Certainty in Action: Wittgenstein on Language, Mind and Epistemology

281 Pages·2021·2 MB·

by  Danièle Moyal-Sharrock

Certainty in Action
i
Also available from Bloomsbury
Ethics aft er Wittgenstein, edited by Richard Amesbury and Hartmut von Sass
Portraits of Wittgenstein, edited by F.A. Flowers III and Ian Ground
Wittgenstein on Internal and External Relations, by Jakub M á cha
Wittgenstein, Religion and Ethics , edited by Mikel Burley
ii
Certainty in Action
Wittgenstein on Language, Mind and
Epistemology
Dani è le Moyal-Sharrock
iii
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA
29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain 2021

Copyright © Dani è le Moyal-Sharrock, 2021

Dani è le Moyal-Sharrock has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work.

For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. ix constitute an extension
of this copyright page.

Cover design by Charlotte Daniels Cover image: Winter Landscape with
Ice Skaters, Hendrick Avercamp, c. 1608, Photo by: Sepia Times/
Universal Images Group via Getty Images

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
in writing from the publishers.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any
third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in
this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher
regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have
ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-7129-2
ePDF: 978-1-3500-7130-8
eBook: 978-1-3500-7131-5

Typeset by Refi neCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

To fi nd out more about our authors and books, visit w ww.bloomsbury.com
and sign up for our newsletters.
iv
For my mother, Esther Moyal,
who gave me and taught me life, and the love of it.
v
vi
Contents
Preface viii
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations of Works by Wittgenstein xi
Introduction: Discovering Wittgenstein 1
Part 1 Language
1 Wittgenstein’s Grammar: Th rough Th ick and Th in 19
2 Universal Grammar: Wittgenstein versus Chomsky 33
3 ‘Words as Deeds’: Wittgenstein’s ‘Spontaneous Utterances’ and the
Dissolution of the Explanatory Gap 49
4 Literature as the Measure of our Lives 65
Part 2 Mind
5 From Deed to Word: Gapless and Kink-Free Enactivism 81
6 Wittgenstein and the Memory Debate 99
7 Wittgenstein on Psychological Certainty 117
Part 3 Epistemology
8 Wittgenstein on Knowledge and Certainty 137
9 Too Cavellian a Wittgenstein: Wittgenstein’s Certainty, Cavell’s Scepticism 155
10 Fighting Relativism: Wittgenstein and Kuhn 169
11 Beyond Hacker’s Wittgenstein 181
Notes 201
References 237
Index 251
vii
Preface
Th is selection of essays represents a distillation of twenty years of work in which my
understanding and appreciation of Wittgenstein’s genius was guided by three
exceptional philosophers: Avrum Stroll paved my way to On Certainty ; John V. Canfi eld
illuminated Wittgenstein’s philosophical psychology, and Peter Hacker shed an
indispensable light on the P hilosophical Investigations . While Peter Hacker is prominent
in this volume as a guide and an ally, he is also present as an admired and energizing
opponent.
I am also deeply indebted and grateful, both for their friendship and their intellectual
input over the years, to Anat Biletzki, Louise Barrett, Christiane Chauvir é , Frank Cioffi ,
David Cockburn, Annalisa Coliva, Raimond Gaita, Ken Gemes, Hans-Johann Glock,
Laurence Goldstein, Ian Ground, Bernard Harrison, Lars Hertzberg, Daniel D. Hutto,
Olli Lagerspetz, Sandra Laugier, Anat Matar, Brian McGuinness, Volker Munz, Erik
Myin, Alois Pichler, Nigel Pleasants, Duncan Pritchard, Constantine Sandis, Genia
Schönbaumsfeld, Paul Standish, David Stern, Michel ter Hark, Meredith Williams and
Michael Williams. It is to my husband, Peter Sharrock, who had F. R. Leavis as a teacher
at Cambridge, that I owe my discovery of Wittgenstein. Th is, along with his unswerving
confi dence and support, and his intellectual stimulation, have enabled me to become
the philosopher that I am.

A special note of thanks to Colleen Coalter, my publisher at Bloomsbury, for her
encouragement and advice in the publication of this volume, and for her long-time
support of the British Wittgenstein Society.
viii
Acknowledgements
Th is volume draws on previously published material, some of which has been updated.
Where pertinent, I am grateful to the publishers and editors for permission to reprint
either extracts or the entirety of my original articles:

‘Wittgenstein’s Razor: Th e Cutting Edge of Enactivism’, American Philosophical
Quarterly, 50 (3) 3 July 2013: 263–79.

‘Th e Myth of the Quietist Wittgenstein’ in Wittgenstein and Scientism , eds Jonathan
Beale and Ian Kidd. (London: Routledge, 2017), 152–74. Reproduced with permission
of Informa UK Limited through PLSclear.

‘Realism, but not empiricism: Wittgenstein versus Searle’ in A Wittgensteinian
Perspective on the Use of Conceptual Analysis in Psychology , eds Timothy P. Racine and
Kathleen L. Slaney (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 153–71. Reproduced with
permission of Springer Nature.

‘Wittgenstein’s Grammar: Th rough Th ick and Th in’ in wittgensteinian (adj.): Looking
at things from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy , eds S, Wuppuluri and N. da
Costa (Cham: Springer, 2020), 39–54. Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature
through RightsLink.

‘Universal Grammar: Wittgenstein versus Chomsky’ in A Companion to Wittgenstein
on Education: Pedagogical Investigations , eds M. A. Peters and J. Stickney (Cham:
Springer, 2017), 573–600. Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature through
RightsLink.

‘ “Words as Deeds” ’: Wittgenstein’s “Spontaneous Utterances” and the Dissolution
of the Explanatory Gap’, Philosophical Psychology, 13 (3) (September 2000): 355–72.
Reproduced with permission of Taylor & Francis through RightsLink.

‘Literature as the Measure of our Lives in W ittgenstein and the Limits of Language , ed.
Hanne Appelqvist (Abingdon: Routledge), 270–87. Reproduced with permission of
Taylor and Francis Group LLC (Books) US through PLSclear.

‘From Deed to Word: Gapless and Kink-free Enactivism’ in Radical Views of
Cognition in Synthese (2019). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-019-
02218-5#citeas Reproduced with permission of Springer Nature through RightsLink.

ix