Wittgenstein: Doubts and the Nonsense of Scepticism

Abstract

In this chapter I first present Wittgenstein’s description of our language game with ‘to doubt’. The criteria for the correct employment of ‘I doubt’ thus identified turn out to be systematically violated in the sceptic’s use of that expression. Hence, for Wittgenstein, sceptical as well as idealist doubts are nonsensical. I then turn to two classical arguments in favour of scepticism about the external world — viz. Descartes’ argument from dreaming and the Humean argument against the general reliability of the senses. I consider what I take to be Wittgenstein’s quite different answers against them, which I propose to dub ‘the linguistic argument against Cartesian scepticism’ and ‘the transcendental argument against Humean scepticism’ respectively. Finally, I look at two influential readings of Wittgenstein’s last argument — Crispin Wright’s and Michael Williams’ — and show why they don’t tally with the text and actually depend on failing to appreciate adequately Wittgenstein’s radical anti-epistemicism. Yet, it remains that the two broad antisceptical arguments which can be found in On Certainty deliver two different verdicts as to why scepticism would be nonsense. According to the latter, scepticism is nonsense because it is irrational, as it cannot be supported by reasons and actually depends on a misunderstanding of the conditions of possibility of there being epistemic justifications for or against any empirical claim.