Philosophical Loneliness: Wittgensteinian Approaches to Skepticism

“Wittgenstein’s claim is that philosophy causes us to lose ourselves and that philosophy is philosophy’s therapy” —Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason (34) In my senior thesis, I am exploring Ludwig Wittgenstein's... [ view full abstract ]

“Wittgenstein’s claim is that philosophy causes us to lose ourselves and that philosophy is philosophy’s therapy” —Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason (34)

In my senior thesis, I am exploring Ludwig Wittgenstein's approach to three different forms of philosophical skepticism: skepticism about the external world, skepticism about other minds, and skepticism about meaning. How do we know that the world exists in the way that it appears to us? How do we know that others have minds, thoughts, and feelings like ours? How do we know that our words convey the (at times intensely personal) meaning that we want them to? Throughout his work, Wittgenstein is constantly grappling with these sorts of questions, explaining how our collective form of life is couched in our shared language. An examination of the way language communicates meaning is the jumping-off point for discussions of knowledge and certainty, as well as human life in general. My work on this project has been greatly informed by my experiences reading with my advisor over the summer and traveling to the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria—all of which was made possible by funding from the newly established Kellogg Fellowship.