Stephen Burwood (University of Hull)
The River-bed of Thoughts and Conceptual Change
A key metaphor in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty is the river-bed of thoughts. It is a passage rich with ideas; but central to the metaphor is the acknowledgement of conceptual change. A suggestive aspect of the metaphor is the picture of protean mutability it imparts, recognising the fluctuating nature of our world-pictures. The passage is sometimes recruited by combatants in a dispute about whether there is a sharp distinction between empirical propositions and rules. However, the mutability expressed in the passage is not about this issue, even if it speaks to it, but about the messy uncertainty of conceptual change.
Stephen Burwood is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hull. His research interests are primarily in the philosophy of human embodiment and embodied subjectivity, the philosophy of education, and the later Wittgenstein, especially On Certainty. On occasion, these interests overlap; hence recent publications of Wittgenstein and education. He is currently working on a book on Wittgenstein and a collection on transhumanism and immortality.