This radical reading of Wittgenstein's third and last masterpiece, "On Certainty," has major implications for philosophy. It elucidates Wittgenstein's ultimate thoughts on the nature of our basic beliefs and his demystification of skepticism. Our basic certainties are shown to be nonepistemic, nonpropositional attitudes that, as such, have no verbal occurrence but manifest themselves exclusively in our actions. This fundamental certainty is a belief-"in," a primitive confidence or" ur-trust" whose practical nature bridges the hitherto unresolved catagorial gap between belief and action.

This anthology focuses on the extraordinary contributions Wittgenstein made to several areas in the philosophy of psychology - contributions that extend to psychology, psychiatry, sociology and anthropology. To bring them a richly-deserved attention from across the language barrier, Daniele Moyal-Sharrock has translated papers by eminent French Wittgensteinians. They here join ranks with more familiar renowned specialists on Wittgenstein's philosophical psychology. While revealing differences in approach and interests, this coming together of some of the best minds on the subject discloses a surprising degree of consensus, and gives us the clearest picture yet of Wittgenstein as a philosopher of psychology.

This collection offers new essays by eminent scholars on Wittgenstein's third masterpiece, "On Certainty." Although Wittgenstein's language, and the problems he deals with--the nature of basic beliefs, epistemic foundationalism, knowledge, certainty, skepticism--are here much closer to traditional philosophy, the exploratory and nonlinear character of "On Certainty" make it a difficult work to penetrate. These essays probe deep into the work from four different approaches: the framework reading; the transcendental reading; the therapeutic reading; and the epistemic reading. This is the first collection ever devoted to "On Certainty," and will prove an invaluable tool to scholars and students of Wittgenstein who have thus far only fleetingly ventured beyond Philosophical Investigations.

This is the first collection of papers devoted to Ludwig Wittgenstein's cryptic but brilliant "On Certainty." This work, Wittgenstein's last, extends the thinking of his earlier, better known writings, and in so doing, makes the most important contribution to epistemology since Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"--a claim the essays in this volume help to demonstrate. The essays have been grouped under four headings, reflecting current approaches to the work: the Framework, Transcendental, Epistemic, and Therapeutic readings.

This radical reading of Wittgenstein's third and last masterpiece, On Certainty, has major implications for philosophy. It elucidates Wittgenstein's ultimate thoughts on the nature of our basic beliefs and his demystification of skepticism. Our basic certainties are shown to be nonepistemic, nonpropositional attitudes that, as such, have no verbal occurrence but manifest themselves exclusively in our actions. This fundamental certainty is a belief-in, a primitive confidence or ur-trust whose practical nature bridges the hitherto unresolved catagorial gap between belief and action.