Wittgenstein über die Erkenntnis Anderer

Abstract Wittgenstein on the Recognition of Others Doubt about the possibility of knowledge that could be expressed by saying “I know that …” – regardless of whether this concerns objects of the so-called external world, the meaning of expressions or the mental life of other people – pervades all of Wittgenstein's writings. I argue that doubt about the possibility of knowledge is at the center of Wittgenstein's philosophy because he conceives doubt about the possibility of knowledge – both in its skeptical and anti-skeptical form – to consist in a radical denial of the human form of life that threatens this form of life from within. Skeptical doubt – and thus the denial of the human – represents a way of inhabiting the human form of life that this form of life cannot prevent. Rather, the possibility of denying the human form of life shows that the human form of life is dependent upon a form of “knowledge of itself” without which it cannot be what it is.