David Peat

78 From Certainty to Uncertaintyto ask about the values and meaning of things is to be concerned withsomething exterior to the universe. And so, for Wittgenstein, the meaningof the universe is not a fact within the universe.This means that most of philosophy—ethics, the nature of freedom,the role of consciousness, and so on—cannot be formulated inthe form of propositions that can be judged as true or false. Take, forexample, death, which faces us all. Wittgenstein says, “Death is not anevent in life. Death is not lived through.” And thus Wittgenstein admonishesphilosophy to “say nothing except that which can be said.”But what of that great philosophical tradition that goes back to theancient Greeks: the search for truth? The true business of philosophers,Wittgenstein argues, is not to make such grand statements about theworld but to clear up logical confusions that arise because of the waylanguage works.To take a crude example: I can say “the boiling snow” or “the squarecircle” without violating the rules of grammar. English allows me tosay such things, even if they don’t make sense. According toWittgenstein the great debates in philosophy (about free will, consciousness,the origins of morals, causality, and the categories of spaceand time) all end up involving similar language confusions. The businessof philosophy is not to seek answers to these questions but to beon a constant alert to linguistic confusions and then to clear them up.It is as if Wittgenstein had put a boundary around language andsaid, “anything within this fenced-off area belongs to philosophy, allthat is outside becomes the province of mystics, poets, and lovers. Theselatter are not trying to make ‘pictures’ of reality but are professingsomething profoundly different.”And what if we ask that burning question about the meaning of itall? Here Wittgenstein touches on mysticism. The great mystery is not“how the world is,” but “that it is,” he says. And as to questions of eternallife, isn’t it true that our present life, the time we spend here onearth, is every bit as mysterious as any speculation about eternal life?But suppose the layperson will not accept this. Supposing he orshe demands more of the philosopher: “You’ve got a nice comfortablejob in a university. You don’t have to do much more than sit aroundand think. So give us some answers and don’t keep on pussyfooting