ON CERTAINTY
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Born: 26 April 1889 in Vienna, Austria Died:
29 April 1951 in Cambridge, England. Ed.
G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright.Translated by Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe
Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1969-1975.
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Preface
On Certainty
(Uber Gewissheit)
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Born: 26 April 1889 in Vienna, Austria Died:
29 April 1951 in Cambridge, England ed. G.
E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright Translated
by Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe Basil
Blackwell, Oxford 1969-1975
Ludwig Wittgenstein On Certainty (Uber Gewissheit)
ed. G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright
Translated by Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe
Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1969-1975
Preface
What we publish here belongs to the last
year and a half of Wittgenstein's life. In
the middle of 1949 he visited the United
States at the invitation of Norman Malcolm,
staying at Malcolm's house in Ithaca. Malcolm
acted as a goad to his interest in Moore's
'defence of common sense', that is to say
his claim to know a number of propositions
for sure, such as "Here is one hand,
and here is another", and "The
earth existed for a long time before my birth",
and "I have never been far from the
earth's surface". The first of these
comes in Moore's 'Proof of the External World'.
The two others are in his 'Defence of Common
Sense'; Wittgenstein had long been interested
in these and had said to Moore that this
was his best article. Moore had agreed. This
book contains the whole of what Wittgenstein
wrote on this topic from that time until
his death. It is all first-draft material,
which he did not live to excerpt and polish.
The material falls into four parts; we have
shown the divisions at #65, #192, #299. What
we believe to be the first part was written
on twenty loose sheets of lined foolscap,
undated. These Wittgenstein left in his room
in G. E. M. Anscombe's house in Oxford, where
he lived (apart from a visit to Norway in
the autumn) from April 1950 to February
1951. I (G. E. M. A.) am under the impression
that he had written them in Vienna, where
he stayed from the previous Christmas until
March; but I cannot now recall the basis
of this impression. The rest is in small
notebooks, containing dates; towards the
end, indeed, the date of writing is always
given. The last entry is two days before
his death on April 29th 1951. We have left
the dates exactly as they appear in the manuscripts.
The numbering of the single sections, however,
is by the Editors.
It seemed appropriate to publish this work
by itself. It is not a selection; Wittgenstein
marked it off in his notebooks as a separate
topic, which he apparently took up at four
separate periods during this eighteen months.
It constitutes a single sustained treatment
of the topic.
G. E. M. Anscombe G. H. von Wright
1. If you do know that here is one hand,
we'll grant you all the rest. When one says
that such and such a proposition can't be
proved, of course that does not mean that
it can't be derived from other propositions;
any proposition can be derived from other
ones. But they may be no more certain than
it is itself. (On this a curious remark by
H. Newman.)
2. From its seeming to me - or to everyone
- to be so, it doesn't follow that it is
so. What we can ask is whether it can make
sense to doubt it.
3. If e. g. someone says "I don't know
if there's a hand here" he might be
told "Look closer". - This possibility
of satisfying oneself is part of the language-game.
Is one of its essential features.
4. "I know that I am a human being."
In order to see how unclear the sense of
this proposition is, consider its negation.
At most it might be taken to mean "I
know I have the organs of a human".
(E. g. a brain which, after all, no one has
ever yet seen.) But what about such a proposition
as "I know I have a brain"? Can
I doubt it? Grounds for doubt are lacking!
Everything speaks in its favour, nothing
against it. Nevertheless it is imaginable
that my skull should turn out empty when
it was operated on.
5. Whether a proposition can turn out false
after all depends on what I make count as
determinants for that proposition.
6. Now, can one enumerate what one knows
(like Moore)? Straight off like that, I believe
not. - For otherwise the expression "I
know" gets misused. And through this
misuse a queer and extremely important mental
state seems to be revealed.
7. My life shows that I know or am certain
that there is a chair over there, or a door,
and so on. - I tell a friend e. g. "Take
that chair over there", "Shut the
door", etc. etc.
8. The difference between the concept of
'knowing' and the concept of 'being certain'
isn't of any great importance at all, except
where "I know" is meant to mean:
I can't be wrong. In a law-court, for example,
"I am certain" could replace "I
know" in every piece of testimony. We
might even imagine its being forbidden to
say "I know" there. [A passage
in "Wilhelm Meister", where "You
know" or "You knew" is used
in the sense "You were certain",
the facts being different from what he knew.]
9. Now do I, in the course of my life, make
sure I know that here is a hand - my own
hand, that is?
10. I know that a sick man is lying here?
Nonsense! I am sitting at his bedside, I
am looking attentively into his face. - So
I don't know, then, that there is a sick
man lying here? Neither the question nor
the assertion makes sense. Any more than
the assertion "I am here", which
I might yet use at any moment, if suitable
occasion presented itself. - Then is "2x2=4"
nonsense in the same way, and not a proposition
of arithmetic, apart from particular occasions?
"2x2=4" is a true proposition of
arithmetic - not "on particular occasions"
nor "always" - but the spoken or
written sentence "2x2=4" in Chinese
might have a different meaning or be out
and out nonsense, and from this is seen that
it is only in use that the proposition has
its sense. And "I know that there's
a sick man lying here", used in an unsuitable
situation, seems not to be nonsense but rather
seems matter-of-course, only because one
can fairly easily imagine a situation to
fit it, and one thinks that the words "I
know that..." are always in place where
there is no doubt, and hence even where the
expression of doubt would unintelligible.
11. We just do not see how very specialized
the use of "I know" is.
12. - For "I know" seems to describe
a state of affairs which guarantees what
is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always
forgets the expression "I thought I
knew".
13. For it is not as though the proposition
"It is so" could be inferred from
someone else's utterance: "I know it
is so". Nor from the utterance together
with its not being a lie. - But can't I infer
"It is so" from my own utterance
"I know etc."? Yes; and also "There
is a hand there" follows from the proposition
"He knows that there's a hand there".
But from his utterance "I know..."
it does not follow that he does know it.
14. That he does know remains to be shown.
15. It needs to be shown that no mistake
was possible. Giving the assurance "I
know" doesn't suffice. For it is after
all only an assurance that I can't be making
a mistake, and it needs to be objectively
established that I am not making a mistake
about that.
16. "If I know something, then I also
know that I know it, etc." amounts to:
"I know that" means "I am
incapable of being wrong about that."
But whether I am so must admit of being established
objectively.
17. Suppose now I say "I'm incapable
of being wrong about this: that is a book"
while I point to an object. What would a
mistake here be like? And have I any clear
idea of it?
18. "I know" often means: I have
the proper grounds for my statement. So if
the other person is acquainted with the language-game,
he would admit that I know. The other, if
he is acquainted with the language- game,
must be able to imagine how one may know
something of the kind.
19. The statement "I know that here
is a hand" may then be continued: "for
it's my hand that I'm looking at." Then
a reasonable man will not doubt that I know.
- Nor will the idealist; rather he will say
that he was not dealing with the practical
doubt which is being dismissed, but there
is a further doubt behind that one. - That
this is an illusion has to be shown in a
different way.
20. "Doubting the existence of the external
world" does not mean for example doubting
the existence of a planet, which later observations
proved to exist. - Or does Moore want to
say that knowing that here is his hand is
different in kind from knowing the existence
of the planet Saturn? Otherwise it would
be possible to point out the discovery of
the planet Saturn to the doubters and say
that its existence has been proved, and hence
the existence of the external world as well.
21. Moore's view really comes down to this:
the concept 'know' is analogous to the concepts
'believe', 'surmise', 'doubt', 'be convinced'
in that the statement "I know..."
can't be a mistake. And if that is so, then
there can be an inference from such an utterance
to the truth of an assertion. And here the
form "I thought I knew" is being
overlooked. - But if this latter is inadmissible,
then a mistake in the assertion must be logically
impossible too. And anyone who is acquainted
with the language-game must realize this
- an assurance from a reliable man that he
knows cannot contribute anything.
22. It would surely be remarkable if we had
to believe the reliable person who says "I
can't be wrong"; or who says "I
am not wrong".
23. If I don't know whether someone has two
hands (say, whether they have been amputated
or not) I shall believe his assurance that
he has two hands, if he is trustworthy. And
if he says he knows it, that can only signify
to me that he has been able to make sure,
and hence that his arms are e. g. not still
concealed by coverings and bandages, etc.
etc. My believing the trustworthy man stems
from my admitting that it is possible for
him to make sure. But someone who says that
perhaps there are no physical objects makes
no such admission.
24. The idealist's question would be something
like: "What right have I not to doubt
the existence of my hands?" (And to
that the answer can't be: I know that they
exist.) But someone who asks such a question
is overlooking the fact that a doubt about
existence only works in a language-game.
Hence, that we should first have to ask:
what would such a doubt be like?, and don't
understand this straight off.
25. One may be wrong even about "there
being a hand here". Only in particular
circumstances is it impossible. - "Even
in a calculation one can be wrong - only
in certain circumstances one can't."
26. But can it be seen from a rule what circumstances
logically exclude a mistake in the employment
of rules of calculation? What use is a rule
to us here? Mightn't we (in turn) go wrong
in applying it?
27. If, however, one wanted to give something
like a rule here, then it would contain the
expression "in normal circumstances".
And we recognize normal circumstances but
cannot precisely describe them. At most,
we can describe a range of abnormal ones.
28. What is 'learning a rule'? - This. What
is 'making a mistake in applying it'? - This.
And what is pointed to here is something
indeterminate.
29. Practice in the use of the rule also
shows what is a mistake in its employment.
30. When someone has made sure of something,
he says: "Yes, the calculation is right",
but he did not infer that from his condition
of certainty. One does not infer how things
are from one's own certainty. Certainty is
as it were a tone of voice in which one declares
how things are, but one does not infer from
the tone of voice that one is justified.
31. The propositions which one comes back
to again and again as if bewitched - these
I should like to expunge from philosophical
language.
32. It's not a matter of Moore's knowing
that there's a hand there, but rather we
should not understand him if he were to say
"Of course I may be wrong about this."
We should ask "What is it like to make
such a mistake as that?" - e. g. what's
it like to discover that it was a mistake?
33. Thus we expunge the sentences that don't
get us any further.
34. If someone is taught to calculate, is
he also taught that he can rely on a calculation
of his teacher's? But these explanations
must after all sometime come to an end. Will
he also be taught that he can trust his senses
- since he is indeed told in many cases that
in such and such a special case you cannot
trust them? - Rule and exception.
35. But can't it be imagined that there should
be no physical objects? I don't know. And
yet "There are physical objects"
is nonsense. Is it supposed to be an empirical
proposition? - And is this an empirical proposition:
"There seem to be physical objects"?
36. "A is a physical object" is
a piece of instruction which we give only
to someone who doesn't yet understand either
what "A" means, or what "physical
object" means. Thus it is instruction
about the use of words, and "physical
object" is a logical concept. (Like
colour, quantity,...) And that is why no
such proposition as: "There are physical
objects" can be formulated. Yet we encounter
such unsuccessful shots at every turn.
37. But is it adequate to answer to the scepticism
of the idealist, or the assurances of the
realist, to say that "There are physical
objects" is nonsense? For them after
all it is not nonsense. It would, however,
be an answer to say: this assertion, or its
opposite is a misfiring attempt to express
what can't be expressed like that. And that
it does misfire can be shown; but that isn't
the end of the matter. We need to realize
that what presents itself to us as the first
expression of a difficulty, or of its solution,
may as yet not be correctly expressed at
all. Just as one who has a just censure of
a picture to make will often at first offer
the censure where it does not belong, and
an investigation is needed in order to find
the right point of attack for the critic.
38. Knowledge in mathematics: Here one has
to keep on reminding oneself of the unimportance
of the 'inner process' or 'state' and ask
"Why should it be important? What does
it matter to me?" What is interesting
is how we use mathematical propositions.
39. This is how calculation is done, in such
circumstances a calculation is treated as
absolutely reliable, as certainly correct.
40. Upon "I know that there is my hand"
there may follow the question "How do
you know?" and the answer to that presupposes
that this can be known in that way. So, instead
of "I know that here is my hand",
one might say "Here is my hand",
and then add how one knows.
41. "I know where I am feeling pain",
"I know that I feel it here" is
as wrong as "I know that I am in pain".
But "I know where you touched my arm"
is right.
42. One can say "He believes it, but
it isn't so", but not "He knows
it, but it isn't so". Does this stem
from the difference between the mental states
of belief and knowledge? No. - One may for
example call "mental state" what
is expressed by tone of voice in speaking,
by gestures etc. It would thus be possible
to speak of a mental state of conviction,
and that may be the same whether it is knowledge
or false belief. To think that different
states must correspond to the words "believe"
and "know" would be as if one believed
that different people had to correspond to
the word "I" and the name "Ludwig",
because the concepts are different.
43. What sort of proposition is this: "We
cannot have miscalculated in 12x12=144"?
It must surely be a proposition of logic.
- But now, is it not the same, or doesn't
it come to the same, as the statement
12x12=144?
44. If you demand a rule from which it follows
that there can't have been a miscalculation
here, the answer is that we did not learn
this through a rule, but by learning to calculate.
45. We got to know the nature of calculating
by learning to calculate.
46. But then can't it be described how we
satisfy ourselves of the reliability of a
calculation? O yes! Yet no rule emerges when
we do so. - But the most important thing
is: The rule is not needed. Nothing is lacking.
We do calculate according to a rule, and
that is enough.
47. This is how one calculates. Calculating
is this. What we learn at school, for example.
Forget this transcendent certainty, which
is connected with your concept of spirit.
48. However, out of a host of calculations
certain ones might be designated as reliable
once for all, others as not yet fixed. And
now, is this a logical distinction?
49. But remember: even when the calculation
is something fixed for me, this is only a
decision for a practical purpose.
50. When does one say, I know that ... x
... = ....? When one has checked the calculation.
51. What sort of proposition is: "What
could a mistake here be like?" It would
have to be a logical proposition. But is
it a logic that is not used, because what
it tells us is not taught by means of propositions.
- It is a logical proposition; for it does
describe the conceptual (linguistic) situation.
52. This situation is thus not the same for
a proposition like "At this distance
from the sun there is a planet" and
"Here is a hand" (namely my own
hand). The second can't be called a hypothesis.
But there isn't a sharp boundary line between
them.
53. So one might grant that Moore was right,
if he is interpreted like this: a proposition
saying that here is a physical object may
have the same logical status as one saying
that here is a red patch.
54. For it is not true that a mistake merely
gets more and more improbable as we pass
from the planet to my own hand. No: at some
point it has ceased to be conceivable. This
is already suggested by the following: if
it were not so, it would also be conceivable
that we should be wrong in every statement
about physical objects; that any we ever
make are mistaken.
55. So is the hypothesis possible, that all
the things around us don't exist? Would that
not be like the hypothesis of our having
miscalculated in all our calculations?
56. When one says: "Perhaps this planet
doesn't exist and the light-phenomenon arises
in some other way", then after all one
needs an example of an object which does
exist. This doesn't exist, - as for example
does... Or are we to say that certainty is
merely a constructed point to which some
things approximate more, some less closely?
No. Doubt gradually loses its sense. This
language-game just is like that. And everything
descriptive of a language-game is part of
logic.
57. Now might not "I know, I am not
just surmising, that here is my hand"
be conceived as a proposition of grammar?
Hence not temporally. - But in that case
isn't it like this one: "I know, I am
not just surmising, that I am seeing red"?
And isn't the consequence "So there
are physical objects" like: "So
there are colours"?
58. If "I know etc" is conceived
as a grammatical proposition, of course the
"I" cannot be important. And it
properly means "There is no such thing
as a doubt in this case" or "The
expression 'I do not know' makes no sense
in this case". And of course it follows
from this that "I know" makes no
sense either.
59. "I know" is here a logical
insight. Only realism can't be proved by
means of it.
60. It is wrong to say that the 'hypothesis'
that this is a bit of paper would be confirmed
or disconfirmed by later experience, and
that, in "I know that this is a bit
of paper", the "I know" either
relates to such an hypothesis or to a logical
determination.
61. ... A meaning of a word is a kind of
employment of it. For it is what we learn
when the word is incorporated into our language.
62. That is why there exists a correspondence
between the concepts 'rule' and 'meaning'.
63. If we imagine the facts otherwise than
as they are, certain language-games lose
some of their importance, while others become
important. And in this way there is an alteration
- a gradual one - in the use of the vocabulary
of a language.
64. Compare the meaning of a word with the
'function' of an official. And 'different
meanings' with 'different functions'.
65. When language-games change, then there
is a change in concepts, and with the concepts
the meanings of words change. _____________________
66. I make assertions about reality, assertions
which have different degrees of assurance.
How does the degree of assurance come out?
What consequences has it? We may be dealing,
for example, with the certainty of memory,
or again of perception. I may be sure of
something, but still know what test might
convince me of error. I am e. g. quite sure
of the date of a battle, but if I should
find a different date in a recognized work
of history, I should alter my opinion, and
this would not mean I lost all faith in judging.
67. Could we imagine a man who keeps on making
mistakes where we regard a mistake as ruled
out, and in fact never encounter one? E.
g. he says he lives in such and such a place,
is so and so old, comes from such and such
a city, and he speaks with the same certainty
(giving all the tokens of it) as I do, but
he is wrong. But what is his relation to
this error? What am I to suppose?
68. The question is: what is the logician
to say here?
69. I should like to say: "If I am wrong
about this, I have no guarantee that anything
I say is true." But others won't say
that about me, nor will I say it about other
people.
70. For months I have lived at address A,
I have read the name of the street and the
number of the house countless times, have
received countless letters here and given
countless people the address. If I am wrong
about it, the mistake is hardly less that
if I were (wrongly) to believe I was writing
Chinese and not German.
71. If my friend were to imagine one day
that he had been living for a long time past
in such and such a place, etc. etc., I should
not call this a mistake, but rather a mental
disturbance, perhaps a transient one.
72. Not every false belief of this sort is
a mistake.
73. But what is the difference between mistake
and mental disturbance? Or what is the difference
between my treating it as a mistake and my
treating it as mental disturbance?
74. Can we say: a mistake doesn't only have
a cause, it also has a ground? I. e., roughly:
when someone makes a mistake, this can be
fitted into what he knows aright.
75. Would this be correct: If I merely believed
wrongly that there is a table here in front
of me, this might still be a mistake; but
if I believe wrongly that I have seen this
table, or one like it, every day for several
months past, and have regularly used it,
that isn't a mistake?
76. Naturally, my aim must be to give the
statements that one would like to make here,
but cannot make significantly.
77. Perhaps I shall do a multiplication twice
to make sure, or perhaps get someone else
to work it over. But shall I work it over
again twenty times, or get twenty people
to go over it? And is that some sort of negligence?
Would the certainty really be greater for
being checked twenty times?
78. And can I give a reason why it isn't?
79. That I am a man and not a woman can be
verified, but if I were to say I was a woman,
and then tried to explain the error by saying
I hadn't checked the statement, the explanation
would not be accepted.
80. The truth of my statements is the test
of my understanding of these statements.
81. That is to say: if I make certain false
statements, it becomes uncertain whether
I understand them.
82. What counts as an adequate test of a
statement belongs to logic. It belongs to
the description of the language-game.
83. The truth of certain empirical propositions
belongs to our frame of reference.
84. Moore says he knows that the earth existed
long before his birth. And put like that
it seems to be a personal statement about
him, even if it is in addition a statement
about the physical world. Now it is philosophically
uninteresting whether Moore knows this or
that, but it is interesting that, and how,
it can be known. If Moore had informed us
that he knew the distance separating certain
stars, we might conclude from that that he
had made some special investigations, and
we shall want to know what these were. But
Moore chooses precisely a case in which we
all seem to know the same as he, and without
being able to say how. I believe e. g. that
I know as much about this matter (the existence
of the earth) as Moore does, and if he knows
that it is as he says, then I know it too.
For it isn't, either, as if he had arrived
at this proposition by pursuing some line
of thought which, while it is open to me,
I have not in fact pursued.
85. And what goes into someone's knowing
this? Knowledge of history, say? He must
know what it means to say: the earth has
already existed for such and such a length
of time. For not any intelligent adult must
know that. We see men building and demolishing
houses, and are led to ask:"How long
has this house been here?" But how does
one come on the idea of asking this about
a mountain, for example? And have all men
the notion of the earth as a body, which
may come into being and pass away? Why shouldn't
I think of the earth as flat, but extending
without end in every direction (including
depth)? But in that case one might still
say "I know that this mountain existed
long before my birth." - But suppose
I met a man who didn't believe that?
86. Suppose I replaced Moore's "I know"
by "I am of the unshakeable conviction"?
87. Can't an assertoric sentence, which was
capable of functioning as an hypothesis,
also be used as a foundation for research
and action? I. e. can't it simply be isolated
from doubt, though not according to any explicit
rule? It simply gets assumed as a truism,
never called in question, perhaps not even
ever formulated.
88. It may be for example that all enquiry
on our part is set so as to exempt certain
propositions from doubt, if they were ever
formulated. They lie apart from the route
travelled by enquiry.
89. One would like to say: "Everything
speaks for, and nothing against the earth's
having existed long before..." Yet might
I not believe the contrary after all? But
the question is: What would the practical
effects of this belief be? - Perhaps someone
says: "That's not the point. A belief
is what it is whether it has any practical
effects or not." One thinks: It is the
same adjustment of the human mind anyway.
90. "I know" has a primitive meaning
similar to and related to "I see"
("wissen", "videre").
And "I knew he was in the room, but
he wasn't in the room" is like "I
saw him in the room, but he wasn't there".
"I know" is supposed to express
a relation, not between me and the sense
of a proposition (like "I believe")
but between me and a fact. So that the fact
is taken into my consciousness. (Here is
the reason why one wants to say that nothing
that goes on in the outer world is really
known, but only what happens in the domain
of what are called sense-data.) This would
give us a picture of knowing as the perception
of an outer event through visual rays which
project it as it is into the eye and the
consciousness. Only then the question at
once arises whether one can be certain of
this projection. And this picture does indeed
show how our imagination presents knowledge,
but not what lies at the bottom of this presentation.
91. If Moore says he knows the earth existed
etc., most of us will grant him that it has
existed all that time, and also believe him
when he says he is convinced of it. But has
he also got the right ground for this conviction?
For if not, then after all he doesn't know
(Russell).
92. However, we can ask: May someone have
telling grounds for believing that the earth
has only existed for a short time, say since
his own birth? - Suppose he had always been
told that, - would he have any good reason
to doubt it? Men have believed that they
could make the rain; why should not a king
be brought up in the belief that the world
began with him? And if Moore and this king
were to meet and discuss, could Moore really
prove his belief to be the right one? I do
not say that Moore could not convert the
king to his view, but it would be a conversion
of a special kind; the king would be brought
to look at the world in a different way.
Remember that one is sometimes convinced
of the correctness of a view by its simplicity
or symmetry, i. e., these are what induce
one to go over to this point of view. One
then simply says something like: "That's
how it must be."
93. The propositions presenting what Moore
'knows' are all of such a kind that it is
difficult to imagine why anyone should believe
the contrary. E. g. the proposition that
Moore has spent his whole life in close proximity
to the earth. - Once more I can speak of
myself here instead of speaking of Moore.
What could induce me to believe the opposite?
Either a memory, or having been told. - Everything
that I have seen or heard gives me the conviction
that no man has ever been far from the earth.
Nothing in my picture of the world speaks
in favour of the opposite.
94. 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.
95. 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.
96. 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.
97. 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.
98. 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.
99. 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.
100. The truths which Moore says he knows,
are such as, roughly speaking, all of us
know, if he knows them.
101. Such a proposition might be e. g. "My
body has never disappeared and reappeared
again after an interval."
102. Might I not believe that once, without
knowing it, perhaps is a state of unconsciousness,
I was taken far away from the earth - that
other people even know this, but do not mention
it to me? But this would not fit into the
rest of my convictions at all. Not that I
could describe the system of these convictions.
Yet my convictions do form a system, a structure.
103. And now if I were to say "It is
my unshakeable conviction that etc.",
this means in the present case too that I
have not consciously arrived at the conviction
by following a particular line of thought,
but that it is anchored in all my questions
and answers, so anchored that I cannot touch
it.
104. I am for example also convinced that
the sun is not a hole in the vault of heaven.
105. All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation
of a hypothesis takes place already within
a system. And this system is not a more or
less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure
for all our arguments: no, it belongs to
the essence of what we call an argument.
The system is not so much the point of departure,
as the element in which arguments have their
life.
106. Suppose some adult had told a child
that he had been on the moon. The child tells
me the story, and I say it was only a joke,
the man hadn't been on the moon; no one has
ever been on the moon; the moon is a long
way off and it is impossible to climb up
there or fly there. - If now the child insists,
saying perhaps there is a way of getting
there which I don't know, etc. what reply
could I make to him? What reply could I make
to the adults of a tribe who believe that
people sometimes go to the moon (perhaps
that is how they interpret their dreams),
and who indeed grant that there are no ordinary
means of climbing up to it or flying there?
- But a child will not ordinarily stick to
such a belief and will soon be convinced
by what we tell him seriously.
107. Isn't this altogether like the way one
can instruct a child to believe in a God,
or that none exists, and it will accordingly
be able to produce apparently telling grounds
for the one or the other?
108. "But is there then no objective
truth? Isn't it true, or false, that someone
has been on the moon?" If we are thinking
within our system, then it is certain that
no one has ever been on the moon. Not merely
is nothing of the sort ever seriously reported
to us by reasonable people, but our whole
system of physics forbids us to believe it.
For this demands answers to the questions
"How did he overcome the force of gravity?"
"How could he live without an atmosphere?"
and a thousand others which could not be
answered. But suppose that instead of all
these answers we met the reply: "We
don't know how one gets to the moon, but
those who get there know at once that they
are there; and even you can't explain everything."
We should feel ourselves intellectually very
distant from someone who said this.
109. "An empirical proposition can be
tested" (we say). But how? and through
what?
110. 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.
111. "I know that I have never been
on the moon." That sounds different
in the circumstances which actually hold,
to the way it would sound if a good many
men had been on the moon, and some perhaps
without knowing it. In this case one could
give grounds for this knowledge. Is there
not a relationship here similar to that between
the general rule of multiplying and particular
multiplications that have been carried out?
I want to say: my not having been on the
moon is as sure a thing for me as any grounds
I could give for it.
112. And isn't that what Moore wants to say,
when he says he knows all these things? -
But is his knowing it really what is in question,
and not rather that some of these propositions
must be solid for us?
113. When someone is trying to teach us mathematics,
he will not begin by assuring us that he
knows that a+b=b+a.
114. If you are not certain of any fact,
you cannot be certain of the meaning of your
words either.
115. If you tried to doubt everything you
would not get as far as doubting anything.
The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.
116. Instead of "I know...", couldn't
Moore have said: "It stands fast for
me that..."? And further: "It stands
fast for me and many others..."
117. Why is it not possible for me to doubt
that I have never been on the moon? And how
could I try to doubt it? First and foremost,
the supposition that perhaps I have been
there would strike me as idle. Nothing would
follow from it, nothing be explained by it.
It would not tie in with anything in my life.
When I say "Nothing speaks for, everything
against it," this presupposes a principle
of speaking for and against. That is, I must
be able to say what would speak for it.
118. Now would it be correct to say: So far
no one has opened my skull in order to see
whether there is a brain inside; but everything
speaks for, and nothing against, its being
what they would find there?
119. But can it also be said: Everything
speaks for, and nothing against the table's
still being there when no one sees it? For
what does speak of it?
120. But if anyone were to doubt it, how
would his doubt come out in practice? And
couldn't we peacefully leave him to doubt
it, since it makes no difference at all?
121. Can one say: "Where there is no
doubt there is no knowledge either"?
122. Doesn't one need grounds for doubt?
123. Wherever I look, I find no ground for
doubting that...
124. I want to say: We use judgments as principles
of judgment.
125. If a blind man were to ask me "Have
you got two hands?" I should not make
sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt
of it, then I don't know why I should trust
my eyes. For why shouldn't I test my eyes
by looking to find out whether I see my two
hands? What is to be tested by what? (Who
decides what stands fast?) And what does
it mean to say that such and such stands
fast?
126. I am not more certain of the meaning
of my words that I am of certain judgments.
Can I doubt that this colour is called "blue"?
(My) doubts form a system.
127. For how do I know that someone is in
doubt? How do I know that he uses the words
"I doubt it" as I do?
128. From a child up I learnt to judge like
this. This is judging.
129. This is how I learned to judge; this
I got to know as judgment.
130. But isn't it experience that teaches
us to judge like this, that is to say, that
it is correct to judge like this? But how
does experience teach us, then? We may derive
it from experience, but experience does not
direct us to derive anything from experience.
If it is the ground for our judging like
this, and not just the cause, still we do
not have a ground for seeing this in turn
as a ground.
131. No, experience is not the ground for
our game of judging. Nor is its outstanding
success.
132. Men have judged that a king can make
rain; we say this contradicts all experience.
Today they judge that aeroplanes and the
radio etc. are means for the closer contact
of peoples and the spread of culture.
133. Under ordinary circumstances I do not
satisfy myself that I have two hands by seeing
how it looks. Why not? Has experience shown
it to be unnecessary? Or (again): Have we
in some way learnt a universal law of induction,
and do we trust it here too? - But why should
we have learnt one universal law first, and
not the special one straight away?
134. After putting a book in a drawer, I
assume it is there, unless... "Experience
always proves me right. There is no well
attested case of a book's (simply) disappearing."
It has often happened that a book has never
turned up again, although we thought we knew
for certain where it was. - But experience
does really teach that a book, say, does
not vanish away. (E. g. gradually evaporates.)
But is it this experience with books etc.
that leads us to assume that such a book
has not vanished away? Well, suppose we were
to find that under particular novel circumstances
books did vanish away. - Shouldn't we alter
our assumption? Can one give the lie to the
effect of experience on our system of assumption?
135. But do we not simply follow the principle
that what has always happened will happen
again (or something like it)? What does it
mean to follow this principle? Do we really
introduce it into our reasoning? Or is it
merely the natural law which our inferring
apparently follows? This latter it may be.
It is not an item in our considerations.
136. When Moore says he knows such and such,
he is really enumerating a lot of empirical
propositions which we affirm without special
testing; propositions, that is, which have
a peculiar logical role in the system of
our empirical propositions.
137. Even if the most trustworthy of men
assures me that he knows things are thus
and so, this by itself cannot satisfy me
that he does know. Only that he believes
he knows. That is why Moore's assurance that
he knows... does not interest us. The propositions,
however, which Moore retails as examples
of such known truths are indeed interesting.
Not because anyone knows their truth, or
believes he knows them, but because they
all have a similar role in the system of
our empirical judgments.
138. We don't, for example, arrive at any
of them as a result of investigation. There
are e. g. historical investigations and investigations
into the shape and also the age of the earth,
but not into whether the earth has existed
during the last hundred years. Of course
many of us have information about this period
from our parents and grandparents; but maynt'
they be wrong? - "Nonsense!" one
will say. "How should all these people
be wrong?" - But is that an argument?
Is it not simply the rejection of an idea?
And perhaps the determination of a concept?
For if I speak of a possible mistake here,
this changes the role of "mistake"
and "truth" in our lives.
139. Not only rules, but also examples are
needed for establishing a practice. Our rules
leave loop-holes open, and the practice has
to speak for itself.
140. We do not learn the practice of making
empirical judgments by learning rules: we
are taught judgments and their connexion
with other judgments. A totality of judgments
is made plausible to us.
141. When we first begin to believe anything,
what we believe is not a single proposition,
it is a whole system of propositions. (Light
dawns gradually over the whole.)
142. It is not single axioms that strike
me as obvious, it is a system in which consequences
and premises give one another mutual support.
143. I am told, for example, that someone
climbed this mountain many years ago. Do
I always enquire into the reliability of
the teller of this story, and whether the
mountain did exist years ago? A child learns
there are reliable and unreliable informants
much later than it learns facts which are
told it. It doesn't learn at all that that
mountain has existed for a long time: that
is, the question whether it is so doesn't
arise at all. It swallows this consequence
down, so to speak, together with what it
learns.
144. The child learns to believe a host of
things. I. e. it learns to act according
to these beliefs. Bit by bit there forms
a system of what is believed, and in that
system some things stand unshakeably fast
and some are more or less liable to shift.
What stands fast does so, not because it
is intrinsically obvious or convincing; it
is rather held fast by what lies around it.
145. One wants to say "All my experiences
show that it is so". But how do they
do that? For that proposition to which they
point itself belongs to a particular interpretation
of them. "That I regard this proposition
as certainly true also characterizes my interpretation
of experience."
146. We form the picture of the earth as
a ball floating free in space and not altering
essentially in a hundred years. I said "We
form the picture etc." and this picture
now helps us in the judgment of various situations.
I may indeed calculate the dimensions of
a bridge, sometimes calculate that here things
are more in favour of a bridge than a ferry,
etc. etc., - but somewhere I must begin with
an assumption or a decision.
147. The picture of the earth as a ball is
a good picture, it proves itself everywhere,
it is also a simple picture - in short, we
work with it without doubting it.
148. Why do I not satisfy myself that I have
two feet when I want to get up from a chair?
There is no why. I simply don't. This is
how I act.
149. My judgments themselves characterize
the way I judge, characterize the nature
of judgment.
150. How does someone judge which is his
right and which his left hand? How do I know
that my judgment will agree with someone
else's? How do I know that this colour is
blue? If I don't trust myself here, why should
I trust anyone else's judgment? Is there
a why? Must I not begin to trust somewhere?
That is to say: somewhere I must begin with
not-doubting; and that is not, so to speak,
hasty but excusable: it is part of judging.
151. I should like to say: Moore does not
know what he asserts he knows, but it stands
fast for him, as also for me; regarding it
as absolutely solid is part of our method
of doubt and enquiry.
152. I do not explicitly learn the propositions
that stand fast for me. I can discover them
subsequently like the axis around which a
body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the
sense that anything holds it fast, but the
movement around it determines its immobility.
153. No one ever taught me that my hands
don't disappear when I am not paying attention
to them. Nor can I be said to presuppose
the truth of this proposition in my assertions
etc., (as if they rested on it) while it
only gets sense from the rest of our procedure
of asserting.
154. There are cases such that, if someone
gives signs of doubt where we do not doubt,
we cannot confidently understand his signs
as signs of doubt. I. e.: if we are to understand
his signs of doubt as such, he may give them
only in particular cases and may not give
them in others.
155. In certain circumstance a man cannot
make a mistake. ("Can" is here
used logically, and the proposition does
not mean that a man cannot say anything false
in those circumstances.) 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.
156. In order to make a mistake, a man must
already judge in conformity with mankind.
157. Suppose a man could not remember whether
he had always had five fingers or two hands?
Should we understand him? Could we be sure
of understanding him?
158. Can I be making a mistake, for example,
in thinking that the words of which this
sentence is composed are English words whose
meaning I know?
159. As children we learn facts; e. g., that
every human being has a brain, and we take
them on trust. I believe that there is an
island, Australia, of such-and-such a shape,
and so on and so on; I believe that I had
great-grandparents, that the people who gave
themselves out as my parents really were
my parents, etc. This belief may never have
been expressed; even the thought that it
was so, never thought.
160. The child learns by believing the adult.
Doubt comes after belief.
161. I learned an enormous amount and accepted
it on human authority, and then I found some
things confirmed or disconfirmed by my own
experience.
162. In general I take as true what is found
in text-books, of geography for example.
Why? I say: All these facts have been confirmed
a hundred times over. But how do I know that?
What is my evidence for it? I have a world-picture.
Is it true or false? Above all it is the
substratum of all my enquiring and asserting.
The propositions describing it are not all
equally subject to testing.
163. Does anyone ever test whether this table
remains in existence when no one is paying
attention to it? We check the story of Napoleon,
but not whether all the reports about him
are based on sense- deception, forgery and
the like. For whenever we test anything,
we are already presupposing something that
is not tested. Now am I to say that the experiment
which perhaps I make in order to test the
truth of a proposition presupposes the truth
of the proposition that the apparatus I believe
I see is really there (and the like)?
164. Doesn't testing come to an end?
165. One child might say to another: "I
know that the earth is already hundred of
years old" and that would mean: I have
learnt it.
166. The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness
of our believing.
167. It is clear that our empirical propositions
do not all have the same status, since one
can lay down such a proposition and turn
it from an empirical proposition into a norm
of description. Think of chemical investigations.
Lavoisier makes experiments with substances
in his laboratory and now he concludes that
this and that takes place when there is burning.
He does not say that it might happen otherwise
another time. He has got hold of a definite
world-picture - not of course one that he
invented: he learned it as a child. I say
world-picture and not hypothesis, because
it is the matter-of-course foundation for
his research and as such also does unmentioned.
168. But now, what part is played by the
presupposition that a substance A always
reacts to a substance B in the same way,
given the same circumstances? Or is that
part of the definition of a substance?
169. One might think that there were propositions
declaring that chemistry is possible. And
these would be propositions of a natural
science. For what should they be supported
by, if not by experience?
170. I believe what people transmit to me
in a certain manner. In this way I believe
geographical, chemical, historical facts
etc. That is how I learn the sciences. Of
course learning is based on believing. If
you have learnt that Mont Blanc is 4000 metres
high, if you have looked it up on the map,
you say you know it. And can it now be said:
we accord credence in this way because it
has proved to pay?
171. A principle ground for Moore to assume
that he never was on the moon is that no
one ever was on the moon or could come there;
and this we believe on grounds of what we
learn.
172. Perhaps someone says "There must
be some basic principle on which we accord
credence", but what can such a principle
accomplish? Is it more than a natural law
of 'taking for true'?
173. Is it maybe in my power what I believe?
or what I unshakeably believe? I believe
that there is a chair over there. Can't I
be wrong? But, can I believe that I am wrong?
Or can I so much as bring it under consideration?
- And mightn't I also hold fast to my belief
whatever I learned later on?! But is my belief
then grounded?
174. I act with complete certainty. But this
certainty is my own.
175. "I know it" I say to someone
else; and here there is a justification.
But there is none for my belief.
176. Instead of "I know it" one
may say in some cases "That's how it
is - rely upon it." In some cases, however
"I learned it years and years ago";
and sometimes: "I am sure it is so."
177. What I know, I believe.
178. The wrong use made by Moore of the proposition
"I know..." lies in his regarding
it as an utterance as little subject to doubt
as "I am in pain". And since from
"I know it is so" there follows
"It is so", then the latter can't
be doubted either.
179. It would be correct to say: "I
believe..." has subjective truth; but
"I know..." not.
180. Or again "I believe..." is
an 'expression', but not "I know...".
181. Suppose Moore had said "I swear..."
instead of "I know...".
182. The more primitive idea is that the
earth never had a beginning. No child has
reason to ask himself how long the earth
has existed, because all change takes place
on it. If what is called the earth really
came into existence at some time - which
is hard enough to picture - then one naturally
assumes the beginning as having been an inconceivably
long time ago.
183. "It is certain that after the battle
of Austerlitz Napoleon... Well, in that case
it's surely also certain that the earth existed
then."
184. "It is certain that we didn't arrive
on this planet from another one a hundred
years ago." Well, it's as certain as
such things are.
185. It would strike me as ridiculous to
want to doubt the existence of Napoleon;
but if someone doubted the existence of the
earth 150 years ago, perhaps I should be
more willing to listen, for now he is doubting
our whole system of evidence. It does not
strike me as if this system were more certain
than a certainty within it.
186. "I might suppose that Napoleon
never existed and is a fable, but not that
the earth did not exist 150 years ago."
187. "Do you know that the earth existed
then?" - "Of course I know that.
I have it from someone who certainly knows
all about it."
188. It strikes me as if someone who doubts
the existence of the earth at that time is
impugning the nature of all historical evidence.
And I cannot say of this latter that it is
definitely correct.
189. At some point one has to pass from explanation
to mere description.
190. What we call historical evidence points
to the existence of the earth a long time
before my birth; - the opposite hypothesis
has nothing on its side.
191. Well, if everything speaks for an hypothesis
and nothing against it - is it then certainly
true? One may designate it as such. - But
does it certainly agree with reality, with
the facts? - With this question you are already
going round in a circle.
192. To be sure there is justification; but
justification comes to an end. _____________________
193. What does this mean: the truth of a
proposition is a certain?
194. With the word "certain" we
express complete conviction, the total absence
of doubt, and thereby we seek to convince
other people. That is subjective certainty.
But when is something objectively certain?
When a mistake is not possible. But what
kind of possibility is that? Mustn't mistake
be logically excluded?
195. If I believe that I am sitting in my
room when I am not, then I shall not be said
to have made a mistake. But what is the essential
difference between this case and a mistake?
196. Sure evidence is what we accept as sure,
it is evidence that we go by in acting surely,
acting without any doubt. What we call "a
mistake" plays a quite special part
in our language games, and so too does what
we regard as certain evidence.
197. It would be nonsense to say that we
regard something as sure evidence because
it is certainly true.
198. Rather, we must first determine the
role of deciding for or against a proposition.
199. The reason why the use of the expression
"true or false" has something misleading
about it is that it is like saying "it
tallies with the facts or it doesn't",
and the very thing that is in question is
what "tallying" is here.
200. Really "The proposition is either
true or false" only means that it must
be possible to decide for or against it.
But this does not say what the ground for
such a decision is like.
201. Suppose someone were to ask: "Is
it really right for us to rely on the evidence
of our memory (or our senses) as we do?"
202. Moore's certain propositions almost
declare that we have a right to rely upon
this evidence.
203. [Everything that we regard as evidence
indicates that the earth already existed
long before my birth. The contrary hypothesis
has nothing to confirm it at all. If everything
speaks for an hypothesis and nothing against
it, is it objectively certain? One can call
it that. But does it necessarily agree with
the world of facts? At the very best it shows
us what "agreement" means. We find
it difficult to imagine it to be false, but
also difficult to make use of.]{crossed-out
in MS} What does this agreement consist in,
if not in the fact that what is evidence
in these language games speaks for our proposition?
(Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus)
204. Giving grounds, however, justifying
the evidence, comes to an end; - but the
end is not certain propositions' striking
us immediately as true, i. e. it is not a
kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting,
which lies at the bottom of the language-game.
205. If the true is what is grounded, then
the ground is not true, not yet false.
206. If someone asked us "but is that
true?" we might say "yes"
to him; and if he demanded grounds we might
say "I can't give you any grounds, but
if you learn more you too will think the
same." If this didn't come about, that
would mean that he couldn't for example learn
history.
207. "Strange coincidence, that every
man whose skull has been opened had a brain!"
208. I have a telephone conversation with
New York. My friend tells me that his young
trees have buds of such and such a kind.
I am now convinced that his tree is... Am
I also convinced that the earth exists?
209. The existence of the earth is rather
part of the whole picture which forms the
starting-point of belief for me.
210. Does my telephone call to New York strengthen
my conviction that the earth exists? Much
seems to be fixed, and it is removed from
the traffic. It is also so to speak shunted
onto an unused siding.
211. Now it gives our way of looking at things,
and our researches, their form. Perhaps it
was once disputed. But perhaps, for unthinkable
ages, it has belonged to the scaffolding
of our thoughts. (Every human being has parents.)
212. In certain circumstances, for example,
we regard a calculation as sufficiently checked.
What gives us a right to do so? Experience?
May that not have deceived us? Somewhere
we must be finished with justification, and
then there remains the proposition that this
is how we calculate.
213. Our 'empirical propositions' do not
form a homogeneous mass.
214. What prevents me from supposing that
this table either vanishes or alters its
shape and colour when on one is observing
it, and then when someone looks at it again
changes back to its old condition? - "But
who is going to suppose such a thing?"
- one would feel like saying.
215. Here we see that the idea of 'agreement
with reality' does not have any clear application.
216. The proposition "It is written".
217. If someone supposed that all our calculations
were uncertain and that we could rely on
none of them (justifying himself by saying
that mistakes are always possible) perhaps
we would say he was crazy. But can we say
he is in error? Does he not just react differently?
We rely on calculations, he doesn't; we are
sure, he isn't.
218. Can I believe for one moment that I
have ever been in the stratosphere? No. So
do I know the contrary, like Moore?
219. There cannot be any doubt about it for
me as a reasonable person. - That's it. -
220. The reasonable man does not have certain
doubts.
221. Can I be in doubt at will?
222. I cannot possibly doubt that I was never
in the stratosphere. Does that make me know
it? Does it make it true?
223. For mightn't I be crazy and not doubting
what I absolutely ought to doubt?
224. "I know that it never happened,
for if it had happened I could not possibly
have forgotten it." But, supposing it
did happen, then it just would have been
the case that you had forgotten it. And how
do you know that you could not possibly have
forgotten it? Isn't that just from earlier
experience?
225. What I hold fast to is not one proposition
but a nest of propositions.
226. Can I give the supposition that I have
ever been on the moon any serious consideration
at all?
227. "Is that something that one can
forget?!"
228. "In such circumstances, people
do not say 'Perhaps we've all forgotten',
and the like, but rather they assume that..."
229. Our talk gets its meaning from the rest
of our proceedings.
230. We are asking ourselves: what do we
do with a statement "I know..."?
For it is not a question of mental processes
or mental states. And that is how one must
decide whether something is knowledge or
not.
231. If someone doubted whether the earth
had existed a hundred years ago, I should
not understand, for this reason: I would
not know what such a person would still allow
to be counted as evidence and what not.
232. "We could doubt every single one
of these facts, but we could not doubt them
all." Wouldn't it be more correct to
say: "we do not doubt them all".
Our not doubting them all is simply our manner
of judging, and therefore of acting.
233. If a child asked me whether the earth
was already there before my birth, I should
answer him that the earth did not begin only
with my birth, but that it existed long,
long before. And I should have the feeling
of saying something funny. Rather as if a
child had asked if such and such a mountain
were higher than a tall house that it had
seen. In answering the question I should
have to be imparting a picture of the world
to the person who asked it. If I do answer
the question with certainty, what gives me
this certainty?
234. I believe that I have forebears, and
that every human being has them. I believe
that there are various cities, and, quite
generally, in the main facts of geography
and history. I believe that the earth is
a body on whose surface we move and that
it no more suddenly disappears or the like
than any other solid body: this table, this
house, this tree, etc. If I wanted to doubt
the existence of the earth long before my
birth, I should have to doubt all sorts of
things that stand fast for me.
235. And that something stands fast for me
is not grounded in my stupidity or credulity.
236. If someone said "The earth has
not long been..." what would he be impugning?
Do I know? Would it not have to be what is
called a scientific belief? Might it not
be a mystical one? Is there any absolute
necessity for him to be contradicting historical
facts? or even geographical ones?
237. If I say "an hour ago this table
didn't exist", I probably mean that
it was only made later on. If I say "this
mountain didn't exist then", I presumably
mean that it was only formed later on - perhaps
by a volcano. If I say "this mountain
didn't exist an hour ago", that is such
a strange statement that it is not clear
what I mean. Whether for example I mean something
untrue but scientific. Perhaps you think
that the statement that the mountain didn't
exist then is quite clear, however one conceives
the context. But suppose someone said "This
mountain didn't exist a minute ago, but an
exactly similar one did instead." Only
the accustomed context allows what is meant
to come through clearly.
238. I might therefore interrogate someone
who said that the earth did not exist before
his birth, in order to find out which of
my convictions he was at odds with. And then
it might be that he was contradicting my
fundamental attitudes, and if that were how
it was, I should have to put up with it.
Similarly if he said he had at some time
been on the moon.
239. I believe that every human being has
two human parents; but Catholics believe
that Jesus only had a human mother. And other
people might believe that there are human
beings with no parents, and give no credence
to all the contrary evidence. Catholics believe
as well that in certain circumstances a wafer
completely changes its nature, and at the
same time that all evidence proves the contrary.
And so if Moore said "I know that this
is wine and not blood", Catholics would
contradict him.
240. What is the belief that all human beings
have parents based on? On experience. And
how can I base this sure belief on my experience?
Well, I base it not only on the fact that
I have known the parents of certain people
but on everything that I have learnt about
the sexual life of human beings and their
anatomy and physiology: also on what I have
heard and seen of animals. But then is that
really a proof?
241. Isn't this an hypothesis, which, as
I believe, is again and again completely
confirmed?
242. Mustn't we say at every turn: "I
believe this with certainty"?
243. One says "I know" when one
is ready to give compelling grounds. "I
know" relates to a possibility of demonstrating
the truth. Whether someone knows something
can come to light, assuming that he is convinced
of it. But if what he believes is of such
a kind that the grounds that he can give
are no surer than his assertion, then he
cannot say that he knows what he believes.
244. If someone says "I have a body",
he can be asked "Who is speaking here
with this mouth?"
245. To whom does anyone say that he knows
something? To himself, or to someone else.
If he says it to himself, how is it distinguished
from the assertion that he is sure that things
are like that? There is no subjective sureness
that I know something. The certainty is subjective,
but not the knowledge. So if I say "I
know that I have two hands", and that
is not supposed to express just my subjective
certainty, I must be able to satisfy myself
that I am right. But I can't do that, for
my having two hands is not less certain before
I have looked at them than afterwards. But
I could say: "That I have two hands
is an irreversible belief." That would
express the fact that I am not ready to let
anything count as a disproof of this proposition.
246. "Here I have arrived at a foundation
of all my beliefs." "This position
I will hold!" But isn't that, precisely,
only because I am completely convinced of
it? - What is 'being completely convinced'
like?
247. What would it be like to doubt now whether
I have two hands? Why can't I imagine it
at all? What would I believe if I didn't
believe that? So far I have no system at
all within which this doubt might exist.
248. I have arrived at the rock bottom of
my convictions. And one might almost say
that these foundation-walls are carried by
the whole house.
249. One gives oneself a false picture of
doubt.
250. 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 hand
as evidence for it.
251. Doesn't this mean: I shall proceed according
to this belief unconditionally, and not let
anything confuse me?
252. But it isn't just that I believe in
this way that I have two hands, but that
every reasonable person does.
253. At the foundation of well-founded belief
lies belief that is not founded.
254. Any 'reasonable' person behaves like
this.
255. Doubting has certain characteristic
manifestations, but they are only characteristic
of it in particular circumstances. If someone
said that he doubted the existence of his
hands, kept looking at them from all sides,
tried to make sure it wasn't 'all done by
mirrors', etc., we should not be sure whether
we ought to call this doubting. We might
describe his way of behaving as like the
behaviour of doubt, but this game would be
not be ours.
256. On the other hand a language-game does
change with time.
257. If someone said to me that he doubted
whether he had a body I should take him to
be a half-wit. But I shouldn't know what
it would mean to try to convince him that
he had one. And if I had said something,
and that had removed his doubt, I should
not know how or why.
258. I do not know how the sentence "I
have a body" is to be used. That doesn't
unconditionally apply to the proposition
that I have always been on or near the surface
of the earth.
259. Someone who doubted whether the earth
had existed for 100 years might have a scientific,
or on the other hand philosophical, doubt.
260. I would like to reserve the expression
"I know" for the cases in which
it is used in normal linguistic exchange.
261. I cannot at present imagine a reasonable
doubt as to the existence of the earth during
the last 100 years.
262. I can imagine a man who had grown up
in quite special circumstances and been taught
that the earth came into being 50 years ago,
and therefore believed this. We might instruct
him: the earth has long... etc. - We should
be trying to give him our picture of the
world. This would happen through a kind of
persuasion.
263. The schoolboy believes his teachers
and his schoolbooks.
264. I could imagine Moore being captured
by a wild tribe, and their expressing the
suspicion that he has come from somewhere
between the earth and the moon. Moore tells
them that he knows etc. but he can't give
them the grounds for his certainty, because
they have fantastic ideas of human ability
to fly and know nothing about physics. This
would be an occasion for making that statement.
265. But what does it say, beyond "I
have never been to such and such a place,
and have compelling grounds to believe that"?
266. And here one would still have to say
what are compelling grounds.
267. "I don't merely have the visual
impression of a tree: I know that it is a
tree".
268. "I know that this is a hand."
- And what is a hand? - "Well, this,
for example".
269. Am I more certain that I have never
been on the moon than that I have never been
in Bulgaria? Why am I so sure? Well, I know
that I have never been anywhere in the neighbourhood
- for example I have never been in the Balkans.
270. "I have compelling grounds for
my certitude." These grounds make the
certitude objective.
271. What is a telling ground for something
is not anything I decide.
272. I know = I am familiar with it as a
certainty.
273. But when does one say of something that
it is certain? For there can be dispute whether
something is certain; I mean, when something
is objectively certain. There are countless
general empirical propositions that count
as certain for us.
274. One such is that if someone's arm is
cut off it will not grow again. Another,
if someone's head is cut off he is dead and
will never live again. Experience can be
said to teach us these propositions. However,
it does not teach us them in isolation: rather,
it teaches us a host of interdependent propositions.
If they were isolated I might perhaps doubt
them, for I have no experience relating to
them.
275. If experience is the ground of our certainty,
then naturally it is past experience. And
it isn't for example just my experience,
but other's people's, that I get knowledge
from. Now one might say that it is experience
again that leads us to give credence to others.
But what experience makes me believe that
the anatomy and physiology books don't contain
what is false? Though it is true that this
trust is backed up by my own experience.
276. We believe, so to speak, that this great
building exists, and then we see, now here,
now there, one or another small corner of
it.
277. "I can't help believing..."
278. "I am comfortable that that is
how things are."
279. It is quite sure that motor cars don't
grow out of the earth. We feel that if someone
could believe the contrary he could believe
everything that we say is untrue, and could
question everything that we hold to be sure.
But how does this one belief hang together
with all the rest? We should like to say
that someone who could believe that does
not accept our whole system of verification.
This system is something that a human being
acquires by means of observation and instruction.
I intentionally do not say "learns".
280. After he has seen this and this and
heard that and that, he is not in a position
to doubt whether...
281. I, L. W., believe, am sure, that my
friend hasn't sawdust in his body or in his
head, even though I have no direct evidence
of my senses to the contrary. I am sure,
by reason of what has been said to me, of
what I have read, and of my experience. To
have doubts about it would seem to me madness
- of course, this is also in agreement with
other people; but I agree with them.
282. I cannot say that I have good grounds
for the opinion that cats do not grow on
trees or that I had a father and a mother.
If someone has doubts about it - how is that
supposed to have come about? By his never,
from the beginning, having believed that
he had parents? But then, is that conceivable,
unless he has been taught it?
283. For how can a child immediately doubt
what it is taught? That could mean only that
he was incapable of learning certain language
games.
284. People have killed animals since the
earliest times, used the fur, bones etc.
etc. for various purposes; they have counted
definitely on finding similar parts in any
similar beast. They have always learnt from
experience; and we can see from their actions
that they believe certain things definitely,
whether they express this belief or not.
By this I naturally do not want to say that
men should behave like this, but only that
they do behave like this.
285. If someone is looking for something
and perhaps roots around in a certain place,
he shows that he believes that what he is
looking for is there.
286. What we believe depends on what we learn.
We all believe that it isn't possible to
get to the moon; but there might be people
who believe that that is possible and that
it sometimes happens. We say: these people
do not know a lot that we know. And, let
them be never so sure of their belief - they
are wrong and we know it. If we compare our
system of knowledge with theirs then theirs
is evidently the poorer one by far.
23.9.50
287. The squirrel does not infer by induction
that it is going to need stores next winter
as well. And no more do we need a law of
induction to justify our actions or our predictions.
288. I know, not just that the earth existed
long before my birth, but also that it is
a large body, that this has been established,
that I and the rest of mankind have forebears,
that there are books about all this, that
such books don't lie, etc. etc. etc. And
I know all this? I believe it. This body
of knowledge has been handed on to me and
I have no grounds for doubting it, but, on
the contrary, all sorts of confirmation.
And why shouldn't I say that I know all this?
Isn't that what one does say? But not only
I know, or believe, all that, but the others
do too. Or rather, I believe that they believe
it.
289. I am firmly convinced that others believe,
believe they know, that all that is in fact
so.
290. I myself wrote in my book that children
learn to understand a word in such and such
a way. Do I know that, or do I believe it?
Why in such a case do I write not "I
believe etc." but simply the indicative
sentence?
291. We know that the earth is round. We
have definitively ascertained that it is
round. We shall stick to this opinion, unless
our whole way of seeing nature changes. "How
do you know that?" - I believe it.
292. Further experiments cannot give the
lie to our earlier ones, at most they may
change our whole way of looking at things.
293. Similarly with the sentence "water
boils at 100 C".
294. This is how we acquire conviction, this
is called "being rightly convinced".
295. So hasn't one, in this sense, a proof
of the proposition? But that the same thing
has happened again is not a proof of it;
though we do say that it gives us a right
to assume it.
296. This is what we call an "empirical
foundation" for our assumptions.
297. For we learn, not just that such and
such experiments had those and those results,
but also the conclusion which is drawn. And
of course there is nothing wrong in our doing
so. For this inferred proposition is an instrument
for a definitive use.
298. 'We are quite sure of it' does not mean
just that every single person is certain
of it, but that we belong to a community
which is bound together by science and education.
299. We are satisfied that the earth is round.
[In English] ______________________
10.3.51
300. Not all corrections of our views are
on the same level.
301. Supposing it wasn't true that the earth
had already existed long before I was born
- how should we imagine the mistake being
discovered?
302. It's no good saying "Perhaps we
are wrong" when, if no evidence is trustworthy,
trust is excluded in the case of the present
evidence.
303. If, for example, we have always been
miscalculating, and twelve times twelve isn't
a hundred and forty-four, why should we trust
any other calculation? And of course that
is wrongly put.
304. But nor am I making a mistake about
twelve times twelve being a hundred and forty-four.
I may say later that I was confused just
now, but not that I was making a mistake.
305. Here once more there is needed a step
like the one taken in relativity theory.
306. "I don't know if this is a hand."
But do you know what the word "hand"
means? And don't say "I know that it
means now for me". And isn't it an empirical
fact - that this word is used like this?
307. And here the strange thing is that when
I am quite certain of how the words are used,
have no doubt about it, I can still give
no grounds for my way of going on. If I tried
I could give a thousand, but none as certain
as the very thing they were supposed to be
grounds for.
308. 'Knowledge' and 'certainty' belong to
different categories. They are not two 'mental
states' like, say 'surmising' and 'being
sure'. (Here I assume that it is meaningful
for me to say "I know what (e. g.) the
word 'doubt' means" and that this sentence
indicates that the word "doubt"
has a logical role.) What interests us now
is not being sure but knowledge. That is,
we are interested in the fact that about
certain empirical propositions no doubt can
exist if making judgments is to be possible
at all. Or again: I am inclined to believe
that not everything that has the form of
an empirical proposition is one.
309. Is it that rule and empirical proposition
merge into one another?
310. A pupil and a teacher. The pupil will
not let anything be explained to him, for
he continually interrupts with doubts, for
instance as to the existence of things, the
meaning of words, etc. The teacher says "Stop
interrupting me and do as I tell you. So
far your doubts don't make sense at all."
311. Or imagine that the boy questioned the
truth of history (and everything that connects
up with it) - and even whether the earth
existed at all a hundred years before.
312. Here it strikes me as if this doubt
were hollow. But in that case - isn't belief
in history hollow too? No: there is so much
that this connects up with.
313. So is that what makes us believe a proposition?
Well - the grammar of "believe"
just does hang together with the grammar
of the proposition believed.
314. Imagine that the schoolboy really did
ask "and is there a table there even
when I turn around, and even when no one
is there to see it?" Is the teacher
to reassure him - and say "of course
there is!"? Perhaps the teacher will
get a bit impatient, but think that the boy
will grow out of asking such questions.
315. That is to say, the teacher will feel
that this is not really a legitimate question
at all. And it would be just the same if
the pupil cast doubt on the uniformity of
nature, that is to say on the justification
of inductive arguments. - The teacher would
feel that this was only holding them up,
that this way the pupil would only get stuck
and make no progress. - And he would be right.
It would be as if someone were looking for
some object in a room; he opens a drawer
and doesn't see it there; then he closes
it again, waits, and opens it once more to
see if perhaps it isn't there now, and keeps
on like that. He has not learned to look
for things. And in the same way this pupil
has not learned how to ask questions. He
has not learned the game that we are trying
to teach him.
316. And isn't it the same as if the pupil
were to hold up his history lesson with doubts
as to whether the earth really...?
317. This doubt isn't one of the doubts in
our game. (But not as if we chose this game!)
12.3.51
318. 'The question doesn't arise at all.'
Its answer would characterize a method. But
there is no sharp boundary between methodological
propositions and propositions within a method.
319. But wouldn't one have to say then, that
there is no sharp boundary between propositions
of logic and empirical propositions? The
lack of sharpness is that of the boundary
between rule and empirical proposition.
320. Here one must, I believe, remember that
the concept 'proposition' itself is not a
sharp one.
321. Isn't what I am saying: any empirical
proposition can be transformed into a postulate
- and then becomes a norm of description.
But I am suspicious even of this. The sentence
is too general. One almost wants to say "any
empirical proposition can, theoretically,
be transformed...", but what does "theoretically"
mean here? It sounds all to reminiscent of
the Tractatus.
322. What if the pupil refused to believe
that this mountain had been there beyond
human memory? We should say that he had no
grounds for this suspicion.
323. So rational suspicion must have grounds?
We might also say: "the reasonable man
believes this".
324. Thus we should not call anybody reasonable
who believed something in despite of scientific
evidence.
325. When we say that we know that such and
such..., we mean that any reasonable person
in our position would also know it, that
it would be a piece of unreason to doubt
it. Thus Moore wants to say not merely that
he knows that he etc. etc., but also that
anyone endowed with reason in his position
would know it just the same.
326. But who says what it is reasonable to
believe in this situation?
327. So it might be said: "The reasonable
man believes: that the earth has been there
since long before his birth, that his life
has been spent on the surface of the earth,
or near it, that he has never, for example,
been on the moon, that he has a nervous system
and various innards like all other people,
etc., etc."
328. "I know it as I know that my name
is L. W."
329. 'If he calls that in doubt - whatever
"doubt" means here - he will never
learn this game'.
330. So here the sentence "I know..."
expresses the readiness to believe certain
things.
13.3.
331. If we ever do act with certainty on
the strength of belief, should we wonder
that there is much we cannot doubt?
332. Imagine that someone were to say, without
wanting to philosophize, "I don't know
if I have ever been on the moon; I don't
remember ever having been there". (Why
would this person be so radically different
from us?) In the first place - how would
he know that he was on the moon? How does
he imagine it? Compare: "I do not know
if I was ever in the village of X."
But neither could I say that if X were in
Turkey, for I know that I was never in Turkey.
333. I ask someone "Have you ever been
in China?" He replies "I don't
know". Here one would surely say "You
don't know? Have you any reason to believe
you might have been there at some time? Were
you for example ever near the Chinese border?
Or were your parents there at the time when
you were going to be born?" - Normally
Europeans do know whether they have been
in China or not.
334. That is to say: only in such-and-such
circumstances does a reasonable person doubt
that.
335. The procedure in a court of law rests
on the fact that circumstances give statements
a certain probability. The statement that,
for example, someone came into the world
without parents wouldn't ever be taken into
consideration there.
336. But what men consider reasonable or
unreasonable alters. At certain periods men
find reasonable what at other periods they
found unreasonable. And vice-versa. But is
there no objective character here? Very intelligent
and well-educated people believe in the story
of creation in the Bible, while others hold
it as proven false, and the grounds of the
latter are well known to the former.
337. One cannot make experiments if there
are not some things that one does not doubt.
But that does not mean that one takes certain
presuppositions on trust. When I write a
letter and post it, I take it for granted
that it will arrive - I expect this. If I
make an experiment I do not doubt the existence
of the apparatus before my eyes. I have plenty
of doubts, but not that. If I do a calculation
I believe, without any doubts, that the figures
on the paper aren't switching of their own
accord, and I also trust my memory the whole
time, and trust it without any reservation.
The certainty here is the same as that of
my never having been on the moon.
338. But imagine people who were never quite
certain of these things, but said that they
were very probably so, and that it did not
pay to doubt them. Such a person, then, would
say in my situation: "It is extremely
unlikely that I have ever been on the moon",
etc., etc. How would the life of these people
differ from ours? For there are people who
say that it is merely extremely probable
that water over a fire will boil and not
freeze, and that therefore strictly speaking
what we consider impossible is only improbable.
What difference does this make in their lives?
Isn't it just that they talk rather more
about certain things that the rest of us?
339. Imagine someone who is supposed to fetch
a friend from the railway station and doesn't
simply look the train up in the time-table
and go to the station at the right time,
but says:"I have no belief that the
train will really arrive, but I will go to
the station all the same." He does everything
that the normal person does, but accompanies
it with doubts or with self-annoyance, etc.
340. We know, with the same certainty with
which we believe any mathematical proposition,
how the letters A and B are pronounced, what
the colour of human blood is called, that
other human beings have blood and call it
"blood".
341. 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.
342. That is to say, it belongs to the logic
of our scientific investigations that certain
things are in deed not doubted.
343. 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.
344. My life consists in my being content
to accept many things.
345. If I ask someone "what colour do
you see at the moment?", in order, that
is, to learn what colour is there at the
moment, I cannot at the same time question
whether the person I ask understands English,
whether he wants to take me in, whether my
own memory is not leaving me in the lurch
as to the names of colours, and so on.
346. When I am trying to mate someone in
chess, I cannot have doubts about the pieces
perhaps changing places of themselves and
my memory simultaneously playing tricks on
me so that I don't notice.
15.3.51
347. "I know that that's a tree."
Why does it strike me as if I did not understand
the sentence? though it is after all an extremely
simple sentence of the most ordinary kind?
It is as if I could not focus my mind on
any meaning. Simply because I don't look
for the focus where the meaning is. As soon
as I think of an everyday use of the sentence
instead of a philosophical one, its meaning
becomes clear and ordinary.
348. Just as the words "I am here"
have a meaning only in certain contexts,
and not when I say them to someone who is
sitting in front of me and sees me clearly,
- and not because they are superfluous, but
because their meaning is not determined by
the situation, yet stands in need of such
determination.
349. "I know that that's a tree"
- this may mean all sorts of things: I look
at a plant that I take for a young beech
and that someone else thinks is a black-currant.
He says "that's a shrub"; I say
it is a tree. - We see something in the mist
which one of us takes for a man, and the
other says "I know that that's a tree".
Someone wants to test my eyes etc. etc. -
etc. etc. Each time the 'that' which I declare
to be a tree is of a different kind. But
what when we express ourselves more precisely?
For example: "I know that that thing
there is a tree, I can see it quite clearly."
- Let us even suppose I had made this remark
in the context of a conversation (so that
it was relevant when I made it); and now,
out of all context, I repeat it while looking
at the tree, and I add "I mean these
words as I did five minutes ago". If
I added, for example, that I had been thinking
of my bad eyes again and it was a kind of
sigh, then there would be nothing puzzling
about the remark. For how a sentence is meant
can be expressed by an expansion of it and
may therefore be made part of it.
350. "I know that that's a tree"
is something a philosopher might say to demonstrate
to himself or to someone else that he knows
something that is not a mathematical or logical
truth. Similarly, someone who was entertaining
the idea that he was no use any more might
keep repeating to himself "I can still
do this and this and this." If such
thoughts often possessed him one would not
be surprised if he, apparently out of all
context, spoke such a sentence out loud.
(But here I have already sketched a background,
a surrounding, for this remark, that is to
say given it a context.) But if someone,
in quite heterogeneous circumstances, called
out with the most convincing mimicry: "Down
with him!", one might say of these words
(and their tone) that they were a pattern
that does indeed have familiar applications,
but that in this case it was not even clear
what language the man in question was speaking.
I might make with my hand the movement I
should make if I were holding a hand-saw
and sawing through a plank; but would one
have any right to call this movement sawing,
out of all context? - (It might be something
quite different!)
351. Isn't the question "have these
words a meaning?" similar to "Is
that a tool?" asked as one produces,
say, a hammer? I say "Yes, it's a hammer."
But what if the thing that any of us would
take for a hammer were somewhere else a missile,
for example, or a conductor's baton? Now
make the application yourself.
352. If someone says, "I know that that's
a tree" I may answer: "Yes, that
is a sentence. An English sentence. And what
is it supposed to be doing?" Suppose
he replies: "I just wanted to remind
myself that I know thing like that"?
-
353. But suppose he said "I want to
make a logical observation"? - If a
forester goes into a wood with his men and
says "This tree has got to be cut down,
and this one and this one" -- what if
he then observes "I know that that's
a tree"? - But might not I say of the
forester "He knows that that's a tree
- he doesn't examine it, or order his men
to examine it"?
354. Doubting and non-doubting behavior.
There is the first only if there is the second.
355. A mad-doctor (perhaps) might ask me
"Do you know what that is?" and
I might reply "I know that it's a chair;
I recognize it, it's always been in my room".
He says this, possibly, to test not my eyes
but my ability to recognize things, to know
their names and their functions. What is
in question here is a kind of knowing one's
way about. Now it would be wrong for me to
say "I believe that it's a chair"
because that would express my readiness for
my statement to be tested. While "I
know that it..." implies bewilderment
if what I said was not confirmed.
356. My "mental state", the "knowing",
gives me no guarantee of what will happen.
But it consists in this, that I should not
understand where a doubt could get a foothold
nor where a further test was possible.
357. One might say: " 'I know' expresses
comfortable certainty, not the certainty
that is still struggling."
358. Now I would like to regard this certainty,
not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality,
but as a form of life. (That is very badly
expressed and probably badly thought as well.)
359. But that means I want to conceive it
as something that lies beyond being justified
or unjustified; as it were, as something
animal.
360. I know that this is my foot. I could
not accept any experience as proof to the
contrary. - That may be an exclamation; but
what follows from it? At least that I shall
act with a certainty that knows no doubt,
in accordance with my belief.
361. But I might also say: It has been revealed
to me by God that it is so. God has taught
me that this is my foot. And therefore if
anything happened that seemed to conflict
with this knowledge I should have to regard
that as deception.
362. But doesn't it come out here that knowledge
is related to a a decision?
363. And here it is difficult to find the
transition from the exclamation one would
like to make, to its consequences in what
one does.
364. One might also put this question: "If
you know that that is your foot, - do you
also know, or do you only believe, that no
future experience will seem to contradict
your knowledge?" (That is, that nothing
will seem to you yourself to do so.)
365. If someone replied: "I also know
that it will never seem to me as if anything
contradicted that knowledge", - what
could we gather from that, except that he
himself had no doubt that it would never
happen? -
366. Suppose it were forbidden to say "I
know" and only allowed to say "I
believe I know"?
367. Isn't it the purpose of construing a
word like "know" analogously to
"believe" that then opprobrium
attaches to the statement "I know"
if the person who makes it is wrong? As a
result a mistake becomes something forbidden.
368. If someone says that he will recognize
no experience as proof of the opposite, that
is after all a decision. It is possible that
he will act against it.
16.3.51
369. If I wanted to doubt whether this was
my hand, how could I avoid doubting whether
the word "hand" has any meaning?
So that is something I seem to know after
all.
370. But more correctly: The fact that I
use the word "hand" and all the
other words in my sentence without a second
thought, indeed that I should stand before
the abyss if I wanted so much as to try doubting
their meanings - shows that absence of doubt
belongs to the essence of the language-game,
that the question "How do I know..."
drags out the language-game, or else does
away with it.
371. Doesn't "I know that that's a hand",
in Moore's sense, mean the same, or more
or less the same, as: I can make statements
like "I have a pain in this hand"
or 'this hand is weaker than the other"
or "I once broke this hand", and
countless others, in language-games where
a doubt as to the existence of this hand
does not come in?
372. Only in certain cases is it possible
to make an investigation "is that really
a hand?" (or "my hand"). For
"I doubt whether that is really my (or
a) hand" makes no sense without some
more precise determination. One cannot tell
from these words alone whether any doubt
at all is meant - nor what kind of doubt.
373. Why is it supposed to be possible to
have grounds for believing something if it
isn't possible to be certain?
374. We teach a child "that is your
hand", not "that is perhaps (or
"probably") your hand". That
is how a child learns the innumerable language-games
that are concerned with his hand. An investigation
or question, 'whether this is really a hand'
never occurs to him. Nor, on the other hand,
does he learn that he knows that this is
a hand.
375. Here one must realize that complete
absence of doubt at some point, even where
we would say that 'legitimate' doubt can
exist, need not falsify a language-game.
For there is also something like another
arithmetic. I believe that this admission
must underlie any understanding of logic.
17.3.
376. I may claim with passion that I know
that this (for example) is my foot.
377. But this passion is after all something
very rare, and there is no trace of it when
I talk of this foot in the ordinary way.
378. Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.
379. I say with passion "I know that
this is a foot" - but what does it mean?
380. I might go on: "Nothing in the
world will convince me of the opposite!"
For me this fact is at the bottom of all
knowledge. I shall give up other things but
not this.
381. This "Nothing in the world"
is obviously an attitude which one hasn't
got towards everything one believes or is
certain of.
382. That is not to say that nothing in the
world will in fact be able to convince me
of anything else.
383. The argument "I may be dreaming"
is senseless for this reason: if I am dreaming,
this remark is being dreamed as well - and
indeed it is also being dreamed that these
words have any meaning.
384. Now what kind of sentence is "Nothing
in the world..."?
385. It has the form of a prediction, but
of course it is not one that is based on
experience.
386. Anyone who says, with Moore, that he
knows that so and so... - gives the degree
of certainty that something has for him.
And it is important that this degree has
a maximum value.
387. Someone might ask me: "How certain
are you that that is a tree over there; that
you have money in your pocket; that that
is your foot?" And the answer in one
case might be "not certain", in
another "as good as certain", in
the third "I can't doubt it". And
these answers would make sense even without
any grounds. I should not need for example,
to say: "I can't be certain whether
that is a tree because my eyes aren't sharp
enough." I want to say: it made sense
for Moore to say "I know that that is
a tree", if he meant something quite
particular by it.
[I believe it might interest a philosopher,
one who can think himself, to read my notes.
For even if I have hit the mark only rarely,
he would recognize what targets I had been
ceaselessly aiming at.]
388. Every one of us often uses such a sentence,
and there is no question but that it makes
sense. But does that mean it yields any philosophical
conclusion? Is it more of a proof of the
existence of external things, that I know
that this is a hand, than that I don't know
whether that is gold or brass?
18.3.
389. Moore wanted to give an example to show
that one really can know propositions about
physical objects. - If there were a dispute
whether one could have a pain in such and
such a part of the body, then someone who
just then had a pain in that spot might say:
"I assure you, I have a pain there now."
But it would sound odd if Moore had said:
"I assure you, I know that's a tree."
A personal experience simply has no interest
for us here.
390. All that is important is that it makes
sense to say that one knows such a thing;
and consequently the assurance that one does
know it can't accomplish anything here.
391. Imagine a language-game "When I
call you, come in through the door."
In any ordinary case, a doubt whether there
really is a door there will be impossible.
392. What I need to show is that a doubt
is not necessary even when it is possible.
That the possibility of the language-game
doesn't depend on everything being doubted
that can be doubted. (This is connected with
the role of contradiction in mathematics.)
393. The sentence "I know that that's
a tree" if it were said outside its
language-game, might also be a quotation
(from an English grammar-book perhaps). -
"But suppose I mean it while I am saying
it?" The old misunderstanding about
the concept 'mean'.
394. "This is one of the things that
I cannot doubt."
395. "I know all that." And that
will come out in the way I act and in the
way I speak about the things in question.
396. In the language-game (2), can he say
that he knows that those are building stones?
- "No, but he does know it." [[Philosophical
Investigations I, 2: ... and write with confidence
"In the beginning was the deed."
Goethe, Faust I. ]]
397. Haven't I gone wrong and isn't Moore
perfectly right? Haven't I made the elementary
mistake of confusing one's thoughts with
one's knowledge? Of course I do not think
to myself "The earth already existed
for some time before my birth", but
do I know it any the less? Don't I show that
I know it by always drawing its consequences?
398. And don't I know that there is no stairway
in this house going six floors deep into
the earth, even though I have never thought
about it?
399. But doesn't my drawing the consequences
only show that I accept this hypothesis?
19.3
400. Here I am inclined to fight windmills,
because I cannot yet say the thing I really
want to say.
401. I want to say: propositions of the form
of empirical propositions, and not only propositions
of logic, form the foundation of all operating
with thoughts (with language). - This observation
is not of the form "I know...".
"I know..." states what I know,
and that is not of logical interest.
402. In this remark the expression "propositions
of the form of empirical propositions"
is itself thoroughly bad; the statements
in question are statements about material
objects. And they do not serve as foundations
in the same way as hypotheses which, if they
turn out to be false, are replaced by others.
403. To say of man, in Moore's sense, that
he knows something; that what he says is
therefore unconditionally the truth, seems
wrong to me. - It is the truth only inasmuch
as it is an unmoving foundation of his language-games.
404. 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.
405. But of course there is still a mistake
even here.
406. What I am aiming at is also found in
the difference between the casual observation
"I know that that's a...", as it
might be used in ordinary life, and the same
utterance when a philosopher makes it.
407. For when Moore says "I know that
that's..." I want to reply "you
don't know anything!" - and yet I would
not say that to anyone who was speaking without
philosophical intention. That is, I feel
(rightly?) that these two mean to say something
different.
408. For if someone says he knows such-and-such,
and this is part of his philosophy - then
his philosophy is false if he has slipped
up in this statement.
409. If I say "I know that that's a
foot" - what am I really saying? Isn't
the whole point that I am certain of the
consequences - that if someone else had been
in doubt I might say to him "you see
- I told you so"? Would my knowledge
still be worth anything if it let me down
as a clue in action? And can't it let me
down?
20.3.
410. Our knowledge forms an enormous system.
And only within this system has a particular
bit the value we give it.
411. If I say "we assume that the earth
has existed for many years past" (or
something similar), then of course it sounds
strange that we should assume such a thing.
But in the entire system of our language-
games it belongs to the foundations. The
assumption, one might say, forms the basis
of action, and therefore, naturally, of thought.
412. Anyone who is unable to imagine a case
in which one might say "I know that
this is my hand" (and such cases are
certainly rare) might say that these words
were nonsense. True, he might also say "Of
course I know - how could I not know?"
- but then he would possibly be taking the
sentence "this is my hand" as an
explanation of the words "my hand".
413. For suppose you were guiding a blind
man's hand, and as you were guiding it along
yours you said "this is my hand";
if he then said "are you sure?"
or "do you know it is?", it would
take very special circumstances for that
to make sense.
414. But on the other hand: how do I know
that it is my hand? Do I even here know exactly
what it means to say it is my hand? - When
I say "how do I know?" I do not
mean that I have the least doubt of it. What
we have here is a foundation for all my action.
But it seems to me that it is wrongly expressed
by the words "I know".
415. And in fact, isn't the use of the word
"know" as a preeminently philosophical
word altogether wrong? If "know"
has this interest, why not "being certain"?
Apparently because it would be too subjective.
But isn't "know" just as subjective?
Isn't one misled simply by the grammatical
peculiarity that "p" follows from
"I know p"? "I believe I know"
would not need to express a lesser degree
of certainty. - True, but one isn't trying
to express even the greatest subjective certainty,
but rather that certain propositions seem
to underlie all questions and all thinking.
416. And have we an example of this in, say,
the proposition that I have been living in
this room for weeks past, that my memory
does not deceive me in this?
- "certain beyond all reasonable doubt"
-
21.3
417. "I know that for the last month
I have had a bath every day." What am
I remembering? Each day and the bath each
morning? No. I know that I bathed each day
and I do not derive that from some other
immediate datum. Similarly I say "I
felt a pain in my arm" without this
locality coming into my consciousness in
any other way (such as by means of an image).
418. Is my understanding only blindness to
my own lack of understanding? It often seems
so to me.
419. If I say "I have never been in
Asia Minor", where do I get this knowledge
from? I have not worked it out, no one told
me; my memory tells me. - So I can't be wrong
about it? Is there a truth here which I know?
- I cannot depart from this judgment without
toppling all other judgments with it.
420. Even a proposition like this one, that
I am now living in England, has these two
sides: it is not a mistake - but on the other
hand, what do I know of England? Can't my
judgment go all to pieces? Would it not be
possible that people came to my room and
all declared the opposite? - even gave me
'proofs' of it, so that I suddenly stood
there like a madman alone among people who
were all normal, or a normal person alone
among madmen? Might I not then suffer doubts
about what at present seems at the furthest
remove from doubt?
421. I am in England. - Everything around
me tells me so; wherever and however I let
my thoughts turn, they confirm this for me
at once. - But might I not be shaken if things
such as I don't dream of at present were
to happen?
422. So I am trying to say something that
sounds like pragmatism. Here I am being thwarted
by a kind of Weltanschauung.
423. Then why don't I simply say with Moore
"I know that I am in England?"
Saying this is meaningful in particular circumstances,
which I can imagine. But when I utter the
sentence outside these circumstances, as
an example to show that I can know truths
of this kind with certainty, then it at once
strikes me as fishy. - Ought it to?
424. I say "I know p" either to
assure people that I, too, know the truth
p, or simply as an emphasis of -p. One says
too, "I don't believe it, I know it".
And one might also put it like this (for
example): "That is a tree. And that's
not just surmise." But what about this:
"If I were to tell someone that that
was a tree, that wouldn't be just surmise."
Isn't this what Moore was trying to say?
425. It would not be surmise and I might
tell it to someone else with complete certainty,
as something there is no doubt about. But
does that mean that it is unconditionally
the truth? May not the thing that I recognize
with complete certainty as the tree that
I have seen here my whole life long - may
this not be disclosed as something different?
May it not confound me? And nevertheless
it was right, in the circumstances that give
this sentence meaning, to say "I know
(I do not merely surmise) that that's a tree."
To say that in strict truth I only believe
it, would be wrong. It would be completely
misleading to say: "I believe my name
is L. W." And this too is right: I cannot
be making a mistake about it. But that does
not mean that I am infallible about it.
21.3.51
426. But how can we show someone that we
know truths, not only about sense-data but
also about things? For after all it can't
be enough for someone to assure us that he
knows this. Well, what must our starting
point be if we are to show this?
22.3
427. We need to show that even if he never
uses the words "I know...", his
conduct exhibits the thing we are concerned
with.
428. For suppose a person of normal behavior
assured us that he only believed his name
was such-and-such, he believed he recognized
the people he regularly lived with, he believed
that he had hands and feet when he didn't
actually see them, and so on. Can we show
him it is not so from the things he does
(and says)?
23.3.51
429. What reason have I, now, when I cannot
see my toes, to assume that I have five toes
on each foot? Is it right to say that my
reason is that previous experience has always
taught me so? Am I more certain of previous
experience than that I have ten toes? That
previous experience may very well be the
cause of my present certitude; but is it
its ground?
430. I meet someone from Mars and he asks
me "How many toes have human beings
got?" - I say "Ten. I'll show you",
and take my shoes off. Suppose he was surprised
that I knew with such certainty, although
I hadn't looked at my toes - ought I to say:
"We humans know how many toes we have
whether we can see them or not"?
26.3.51
431. "I know that this room is on the
second floor, that behind the door a short
landing leads to the stairs, and so on."
One could imagine cases where I should come
out with this, but they would be extremely
rare. But on the other hand I show this knowledge
day in, day out by my actions and also in
what I say. Now what does someone else gather
from these actions and words of mine? Won't
it be just that I am sure of my ground? -
From the fact that I have been living here
for many weeks and have gone up and down
the stairs every day he will gather that
I know where my room is situated. - I shall
give him the assurance "I know"
when he does not already know things which
would have compelled the conclusion that
I knew.
432. The utterance "I know..."
can only have its meaning in connection with
the other evidence of my 'knowing'.
433. So if I say to someone "I know
that that's a tree", it is also as if
I told him "that is a tree; you can
absolutely rely on it; there is no doubt
about it". And a philosopher could only
use the statement to show that this form
of speech is actually used. But if his use
of it is not to be merely an observation
about English grammar, he must give the circumstances
in which this expression functions.
434. Now does experience teach us that in
such-and-such circumstances people know this
and that? Certainly, experience shows us
that normally after so-and-so many days a
man can find his way about a house he has
been living in. Or even: experience teaches
us that after such-and-such a period of training
a man's judgment is to be trusted. He must,
experience tells us, have learnt for so long
in order to be able to make a correct prediction.
But -----.
27.3
435. One is often bewitched by a word. For
example, by the word "know".
436. Is God bound by our knowledge? Are a
lot of our statements incapable of falsehood?
For that is what we want to say.
437. I am inclined to say: "That cannot
be false." That is interesting. But
what consequences has it?
438. It would not be enough to assure someone
that I know what is going on at a certain
place - without giving him grounds that satisfy
him that I am in a position to know.
439. Even the statement "I know that
behind this door there is a landing and the
stairway down to the ground floor" only
sounds so convincing because everyone takes
it for granted that I know it.
440. There is something universal here; not
just something personal.
441. In a court of law the mere assurance
"I know..." on the part of a witness
would convince no one. It must be shown that
he was in a position to know. Even the assurance
"I know that that's a hand", said
while someone looked at his own hand, would
not be credible unless we knew the circumstances
in which it was said. And if we do know them,
it seems to be an assurance that the person
speaking is normal in this respect.
442. For may it not happen that I imagine
myself to know something?
443. Suppose that in a certain language there
were no word corresponding to our "know".
- The people simply make assertions. ("That
is a tree", etc.) Naturally it can occur
for them to make mistakes. And so they attach
a sign to the sentence which indicates how
probable they take a mistake to be - or should
I say, how probable a mistake is in this
case? This latter can also be indicated by
mentioning certain circumstances. For example
"Then A said to B '...' I was standing
quite close to them and my hearing is good",
or "A was at such-and-such a place yesterday.
I saw him from a long way off. My eyes are
not very good", or "There is a
tree over there: I can see it clearly and
I have seen it innumerable times before".
444. "The train leaves at two o'clock.
Check it once more to make certain"
or "The train leaves at two o'clock.
I have just looked it up in a new time-table."
One may also add "I am reliable in such
matters". The usefulness of such additions
is obvious.
445. But if I say "I have two hands",
what can I add to indicate reliability? At
the most that the circumstances are the ordinary
ones.
446. But why am I so certain that this is
my hand? Doesn't the whole language-game
rest on this kind of certainty? Or: isn't
this 'certainty' (already) presupposed in
the language-game? Namely by virtue of the
fact that one is not playing the game, or
is playing it wrong, if one does not recognize
objects with certainty.
28.3
447. Compare with this 12x12=144. Here too
we don't say "perhaps". For, in
so far as this proposition rests on our not
miscounting or miscalculating and on our
senses not deceiving us as we calculate,
both propositions, the arithmetical one and
the physical one, are on the same level.
I want to say: The physical game is just
as certain as the arithmetical. But this
can be misunderstood. My remark is a logical
and not a psychological one.
448. I want to say: If one doesn't marvel
at the fact that the propositions of arithmetic
(e. g. the multiplication tables) are 'absolutely
certain', then why should one be astonished
that the proposition "This is my hand"
is so equally?
449. Something must be taught us as a foundation.
450. I want to say: our learning has the
form "that is a violet", "that
is a table". Admittedly, the child might
hear the word "violet" for the
first time in the sentence "perhaps
that is a violet", but then he could
ask "what is a violet?" Now this
might of course be answered by showing him
a picture. But how would it be if one said
"that is a..." only when showing
him a picture, but otherwise said nothing
but "perhaps that is a..." - What
practical consequences is that supposed to
have? A doubt that doubted everything would
not be a doubt.
451. My objection against Moore, that the
meaning of the isolated sentence "That
is a tree" is undetermined, since it
is not determined what the "that"
is that is said to be a tree - doesn't work,
for one can make the meaning more definite
by saying, for example: "The object
over there that looks like a tree is not
an artificial imitation of a tree but a real
one."
452. It would not be reasonable to doubt
if that was a real tree or only... My finding
it beyond doubt is not what counts. If a
doubt would be unreasonable, that cannot
be seen from what I hold. There would therefore
have to be a rule that declares doubt to
be unreasonable here. But there isn't such
a rule, either.
453. I do indeed say: "Here no reasonable
person would doubt." - Could we imagine
learned judges being asked whether a doubt
was reasonable or unreasonable?
454. There are cases where doubt is unreasonable,
but others where it seems logically impossible.
And there seems to be no clear boundary between
them.
29.3
455. Every language-game is based on words
'and objects' being recognized again. We
learn with the same inexorability that is
a chair as that 2x2=4.
456. If, therefore, I doubt or am uncertain
about this being my hand (in whatever sense),
why not in that case about the meaning of
these words as well?
457. Do I want to say, then, that certainty
resides in the nature of the language-game?
458. One doubts on specific grounds. The
question is this: how is doubt introduced
into the language-game?
459. If the shopkeeper wanted to investigate
each of his apples without any reason, for
the sake of being certain about everything,
why doesn't he have to investigate the investigation?
And can one talk of belief here (I mean belief
as in 'religious belief', not surmise)? All
psychological terms merely distract us from
the thing that really matters.
460. I go to the doctor, show him my hand
and say "This is a hand, not...; I've
injured it, etc., etc." Am I only giving
him a piece of superfluous information? For
example, mightn't one say: supposing the
words "This is a hand" were a piece
of information - how could you bank on his
understanding this information? Indeed, if
it is open to doubt 'whether that is a hand',
why isn't it also open to doubt whether I
am a human being who is informing the doctor
of this? - But on the other hand one can
imagine cases - even if they are very rare
ones - where this declaration is not superfluous,
or is only superfluous but not absurd.
461. Suppose that I were the doctor and a
patient came to me, showed me his hand and
said: "This thing that looks like a
hand isn't just a superb imitation - it really
is a hand" and went on to talk about
his injury - should I really take this as
a piece of information, even though a superfluous
one? Shouldn't I be more likely to consider
it nonsense, which admittedly did have the
form of a piece of information? For, I should
say, if this information really were meaningful,
how can he be certain of what he says? The
background is lacking for it to be information.
30/3
462. Why doesn't Moore produce as one of
the things that he knows, for example, that
is such-and-such a part of England there
is a village called so-and-so? In other words:
why doesn't he mention a fact that is known
to him and not to every one of us?
31/3
463. This is certainly true, that the information
"That is a tree", when no one could
doubt it, might be a kind of joke and as
such have meaning. A joke of this kind was
in fact made once by Renan.
3/4/51
464. My difficulty can also be shown like
this: I am sitting talking to a friend. Suddenly
I say: "I knew all along that you were
so-and-so." Is that really just a superfluous,
though true, remark? I feel as if these words
were like "Good morning" said to
someone in the middle of a conversation.
465. How would it be if we had the words
"They know nowadays that there are over...
species of insects" instead of "I
know that that's a tree"? If someone
were suddenly to utter the first sentence
out of all context one might think: he has
been thinking of something else in the interim
and is now saying out loud some sentence
in his train of thought. Or again: he is
in a trance and is speaking without understanding
what he is saying.
466. Thus it seems to me that I have known
something the whole time, and yet there is
no meaning in saying so, in uttering this
truth.
467. I am sitting with a philosopher in the
garden; he says again and again "I know
that that's a tree", pointing to a tree
that is near us. Someone else arrives and
hears this, and I tell him: "This fellow
isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy."
4/4
468. Someone says irrelevantly "That's
a tree". He might say this sentence
because he remembers having heard it in a
similar situation; or he was suddenly struck
by the tree's beauty and the sentence was
an exclamation; or he was pronouncing the
sentence to himself as a grammatical example;
etc., etc. And now I ask him "How did
you mean that?" and he replies "It
was a piece of information directed at you."
Shouldn't I be at liberty to assume that
he doesn't know what he is saying, if he
is insane enough to want to give me this
information?
469. In the middle of a conversation, someone
says to me out of the blue: "I wish
you luck." I am astonished; but later
I realize that these words connect up with
his thoughts about me. And now they do not
strike me as meaningless any more.
470. Why is there no doubt that I am called
L. W.? It does not seem at all like something
that one could establish at once beyond doubt.
One would not think that it is one of the
indubitable truths.
5/4 [Here there is still a big gap in my
thinking. And I doubt whether it will be
filled now.]
471. It is so difficult to find the beginning.
Or, better: it is difficult to begin at the
beginning. And not try to go further back.
472. When a child learns language it learns
at the same time what is to be investigated
and what not. When it learns that there is
a cupboard in the room, it isn't taught to
doubt whether what it sees later on is still
a cupboard or only a kind of stage set.
473. Just as in writing we learn a particular
basic form of letters and then vary it later,
so we learn first the stability of things
as the norm, which is then subject to alterations.
474. This games proves its worth. That may
be the cause of its being played, but it
is not the ground.
475. 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. Any logic good enough
for a primitive means of communication needs
no apology from us. Language did not emerge
from some kind of ratiocination [Raisonnement].
6/4
476. Children do not learn that books exist,
that armchairs exist, etc., etc. - they learn
to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc., etc.
Later, questions about the existence of things
do of course arise, "Is there such a
thing as a unicorn?" and so on. But
such a question is possible only because
as a rule no corresponding question presents
itself. For how does one know how to set
about satisfying oneself of the existence
of unicorns? How did one learn the method
for determining whether something exists
or not?
477. "So one must know that the objects
whose names one teaches a child by an ostensive
definition exist." - Why must one know
they do? Isn't it enough that experience
doesn't later show the opposite? For why
should the language-game rest on some kind
of knowledge?
7/4
478. Does a child believe that milk exists?
Or does it know that milk exists? Does a
cat know that a mouse exists?
479. Are we to say that the knowledge that
there are physical objects comes very early
or very late?
8/4
480. A child that is learning to use the
word "tree". One stands with it
in front of a tree and says "Lovely
tree!" Clearly no doubt as to the tree's
existence comes into the language-game. But
can the child be said to know: 'that a tree
exists'? Admittedly it's true that 'knowing
something' doesn't involve thinking about
it - but mustn't anyone who knows something
be capable of doubt? And doubting means thinking.
481. When one hears Moore say "I know
that that's a tree", one suddenly understands
those who think that that has by no means
been settled. The matter strikes one all
at once as being unclear and blurred. It
is as if Moore had put it in the wrong light.
It is as if I were to see a painting (say
a painted stage-set) and recognize what it
represents from a long way off at once and
without the slightest doubt. But now I step
nearer: and then I see a lot of patches of
different colours, which are all highly ambiguous
and do not provide any certainty whatever.
482. It is as if "I know" did not
tolerate a metaphysical emphasis.
483. The correct use of the expression "I
know". Someone with bad sight asks me:
"do you believe that the thing we can
see there is a tree?" I reply "I
know it is; I can see it clearly and am familiar
with it." - A: "Isn't N. N. at
home?" - I: "I believe he is."
- A: "Was he at home yesterday?"
- I; "Yesterday he was - I know he was;
I spoke to him." - A: "Do you know
or only believe that this part of the house
is built on later than the rest?" -
I: "I know it is; I got it from so and
so."
484. In these cases, then, one says "I
know" and mentions how one knows, or
at least one can do so.
485. We can also imagine a case where someone
goes through a list of propositions and as
he does so keeps asking "Do I know that
or do I only believe it?" He wants to
check the certainty of each individual proposition.
It might be a question of making a statement
as a witness before a court.
9/4
486. "Do you know or do you only believe
that your name is L. W.?" Is that a
meaningful question? Do you know or do you
only believe that what you are writing down
now are German words? Do you only believe
that "believe" has this meaning?
What meaning?
487. What is the proof that I know something?
Most certainly not my saying I know it.
488. And so, when writers enumerate all the
things they know, that proves nothing whatever.
So the possibility of knowledge about physical
objects cannot be proved by the protestations
of those who believe that they have such
knowledge.
489. For what reply does one make to someone
who says "I believe it merely strikes
you as if you knew it"?
490. When I ask "Do I know or do I only
believe that I am called...?" it is
no use to look within myself. But I could
say: not only do I never have the slightest
doubt that I am called that, but there is
no judgement I could be certain of if I started
doubting about that.
10/4
491. "Do I know or do I only believe
that I am called L. W.?" - Of course,
if the question were "Am I certain or
do I only surmise...?", then my answer
could be relied on.
492. "Do I know or do I only believe...?"
might also be expressed like this: What if
it seemed to turn out that what until now
has seemed immune to doubt was a false assumption?
Would I react as I do when a belief has proved
to be false? or would it seem to knock from
under my feet the ground on which I stand
in making any judgements at all? - But of
course I do not intend this as a prophecy.
Would I simply say "I should never have
thought it!" - or would I (have to)
refuse to revise my judgement - because such
a 'revision' would amount to annihilation
of all yardsticks?
493. So is this it: I must recognize certain
authorities in order to make judgements at
all?
494. "I cannot doubt this proposition
without giving up all judgement." But
what sort of proposition is that? (It is
reminiscent of what Frege said about the
law of identity.) It is certainly no empirical
proposition. It does not belong to psychology.
It has rather the character of a rule.
495. One might simply say "O, rubbish!"
to someone who wanted to make objections
to the propositions that are beyond doubt.
That is, not reply to him but admonish him.
496. This is a similar case to that of showing
that it has no meaning to say that a game
has always been played wrong.
497. If someone wanted to arouse doubts in
me and spoke like this: here your memory
is deceiving you, there you've been taken
in, there again you have not been thorough
enough in satisfying yourself, etc., and
if I did not allow myself to be shaken but
kept to my certainty - then my doing so cannot
be wrong, even if only because this is just
what defines a game.
11/4
498. 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").
499. I might also put it like this: the 'law
of induction' can no more be grounded than
certain particular propositions concerning
the material of experience.
500. But it would also strike me as nonsense
to say "I know that the law of induction
is true". Imagine such a statement made
in a court of law! It would be more correct
to say "I believe in the law of..."
where 'believe' has nothing to do with surmising.
501. Am I not getting closer and closer to
saying that in the end logic cannot be described?
You must look at the practice of language,
then you will see it.
502. Could one say "I know the position
of my hands with my eyes closed", if
the position I gave always or mostly contradicted
the evidence of other people?
503. I look at an object and say "That
is a tree", or "I know that that's
a tree". - Now if I go nearer and it
turns out that it isn't, I may say "It
wasn't a tree at all" or alternatively
I say "It was a tree but now it isn't
any longer". But if all the others contradicted
me, and said it never had been a tree, and
if all the other evidences spoke against
me - what good would it do to me to stick
to my "I know"?
504. Whether I know something depends on
whether the evidence backs me up or contradicts
me. For to say one knows one has a pain means
nothing.
505. It is always by favour of Nature that
one knows something.
506. "If my memory deceives me here
it can deceive me everywhere." If I
don't know that, how do I know if my words
mean what I believe they mean?
507. "If this deceives me, what does
'deceive' mean any more?"
508. What can I rely on?
509. I really want to say that a language-game
is only possible if one trusts something
(I did not say "can trust something").
510. If I say "Of course I know that
that's a towel" I am making an utterance.
I have no thought of a verification. For
me it is an immediate utterance. I don't
think of past or future. (And of course it's
the same for Moore, too.) It is just like
directly taking hold of something, as I take
hold of my towel without having doubts.
511. And yet this direct taking-hold corresponds
to a sureness, not to a knowing. But don't
I take hold of a thing's name like that,
too?
12/4
512. Isn't the question this: "What
if you had to change your opinion even on
these most fundamental things?" And
to that the answer seems to me to be: "You
don't have to change it. That is just what
their being 'fundamental' is."
513. What if something really unheard-of
happened? - If I, say, saw houses gradually
turning into steam without any obvious cause,
it the cattle in the fields stood on their
heads and laughed and spoke comprehensible
words; if trees gradually changed into men
and men into trees. Now, was I right when
I said before all these things happened "I
know that that's a house" etc., or simply
"that's a house" etc.?
514. This statement appeared to me fundamental;
if it is false, what are 'true' and 'false'
any more?!
515. If my name is not L. W., how can I rely
on what is meant by "true" and
"false"?
516. If something happened (such as someone
telling me something) calculated to make
me doubtful of my own name, there would certainly
also be something that made the grounds of
these doubts themselves seem doubtful, and
I could therefore decide to retain my old
belief.
517. But might it not be possible for something
to happen that threw me entirely off the
rails? Evidence that made the most certain
thing unacceptable to me? Or at any rate
made me throw over my most fundamental judgements?
(Whether rightly or wrongly is beside the
point.)
518. Could I imagine observing this in another
person?
519. Admittedly, if you are obeying the order
"Bring me a book", you may have
to check whether the thing you see over there
really is a book, but then you do at least
know what people mean by a "book";
and if you don't you can look it up, - but
then you must know what some other word means.
And the fact that a word means such-and-such,
is used in such-and-such a way, is in turn
an empirical fact, like the fact that what
you see over there is a book. Therefore,
in order for you to be able to carry out
an order there must be some empirical fact
about which you are not in doubt. Doubt itself
rests only on what is beyond doubt. But since
a language-game is something that consists
in the recurrent procedures of the game in
time, it seems impossible to say in any individual
case that such-and-such must be beyond doubt
if there is to be a language-game - though
it is right enough to say that as a rule
some empirical judgment or other must be
beyond doubt.
13/4
520. Moore has every right to say he knows
there's a tree there in front of him. Naturally
he may be wrong. (For it is not the same
as with the utterance "I believe there
is a tree there".) But whether he is
right or wrong in this case is of no philosophical
importance. If Moore is attacking those who
say that one cannot really know such a thing,
he can't do it by assuring them that he knows
this and that. For one need not believe him.
If his opponents had asserted that one could
not believe this and that, then he could
have replied: "I believe it".
14/4
521. Moore's mistake lies in this - countering
the assertion that one cannot know that,
by saying "I do know it".
522. We say: if a child has mastered language
- and hence its application - it must know
the meaning of words. It must, for example,
be able to attach the name of its colour
to white, black, red or blue object without
the occurrence of any doubt.
523. And indeed no one misses doubt here;
no one is surprised that we do not merely
surmise the meaning of our words.
15/4
524. Is it essential for our language-games
('ordering and obeying' for example) that
no doubt appears at certain points, or is
it enough if there is the feeling of being
sure, admittedly with a slight breath of
doubt? That is, is it enough if I do not,
as I do now, call something 'black', 'green',
'red', straight off, without any doubt at
all interposing itself - but do instead say
"I am sure that is red", as one
may say "I am sure that he will come
today" (in other words with the 'feeling
of being sure')? The accompanying feeling
is of course a matter of indifference to
us, and equally we have no need to bother
about the words "I am sure that"
either. - What is important is whether they
go with a difference in the practice of the
language. One might ask whether a person
who spoke like this would always say "I
am sure" on occasions where (for example)
there is sureness in the reports we make
( in an experiment, for example, we look
through a tube and report the colour we see
through it). If he does, our immediate inclination
will be to check what he says. But if he
proves to be perfectly reliable, one will
say that his way of talking is merely a bit
perverse, and does not affect the issue.
One might for example suppose that he has
read sceptical philosophers, become convinced
that one can know nothing, and that is why
he has adopted this way of speaking. Once
we are used to it, it does not infect practice.
525. What, then, does the case look like
where someone really has got a different
relationship to the names of colours, for
example, from us? Where, that is, there persists
a slight doubt or a possibility of doubt
in their use.
16/4
526. If someone were to look at an English
pillar-box and say "I am sure that it's
red", we should have to suppose that
he was colour-blind, or believe he had no
mastery of English and knew the correct name
for the colour in some other language. If
neither was the case we should not quite
understand him.
527. An Englishman who calls this colour
"red" is not 'sure it is called
"red" in English'. A child who
has mastered the use of the word is not 'sure
that in his language this colour is called...'.
Nor can one say of him that when he is learning
to speak he learns that the colour is called
that in English; not yet : he knows this
when he has learnt the use of the word.
528. And in spite of this: if someone asked
me what the colour was called in German and
I tell him, and now he asks me "are
you sure?" - then I shall reply "I
know it is; German is my mother tongue".
529. And one child, for example, will say,
of another or of himself, that he already
knows what such-and-such is called.
530. I may tell someone "this colour
is called 'red' in English" (when for
example I am teaching him English). In this
case I should not say "I know that this
colour..." - I would perhaps say that
if I had just now learned it, or by contrast
with another colour whose English name I
am not acquainted with.
531. But now, isn't it correct to describe
my present state as follows: I know what
this colour is called in English? And if
that is correct, why then should I not describe
my state with the corresponding words "I
know etc."?
532. So when Moore sat in front of a tree
and said "I know that that's a tree",
he was simply stating the truth about this
state at the time.
[I do philosophy now like an old woman who
is always mislaying something and having
to look for it again: now her spectacles,
now her keys.]
533. Well, if it was correct to describe
his state out of context, then it was just
as correct to utter the words "that's
a tree" out of context.
534. But is it wrong to say: "A child
that has mastered a language-game must know
certain things"? If instead of that
one said "must be able to do certain
things", that would be a pleonasm, yet
this is just what I want to counter the first
sentence with. - But : "a child acquires
a knowledge of natural history". That
presupposes that it can ask what such and
such a plant is called.
535. The child knows what something is called
if he can reply correctly to the question
"what is that called?"
536. Naturally, the child who is just learning
to speak has not yet got the concept is called
at all.
537. Can one say of someone who hasn't this
concept that he knows what such-and-such
is called?
538. The child, I should like to say, learns
to react in such-and-such a way; and in so
reacting it doesn't so far know anything.
Knowing only begins at a later lever.
539. Does it go for knowing as it does for
collecting?
540. A dog might learn to run to N at the
call "N", and to M at the call
"M", - but would that mean he knows
what these people are called?
541. "He only knows what this person
is called - not yet what that person is called".
That is something one cannot, strictly speaking,
say of someone who simply has not yet got
the concept of people's having names.
542. "I can't describe this flower if
I don't know that this colour is called 'red'.
"
543. A child can use the names of people
long before he can say in any form whatever:
"I know this one's name; I don't know
that one's yet."
544. Of course I may truthfully say "I
know what this colour is called in English",
at the same time as I point (for example)
to the colour of fresh blood. But ---
17/4
545. 'A child knows which colour is meant
by the word "blue".' What he knows
here is not all that simple.
546. I should say "I know what this
colour is called" if e. g. what is in
question is shades of colour whose name not
everybody knows.
547. One can't yet say to a child who is
just beginning to speak and can use the words
"red" and "blue": "Come
on, you know what this colour is called!"
548. A child must learn the use of colour
words before it can ask for the name of a
colour.
549. It would be wrong to say that I can
only say "I know that there is a chair
there" when there is a chair there.
Of course it isn't true unless there is,
but I have a right to say this if I am sure
there is a chair there, even if I am wrong.
[Pretensions are a mortgage which burdens
a philosopher's capacity to think.]
18/4
550. If someone believes something, we needn't
always be able to answer the question 'why
he believes it'; but if he knows something,
then the question "how does he know?"
must be capable of being answered.
551. And if one does answer this question,
one must do so according to generally accepted
axioms. This is how something of this sort
may be known.
552. Do I know that I am now sitting in a
chair? - Don't I know it?! In the present
circumstances no one is going to say that
I know this; but no more will he say, for
example, that I am conscious. Nor will one
normally say that of the passers-by in the
street. But now, even if one doesn't say
it, does that make it untrue??
553. It is queer: if I say, without any special
occasion, "I know" - for example,
"I know that I am now sitting in a chair",
this statement seems to me unjustified and
presumptuous. But if I make the same statement
where there is some need for it, then, although
I am not a jot more certain of its truth,
it seems to me to be perfectly justified
and everyday.
554. In its language-game it is not presumptuous.
There, it has no higher position than, simply,
the human language-game. For there it has
its restricted application. But as soon as
I say this sentence outside its context,
it appears in a false light. For then it
is as if I wanted to insist that there are
things that I know. God himself can't say
anything to me about them.
19/4
555. We say we know that water boils when
it is put over a fire. How do we know? Experience
has taught us. - I say "I know that
I had breakfeast this morning"; experience
hasn't taught me that. One also says "I
know that he is in pain". The language-game
is different every time, we are sure every
time, and people will agree with us that
we are in a position to know every time.
And that is why the propositions of physics
are found in textbooks for everyone. If someone
says he know something, it must be something
that, by general consent, he is in a position
to know.
556. One doesn't say: he is in a position
to believe that. But one does say: "It
is reasonable to assume that in this situation"
(or "to believe that").
557. A court-martial may well have to decide
whether it was reasonable in such-and-such
a situation to have assumed this or that
with confidence (even thought wrongly).
558. We say we know that water boils and
does not freeze under such-and-such circumstances.
Is it conceivable that we are wrong? Wouldn't
a mistake topple all judgment with it? More:
what could stand if that were to fall? Might
someone discover something that made us say
"It was a mistake"? Whatever may
happen in the future, however water may behave
in the future, - we know that up to now it
has behaved thus in innumerable instances.
This fact is fused into the foundations of
our language-game.
559. 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.
560. And the concept of knowing is coupled
with that of the language-game.
561. "I know" and "You can
rely on it". But one cannot always substitute
the latter for the former.
562. At any rate it is important to imagine
a language in which our concept 'knowledge'
does not exist.
563. One says "I know that he is in
pain" although one can produce no convincing
grounds for this. - Is this the same as "I
am sure that he..."? - No, "I am
sure" tells you my subjective certainty.
"I know" means that I who know
it, and the person who doesn't are separated
by a difference in understanding. (Perhaps
based on a difference in degree of experience.)
If I say "I know" in mathematics,
the justification for this is a proof.
If in these two cases instead of "I
know", one says "you can rely on
it" then the substantiation is of a
different kind in each case. And substantiation
comes to an end.
564. A language-game: bringing building stones,
reporting the number of available stones.
The number is sometimes estimated, sometimes
established by counting. Then the question
arises "Do you believe there are as
many stones as that?", and the answer
"I know there are - I've just counted
them". But here the "I know"
could be dropped. If, however, there are
several ways of finding something out for
sure, like counting, weighing, measuring
the stack, then the statement "I know"
can take the place of mentioning how I know.
565. But here there isn't yet any question
of any "knowledge" that this is
called "a slab", this "a pillar",
etc.
566. Nor does a child who learns my language-game
(PI No. 2) learn to say "I know that
this is called 'a slab' ". Now of course
there is a language-game in which the child
uses that sentence. This presupposes that
the child is already capable of using the
name as soon as he is given it. (As if someone
were to tell me "this colour is called...")
- Thus, if the child has learnt a language-game
with building stones, one can say something
like "and this stone is called...",
and in this way the original language-game
has been expanded.
567. And now, is my knowledge that I am called
L. W. of the same kind as knowledge that
water boils at 100C? Of course, this question
is wrongly put.
568. If one of my names were used only very
rarely, then it might happen that I did not
know it. It goes without saying that I know
my name, only because, like anyone else,
I use it over and over again.
569. An inner experience cannot show me that
I know something. Hence, if in spite of that
I say, "I know that my name is...",
and yet it is obviously not an empirical
proposition,---
570. "I know this is my name; among
us any grown-up knows what his name is."
571. "My name is... - you can rely on
that. If it turns out to be wrong you need
never believe me in the future."
572. Don't I seem to know that I can't be
wrong about such a thing as my own name?
This comes out in the words: "If that
is wrong, then I am crazy". Very well,
but those are words; but what influence has
it on the application of language?
573. Is it through the impossibility of anything's
convincing me of the contrary?
574. The question is, what kind of proposition
is: "I know I can't be mistaken about
that", or again "I can't be mistaken
about that"? This "I know"
seems to prescind from all grounds: I simply
know it. But if there can be any question
at all of being mistaken here, then it must
be possible to test whether I know it.
575. Thus the purpose of the phrase "I
know" might be to indicate where I can
be relied on; but where that's what it's
doing, the usefulness of this sign must emerge
from experience.
576. One might say "How do I know that
I'm not mistaken about my name?" - and
if the reply was "Because I have used
it so often", one might go on to ask
"How do I know that I am not mistaken
about that?" And here the "How
do I know" cannot any longer have any
significance.
577. "My knowledge of my name is absolutely
definite." I would refuse to entertain
any argument that tried to show the opposite!
And what does "I would refuse"
mean? Is it the expression of an intention?
578. But mightn't a higher authority assure
me that I don't know the truth? So that I
had to say "Teach me!" ? But then
my eyes would have to be opened.
579. It is part of the language-game with
people's names that everyone knows his name
with the greatest certainty.
20/4
580. It might surely happen that whenever
I said "I know" it turned out to
be wrong. (Showing up.)
581. But perhaps I might nevertheless be
unable to help myself, so that I kept on
declaring "I know...". But ask
yourself: how did the child learn the expression?
582. "I know that" may mean; I
am quite familiar with it - or again: it
is certainly so.
583. "I know that the name of this in...
is..." - How do you know? - "I
have learnt...". Could I substitute
"In... the name of this is..."
for "I know etc" in this example?
584. Would it be possible to make use of
the verb "know" only in the question
"How do you know?" following a
simple assertion? - Instead of "I already
know that" one says "I am familiar
with that"; and this follows only upon
being told the fact. But what does one say
instead of "I know what that is"?
585. But doesn't "I know that that's
a tree" say something different from
"that is a tree"?
586. Instead of "I know what that is"
one might say "I can say what that is".
And if one adopted this form of expression
what would then become of "I know that
that is a..."?
587. Back to the question whether "I
know that that's a..." says anything
different from "that is a...".
In the first sentence a person is mentioned,
in the second, not. But that does not show
that they have different meanings. At all
events one often replaces the first form
by the second, and then often gives the latter
a special intonation. For one speaks differently
when one makes an uncontradicted assertion
from when one maintains an assertion in face
of contradiction.
588. But don't I use the words "I know
that..." to say that I am in a certain
state, whereas the mere assertion "that
is a..." does not say this? And yet
one often does reply to such an assertion
by asking "how do you know?" -
"But surely, only because the fact that
I assert this gives to understand that I
think I know it." - This point could
be made in the following way: in a zoo there
might be a notice "this is a zebra";
but never "I know that this is a zebra".
"I know" has meaning only when
it is uttered by a person. But, given that,
it is a matter of indifference whether what
is uttered is "I know..." or "That
is...".
589. For how does a man learn to recognize
his own state of knowing something?
590. At most one might speak of recognizing
a state, where what is said is "I know
what that is". Here one can satisfy
oneself that one really is in possession
of this knowledge.
591. "I know what kind of tree that
is. - It is a chestnut." "I know
what kind of tree that is. - I know it's
a chestnut." The first statement sounds
more natural than the second. One will only
say "I know" a second time if one
wants especially to emphasize certainty;
perhaps to anticipate being contradicted.
The first "I know" means roughly:
I can say. But in another case one might
begin with the observation "that's a...",
and then, when this is contradicted, counter
by saying: "I know what sort of tree
it is", and by this means lay emphasis
on being sure.
592. "I can tell you what kind of a...
that is, and no doubt about it."
593. Even when one can replace "I know"
by "It is..." still one cannot
replace the negation of the one by the negation
of the other. With "I don't know..."
a new element enters our language-games.
21/4
594. My name is "L. W." And if
someone were to dispute it, I should straightaway
make connexions with innumerable things which
make it certain.
595. "But I can still imagine someone
making all these connexions, and none of
them corresponding with reality. Why shouldn't
I be in a similar case?" If I imagine
such a person I also imagine a reality, a
world that surrounds him; and I imagine him
as thinking (and speaking) in contradiction
to this world.
596. If someone tells me his name is N. N.,
it is meaningful for me to ask him "Can
you be mistaken?" That is an allowable
question in the language-game. And the answer
to it, yes or no, makes sense. - Now of course
this answer is not infallible either, i.
e., there might be a time when it proved
to be wrong, but that does not deprive the
question "Can you be..." and the
answer "No" of their meaning.
597. The reply to the question "Can
you be mistaken?" gives the statement
a definite weight. The answer may also be:
"I don't think so."
598. But couldn't one reply to the question
"Can you..." by saying: "I
will describe the case to you and then you
can judge for yourself whether I can be mistaken"?
For example, if it were a question of someone's
own name, the fact might be that he had never
used this name, but remembered he had read
it on some document, - but on the other hand
the answer might be: "I've had this
name my whole life long, I've been called
it by everybody." If that is not equivalent
to the answer "I can't be mistaken",
then the latter has no meaning whatever.
And yet quite obviously it points to a very
important distinction.
599. For example one could describe the certainty
of the proposition that water boils at circa
100C. That isn't e. g. a proposition I have
once heard (like this or that, which I could
mention). I made the experiment myself at
school. The proposition is a very elementary
one in our text-books, which are to be trusted
in matters like this because... - Now one
can offer counter-examples to all this, which
show that human beings have held this and
that to be certain which later, according
to our opinion, proved false. But the argument
is worthless. [May it not also happen that
we believe we recognize a mistake of earlier
times and later come to the conclusion that
the first opinion was the right one? etc.]
To say: in the end we can only adduce such
grounds as we hold to be grounds, is to say
nothing at all. I believe that at the bottom
of this is a misunderstanding of the nature
of our language-games.
600. What kind of grounds have I for trusting
text-books of experimental physics? I have
no grounds for not trusting them. And I trust
them. I know how such books are produced
- or rather, I believe I know. I have some
evidence, but it does not go very far and
is of a very scattered nature. I have heard,
seen and read various things.
22/4
601. There is always the danger of wanting
to find an expression's meaning by contemplating
the expression itself, and the frame of mind
in which one uses it, instead of always thinking
of the practice. That is why one repeats
the expression to oneself so often, because
it is as if one must see what one is looking
for in the expression and in the feeling
it gives one.
23/4
602. Should I say "I believe in physics",
or "I know that physics is true"?
603. I am taught that under such circumstances
this happens. It has been discovered by making
the experiment a few times. Not that that
would prove anything to us, if it weren't
that this experience was surrounded by others
which combine with it to form a system. Thus,
people did not make experiments just about
falling bodies but also about air resistence
and all sorts of other things. But in the
end I rely on these experiences, or on the
reports of them, I feel no scruples about
ordering my own activities in accordance
with them. - But hasn't this trust also proved
itself? So far as I can judge - yes.
604. In a court of law the statement of a
physicist that water boils at about 100C
would be accepted unconditionally as truth.
If I mistrusted this statement what could
I do to undermine it? Set up experiments
myself? What would they prove?
605. But what if the physicist's statement
were superstition and it were just as absurd
to go by it in reaching a verdict as to rely
on ordeal by fire?
606. That to my mind someone else has been
wrong is no ground for assuming that I am
wrong now. - But isn't it a ground for assuming
that I might be wrong? It is no ground for
any unsureness in my judgement, or my actions.
607. A judge might even say "That is
the truth - so far as a human being can know
it." But what would this rider [Zusatz]
achieve? ("beyond all reasonable doubt").
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.)
613. If I now say "I know that the water
in the kettle in the gas-flame will not freeze
but boil", I seem to be as justified
in this "I know" as I am in any.
'If I know anything I know this'. - Or do
I know with still greater certainty that
the person opposite me is my old friend so-and-so?
And how does that compare with the proposition
that I am seeing with two eyes and shall
see them if I look in the glass? - I don't
know confidently what I am to answer here.
- But still there is a difference between
cases. If the water over the gas freezes,
of course I shall be as astonished as can
be, but I shall assume some factor I don't
know of, and perhaps leave the matter to
physicists to judge. But what could make
me doubt whether this person here is N. N.,
whom I have known for years? Here a doubt
would seem to drag everything with it and
plunge it into chaos.
614. That is to say: If I were contradicted
on all sides and told that this person's
name was not what I had always known it was
(and I use "know" here intentionally),
then in that case the foundation of all judging
would be taken away from me.
615. Now does that mean: "I can only
make judgements at all because things behave
thus and thus (as it were, behave kindly)"?
616. Why, would it be unthinkable that I
should stay in the saddle however much the
facts bucked?
617. Certain events would me into a position
in which I could not go on with the old language-game
any further. In which I was torn away from
the sureness of the game. Indeed, doesn't
it seem obvious that the possibility of a
language-game is conditioned by certain facts?
618. In that case it would seem as if the
language-game must 'show' the facts that
make it possible. (But that's not how it
is.) Then can one say that only a certain
regularity in occurrences makes induction
possible? The 'possible' would of course
have to be 'logically possible'.
619. Am I to say: even if an irregularity
in natural events did suddenly occur, that
wouldn't have to throw me out of the saddle,
I might make inferences then just as before,
but whether one would call that "induction"
is another question.
620. In particular circumstances one says
"you can rely on this"; and this
assurance may be justified or unjustified
in everyday language, and it may also count
as justified even when what was foretold
does not occur. A language-game exists in
which this assurance is employed.
24/4
621. If anatomy were under discussion I should
say: "I know that twelve pairs of nerves
lead from the brain." I have never seen
these nerves, and even a specialist will
only have observed them in a few specimens.
- This just is how the word "know"
is correctly used here.
622. But now it is also correct to use "I
know" in the contexts which Moore mentioned,
at least in particular circumstances. (Indeed,
I do not know what "I know that I am
a human being" means. But even that
might be given a sense.) For each one of
these sentences I can imagine circumstances
that turn it into a move in one of our language-games,
and by that it loses everything that is philosophically
astonishing.
623. What is odd is that in such a case I
always feel like saying (although it is wrong):
"I know that - so far as one can know
such a thing." That is incorrect, but
something right is hidden behind it.
624. "Can you be mistaken about this
colour's being called 'green' in English?"
My answer to this can only be "No".
If I were to say "Yes, for there is
always the possibility of delusion",
that would mean nothing at all. For is that
rider [Nachsatz] something unknown to the
other? And how is it known to me?
625. But does that mean that it is unthinkable
that the word "green" should have
been produced here by a slip of the tongue
or a momentary confusion? Don't we know of
such cases? - One can also say to someone
"Mightn't you perhaps have made a slip?"
That amounts to: "Think about it again."
- But these rules of caution only make sense
if they come to an end somewhere. A doubt
without an end is not even a doubt.
626. Nor does it mean anything to say: "The
English name of this colour is certainly
'green', - unless, of course, I am making
a slip of the tongue or am confused in some
way."
627. Wouldn't one have to insert this clause
into all language-games? (Which shows its
senselessness.)
628. When we say "Certain propositions
must be excluded from doubt", it sounds
as if I ought to put these propositions -
for example, that I am called L. W. - into
a logic-book. For if it belongs to the description
of a language-game, it belongs to logic.
But that I am called L. W. does not belong
to any such description. The language-game
that operates with people's names can certainly
exist even if I am mistaken about my name,
- but it does presuppose that it is nonsensical
to say that the majority of people are mistaken
about their names.
629. On the other hand, however, it is right
to say of myself "I cannot be mistaken
about my name", and wrong if I say "perhaps
I am mistaken". But that doesn't mean
that it is meaningless for others to doubt
what I declare to be certain.
630. It is simply the normal case, to be
incapable of mistake about the designation
of certain things in one's mother tongue.
631. "I can't be making a mistake about
it" simply characterizes one kind of
assertion.
632. Certain and uncertain memory. If certain
memory were not in general more reliable
than uncertain memory, i. e., if it were
not confirmed by further verification more
often than uncertain memory was, then the
expression of certainty and uncertainty would
not have its present function in language.
633. "I can't be making a mistake"
- but what if I did make a mistake then,
after all? For isn't that possible? But does
that make the expression "I can't be
etc." nonsense? Or would it be better
to say instead "I can hardly be mistaken"?
No; for that means something else.
634. "I can't be making a mistake; and
if the worst comes to the worst I shall make
my proposition into a norm."
635. "I can't be making a mistake; I
was with him today."
636. "I can't be making a mistake; but
if after all something should appear to speak
against my proposition I shall stick to it,
despite this appearance."
637. "I can't etc." shows my assertion
its place in the game. But it relates essentially
to me, not to the game in general. If I am
wrong in my assertion that doesn't detract
from the usefulness of the language-game.
25/4
638. "I can't be making a mistake"
is an ordinary sentence, which serves to
give the certainty-value of a statement.
And only in its everyday use it is justified.
639. But what the devil use is it if - as
everyone admits - I may be wrong about it,
and therefore about the proposition it was
supposed to support too?
640. Or shall I say: the sentence excludes
a certain kind of failure?
641. "He told me about it today - I
can't be making a mistake about that."
- But what if it does turn out to be wrong?!
- Mustn't one make a distinction between
the ways in which something 'turns out wrong'?
- How can it be shown that my statement was
wrong? Here evidence is facing evidence,
and it must be decided which is to give way.
642. But suppose someone produced the scruple:
what if I suddenly as it were woke up and
said "Just think, I've been imagining
I was called L. W.!" ---- well, who
says that I don't wake up once again and
call this an extraordinary fancy, and so
on?
643. Admittedly one can imagine a case -
and cases do exist - where after the 'awakening'
one never has any more doubt which was imagination
and which was reality. But such a case, or
its possibility, doesn't discredit the proposition
"I can't be wrong".
644. For otherwise, wouldn't all assertion
be discredited in this way?
645. I can't be making a mistake, - but some
day, rightly or wrongly, I may think I realize
that I was not competent to judge.
646. Admittedly, if that always or often
happened it would completely alter the character
of the language-game.
647. There is a difference between a mistake
for which, as it were, a place is prepared
in the game, and a complete irregularity
that happens as an exception.
648. I may also convince someone else that
I 'can't be making a mistake'. I say to someone
"So-and-so was with me this morning
and told me such-and-such". If this
is astonishing he may ask me: "You can't
be mistaken about it?" That may mean:
"Did that really happen this morning?"
or on the other hand: "Are you sure
you understood him properly?" It is
easy to see what details I should add to
show that I was not wrong about the time,
and similarly to show that I hadn't misunderstood
the story. But all that can not show that
I haven't dreamed the whole thing, or imagined
it to myself in a dreamy way. Nor can it
show that I haven't perhaps made some slip
of the tongue throughout. (That sort of thing
does happen.)
649. (I once said to someone - in English
- that the shape of a certain branch was
typical of the branch of an elm, which my
companion denied. Then we came past some
ashes, and I said "There, you see, here
are the branches I was speaking about."
To which he replied "But that's an ash"
- and I said "I always meant ash when
I said elm".)
650. This surely means: the possibility of
a mistake can be eliminated in certain (numerous)
cases. - And one does eliminate mistakes
in calculation in this way. For when a calculation
has been checked over and over again one
cannot then say "Its rightness is still
only very probable - for an error may always
still have slipped in". For suppose
it did seem for once as if an error had been
discovered - why shouldn't we suspect an
error here?
651. I cannot be making a mistake about 12x12
being 144. And now one cannot contrast mathematical
certainty with the relative uncertainty of
empirical propositions. For the mathematical
proposition has been obtained by a series
of actions that are in no way different from
the actions of the rest of our lives, and
are in the same degree liable to forgetfulness,
oversight and illusion.
652. Now can I prophesy that men will never
throw over the present arithmetical propositions,
never say that now at last they know how
the matter stands? Yet would that justify
a doubt on our part?
653. If the proposition 12x12=144 is exempt
from doubt, then so too must non-mathematical
propositions be.
26/4/51
654. But against this there are plenty of
objections. - In the first place there is
the fact that "12x12 etc." is a
mathematical proposition, and from this one
may infer that only mathematical propositions
are in this situation. And if this inference
is not justified, then there ought to be
a proposition that is just as certain, and
deals with the process of this calculation,
but isn't itself mathematical. I am thinking
of such a proposition as: "The multiplication
'12x12', when carried out by people who know
how to calculate, will in the great majority
of cases give the result '144'." Nobody
will contest this proposition, and naturally
it is not a mathematical one. But has it
got the certainty of the mathematical proposition?
655. The mathematical proposition has, as
it were officially, been given the stamp
of incontestability. I. e.: "Dispute
about other things; this is immovable - it
is a hinge on which your dispute can turn."
656. And one can not say that of the propositions
that I am called L. W. Nor of the proposition
that such-and-such people have calculated
such-and-such a problem correctly.
657. The propositions of mathematics might
be said to be fossilized. - The proposition
"I am called...." is not. But it
too is regarded as incontrovertible by those
who, like myself, have overwhelming evidence
for it. And this not out of thoughtlessness.
For, the evidence's being overwhelming consists
precisely in the fact that we do not need
to give way before any contrary evidence.
And so we have here a buttress similar to
the one that makes the propositions of mathematics
incontrovertible.
658. The question "But mightn't you
be in the grip of a delusion now and perhaps
later find this out?" - might also be
raised as an objection to any proposition
of the multiplication tables.
659. "I cannot be making a mistake about
the fact that I have just had lunch."
For if I say to someone "I have just
eaten" he may believe that I am lying
or have momentarily lost my wits but he won't
believe that I am making a mistake. Indeed,
the assumption that I might be making a mistake
has no meaning here. But that isn't true.
I might, for example, have dropped off immediately
after the meal without knowing it and have
slept for an hour, and now believe I have
just eaten. But still, I distinguish here
between different kinds of mistake.
660. I might ask: "How could I be making
a mistake about my name being L. W.?"
And I can say: I can't see how it would be
possible.
661. How might I be mistaken in my assumption
that I was never on the moon?
662. If I were to say "I have never
been on the moon - but I may be mistaken",
that would be idiotic. For even the thought
that I might have transported there, by unknown
means, in my sleep, would not give me any
right to speak of a possible mistake here.
I play the game wrong if I do.
663. I have a right to say "I can't
be making a mistake about this" even
if I am in error.
664. It makes a difference: whether one is
learning in school what is right and wrong
in mathematics, or whether I myself say that
I cannot be making a mistake in a proposition.
665. In the latter case I am adding something
special to what is generally laid down.
666. But how is it for example with anatomy
(or a large part of it)? Isn't what it describes,
too, exempt from all doubt?
667. Even if I came to a country where they
believed that people were taken to the moon
in dreams, I couldn't say to them: "I
have never been to the moon. - Of course
I may be mistaken". And to their question
"Mayn't you be mistaken?" I should
have to answer: No.
668. What practical consequences has it if
I give a piece of information and add that
I can't be making a mistake about it?
(I might also add instead: "I can no
more be wrong about this than about my name's
being L. W.") The other person might
doubt my statement nonetheless. But if he
trusts me he will not only accept my information,
he will also draw definite conclusions from
my conviction, as to how I shall behave.
669. The sentence "I can't be making
a mistake" is certainly used in practice.
But we may question whether it is then to
be taken in a perfectly rigorous sense, or
is rather a kind of exaggeration which perhaps
is used only with a view to persuasion.
27/4
670. We might speak of fundamental principles
of human enquiry.
671. I fly from here to a part of the world
where the people have only indefinite information,
or none at all, about the possibility of
flying. I tell them I have just flown there
from... They ask me if I might be mistaken.
- They have obviously a false impression
of how the thing happens. (If I were packed
up in a box it would be possible for me to
be mistaken about the way I had travelled.)
If I simply tell them that I can't be mistaken,
that won't perhaps convince them; but it
will if I describe the actual procedure to
them. Then they will certainly not bring
the possibility of a mistake into the question.
But for all that - even if they trust me
- they might believe I had been dreaming
or that magic had made me imagine it.
672. "If I don't trust this evidence
why should I trust any evidence?"
673. Is it not difficult to distinguish between
the cases in which I cannot and those in
which I can hardly be mistaken? Is it always
clear to which kind a case belongs? I believe
not.
674. There are, however, certain types of
case in which I rightly say I cannot be making
a mistake, and Moore has given a few examples
of such cases. I can enumerate various typical
cases, but not give any common characteristic.
(N. N. cannot be mistaken about his flown
from America to England a few days ago. Only
if he is mad can he take anything else to
be possible.)
675. If someone believes that he has flown
from America to England in the last few days,
then, I believe, he cannot be making a mistake.
And just the same if someone says that he
is at this moment sitting at a table and
writing.
676. "But even if in such cases I can't
be mistaken, isn't it possible that I am
drugged?" If I am and if the drug has
taken away my consciousness, then I am not
now really talking and thinking. I cannot
seriously suppose that I am at this moment
dreaming. Someone who, dreaming, says "I
am dreaming", even if he speaks audibly
in doing so, is no more right than if he
said in his dream "it is raining",
while it was in fact raining. Even if his
dream were actually connected with the noise
of the rain.
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