World-pictures in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty

In Wittgenstein.s work On Certainty, he regards propositions like “Here is one hand.” and “The earth was already there before my birth.” as indicating our world-pictures. Wittgenstein shows that these propositions are the examples of our basis of language-activity. Wittgenstein thinks that these propositions differ from other propositions from the point of verification. Wittgenstein thinks that such basis exists at the bottom of our belief and judgment like our common sense, and gives plausibility to our assertions, however we may doubt it sometimes. To understand the notion of world-pictures is important so as to make our basis of belief and judgment clear. For this purpose, elucidation of the characteristics of world-pictures is needed. Firstly, Wittgenstein notices that world-pictures are exchangeable for the propositions supported by them, which means that world-pictures as our basis of belief and judgment are the function that various propositions could fulfill. Secondly, he clarifies world-pictures are not well-grounded and this characteristic is related to our practice. Therefore, a member of one community whose practice is based on world-pictures may have different world-pictures from the others. I maintain that world-pictures could exist as the basis in a different way from our common sense