Wittgenstein’s German terms for trust actually mean reliance on things

Evidence

Hertzberg (1988) wishes to show a difference in the “grammars” of reliance and trust. He draws on discussions of trust by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Unfortunately, he seems to have been misled in some cases by the English translation he uses, because the words Wittgenstein uses in German are as nearly equivalent to “reliance” as to “trust” in Hertzberg’s senses. Wittgenstein’s (1969, §§159, 509) words translated as “trust” by Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe include “gl¨aubig hinnehmen” and “sich auf etwas verlassen,” which mean, respectively, “to take as true” and “to rely on something”—not “someone.” — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 380

Categorization

• QUESTION: Translation artifacts can distort what a foundational philosopher actually argued; worth checking the Oxford/Cambridge Philosophical Investigations translation note to verify whether ‘trust’ vs ‘reliance’ flip is pervasive.
• SHARE: A genuinely narrow nerdy point for a Wittgenstein scholar or translator — the English rendering inflates a reliance/trust distinction the German text does not support.