15.4
524. It is essential for our language-games
(‘ordering and obeying’ for example) that no doubt appears at certain points,
or is it enough if there is the feeling of being sure, admittedly with a slight
breath of doubt?
That is, it is enough if I do not, as I do
now, call something ‘black’, ‘green’, ‘red’, straight off, without any doubt at all interposing itself – but do
I instead say “I am sure that that is red”, as one may say “I am sure that he
will come today” (in other words with the ‘feeling of being sure’)?
The accompanying feeling is of course a
matter of indifference to us, and equally we have no need to bother about the
words “I am sure that” either. – What is important is whether they go with a
difference in the practice of the
language.
One might ask whether a person who spoke
like this would always say “I am sure” on occasions where (for example) there
is sureness in the reports we make (in an experiment, for example, we look
through a tube and report the colour we see through it). If he does, our
immediate inclination will be to check what he says. But if he proves to be
perfectly reliable, one will say that his way of talking is merely a bit
perverse, and does not affect the issue. One might for example suppose that he
has read sceptical philosophers, become convinced that one can know nothing,
and that is why he has adopted this way of speaking. Once we are used to it, it
does not infect practice.
‘a slight breath of doubt’ –
there goes the neighbourhood
saying ‘I am sure’ –
is rhetoric –
the ‘feeling of being sure ‘ –
is logically irrelevant
any ‘report’ is open to question –
open to doubt
and saying someone is ‘reliable’ –
is just pretense
any observation –
as with any practice –
is open to question –
open to doubt –
is uncertain –
and it is this uncertainty –
that is the source –
of the vitality –
and the creativity –
at the heart of any genuine –
language-game
© greg t.charlton. 2010.
