16 - The Enormous Danger

Summary

One asks oneself “Where is this going to end?”

(PI 202d)

In the midst of Wittgenstein's discussion of aspect-seeing he warns us of what he calls an enormous danger.

Here we are in enormous danger [ungeheure Gefahr] of wanting to make fine distinctions.—It is the same when one tries to define the concept of a material object in terms of “what is really seen”.—What we have rather to do is to accept the everyday language-game, and to note false accounts of the matter as false. The primitive language-game which children are taught needs no justification; attempts at justification need to be rejected.

(PI 200b)

I think Wittgenstein's fear of wanting to make fine distinctions goes to the heart of his philosophy. If he gave in to his desire for fine distinctions, he would no longer be able to stop doing philosophy when he wanted to (PI §133). And since the way he brings philosophical investigations to an end is by bringing words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use, it becomes plausible that the enormous danger which grips Wittgenstein in the midst of his discussion of aspect-seeing is the enormous danger of metaphysics (PI §116).

Giving in to the desire to make fine distinctions may plausibly be interpreted as permitting yourself to be drawn into the deep disquietudes [tiefe Beunruhigungen] from which it was Wittgenstein's goal to release us (PI §111).