Exploring Certainty: Wittgenstein and Wide Fields of Thought

(Paperback)

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Ludwig Wittgensteins On Certainty explores a myriad of new and important ideas regarding our notions of belief, knowledge, skepticism, and certainty. During the course of his exploration, Wittgenstein makes a fascinating new discovery about certitude, namely, that it is categorically distinct from knowledge. As his investigation advances, he recognizes that certainty must be non-propositional and non-ratiocinated; borne out not in the things we say, but in our actions, our deeds. Many philosophers working outside of epistemology recognized Wittgenstein's insights and determined that his work's abrupt end might serve as an excellent launching point for still further philosophical expeditions. In Exploring Certainty: Wittgenstein and Wide Fields of Thought, Robert Greenleaf Brice surveys some of this rich topography. Wittgenstein's writings serve as a point of departure for Brice's own ideas about certainty. He shows how Wittgenstein's rough and unpolished notion of certitude might be smoothed out and refined in a way to benefit studies of morality, aesthetics, cognitive science, philosophy of mathematics. Brice's work opens new avenues of thought for scholars and students of the Wittgensteinian tradition, while introducing original philosophies concerning issues central to human knowledge and cognition.

Reviews

This brief book of Wittgenstein's On Certainty lives up to its subtitle. The 'fields of thought' it covers are indeed wide; they include epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, religion, cognitive science, mathematics, psychotherapy and even Wittgenstein's political views. Brice successfully shows the broad reach of Wittgenstein's ideas... [This] interpretation is worth understanding, and Brice's book offers a concise introduction to it, as well as some interesting developments of it. * Philosophical Investigations *
Exploring Certainty: Wittgenstein and Wide Fields of Thought is a creative and original work on one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. This will give it a broad audience, including Wittgenstein scholars, anyone in analytic philosophy, and the non-analytic philosopher. It is easily accessible to the newcomer to Wittgenstein. Thus it will have a wide appeal. -- Patrick Bourgeois, Loyola University
"Drawing on recent scholarship that makes the case for the neglected importance of Wittgenstein's On Certainty, this book applies Wittgenstein's strikingly insightful ideas to foundational questions in ethics, aesthetics, religion, and philosophy of mind and mathematics. Exploring Certainty: Wittgenstein and Wide Fields of Thought is a stimulating and provocative contribution to Wittgensteinian exegesis." -- Nigel Pleasants, University of Exeter
This brief book on Wittgensteins On Certainty lives up to its subtitle. The fields of thought it covers are indeed wide; they include epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, religion, cognitive science, mathematics, psychotherapy and even Wittgensteins political views. Brice successfully shows the broad reach of Wittgensteins ideas. His book is clearly written and accessible to a wide range of scholars, not just Wittgensteins scholars, and it might even interest some scholars outside of philosophy, such as those in any of the fields of thought." * Philosophical Investigations *

Author Bio

Robert Greenleaf Brice is assistant professor of philosophy at Loyola University, New Orleans, and is the author of several articles on Wittgenstein.