I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden;
he says again and again "I know that that"s a tree�,
pointing to a tree that is near us.
Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him:
"This fellow isn"t insane. We are only doing philosophy.�
On Certainty § 467
If philosophy is disease, the sceptic must surely have a
terminal case. There seems to be no relief for one so ill.
However, in On Certainty Wittgenstein offers us a new way
to examine the problem, a new treatment, as it were. As
Wittgenstein"s methodology is so uniquely multi-faceted,
so too is his attack on the sceptic, and as it has been said
before, Wittgenstein has a marvelous capacity, not for
solving problems, but dissolving them. We should not
therefore be surprised that the die-hard sceptic remains
unconvinced by Wittgenstein"s attack; it is not the sort of
maneuver the sceptic is used to. Indeed, at times it does
not seem like an attack at all. The sceptic must beware
however; behind Wittgenstein"s oblique style there lies an
assault of such subtlety and caliber that only a master of
could deliver it. But really, for all his mastery, for all his
philosophical poignancy, how effective is Wittgenstein"s
criticism? It is certainly of a very different order than those
we have seen in the past, but can Wittgenstein ultimately
avoid the charge of "question begging� that have plagued
so many before him? The question is somewhat complicated
in the case of Wittgenstein, not only by his philosophical
position, but also by his methodology
