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METAPHILOSOPHY
Vol. 49, Nos. 1–2, January 2018
0026-1068

WORLD-PICTURES AND WITTGENSTEINIAN CERTAINTY

HIROSHI OHTANI

Abstract: Although certainty is a fundamental notion in epistemology, it is less

studied in contemporary analytic epistemology than other important notions
such as knowledge or justification. This paper focuses on Wittgensteinian
certainty, according to which the very basic dimension of our epistemic practices,
the elements of our world-pictures, are objectively certain, in that we cannot
legitimately doubt them. The aim of the paper is to offer the best philosophical way
to clarify Wittgensteinian certainty, in a way that is consonant with Wittgensteins
fundamental insights. The paper critiques two alternative proposals for clarifying
Wittgensteinian certainty that are philosophically unsatisfying: the rule view and
the proposition view. Finally, it instead shows how viewing world-pictures as
pictures, in the sense of unclear conceptions, is a more philosophically fruitful
approach to understanding world-pictures.

Keywords: Wittgenstein, certainty, world-picture, philosophical method, scepticism.

1. Introduction
Although certainty is a fundamental notion in epistemology, it is less
studied in contemporary analytic epistemology than other important
notions such as knowledge or justification. Several proposals of the
conception of certainty are in play, but most of them are not fully
developed or are not compared with each other.1 Given this situation,
my aim in this paper is modest: I will not examine multiple proposals
but will concentrate on just one of them, the conception of certainty
offered by Wittgenstein, which I will call Wittgensteinian certainty.
The basic idea of Wittgensteinian certainty is that the very basic
dimensions of our epistemic practices are objectively (not psychologi-
cally) certain, in that we cannot legitimately doubt them.2 Consider a
1
Recent discussions include those of Stanley (2008), Wright (2004a, b), and Pritchard
(2012). Classical discussions can be found in Chisholm (1989), Firth (1967), and Klein (1981).
2
Wittgenstein also discusses other kinds of certainty. For example, discussions about
the certainty of the self-ascription of ones mental state such as sensation or intention can
be found in the private language argument sections of Philosophical Investigations (PI,
243–315). I will not pursue the issue of how those discussions are related to what I call
Wittgensteinian certainty in this article.

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116 HIROSHI OHTANI

case where, employing historical traces such as documents or relics, a

historian concludes that Napoleon won the battle of Austerlitz in 1805.
According to the idea of Wittgensteinian certainty, for the historical
traces to serve as evidence for the conclusion one must presuppose
things such as the general reliability of historical evidence or existence
of the earth in the nineteenth century, and hence its existence long
before ones birth. Then, it is claimed that these suppositions are so
basic in our epistemic practices that they are certain in the sense that
legitimate doubt about them cannot be raised. Wittgenstein claims that
for the basic dimensions of our epistemic practices, such as the earths
existence long before ones birth, the question of verification cannot be
raised, and hence it is unconnected with the notion of evidence (OC,
162, 243, 245).3 Still, it is objectively certain (OC, 194, 270) and some-
thing that “stands fast” (OC, 151, 234, 235).
Both leading contemporary epistemologists and Wittgenstein schol-
ars discuss Wittgensteinian certainty, making it a potential contact
point where contemporary analytic philosophy meets historical studies
of Wittgenstein, now an increasingly specialized discipline of its own.
Interpretations of Wittgensteinian certainty diverge wildly, however,
and there is no consensus even on the basic question of what it is that
is certain in Wittgensteins light: what is certain is sometimes regarded
as a set of grammatical rules, sometimes as a set of empirical proposi-
tions. Therefore, some work is necessary in order to understand
Wittgensteins relevance to contemporary epistemology.
My aim in this paper is to clarify Wittgensteinian certainty in a way
that can shed light on understanding the status of sceptical doubt. In
so doing, rather than sticking to the exact representation of historical
Wittgenstein, I try to extract a philosophically rich conception of cer-
tainty from Wittgensteins remarks. My method in this respect is justi-
fied because (i) Wittgensteins most extensive thoughts on certainty can
be found in On Certainty, which is basically a series of notes containing
different strands of thought, and (ii) I will not say anything that is
inimical to Wittgensteins basic ideas, including ideas on philosophical
methods.4 I do not exploit Wittgensteins idea just to develop a Witt-
gensteinian theory of certainty. On the contrary, in my view, giving
proper consideration to his ideas on philosophical methodology is

3
Wittgensteins works are referred to by the usual abbreviations, which are indicated
in the References section.
4
Some interpreters of Wittgenstein claim that there is something substantially new in
the works of the post-Investigations period, which includes On Certainty (Moyal-Sharrock
2004; 2013; Glock 2009). However, although I admit that there is a development in
Wittgensteins thought in that period, I find no significant difference in Wittgensteins
method. Therefore, I will use materials from Philosophical Investigations and other related
works, as well as On Certainty, to clarify Wittgensteinian certainty.

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 WORLD-PICTURES AND WITTGENSTEINIAN CERTAINTY 117

essential in order to extract a philosophically rich conception of cer-

tainty from Wittgenstein.
In what follows, after explaining the tenets of Wittgensteinian cer-
tainty (section 2), I examine two proposals for explicating Wittgenstein-
ian certainty and contend that they have serious philosophical flaws by
citing some of Wittgensteins ideas (sections 3 and 4). Next, I argue
that the philosophically best way to conceive of Wittgensteinian cer-
tainty is to understand a world-picture as a set of pictures in the sense
of unclear conceptions so that the certainty of the world-picture comes
from its unclear nature (section 5). I then defend my proposal from
possible objections (section 6).

2. Certainty of World-Pictures
In On Certainty Wittgenstein detects problems in making knowledge
claims or expressing doubts about what he calls a “world-picture” (OC,
93–95, 162, 167, 233, 262), an “axis” (OC, 152), or a “hinge” (OC, 341,
343, 655). Among his examples are “Here is a hand,” which is pro-
claimed while holding ones hand in clear view (OC, 1), and “The
Earth existed long before ones birth” (OC, 84). Therefore, the main
tenet of Wittgensteinian certainty is that the very basic elements in our
epistemic system—the elements that constitute our world-pictures—are
certain in the sense that both knowledge claims and doubts about them
are illegitimate. When characterized thus, questions immediately arise,
such as, Why is it illegitimate to make knowledge claims or express
doubts about them? Are they meaningless or, alternatively, meaningful
but pointless? or What is a world-picture? Is it a set of empirical propo-
sitions that exist deep within our web of belief ? Or is it something else?
My aim in this article is to clarify Wittgensteinian certainty in a way
that is consonant with Wittgensteins fundamental insights.
At some points, Wittgenstein says that those sentences describe a
world-picture: “In general I take as true what is found in text-books, of
geography for example. Why? I say: All these facts have been confirmed
a hundred times over. But how do I know that? What is my evidence
for it? I have a world-picture. Is it true or false? Above all it is the sub-
stratum of all my enquiring and asserting. The sentences [S€atze]
describing it are not all equally subject to testing” (OC, 162).5
Saying that a sentence describes a world-picture as he does here is a
bit misleading. For, as Wittgenstein himself emphasizes several times
5
See also OC, 95. I basically follow the translation of Paul and Anscombe. For the
translation of “Satz,” however, which they invariably translate as “proposition,” I some-
times use “sentence” because, as I argue below, the distinction between sentence and
proposition or what is said is important for understanding On Certainty. See also Conant
(1998) and Moyal-Sharrock (2004) for similar contentions.

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(OC, 105, 141), a world-picture is systematic. Therefore, when one says

a single sentence, such as “The earth existed long before ones birth,”
one describes a part of the world-picture, and thereby shows a commit-
ment to the whole of it.6
Henceforth, I call a sentence such as “Here is a hand” or “The earth
existed long before ones birth”—a sentence that is supposed to
describe a part of the world-picture—a “world-picture sentence.” This
articles guiding question is, thus, What does a world-picture sentence
express when a philosopher utters it? I believe answering this guiding
question will make it clear why it is illegitimate to make knowledge
claims or express doubts about an element of the world-picture and,
hence, the way in which a world-picture is certain.
Three clarifications of my question are necessary. First, although
Wittgenstein uses the word “describe,” the describing a part of the
world-picture need not be equated with asserting an empirical proposi-
tion that has true-false bipolarity. In Philosophical Investigations, he
repeatedly claims that the concept of description admits diversity (PI,
24, 290–91, cf. PPF, 160). According to him, that a sentence has a
descriptive form does not mean that it is used for expressing an empiri-
cal proposition. So, we need to see the details of the situation in which
the sentence is used in order to understand what it expresses in that
particular situation.
Then, secondly, in what situation are we supposed to use a world-
picture sentence? There can be ordinary situations when the sentence
“Here is a hand” answers a practical question, perhaps after some
serious surgery (cf. OC, 23). In this kind of case, uttering the sentence
“Here is a hand” is genuinely informative, and this sentence expresses
an empirical proposition. That a sentence expresses an empirical
proposition in one situation, however, does not necessarily mean that
it does the same in other situations. Here, the distinction between a
sentence and the proposition expressed, or more precisely, “what is
said” by the sentence, in a particular situation is crucial. This article
explores what a world-picture sentence expresses in a philosophical
context. Therefore, I would like to ask, for example, when G. E.
Moore proclaims “Here is a hand” while holding his hand in clear
view, what it is that is said by him. Similarly, with the sentence
“The earth existed long before ones birth,” it is difficult to imagine
an ordinary context for it, but if there is one, it would express an
empirical proposition. That the sentence expresses an empirical prop-
osition in the philosophical context in which it is uttered (perhaps

6
A similar point is indicated by Duncan Pritchard. See his distinction between hinge
and u€ber hinge commitment in Pritchard 2012, 267.

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responding to a sceptic who doubts it) is, however, far from obvious
(cf. OC, 85).7
Confining our discussion to utterances in a philosophical context is
not problematic. First, exegetically, Wittgenstein is concerned with the
philosophical doubts made by the sceptic and idealist and by Moores
philosophical response to them (see Baldwin 2011).8 Second, sceptical
doubts are not ones that accord with any practical purposes but rather
are ones that bring about the puzzlement in our intellectual network
and that can be taken seriously only in a philosophical context.
Thirdly, in what follows, I discuss the sentence “The earth existed
long before ones birth” as representative of world-picture sentences. I
admit that this is a bit dangerous because one of the important insights
of On Certainty is that the class of world-pictures is not homogeneous
(see Strawson 1985, chap. 1; Williams 1996; 2005). That the earth
existed long before ones birth is general in the sense that every reason-
able person in this age accepts it, and we cannot assume without argu-
ment that the characteristics that apply to this sentence also apply to
more situational ones, such as “Here is one hand,” or to personal ones,
such as “My name is N.N.” (OC, 629). I believe, however, that it is
possible to show that the same considerations apply to them, with nec-
essary modifications. For in philosophical contexts where sceptical
doubts are raised, those various world-picture sentences are on a par in
that the practical concerns that push us to doubt them are absent. It
might be the case that, for some world-picture sentences, for example,
“Here is a hand,” conjuring up a particular, practical situation where
they express genuine empirical propositions that are susceptible to
doubts and knowledge claims is easier than for other world-picture sen-
tences. In a philosophical context where sceptical doubts are made,
however, every world-picture sentence seems to stand fast and be
unconnected with the notion of evidence.

3. The Rule View

The prominent Wittgenstein scholar Danièle Moyal-Sharrock supports
the rule view (Moyal-Sharrock 2004; 2013; cf. McGinn 1989; Kober
1997; Stroll 1994). According to this view, a world-picture sentence
expresses a rule for the use of the words—grammar—of our language.
7
These sentences are possibly used in an educational context. In that context, they
are used as expressions of grammatical rules. The point, however, is that to suppose that
they are used to teach grammatical rules is to beg the question against the sceptic.
8
Wittgenstein does not clearly distinguish the doubts of the sceptic and those of the
idealist. This is not due to an incompleteness in Wittgensteins thought. Rather, as we
shall see below, Wittgenstein sees philosophical doubt not as something that has a clear
content but as something that calls for a clarification through philosophical dialogue. See
Minar (2005) for a related discussion.

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For example, “The earth existed long before ones birth” can be used
for teaching or recalling the rule for the use of words such as “earth”
and “existed.”
One important implication of this view is that having an epistemic
attitude towards a world-picture sentence results in nonsense. Accord-
ing to the rule view, a world-picture is a set of rules that constitutes
our framework of epistemic investigations, but a rule is neither true or
false nor justified or unjustified. Our grammar requires, however, that
the object of knowledge claims and doubts should be something about
which we can discuss the grounds for believing it to be true. Therefore,
putting “I know” or “I doubt” before world-picture sentences is a vio-
lation of our grammar, and hence is nonsense.9
Whatever merit the rule view has, as a response to the sceptic, it is
philosophically unattractive. Suppose that in a room with a clearly visi-
ble hand a sceptic claims, “I doubt that here is a hand. I may be a
brain in a vat!” According to the rule view, you can respond to this
sceptic by saying, “You speak nonsense. It is a rule of our language
game that here is a hand when it is so clearly seen.” The problem with
this response is that the doubt the sceptic has does not seem to be non-
sense to him or her. Therefore, the conversation reaches a blind alley,
with each side contending fruitlessly that he or she sees the grammar
correctly.
The problem with the rule view is that it fails to take the sceptic
seriously, in that it closes the possibility of understanding the meaning
of the words spoken by him or her. Thus, Moyal-Sharrock claims:
“There is a logical incompatibility between being wrong or uncertain
about certain statements—that is, doubting, hesitating, verifying
them—and the circumstances or oneself being normal. . . . In some
cases, a doubt, a mistake, indeed any hesitation, is a measure of the
persons lack of stability, a sign of madness. It is logically impossible to
doubt or be wrong about some beliefs whilst remaining within the ken
of normal human understanding” 2004, 74). Moyal-Sharrock argues
that putting “I doubt” before a world-picture sentence results in non-
sense, and thus there is no chance for the sceptics words to be intelli-
gible, at least when they are understood as serious remarks. By
regarding the sceptics words as grammatical nonsense rather than as
materials for further investigation, however, she is simply sticking to
Wittgensteins or her own understanding of words and declaring there
is a flaw in the sceptics understanding of the words. The problem is
that if this is Wittgensteins attitude towards the sceptic, it would give
licence to the sceptic to do the same: he or she can stick to his or her
9
Here, according to the rule view, two kinds of grammatical rules are operative: one
that regulates our uses of words such as “earth” and “existed” and the other that pre-
scribes that “I know” and “I doubt” cannot be connected with grammatical rules.

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understanding of words, that is, to his or her intuition of the meaning-

fulness of the doubt, and construct a sceptical argument relying on it.
Careful reading of Wittgensteins text does not support the rule
view. On the contrary, we can find in Wittgensteins remarks a philo-
sophically richer conception of the sceptic. According to Wittgenstein,
the sceptic is not someone who should be rejected or ridiculed as going
outside “the ken of normal human understanding” (Moyal-Sharrock
2004, 74). Rather, he or she should be taken as our genuine conversa-
tional partner in serious philosophical investigations.
Let us note that Wittgenstein seldom talks about the violation of
grammar in On Certainty and other related materials. He repeatedly
says that the sceptics and Moores remarks are “unclear.” Sections 4,
237, and 481 of On Certainty are explicitly concerned with unclarity. In
many other sections, Wittgenstein says that we “can/should not under-
stand” or “do not know” what is said by the utterances (OC, 32, 154,
231, 236, 258, 356). This is not to say, however, that these utterances
violate grammatical rules. Rather, I take it that Wittgensteins point is
that in those cases where we cannot understand what is said by our
conversational partner, we should ask for the explanation of meaning
and, hence, clarification of what is said. In some other remarks, Witt-
genstein says that doubts and knowledge claims on the elements of the
world-pictures are nonsense or do not make sense (OC, 10, 35, 56, 76,
372). Even in these remarks, however, Wittgenstein does not say that
they violate grammatical rules. Rather, his point must be that we can-
not determine their meaning without knowing the context of their use.
This is clear in section 372, where he says, “I doubt whether that is
really my (or a) hand makes no sense without some more precise
determination” (OC, 372; see also OC, 347–48). His point here is that
the utterance needs determination or precision for one to be clear
about what is said by it in that particular situation. Therefore, there is
no implication that it is nonsense because it violates grammatical rules.
In fact, Wittgenstein not only claims that doubts and knowledge
claims are unclear but also claims that a world-picture sentence is
unclear in Philosophy of Psychology—A Fragment:10 “This is connected
with the fact that, for example, the sentence The Earth has existed for
millions of years makes clearer sense than The Earth has existed for
the last five minutes. For, Id ask anyone who asserted the latter:
What observations does this sentence refer to; and what observations
would count against it?—whereas I know to what context of ideas and

10
This is called part 2 of Philosophical Investigations in the earlier editions. It was
written between 1946 and 1949, which is just before Wittgenstein started to write the
notes that became On Certainty, and the context of the discussion clearly shows that he is
engaging with problems that are similar to the ones discussed in On Certainty.

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what observations the former sentence belongs” (PPF, 313).11

Wittgensteins point here is that the ordinary contexts for the uses of
words such as “earth” and “existed” are unhelpful in arriving at what
is said by the sentence “The earth has existed for the last five minutes.”
Because it is composed of familiar English words, it appears to us that
we understand it. What is said by it in a particular context, however, is
unclear and needs to be explained.12
The point of talking about the lack of clarity is that while nonsense
is just nothing, an unclear utterance can be clarified so that it might
become intelligible. Suppose that your conversational partner says
something unclear; it surely is an uncooperative attitude, and you fail
to take him or her seriously, if you just say, “You are speaking non-
sense. You violate grammatical rules.” Instead, you should ask for an
explanation of its meaning in order to clarify what was said by the
utterance. We can find in Wittgensteins remarks on the lack of clarity
the idea that if we want to take a sceptic seriously, we should take him
or her as being a serious conversational partner who engages in an
epistemological enterprise together with us. Further, in this enterprise,
neither the sceptics understanding of words nor our own is taken for
granted.
Wittgensteins general attitude in treating philosophical problems is
to take as his philosophical target someone who engages in a philo-
sophical enterprise together with himself, rather than someone who is
to be attacked. For example, we can see this attitude in one of his lec-
tures, where he talks about whether mathematical activity is invention
or discovery. After suggesting that declaring others words to be non-
sense is “arrogance” and that what he would do is “to draw attention
to a certain investigation” (LFM, pp. 21–22), Wittgenstein says:

One talks of mathematical discoveries. I shall try again and again to show
that what is called a mathematical discovery had much better be called a
mathematical invention.
In some of the cases to which I point, you will perhaps be inclined to
say, “Yes, they had better be called inventions”; in other cases you may per-
haps be inclined to say, “Well, it is difficult to say whether in this case some-
thing has been discovered or invented.” (LFM, p. 22)

Here we can see that Wittgenstein does not regard his words as
final. Rather, he regards them as something to be investigated for
11
See also OC, 185, for a related remark.
12
In many places in his later works, Wittgenstein focuses on the cases where custom-
ary uses of words are not helpful for determining what is said by a sentence containing
them in a particular situation. See BB, pp. 9–11, PI, 117, 350–51, Z, 9, OC, 347–48,
LFM, pp. 15–21. For related discussions, see Conant (1998), Dobler (2013), Ohtani
(2016), Travis (2006), and Whiting (2010).

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whether or not they are illuminating in treating particular philosophical

problems.13 Again, in another lecture, he says: “I have no right to want
you to say anything except just one thing: Lets see.—One cannot
make a general formulation and say that I have the right to want to
make you say that. For what could that general formulation be? My
opinion? But obviously the whole point is that I must not have an
opinion” (LFM, p. 55).14 Here, Wittgenstein claims that he has no
right to force his general formulation, and I can see no reason to make
his grammatical remarks an exception to this. Rather than bounding
the limits of sense from his own understanding of rules, Wittgenstein
encourages his target philosophers to join the investigation of whether
their remarks are illuminating or not. I believe that his conception of
his target philosopher as someone who engages in an intellectual inves-
tigation together with himself is important because, when applied to
the sceptic, from it follows a philosophically rich conception of
certainty.

4. The Proposition View

What I call the proposition view asserts that a world-picture sentence
expresses an empirical proposition. According to this view, a world-
picture is a set of empirical propositions that resides deep inside our
intellectual network, and commitment to this set of fundamental prop-
ositions is shown in our endorsement of a particular world-picture
sentence.
Supporters of the proposition view often contend that taking scepti-
cal doubt as meaningful is an advantage. For example, Michael Wil-
liams, in defending his “theoretical diagnosis” approach, states: “In
fact, our sense that we do understand [the sceptic] is so powerful that
it tends to undermine the credibility of theories of language that imply
we do not. One of the advantages of theoretical as against therapeutic
diagnosis is that it frees us from the need to pretend not to understand
what, in some way and to some extent, we evidently do understand”
(Williams 1996, 149). Similarly, Crispin Wright states: “And while
thinking of linguistic practice in a broadly later-Wittgensteinian way
may make at least some forms of sceptical doubt hard to hear, the fact
13
See Ohtani 2017 for Wittgensteins treatment of the problems in the philosophy of
mathematics.
14
See also Wittgensteins conversation with Moore recorded by Norman Malcolm. In
that conversation, Wittgenstein contends that he has “a right to ask” about the use of
“Its certain” in “Its certain that Ive got a pain,” which Moore claims to have the same
meaning as when it is combined with a thing statement (Wittgenstein, Moore, and
Malcolm 2015, 79). Throughout the conversation Wittgenstein never claims that “Its cer-
tain that Ive got a pain” is nonsense. Instead, he just asks for the explanation of the
meaning of it.

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remains that we—many of us—seem to ourselves to hear them quite

clearly . . . what we should ideally like—as an insurance, if you will—
would be rebuttal of—or at least a liveable accommodation with—
sceptical doubt which avoids joining the debate at that deep theoretical
level, leaving the intelligibility of scepticism unchallenged” (Wright
2004b, 47). Therefore, according to these scholars, sceptical doubt
looks meaningful, and it is an advantage of this view that, unlike the
rule view, it can take this intuition on the meaningfulness of it at face
value by taking world-picture sentences as expressing genuine empirical
propositions.
One important version of the proposition view is the view that
regards our relation to the world-picture as epistemic (Glock 2004;
2009; Williams 1996; Wright 2004a, b). This type of the proposition
view claims that a world-picture sentence expresses an empirical propo-
sition that has a default justification of some sort. According to propo-
nents of this view, it is not possible to give evidential support to a
world-picture proposition, but its default status gives it a justification
so that we can know it.15
The particular problem with this view is that it is difficult to distin-
guish its alleged default justification from its pragmatic justification: It
is not clear why having a default status gives a proposition an epistemic
justification rather than just a pragmatic one. It may be true that with-
out endorsing it we could not start an empirical inquiry, so that our
epistemic achievement would be poor. This consideration, however,
gives us no reason to think that a particular world-picture proposition,
if it is a proposition, is really true. Therefore, it does not seem to give
any epistemic justification for it.16
Another variation of the proposition view claims that our attitude
towards the world-picture is essentially non-epistemic. According to
this view, a world-picture sentence expresses an empirical proposition,
but we cannot know or doubt it, because it constitutes the background
against which an epistemic investigation is conducted (Coliva 2010;
Hamilton 2014; Pritchard 2012).
This view, however, violates the so-called epistemic closure principle.
For example, consider propositions A (“Napoleon won the battle of
Austerlitz in 1805”) and B (“The earth existed in the nineteenth cen-
tury”). Then, we can infer B from A. Now, this version of the proposi-
tion view endorses that (i) we know that A but (ii) we do not know
that B (because B is a part of the world-picture), yet (iii) we knowingly
15
There is an important variety within this type of the proposition view. So, Williams
admits that epistemic externalism is an element of his view (1996, 93–101), while Wright
explains the default justification in question in terms of internalism (Wright 2004a, 209–
11). See Pritchard (2005) and Coliva (2010, 135–46) for further discussion.
16
See Jenkins (2007), and Pritchard (2005; 2011; and 2012) for further discussion.

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infer B from A. This, however, contradicts the closure principle: If one

knows that P and knowingly infers Q from P, then one also knows that
Q. Of course, rejecting the closure principle is possible in epistemology,
and some philosophers in fact do reject it.17 The supporters of the
non-epistemic version of the proposition view must, however, explain
why this prima facie intuitive principle does not apply to the elements
of world-pictures.18
The objections I have raised against different versions of the propo-
sition view indicate that within it lies a philosophical weakness.
Further, I now add two more considerations, which can be found in
Wittgensteins remarks, that suggest some confusion lies within the
proposition view in general.
First, while the proposition view claims that a world-picture is a set
of propositions, so that, at least in principle, we can clearly articulate
each world-picture proposition, Wittgenstein suggests that we cannot:
“Now, can one enumerate what one knows (like Moore)? Straight off
like that, I believe not.—For otherwise the expression I know gets
misused” (OC, 6). Similarly, here is a note taken by Rush Rhees about
the comments made by Wittgenstein on a talk at the Cambridge Moral
Sciences Club: “If by saying I believe so & so implicitly at that time all
that is meant is that if anyone had asked me I should have said yes,
then there seems to be almost no limit to what I was believing implic-
itly at that time (and why at that time)” (Wittgenstein and Rhees
2015, 7–8). Wittgensteins worry here is that the wording we use for a
world-picture sentence is arbitrary. (Note that, in the second quotation,
Wittgenstein is concerned not with knowledge but with belief, so that
his worry is not particularly directed towards the concept of knowl-
edge). When my friend asks me to close the door and I do so, what is
the particular set of propositions on which my action hinges? Is it that
the door does not disappear when I touch it, or that the door is not a
hologram, or still that I am not dreaming?
One may think that this is the problem for an ascription of a com-
mitment in general, whether it is regarded as a belief or something dis-
connected with the notion of evidence and more aptly called
acceptance (Coliva 2010, 174–75; Wright 2004a, 175–78), and not the
problem for the proposition view in particular. This is not so, however,
because the point of an ordinary ascription (that is, a non-
philosophical commitment ascription) is to explain the behaviours of
17
The famous examples are Dretske (1970) and Nozick (1981, chap. 3).
18
Pritchard (2012, 268–69) argues that, although a world-picture sentence expresses
an empirical proposition, our commitment to it is different from a belief of it, so that we
can retain a version of the closure principle. It seems to me, however, that Pritchards pro-
posal is a bit ad hoc, in that it is not clear why we cannot form a belief about a world-
picture proposition by a deductive inference from an ordinary proposition related to it.

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the subject, and, given that an explanation in the ordinary context has
a practical purpose, the wording for an ascribed commitment is not
totally arbitrary. Therefore, in a practical context, “If anyone had asked
me I should have said yes” is not “all that is meant” by a commitment
ascription. On the other hand, an ascription of a commitment to an
element of a world-picture is not for explaining the behaviours of the
subject. My acceptance of the earths existence long before my birth
does not explain any particular behaviour of mine. If I were a sceptic
or an idealist, I would behave in the same way as I do now. As an ele-
ment of a world-picture is “removed from the traffic” (OC, 210), we do
not have any practical clue for arriving at proper wording for it.19
Without a particular practical project—and this is the characteristic of
philosophical context where a world-picture sentence is uttered—the
idea of articulating the set of propositions upon which a particular
action or utterance hinges cannot have a clear content.20
Second, I claim that taking the intuition of meaningfulness of a
world-picture sentence at face value is, contrary to the opinion of the
supporters of the proposition view, not an advantage of the view if we
take Wittgensteins conversational approach to a sceptic as a genuine
insight.
Wittgensteins idea of a conversational approach to the target phi-
losopher is important: in a philosophical context where ordinary con-
texts for the uses of words are unhelpful in understanding what is said
by the sentence, we should take philosophers such as Moore and the
sceptic as serious conversational partners and engage in a conversation
where everyone, including Wittgenstein himself, is open to be chal-
lenged on his or her own understanding of words. What is necessary is
to investigate, to ask for the explanation of what is said by, the world-
picture sentence. Therefore, contrary to Williamss and Wrights con-
tention, it is not an advantage of the proposition view that it takes the
appearance of the meaningfulness of the world-picture sentence at face
value, because it fails to address the important intellectual investiga-
tions outlined here.
It is clear that both the rule view and the proposition view have seri-
ous philosophical flaws. There is, however, an alternative way to clarify
Wittgensteinian certainty that is free from those flaws: the world-
picture as picture. In the remaining sections, I explain and defend this
view.

19
See Hamilton (2014, 205–7) for a related discussion.
20
I am not saying that specifying a particular set of propositions on which a target
proposition is dependent is an easy task in ordinary contexts. For example, it may require
much intellectual effort to know if a theorem in mathematics is dependent on the axiom
of choice.

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 WORLD-PICTURES AND WITTGENSTEINIAN CERTAINTY 127

5. World-Picture as Picture
Any philosophically rich understanding of the notion of world-picture
must (i) do justice to Wittgensteins idea that when we describe a part
of the world-picture, what is said by the utterance is unclear and (ii)
incorporate Wittgensteins conception of Moore or the sceptic as some-
one who is a genuine conversational partner. With these two criteria in
mind, I propose that world-picture sentences express “pictures,” as the
name “world-picture” suggests. This notion of picture appears in
Wittgensteins later thought, and in this section I argue for its applica-
tion to the notion of world-picture.
A picture in Wittgensteins later work is an unclear conception.21 A
picture can be distinguished from a propositional supposition because
it lacks a clear truth condition and hence is unclear (Baker 2001; Egan
2011; Ohtani 2016). A good example is the so-called Augustinian Pic-
ture discussed in the opening remarks of Philosophical Investigations.
There, Wittgenstein talks about “the particular picture of the essence
of human language” expressed by a sentence such as “The words in
language name objects—sentences are combinations of such names”
(PI, 1). This picture is unclear because some words in it—for example,
“name”—are used unclearly, thus allowing various interpretations: it
may be insisted that a numeral is a name for a platonic entity or that
only “this” or “that” are real names, as in the case of Bertrand Russell
(1918).
Because a picture is an unclear conception, it calls for clarification:
its content is unclear and thus requires clarification to evaluate if or
how it is illuminating in a particular context. In a philosophical con-
text, however, where the details of the context of a pictures application
tend to be ignored, philosophers often unwittingly stick to a particular
interpretation of a picture and try to explain everything in accordance
with it.22 For example, a philosopher might unwittingly interpret the
word “name” of the Augustinian Picture by the names of typical
medium-sized objects, such as “table,” “chair,” or a persons name and
think that we must be able to point to the object to which a name
refers. Then, for example, it seems to be a pressing question what a
numeral, which apparently is the name of a number, refers to because
there seems to be nothing that can be pointed to in this case (PI, 1,
10). The crucial point, which tends to be ignored (cf. Baker 2001; Egan
2011; Kuusela 2008), is that we must distinguish the unclear concep-
tion, which I call a picture, from a model that constrains the interpreta-
tion of the initial conception: when we say, “The words in language
21
Here I am concerned only with what David Egan (2011) calls a “conceptual
picture.” I will not discuss pictures actually drawn on paper, nor mental entities that are
analogous to them.
22
See Fischer (2006, 472–73).

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name objects—sentences are combinations of such names,” it is a pic-

ture in the sense of an unclear conception. This picture is open to the
various interpretations of the word “name.” However, philosophers
conjure up a typical situation where the word “name” is used and
make it a model that imposes a structural constraint—that a name
must refer to something that can be pointed to—upon the interpreta-
tion of the initial picture. They then formulate a philosophical question
accordingly.
This is not the place for a detailed discussion of Wittgensteins con-
ception of the treatment of pictures, but in Philosophical Investigations
Wittgenstein specifies pictures that hold us captive, and then suggests
various alternative ways of clarifying them in order to release us (and
himself) from adherence to them. So, regarding the Augustinian
Picture, Wittgenstein indicates that it can be understood as a descrip-
tion of a very primitive language game (PI, 2). Similarly, the related
picture of “The signs a, b, etc. signifies numbers” can be clarified as
a claim that distinguishes the uses of numerals from those of words
like “block,” “slab,” and “pillar” (PI, 10).
In my view, when a world-picture sentence is used in a philosophical
context, it is an expression of a picture. For example, when a philoso-
pher says, “The earth existed long before my birth,” this expresses an
unclear conception, something that calls for clarification. Accordingly,
a world-picture is a set of pictures. From this follows the certainty of
the world-picture: a world-picture sentence expresses a picture, an
unclear conception, so that the doubt about it also cannot have a clear
content. When a sceptic says, “I doubt whether the earth existed long
before my birth,” it is not clear what is doubted in the first place.
Therefore, doubts about it cannot even be started. Although clarifica-
tion of the sceptics words can continue, there is no need to feel uncom-
fortable with the situation. For it is not the case that we cannot answer
where we are confronted with the doubt that has definite content.23
Note that expressing a picture by a world-picture sentence is not
always problematic. To speak (and think) unclearly is our ordinary way
of living. For example, we might say, “Our society must be equal,” per-
haps expressing support for a political party, without any particular
interpretation of “equality” in mind. As an ordinary utterance in an
ordinary conversation among nonexperts, this unclarity is acceptable.
23
Is our relation to the world-picture epistemic or non-epistemic in my view? I believe
that the dichotomy of epistemic and non-epistemic is misguided. In my view, expressing a
world-picture should be a starting point of clarification, rather than offering something
that has a clear content. Therefore, even though a doubt or a knowledge claim to a
world-picture lacks clear content, it is an open possibility that the world-picture is
replaced by an empirical proposition or, alternatively, by a grammatical rule through clar-
ification. Therefore, our relation to a world-picture is potentially either epistemic or non-
epistemic, but it in itself is neither.

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 WORLD-PICTURES AND WITTGENSTEINIAN CERTAINTY 129

It is misguided to think that we need an expert political philosopher

nearby in order to go on with our ordinary conversations. The same
applies to a world-picture sentence. When we say, “The earth existed
long before my birth” without epistemic intention, that is, without the
intention to confirm or doubt it, then the picture it expresses depicts in
an unclear way a part of our forms of life that serve as a framework of
our thought, and this lack of clarity of the depiction itself is not a
problem.24 Therefore, as in the case of the Augustinian Picture, merely
having a picture itself is not a problem.
The problem arises when we regard a picture with a particular
model as an absolute framework with which everything must accord.
For example, if we interpret “existed” in “The earth existed long before
my birth” according to the model of existence asserted in an ordinary
empirical proposition such as “This house existed long before my
birth” and suppose that some epistemic backup is required in order to
assert it, then the philosophical problem of scepticism should arise (cf.
OC, 84–85, 89).
Of course, philosophers will not necessarily agree that a world-
picture sentence expresses a picture and that hence it must be unclear
in content. On the contrary, there is consensus among contemporary
epistemologists that a world-picture sentence such as “Here is a hand”
expresses an empirical proposition even in a philosophical context.
Moore, who was the main target of Wittgenstein in On Certainty, also
stubbornly contended that a world-picture sentence has a clear sense
(see especially Moore 1993). Given this, Wittgensteins task has two
aspects that define Wittgensteins method as conversational. First,
Wittgenstein tries to make his target philosophers notice that we do not
have a clear grip of the content of a world-picture sentence and encour-
ages them to engage in a philosophical investigation together with him.
“Making notice,” contrary to refuting the doubts or claims that have
clear content, requires repetition; hence, the conversational approach is
important. Second, for a conversation, Wittgenstein proposes various
alternative ways of clarifying the initial picture and tries to release his
target philosopher from obsession with it: his target is not a particular
doubt that has a clear content but rather the frame of mind that gener-
ates philosophical puzzlement (cf. McDowell 2009).25 What Wittgen-
stein offers us is not a new way of refuting sceptical doubts but a
conversational approach to the sceptic and the conception of the scep-
tic as someone who expresses unclear pictures rather than someone
who expresses doubts that have clear, refutable content.

24
According to Wittgenstein, this framework of our thought is something animal in
nature (OC, 359, 475).
25
For the discussion of the alternative models of “exist,” see OC, 237.

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130 HIROSHI OHTANI

The advantage of this view is now clear. First, in my view, a picture

is an unclear conception, thus justifying Wittgensteins idea that when
we describe a part of the world-picture, what is said by the utterance is
unclear. An utterance of a world-picture sentence does not give us a
clear content. Rather, it is a call for clarification of an unclear concep-
tion. Second, because a world-picture sentence expresses a picture, an
unclear conception, in talking about it neither Wittgenstein himself nor
Moore or the sceptic has a clear understanding. By admitting this
point, Wittgenstein encourages serious conversational investigation,
where no ones understanding of the words is taken for granted. The
fact that he accepts that he himself needs to be clarified gives him a
right to challenge the conviction of meaningfulness of the utterance of
his conversational partner. Hence, my view also does justice to
Wittgensteins insightful conception of Moore or the sceptic as some-
one who is a genuine conversational partner.

6. Objections and Replies

There are several potential objections to my view of the world-picture
as a set of pictures, to which I respond in this section. First, from an
exegetical point of view, one might assert that there is no sufficient tex-
tual support for my interpretation: my interpretation depends on the
occurrence of the word “picture” in the compound “world-picture,”
which, after all, appears only eight times in On Certainty.
Three points, however, may alleviate concerns that my view relies
too much on the word “world-picture.” First, my interpretation coheres
with Wittgensteins thoughts in On Certainty, while the other alterna-
tives (the rule view and the proposition view) have serious flaws.
Second, my interpretation not only follows Wittgensteins thoughts in
On Certainty but also depends on Wittgensteins notion of picture in
Philosophical Investigations. I have not coined a new notion that is alien
to Wittgensteins philosophy. Third, while there is something true in
the objection, in that Wittgenstein does not explicitly develop the
notion of picture in On Certainty, in my view he could not elaborate
the point in question. In the early part of On Certainty he regards
world-picture sentences as expressing propositions (OC, 136). As
his thoughts develop, however, he shows hesitation (OC, 213–15, 308,
401–2) but never reflects on the point fully. Therefore, my interpretation
does not present what Wittgenstein actually said but what he should
have said, if he had had time to elaborate on the question.
Second, one may object by saying that if a world-picture sentence
expresses a picture and hence its content is unclear, it is puzzling why
we can make an inference involving it. For example, one may wonder
why if “The earth existed in the nineteenth century” is unclear in

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content, we can easily infer from “Napoleon won the battle of Auster-
litz in 1805” that the first sentence is true.26
In response, I contend that a picture has an apparent logic. For
example, if you take a numeral as the name of a number with a par-
ticular interpretation of the Augustinian Picture (according to which
a name refers to an object that can be pointed to), then the apparent
logic of it allows you to conclude that we can in some sense point to
a number as we can point to the bearer of the name, say, the “Eiffel
Tower.” If we stick to this particular interpretation of the Augustin-
ian Picture and hence the apparent logic of it, we may be misled into
positing a mystical mental pointing of a number, for example (PI,
35–36). The point of Wittgensteins investigation, however, is pre-
cisely to evaluate the apparent logic of this interpretation and release
us from an obsessive adherence to it. Similarly, with world-picture we
can track the apparent logic of the world-picture sentences. For
example, we can say that “Napoleon won the battle of Austerlitz in
1805” leads to The earth existed in the nineteenth century.” This,
however, neither means that we have a clear grasp of what is said by
each sentence nor that the apparent logic of each sentence can never
be given up.
Third, one may say that my view ends up presenting a kind of scep-
tical conclusion. According to this objection, my view is that talking
about the very basic dimension of our epistemic practices cannot have
clear content, but this just means that epistemic justification is inher-
ently local, and we cannot hope that our practice is justified from the
basis. As the objection goes, however, this is exactly the result that the
sceptic wants, so we cannot avoid what Duncan Pritchard calls
“epistemic vertigo” (see Boult and Pritchard 2013).
I admit that one of the insights of On Certainty is that epistemic jus-
tification is inherently local. The point, however, is that we need not
feel epistemic vertigo with this fact. The lack of clarity in a philosophi-
cal conversation about scepticism is generated, as it were, by a regula-
tive ideal of our intellectual flourishing that, in a serious intellectual
investigation, we should be open to the possibility of being challenged
on our grasp of words. Therefore, the locality of our epistemic justifica-
tion is the result not of a philosophically sick sceptical worry but rather
of a healthy attitude in our intellectual enterprise, and we need not be
puzzled or feel vertigo over it.
Finally, a New Wittgensteinian or resolute reader of Wittgenstein
may say, “Why dont you just say that an utterance of a world-picture
sentence is plain nonsense?” According to this objection, in a
philosophical conversation our utterances are disconnected from

26
Pritchard (2012, 266) raises a similar objection to the rule view.

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our practice. A philosopher, whether he or she endorses or doubts a

world-picture sentence in a philosophical classroom, for example, acts
in the same way as an ordinary person when he or she leaves the class-
room. Therefore, why not be resolute and say that a world-picture sen-
tence is plain nonsense in a philosophical context where we are
separated from our practice? According to the New Wittgensteinians,
Wittgensteins aim is not to give a philosophical explanation of our
world-picture but to understand our inclinations to express nonsense
by developing nonsensical expressions.
In response, I would say that the conversational approach of
Wittgenstein requires us to not presuppose the conclusion that his phil-
osophical clarifications are nonsense. The notion of picture satisfies
this requirement. A picture is an unclear conception and calls for clari-
fication. It may be true that, at least in some cases, Wittgenstein him-
self expects that his clarification will not reach the content that is
worth committing to, so that the picture is to be dismissed. The point,
however, is that if he presupposes that conclusion, he fails to take his
target philosophers seriously.
At one point in On Certainty, Wittgenstein says: “In the middle of a
conversation, someone says to me out of the blue: I wish you luck. I
am astonished; but later I realize that these words connect up with his
thoughts about me. And now they do not strike me as meaningless any
more” (OC, 469). Here, Wittgenstein is pointing out the importance of
being open to the possibility of making sense of the utterance that ini-
tially seems unclear. I do not think that my view is incompatible with
the New Wittgensteinians therapeutic motif.27 Rather, by offering the
notion of picture, I encourage the understanding that Wittgensteins
task is to engage in a therapeutic conversation with philosophers with-
out dogmatically assuming that a world-picture is nonsense before the
conversation begins.

7. Conclusion
In this article I have shown that a world-picture sentence is best under-
stood as expressing a picture rather than expressing a rule or an empir-
ical proposition. Furthermore, I have argued that we can find in
Wittgensteins remarks a rich conception of the sceptic and Moorean
philosophers as those who engage in serious conversation, in which no

27
Also, I do not claim that any real New Wittgensteinian assumes that the remarks
of philosophers are plain nonsense before philosophical conversations start, although
their focus on the notion of nonsense may be misleading at this point. See Conant
(1998), Minar (2005), Read (2005), and Witherspoon (2000) for discussions of On Cer-
tainty by the New Wittgensteinians.

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ones grasp of words is taken for granted. From this follows Wittgen-
steinian certainty, according to which our epistemic practice is certain
in the sense that, if we talk about basic things, the content of our utter-
ance becomes unclear.
Two points show the salience of Wittgensteinian certainty to con-
temporary epistemology. First, the notion of picture offers a new
way to understand the certainty of our world-pictures: an utterance
of a world-picture sentence expresses neither a definite proposition
nor grammatical rules but is an unclear conception that calls for
clarifications, and hence the doubt about it also cannot have a clear
content. Second, Wittgensteins conversational approach to the
sceptical and Moorean philosophers offers us one novel way to
understand the idea that the target of the philosophical investiga-
tion into scepticism is not a particular doubt made by a sceptic but
is the sceptic himself or herself. As I argued in section 5, Wittgen-
stein aims to recover from the sceptical frame of mind through
conversations.
Of course, further discussion is necessary to show that the Wittgen-
steinian certainty depicted here offers a better conception of certainty
than other proposals in contemporary analytic epistemology. I believe,
however, that it at least offers an interesting conception of certainty
worth serious consideration.

Musashino University
Faculty of Human Sciences
3-3-3 Ariake Koto-ku
Tokyo
Japan, 1358181
[email protected]

Acknowledgments
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers
25370029 and 16K02218. I am indebted to Musashino University for a
sabbatical leave, which enabled me to write this paper. I am also
indebted to the University of East Anglia for accepting me as an aca-
demic visitor during my sabbatical year. This paper is a revised and
substantially expanded version of the paper I gave at the 37th Interna-
tional Wittgenstein Symposium (Kirchberg am Wechsel, 2014) under
the title “World-Pictures in On Certainty.” I also presented some of my
ideas at the graduate workshop at the University of East Anglia (Nor-
wich, 2015). I am grateful to the audiences on both occasions as well
as Tamara Dobler, Eugen Fischer, Masashi Kasaki, Oskari Kuusela,
Kengo Miyazono, Angus Ross, and Yoshino Sugasaki for helpful com-
ments and discussions.

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134 HIROSHI OHTANI

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