situating cornerstone propositions关于基础命题.pdf

Open Journal of Philosophy 2012. Vol.2, No.4, 260-267 Published Online November 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ojpp) /10.4236/ojpp.2012.24038 Situating Cornerstone Propositions Patrice Philie Department of Philosophy, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada Email: pphilie@uottawa.ca Received July 31st nd th , 2012; revised September 2 , 2012; accepted September 14 , 2012 Ostensibly, Wittgenstein’s last remarks published in 1969 under the title On Certainty are about episte- mology, more precisely about the problem of scepticism. This is the standard interpretation of On Cer- tainty. But I contend, in this paper, that we will get closer to Wittgenstein’s intentions and perhaps find new and illuminating ways to interpret his late contribution if we keep in mind that his primary goal was not to provide an answer to scepticism. In fact, I think that the standard reading (independently of its fruitfulness with dealing with scepticism) leads to a distorted view of Wittgenstein’s contribution in On Certainty. In order to see that, scepticism will first be briefly characterised, and then I will attempt to cir- cumscribe more precisely the standard reading of On Certainty. In Criticism of the Standard Interpreta- tion, three exegetical arguments against the standard reading are offered—the hope b