Summary of 400-676 sections.
In these last sections, Wittgenstein tried to give his arguments as to why Moore’s argument is not enough to silence the sceptics’ incessant criticism regarding the possibility of knowledge. Wittgenstein has analysed the nature of Moore-type proposition “I know that P”, and come up with a list of possible scenarios in which those type of propositions makes sense, the nature of the relation between “I” (the person who is holding this particular belief) and the belief itself, whether in any case, Moore-type propositions provide an answer to sceptics.
Let us look at the relation between “I” and the “belief” in Moore’s proposition “I know these are my two hands.” Moore is not describing the proposition, whose information is available prerogative to only for him. All of Moore’s propositions are known to everybody else just like him. At section 462, Wittgenstein asks “Why doesn’t he (Moore) mention a fact that is known to him and not to every one of us? So, in all of his (Moore’s) examples, we seem to know just like him. So, to says that in a proposition like “I know P,” the belief “P” belongs only to the speaker is misleading. To make his point clear, Wittgenstein gives two propositions, in which, in one of the propositions there is a mentioning of “subjective attitude,” and the other one is merely stating the observation per se. In section 587, he says “...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 doesn’t show that they have different meanings. At all events, one often replaces the first form by the second, and then often gives the later a special intonation.” So, one of the implications of the above objection is that “I know” has meaning only when it uttered by a person. That is why there could not, for instance, be an impersonal notice on a cage in a zoo reading ‘I know that this is a zebra.’ He says at section 588, “But given that, it is a matter of indifference whether what is uttered is ‘I know...” or “That is…”.
However, Wittgenstein says that in some special circumstances, Moore-type propositions have some use, i.e., they are meaningful in those contexts. Wittgenstein admits that in unusual circumstances the Moore-type propositions can have a use, but not one which is a help against the sceptic. So, it is useless for the trustworthy Moore to assure the sceptic that he knows he has two hands. Wittgenstein devices various situations for the use of Moore-type propositions; ‘I know that that is a tree’ has a meaning when someone is worried about losing her eyesight. He says that he cannot find a situation for ‘I know that I am a human being,’ but thinks that even that might be given a sense (section 622). At section 622, he says “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.”
Wittgenstein says that Moore-type propositions don’t make sense at all outside appropriate situations. “I know that p” become senseless. These types of propositions, without appropriate surroundings, lacks all sense. He says at section 464 that “I am sitting talking to a friend. Suddenly I say: “I knew all along that you were so-and-so.”...I feel as if these words like “Good morning” said to someone in the middle of a conversation. So, in the above instance, saying “good morning” or randomly confessing one’s harbored beliefs to the friend out of nowhere doesn’t make sense it, until and unless we explain the intention behind those remarks. Convincing. He adds that one is that the information that “I know that this is a hand” is worth imparting, that casts doubt on its truth. Another is that the lack of appropriate context means that the sense of the remark is undetermined: ‘I know that’s a tree’ has no focussed meaning like ‘I know that these are my two hands.’
A most frequent reason for rejecting Moore’s ‘I know’ – namely, that ‘I know that p’ makes sense only when ‘I do not know’, ‘I doubt’, ‘I will check up that. .’ also make sense (section 574). At section 483, he says “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.” So, the utterance “I know” makes perfect sense where I can be asked ‘How do you know?’, and can reply by specifying one of several ways of finding out or resorting to some experience.
He says at section 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.” But, unlike other instances where we can have some sorts of grounds to justify our beliefs (I know propositions), Wittgenstein says that he cannot give any surer grounds for the proposition that I have two hands.
Not only he is unable to give ground for his belief, but also the possibility of doubt or resorting to some evidence doesn't make any sense at all in this proposition. That is why Wittgenstein says that Moore can’t know that he has two hands because there is no need for the justification for those kinds of the proposition, and the propositions which are in no need of justification are not knowable. Hence they are propositions with certainty.
Though Wittgenstein disregard Moore-type of propositions, he also says they have some particular uses in some language-games. He compares “I know that p” in some situations as making some utterance, and my conceptualizing those propositions as utterances, all he wants to say is that they are in no need of verification at all. At section 510, Wittgenstein says “Of course I know that that’s a towel” I am making an utterance. I have no thought of verification. For me, it is an immediate utterance. I don’t think of past or future (And of course it is the same for Moore, too). It is just like direct taking of something, as I take hold of my towel without having doubts.” And in the preceding section, he continues as “...yet this direct taking-hold corresponds to a sureness, not to a knowing.”
By ‘utterance’ in his other works Wittgenstein appears to mean a pre-propositional expression of a mental state – e.g. ‘I’m in pain’ considered as a cry of pain, not a report (section 510). Again ‘I know that that’s a hand’ can mean: I can play language-games with ‘hand’ – make statements like ‘I have a pain in this hand’ or ‘This hand is weaker than the other’ – language-games in which there is no doubt as to the existence of the hand. But Wittgenstein says that he would prefer to reserve ‘I know’ for the cases in which it is used in the normal interchange of conversation, where there is a possibility of doubt and verification or giving grounds for one’s own beliefs.
At times, Wittgenstein seems to agree that Moore knows Moore-type propositions. For instance, at section 520, he says “Moore has every right to say he knows there’s a tree there in front of him. Naturally, he may be wrong”. But he goes on to say that, whether he is right or wrong in this is of no philosophical importance, and it cannot help Moore’s case against the sceptic.
Wittgenstein proves the futility of Moore’s proposition by giving an incisive argument. The argument runs like this.
If Moore is attacking those who say that one cannot really know such a thing (sceptics saying we can’t know anything in general), he can’t do it by assuring them that he knows this and that (Moore saying “I know that these are my two hands”.) it is because one need not believe him.
If “I know” is used in a context where it is senseless, then Moore has fallen into the same error as the sceptic who has tried to doubt where doubt is senseless. For the possibility of doubt and the possibility of knowledge go together.
Either way, it is a mistake to counter the sceptic’s assertion that one cannot know something by saying ‘I do know it.’
So at section 521, he finally says what went wrong in Moore’s argument. Wittgenstein says “Moore’s mistake lies in this- countering the assertion that one cannot know that, by saying “I do know it.”
Though Wittgenstein was unwilling, in general, to agree with Moore that there were certain propositions which he knew, he thought that Moore was right that there were certain empirical propositions which had a special status. He says that they are empirical in a special sense. He says they are not the result of the inquiry, but the foundation of research. At section 657, he says that they were fossilized empirical propositions which form channels for the ordinary, fluid propositions. This why he characterized these special empirical propositions as forming the base of the language-game itself. At section 401, he says “Propositions of the form of empirical propositions, and not only propositions of logic, form the foundation of all operating with thoughts.” Later, he adds they are not, like ordinary empirical propositions, propositions about (parts of) the world: they are ones which make up our world-picture. A world-picture is not learned by experience.
Though these propositions give the foundations of the language-games, they do not provide grounds, or premises, for language-games. He says at section 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.”
He explained how a child learns the language itself. At section 472 he says “When a child learns a language it learns at the same time what is it be investigated and what not.” And at 476 he says “Children do not learn that books exist, that armchairs exit.,-they learn to fetch books, sit in armchairs, etc.” So, the proper way of learning depends on the proper way of doubting and questioning. And one can know the proper way of doubting and question only when one realizes the foundations of language-games itself, these foundations are nothing but the propositions with certainty. So, if one doesn’t discover or realizes the propositions with certainty, then she or he won’t be able to learn the “knowing” process of itself. So, in a sense, knowledge itself depends on these foundational beliefs. Knowledge is impossible if one doesn’t know what to doubt and what not to doubt.
Descartes would have been unmoved by the suggestion that some propositions stood fast because they were the foundation of all thought. For the hypothesis of the evil genius was precisely a theological version of the supposition that human nature, with all its language-games of reasoning and testing, was radically defective and misleading. But then Wittgenstein does not think the sceptic can be answered, can only be silenced. In describing the foundations of language-games, Wittgenstein says at section 618 “...that the language-game must show, rather than say, the facts that made it possible. But that’s not how it is).” This echoes with Tractatus idea of “showing” rather than “saying.”
He conceived a close relationship between logic and language-games, and he says if one pays close attention to the function of language-games, then one can also understand how logic functions. At section 501, he asks “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.”
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