ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author wishes to pursue the implications of the observations on the truth of skepticism for literary studies as a means of grounding the readings for comedies. The truth in skepticism is not exactly a truth. The truth of the matter is that this fundamental relation to the world is not one of knowing; but, as the tenacity both of the sceptical impulse and of the impulse to oppose scepticism in epistemological terms makes it clear. But the conclusion, or moral, suggested by Wittgenstein's investigations and the work of like-minded philosophers is that (a) nothing recognizable as an answer to the question so posed could in principle achieve the results that such an answer is thought to entail, and that (b) no such answer is necessary to our use and knowledge of language. Cavell's particular contribution to this line of thinking emphasizes the importance-the necessity-of undertaking the difficult labour of making sense of literary works.
