What explanations?

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34. If someone is taught to calculate, is he also taught that he can rely on a calculation of his teacher´s? But these explanations must after all sometime come to an end. Will he also be taught that he can trust his senses-since he is indeed told in many cases that in such and such a special case you cannot trust them? RULE and EXCEPTION

I am confused. He says "these explanations", but I have no idea of what explanations he's referring to.

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

You are reading a rough draft of material that Wittgenstein never had a chance to refine and publish. These are essentially just notes he wrote to himself. And they are written in German. What you are reading is an English translation of a German rough draft. Given these difficulties, you can't expect every word to make perfect sense. The author never intended any of this to be published as it is written here.

The explanations he is referring to are the explanations he will be stating more fully when he finally writes the book based on these notes. As it stands, we can only guess that these explanations involve some of the material contained in his notes previous to his statement about explanations.

As I see it, he intended to elaborate this idea of calculation and this idea of reliance on calculation so that it becomes, with previous material in the notes, an explanation or series of explanations. Then his intent is to show that such explanations can't go on forever.

More than that, who can say? The man is no longer with us to explain anything he put in these notes.

________

You might want to take a look at this:

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:NxBFvul-5FsJ:www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/wittgenstein/section4.rhtml+wittgenstein+on+certainty&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

CJ

Wholegrain · Answer

Ah, thank you. I thought I was really stupid.

Wholegrain · Answer

I guess I will read one of his earlier works.

CalifJim · Answer

wholegrainI guess I will read one of his earlier works.

Be aware that almost everything by Wittgenstein was not actually written by him. Very many of the books that show Wittgenstein as author are actually little more than the notes of students who attended his lectures and compiled their notes into book form later.

CJ

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