A Study On Wittgenstein’s Thought Of Certainty In Linguistic Perspective

As an important epistemological issue,’certainty’ has long been among the focuses of philosophical investigations. Since Descartes initiated the search for certainty in early modern western philosophy, Husserl and other great philosophers have also attempted to go in quest of certainty through probing into the world of human consciousness, but failed to achieve it. Then there was a ’linguistic turn’at the beginning of the twentieth century in philosophy and among the most influential philosophers of language was Wittgenstein, who contributed a lot to the field of study. This paper chooses Wittgenstein’s thought of certainty as focus for the following two reasons:firstly, as some postmodernists employ Wittgenstein’s later thought to dissolve certainty, contrary to Wittgenstein’s idea on certainty, a clarification of postmodernism’s misconception of Wittgenstein is needed; secondly, Wittgenstein’s thought of certainty provides an insightful linguistic perspective for the solution of certainty.The paper is an inquiry of Wittgenstein’s thought of certainty in the linguistic perspective. We learn from our exploration that the change of Wittgenstein’s views on meaning and understanding has been clearly reflected in his gradual quest for certainty, firstly an absolute certainty, later an appropriate certainty, and finally an internal certainty. Wittgenstein’s thought of certainty demonstrates that ’certainty’, inseparable from language, is by no means an absolutely precise essence, but a human-bound showing, a basic status of human life in practice. Therefore, only when the investigation of the meaning of language is placed in the practice of’language games’under the background of ’form of life’ and ’world picture’, can the certainty and a better understanding of the world be genuinely acquired.A historical review of the search for certainty in early modern and contemporary western philosophy is presented in this paper through a macro analysis. And also, based on Wittgenstein’s three major works, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Philosophical Investigations and On Certainty, and criticisms of these works, this paper sets out a micro exploration on Wittgenstein’s quest for certainty in the linguistic perspective, with an elaboration of the related views, concepts and metaphors in his works, an analysis of his thought of certainty embodied in these works, as well as a comparison of other great thinkers’ discussions of certainty in the perspectives of consciousness and language with Wittgenstein’s.Wittgenstein’s thought of certainty is a significant advance in epistemology of modern philosophy, and it will help establish effective and practical ways to acquire certainty, to understand others and to know the world. The study of Wittgenstein’s thought of certainty in linguistic perspective will be beneficial for both philosophical investigations and language studies in the light of the possible bidirectional integration of philosophical and linguistic perspectives, by not only using language as an entry point of philosophical research, but also providing theoretical guidance for language studies and widening thoughts in solving linguistic problems.