On Certainty and On Doubt

On Certainty by Ludwig Wittgenstein, edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright (German-English edition). Harper Perennial, 1972, $14.99 paper.

WITTGENSTEIN NEVER again held the reins as tightly as he did in his first work, the Tractatus, published in 1921. It was the product of a fierce young man who was convinced of the unassailability of his position. He even said goodbye to the philosophical arena because he thought that the whole idea of philosophy had been shown its place.

Later he said that he had presented an artificially frozen position which in fact was more fluid than the one in print. Be that as it may, the astonishing fact is that in his later work he gradually turned many aspects of his original vision inside out. In the Tractatus there is a relentless dissecting to get to the essence of the subject under discussion. The result is an almost crystalline text, incisive, apodictic, commandeering.

The nature of his later work is precisely the opposite. Instead of a piercing glance, he now casts a wandering gaze into the world. The result is an associative mixture of questions, answers, observations, examples, suggestions, and cautions. His philosophizing is an instructive wandering around in everyday situations.

consists of 676 remarks covering 90 pages—the last one dating from April 27, 1951, two days before his death. In his last months (which I will hereafter refer to as ) was not written by a man who, under the shadow of his impending death, is attacked by doubts about what he took to be his certainties. The book shows how misguided such an attack would be. It is also the most accessible of Wittgenstein’s works.