'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Thursday, May 06, 2010

on certainty 446


446. But why am I so certain that this is my hand? Doesn’t the whole language-game rest on this kind of certainty?

Or: isn’t this ‘certainty’ (already) presupposed in the language-game? Namely by virtue of the fact that one is not playing the game, or is playing it wrong, if one does not recognize objects with certainty.



the language game rests on uncertainty

why am I so certain this is my hand?

if you are certain –

your game is the game of delusion and deception

if you are certain about description –

you are not ‘playing the game’ –

you are corrupting it


© greg t. charlton. 2010.