, of bodies related to souls, moved by the natural program of choice associated with pleasure (cf. Sextus 1994, 24; PH, I, xiv, 87). Bodies containing different senses giving contrasting statements in regard their exterior surroundings. Here we return to Timon’s example according to which the sweetness of honey is an appearance collected by the sense of taste, not able of being shared by touch or sight, just as its visual looks say nothing to smell. Bodies and beams of sensations inscribed in a world in which all observation stems from the particular circumstances in which it takes place. This notwithstanding, this is a world of intense productivity of sensations, yet always undetermined regarding what its ultimate ground would be. Furthermore, the series’ opening sequence of four tropes gives a presentation of the human condition as something affected by the natural history of its senses, something coextensive to animal life. The series made out of the five subsequent tropes – that is, the arrangement of objects (5) (cf. Sextus 1994, 31–32; PH, I, xiv, 118–123), combinations between them (6)  (cf. Sextus 1994, 32–33; PH, I, xiv, 124–128), their quantities (7)  (cf. Sextus 1994, 34–35; PH, I, xiv, 129–134), and the frequency of their occurrence (9) (cf. Sextus 1994, 36–37; PH, I, xiv, 141–144)– adds to the previous set the mode of appearance of the exterior world to the senses.8 This mode of appearance can be considered as the mark of Sceptic ontology. In fact, phenomena always appear arranged in the world, that is to say, circumscribed by a spatiality that assigns them places, gaps and positions (cf. Sextus 1994, 31; PH, I, xiv, 118). Such attributes are directly focused on the form of appearance and its variations. Similarly, the objects are always perceived in combinations with other objects; mutant combinations vividly affecting their apprehension by the observer. Likewise, the quantity of objects – as well as their frequency or rarity – seems to be decisive regarding the configuration of their modes of apprehension. 8 The Eighth Trope is somewhat a outlier in comparison with the rest of the series. It deals with the subject of the relativity of all perceptions and judgments, therefore being a generic mode that can be subjacent to all others. It is even possible to consider it a “mode zero”, as the necessary ground for all the remaining modes.

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The first set of Tropes – from 1 to 4 – defines what could be deemed as a Theory of the Subject in which the variety of sensations rules over the process of observation of the world. In the second set – from 5 to 9 – a Theory of the World is manifested on the sceptical way of addressing the question “what are things”, or in the simpler terms put forward by Willard Quine, “what there is”? The aggregate result is a description of the conditions at the beginning of the movements of suspension of judgement. This original state combines sensations and objects. 7.  The closing trope of Aenesidemus’ decalogue deals with ethical and cultural issues. The principle of variety, as an inherent aspect of the form of appearance of phenomena, is manifested in the diversity of persuasions, laws, habits and customs, beliefs derived from legends and dogmatic conceptions (cf. Sextus 1994, 37–38; PH, I, xiv, 145). This is the sceptic statement where the clearest signs of what could be considered a form of life can be seen. Such emphasis, however, demands a reading effect through which its composing items are no longer seen exclusively – or mainly – as epistemological hindrances; instead, it brings about a descriptive approach regarding its possible implications. Otherwise put, more than indicating the course of suspension, the ostension of diversity, carried out by the trope’s enunciation, has value for what it is in itself: a description of the state of the world. And it is in that capacity that the tenth trope of Aenesidemus can occupy a central place in a pyrrhonian theory of the form of life. The first step to support such supposition requires an attention to the structure and to the sequence of the trope’s presentation. Sextus Empiricus tried to define each of the argument’s items: Persuasions (P): related to the choice of a way of life and a pattern of conduct practiced by one or many persons; Laws (L):  written contracts between members of a State, prescribing penalties for offenders; Habits and customs (H): common acceptance of a given pattern of conduct by a number of persons without necessary penalties for the offenders; Beliefs derived from legends (C): acceptance of non-historical and fictional events; Dogmas (D): acceptance of non-evident propositions (Sextus Empiricus gives the example of the assumption that things are made of invisible atoms).

The games of equipollence derived from that invariable matrix are variegated: the intrinsic diversity of each one of the items prevents any individual form of cultural variation from being taken as a criterion of confirmation or refutation of another individual form. Likewise, a principle of cross variety operates in accordance to which the possibilities of equipollence are widened through the confrontation of different items. In the case of the intrinsic variety, the equipollence between different cultural forms of P, for example, leads to the suspension of judgement regarding which item of the series [P1-Pn] can be taken as a criterion for the

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remaining items. In the case of the cross variety, the intrinsic variety present in a given item is a part of the equipollence composed by all items. That would be the case of the confrontation between the enunciation of a law and the prescription of a habit, produced by different cultural experiences, in the determination of what is necessary and true. Therefore, for a set of five items a maximum probability of fifteen kinds of opposition is given; on the other hand, the internal substantial variation of each item is virtually innumerable, as well as the extent of the oppositions it contains. The first impression ensuing from the contemplation of Sextus Empiricus’ argument regards the innumerable variety of forms of life subjected to an unequivocal pattern of cultural relativity. In fact, this is equipollence in its utmost extension, for it is presented as “coextensive to all humankind” (Lessa 1997, 127). The profusion of items disposed in that great equipollence – in truth, another way of designating the “world” – is the effect of a basic sceptic intuition, the primacy of circumstances, as set up in the fourth trope of Aenesidemus’ decalogue. “Circumstance” is the generic term that can include specific terms such as “persuasions”, “laws”, “habits” and so forth. From the perspective of the classical reading of Aenesidemus’ tropes, the circumstance argument establishes that all judgement or perception is, by definition, local, given that it is always affected by particular injunctions. The negative drift is evident:  circumstantial judgements cannot demand jurisdiction on something extrinsic to them. The confrontation of contending judgements emanating from different circumstances is incapable of establishing what the case is; but, on the other hand, the judgements leave the experiment unscathed, since the prerogative of refutation is not given to any of the contenders. Hence, equipollence establishes a stalemate in the games of attribution of meaning. Nothing beyond of what seems to be in particular circumstances can be said; the clause seems to be is simultaneously minimalist and invulnerable. This is the sensation resulting from the perception of the primacy of circumstances as a limit: it establishes insurmountable obstacles to justifiable knowledge. Less depressingly, the argument of circumstances can be viewed as a statement indicating the conditions of deflagration of human variety (see Lessa 1997, 128). The full productivity of an operator of circumstances can be perceived in the enunciation of the tenth Trope of Aenesidemus: more than ethnography of the limits of judgement, it is a description of the possible variety of the life of humans. At the core of such variety operates a presentation of the social form or, in other words, of the form of the life of humans, to resume the terms of Rush Rhees’ translation. 8.  The argument regarding the variety of senses, conceived as interdiction of the imposition of one of them in the determination of what the case is, is based in a description of what is involved in the idea of sense. Likewise, the presentation of cultural variety, as a state of equipollence and invitation to suspension, demands

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the description of a world made out of the items of such diversity, without which the latter would be unintelligible. So, the prescription of suspension demands, as its background and foundation, the effectiveness of a hypothesis about a natural history in which the diaphonía of the claims of truth inscribes its polyphony. The items of the pre-equipollent world make up the unthought-of of scepticism. They are items of a natural history that the sceptic leaves as it is. Pyrrhonian scepticism, as well as the theory/intuition of forms of life put forward by Wittgenstein, intends to make the natural bedrock seen, which is a necessary condition for taking in account the variety of the forms of life. Such bedrock, however, is not an absolute emptiness on which the substance of cultural acts will come to inscribe disparate meanings. The idea of form of life – either pyrrhonian or wittgensteinian – presupposes, on the contrary, a conception of bedrock in which a program is inscribed. Surely this program is devoid of specific cultural meanings such as the Scottish kilt or the frescos by Benozzo Gozzoli, but still it is far away from the pure inorganic character of mineral life. The basic principles of life are engraved on the bedrock. The form of society – or the form of the life of humans – is given by the ostension of the items that composed the tenth Trope of Aenesidemus:  the five elements above listed form the minimum set of necessary attributes for the scissiparity of the forms of life. They all differ from the remaining in different degree; however, they all come from – and reveal – a tacit and basic form. The program contained in it is the program of an insinuation of prescription supporting the value of permanence as the core attribute of the form of life of humans. It is the fixation, on the bedrock  – that is, on the natural history of humans  – of the expectation of predictability, regularity and intelligibility of the experience with the world as an ineffaceable anthropological trace.

Bibliography Annas, Julia and Barnes, Jonathan (1985). The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Bayle, Pierre (1734), Dictionnaire historique et critique [5ème édition], Abasle, Chez Louis Brandmuller. Burnyeat, M. (1980), “Can a Sceptic Live with his Scepticism?”, in M. Burnyeat, M. Schoefield, and Barnes, J. (eds.), Doubt and Dogmatism: Studies in Hellenistic Epistemology, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Cavell, Stanley (1962). “The Availability of Wittgenstein’s later Philosophy”, Philosophical Review 71, 67–93. Cometti, Jean-Pierre (1998). La Maison de Wittgenstein, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. Cometti, Jean-Pierre (2001). Philosopher avec Wittgenstein, Tours, Farago.

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Curtis, Barry (2005). “Forms of Life and Other Minds”, in: http://web.archive. org/web/20051230210513/http://www.herts.ac.uk/humanities/philosophy/ curtis.html Erickson, Stephen (1970). Language and Being: An Analytic Phenomenology, New Haven, Yale University Press. Frede, Michael (1985). “The Sceptic’s Two Kinds of Assent and the Question of the Possibility of Knowledge”, in R. Rorty, J. B. Scheneenwind and Q. Skinner (eds.), Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Garver, Newton (1984). “Die Lebensform in Wittgensteins Philosophischen Untersuchungen”, Grazer Philosphische Studien 21, 33–54. Gier, Nicholas (1980). “Wittgenstein and Forms of Life”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences 10, 241–258. Hacker, P. M. S. (1972). Insight and Illusion: Wittgenstein on Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Experience, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Hacker, P. M. S. (1999). “Wittgenstein’s Anthropological and Ethnological Approach”, in: http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/scr/hacker/docs/EthnologicalMethod.pdf. Haller, Rudolf (2014). “Form of Life in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations”, in R. Haller (ed.), Questions on Wittgenstein, 2nd edition, Abingdon: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Hunter, John (1968). “Forms of Life in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations”, American Philosophical Quarterly 5(4), 233–243. Lessa, Renato (1997). Veneno Pirrônico: ensaios sobre o ceticismo, Rio de Janeiro, Francisco Alves. Majetschak, Stephan (2010). “Forms and Patterns of Life: A Reassessment of a So-Called Basic Concept in the Late Philosophy of Wittgenstein”, in A. Marques and N. Venturinha (eds.), Wittgenstein on Forms of Life and the Nature of Experience, Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt am Main/New York/Oxford/ Wien, Peter Lang. Marques, António and Venturinha, Nuno (eds.) (2010). Wittgenstein on Forms of Life and the Nature of Experience, Bern/Berlin/Frankfurt am Main/New York/ Oxford/Wien, Peter Lang. Moreno, Arley (1995). Wittgenstein: Através das Imagens, Campinas, Editora da Unicamp. Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel (1972). Wittgenstein and Justice: On the Significance of Ludwig Wittgenstein for Social and Political Thought, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, University of California Press. Putnam, Hilary (1970). “Is Semantics Possible?”, in Kiefer and Munitz (eds.), Language, Belief, and Metaphysics, Albany, State University of New York, 1970.

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Scheman, Naomi (1996). “Forms of life: Mapping the Rough Ground”, in Hans Sluga and David Stern (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 381–410. Sextus Empiricus (1976). Outlines of Pyrrhonism, volume I of Sextus Empiricus in Four Volumes, transl. R. G. Bury, Cambridge, MA/London, Harvard University Press/William Heinemann. Sextus Empiricus (1994). Outlines of Scepticism, trans. Julia Annas & Jonathan Barnes, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Stough, Charlotte (1969). Greek Skepticism: A Study in Epistemology, Berkeley/ Los Angeles, University of California Press. Strawson, F. P. (1966). “Reviewing Philosophical Investigation” in G. Pitcher (ed.), Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations, New York, Anchor Books. Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1958). Philosophical Investigations, trans. Anscombe, New York, Macmillan (abbreviated as PI). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1966). Lectures and Conversations, ed. C. Barret, Los Angeles, University of California Press (abbreviated as LC). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969a). On Certainty, trans. McAllister and von Wright, New York, Harper and Torchbooks (abbreviated as OC). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1969b). Blue and Brown Books, trans. Rush Rhees, New York, Harper and Torchbooks (abbreviated as BBB). Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1970). Zettel, trans. Anscombe, Los Angeles, University of California Press (abbreviated as Z).

LISBON PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES uses of language in interdisciplinar y fields A Publicat io n from t h e I n st it u te o f Ph ilo so p hy o f L a n g u a g e at th e N e w U n i ve r s i t y of Lisbon

Lisbon Philosophical Studies – Uses of Language in Interdisciplinary Fields is the book series of the Institute of Philosophy of Language at the New University of Lisbon. Its aim is the publication of high-quality monographs, edited collections and conference proceedings in areas related to the philosophy of language, such as aesthetics, argumentation theor y, epistemology, ethics, logic, philosophy of mind and political philosophy. The purpose of the series is to reflect the activities of the Institute as well as contemporary research in these areas, encouraging the interchange of arguments an d ide a s bet ween p h ilo so p hy a n d o t h er d iscip line s. Address fo r Cor resp o n d en ce: I n stit uto de Filo sofia d a Lin gu a gem Faculda de de Ciê nc ia s S o cia is e Hu m a n a s Un ive rsida de N ova d e Lisb o a Av. de B er na , 26- C 1 069-061 Lisboa Por tug a l w w w.ifl.pt

Vol. 1 António Marques & Nuno Venturinha (eds) Wittgenstein on Forms of Life and the Nature of Experience. 2010. ISBN 978-3-0343-0491-7. Vol. 2 Luca Baptista & Erich Rast (eds) Meaning and Context. 2010. ISBN 978-3-0343-0574-7. Vol. 3 Maria Filomena Molder, Diana Soeiro and Nuno Fonseca (eds) Morphology. Questions on Method and Language. 2013. ISBN 978-3-0343-1376-6. Vol. 4

Paulo Barcelos & Gabriele De Angelis (eds) The Long Quest for Identity. Political Identity and Fundamental Rights Protection in the European Union. 2013. ISBN 978-3-0343-1083-3.

Vol. 5 João Fonseca & Jorge Gonçalves (eds) Philosophical Perspectives on the Self. 2015. ISBN 978-3-0343-1402-2. Vol. 6 Paolo Stellino Nietzsche and Dostoevsky. On the Verge of Nihilism. 2015. ISBN 978-3-0343-1670-5. Vol. 7 António Marques & João Sáàgua (eds) Essays on Values and Practical Rationality –Ethical and Aesthetical Dimensions. 2018. ISBN 978-3-0343-3058-9. Vol. 8 António Marques & Rui Bertrand Romao (eds) Wittgenstein and the Sceptical Tradition 2020. 978-3-0343-1595-1.