It is argued that the two main accounts of ignorance in the contemporary literature—in the terms of the lack of knowledge and the lack of true belief—are lacking in key respects. A new way of thinking about ignorance is offered that can accommodate the motivations for both of the standard views, but which in the process also avoids the problems that afflict these proposals. In short, this new account of ignorance incorporates the idea that ignorance essentially involves not just the (...) absence of a certain epistemic good, but also an intellectual failing of inquiry. It is further contended that making sense of this normative dimension to ignorance requires one to situate one’s account of ignorance within a wider epistemic axiology. (shrink)

La tesis de la privacidad linguitica nace con el gesto fundador de la filosofía moderna que apoya toda legitimidad en la subjetividad y la conciencia. Ello da origen a dos problemas filos�ficos fundamentales, concernientes al mundo y al solipsismo. El siglo XX creyó encontrar en el lenguaje una salida a estos problemas. Wittgenstein es allí una pieza clave. Sin embargo las interpretaciones más influyentes de Wittgenstein enfocaron la crítica del lenguaje privado de tal modo que la salida debía permanecer en (...) el terreno epistemológico de las garantías o criterio de corrección (Malcolm, Fogelin, Kenny, Canfield, Tugendhat). Sostenemos que la interpretación propuesta por Kripke se apoya un un agudo diagnóstico de la fuente de estas dificultades, dándose cuenta que la refutación del lenguaje privado requería abandonar toda una concepción, la del realismo, que afectaban por igual al lenguaje privado y al público. Su argumentación, centrada en la semántica, irradia consecuencias más allá de la misma. Su "solución escéptica" al establecer que los juicios de corrección, entendidos como básicos y primitivos, sólo poseen sentido en el marco de una comunidad uniforme en sus juicios, coloca al discurso filosófico en un nuevo terreno. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 6, Issue 2-3, pp 120 - 142 This paper aims to contribute to the debate over epistemic versus non-epistemic readings of the ‘hinges’ in Wittgenstein’s _On Certainty_. I follow Marie McGinn’s and Daniele Moyal-Sharrock’s lead in developing an analogy between mathematical sentences and certainties, and using the former as a model for the latter. However, I disagree with McGinn’s and Moyal-Sharrock’s interpretations concerning Wittgenstein’s views of both relata. I argue that mathematical sentences as well as certainties are (...) true and are propositions; that some of them can be epistemically justified; that in some senses they are not prior to empirical knowledge; that they are not ineffable; and that their primary function is epistemic as much as it is semantic. (shrink)

This article critiques Stephen Mulhall's reading of Cavell's response to skepticism. In the first half of the article, I argue that Mulhall is mistaken in two respects: he elides differences Cavell notes between external world and other minds skepticism as well as conflates empathetic projection and acknowledgment. In the second half of the article, I argue for a novel reading of Cavell's account of acknowledgment, which addresses the concerns I raise for Mulhall. The paper closes by considering and responding to (...) a worry that one's efforts at acknowledgment are more complicated projections of one's self onto the other. (shrink)

According to constitutivism, we can justify the authority of aims and norms on the ground that they are inescapable. Constitutivist views divide between ambitious and modest ones. According to ambitious constitutivism, the inescapability of aims grounds their unconditional authority, whereas according to modest constitutivism, the inescapability of aims only grounds their conditional authority. Either way, both forms of constitutivism share the assumption that inescapability grounds authority, which in turn presupposes that at the foundation of normativity we find aims and norms (...) that can be evaluated as having or lacking authority. In this paper I shall defend a form of constitutivism that rejects this assumption. According to this view, which I shall call Hinge Constitutivism, at the foundation of epistemic normativity we find an aim, the truth-aim, that is altogether beyond the evaluation in terms of the ordinary notion of authority. Moreover, I shall argue that to aim at truth is a condition of possibility for justifying the authority of any other aims or norms. In this sense, to aim at truth is a hinge of deliberation. (shrink)

A new reading of G.E. Moore's ‘Proof of an External World’ is offered, on which the Proof is understood as a unique and essential part of an anti-sceptical strategy that Moore worked out early in his career and developed in various forms, from 1909 until his death in 1958. I begin by ignoring the Proof and by developing a reading of Moore's broader response to scepticism. The bulk of the article is then devoted to understanding what role the Proof plays (...) in Moore's strategy, and how that role is played. (shrink)

I defend an account of Moore's conception of Common Sense—as it figures in "A Defence of Common Sense"—according to which it is based in a vision of the community of human beings as bound and unified by a settled common understanding of the meaning of our words and statements. This, for Moore, is our inalienable starting point in philosophy. When Moore invokes Common Sense against idealist (and skeptical) philosophers, he is reminding them that they too are bound by this common (...) understanding, which cannot just be left behind as they confusedly believe. On Moore's conception, Common Sense becomes nothing other than the affirmation that there is such a common understanding—that there is Common Sense—which yields a specific body of Common Sense knowledge. This yields a more principled account of Common Sense than a mere tallying of what contingently happens to be believed (or known) by all. (shrink)

One of the tasks that recent philosophy of psychiatry has taken upon itself is to extend the range of understanding to some of those aspects of psychopathology that Jaspers deemed beyond its limits. Given the fundamental difficulties of offering a literal interpretation of the contents of primary delusions, a number of alternative strategies have been put forward including regarding them as abnormal versions of framework propositions described by Wittgenstein in On Certainty. But although framework propositions share some of the apparent (...) epistemic features of primary delusions, their role in partially constituting the sense of inquiry rules out their role in helping to understand delusions. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 9 Global sceptical arguments seek to undermine vast swathes of our putative knowledge by deploying hypotheses that posit massive deception or error. Local sceptical arguments seek to undermine just a small region of putative knowledge, using hypotheses that posit deception or error of a more mundane kind. Those epistemologists who have devised anti-sceptical strategies have tended to have global sceptical arguments firmly in their sights. I argue here that local sceptical arguments, while less dramatic, ultimately pose (...) just as serious a challenge to our epistemic self-image and that some prominent anti-sceptical strategies are very poorly placed to meet it. (shrink)

There is a sort of scepticism, or, at least, epistemological pessimism, that is generated by appealing to Darwin's theory of evolution. The argument is that nature, that is the selective pressures of evolution, has clearly fitted us for certain sorts of learning and mundane understanding, directly beneficial in point of individual survival and chances for reproduction. Very likely then, it is argued, nature has not fitted us for arcane intellectual accomplishments remote from, or quite disconnected from, those ends. So, it (...) is suggested, perhaps we cannot understand, perhaps never will understand, because we are not made to understand, such matters as consciousness, its nature and causes, the origins of life, the beginning of the universe, or astro-physics in its more finalist pretensions. Sometimes, taken with the claim that manifestly we do understand some of these things, the argument becomes a reductio, and its exponents claim that consequently Darwinism must be false, or of only limited application. More commonly, however, in ‘naturalized epistemology’, it is made the vehicle of a claim about the limits of science, limits imposed by the evolutionarily derived frailty of human understanding. Popper, the late Popper, is one of the progenitors of naturalized epistemology. I want to ask what Popper's response would be, or ought to be, to this epistemological nihilism conjured out of Darwinism. (shrink)

Entitlement is conceived as a kind of positive epistemic status, attaching to certain propositions, that involves no cognitive or intellectual accomplishment on the part of the beneficiary — a status that is in place by default. In this paper I will argue that the notion of entitlement — or something very like it — falls out of an idea that may at first blush seem rather disparate: that the evidential support relation can be understood as a kind of variably strict (...) conditional (in the sense of Lewis 1973). Lewis provided a general recipe for deriving what he termed inner modalities from any variably strict conditional governed by a logic meeting certain constraints. On my proposal, entitlement need be nothing more exotic than the inner necessity associated with evidential support. Understanding entitlement in this way helps to answer some common concerns — in particular, the concern that entitlement could only be a pragmatic, and not genuinely epistemic, status. (shrink)

According to “disjunctivist neo-Mooreanism”—a position Duncan Pritchard develops in a recent book—it is possible to know the denials of radical sceptical hypotheses, even though it is conversationally inappropriate to claim such knowledge. In a recent paper, on the other hand, Pritchard expounds an “überhinge” strategy, according to which one cannot know the denials of sceptical hypotheses, as “hinge propositions” are necessarily groundless. The present article argues that neither strategy is entirely successful. For if a proposition can be known, it can (...) also be claimed to be known. If the latter is not possible, this is not because certain propositions are either “intrinsically” conversationally inappropriate or else “rationally groundless”, but rather that we are dealing with something that merely presents us with the appearance of being an epistemic claim. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 6, Issue 2-3, pp 165 - 181 Wittgenstein’s notion of ‘hinge propositions’—those propositions that stand fast for us and around which all empirical enquiry turns—remains controversial and elusive, and none of the recent attempts to make sense of it strike me as entirely satisfactory. The literature on this topic tends to divide into two camps: either a ‘quasi-epistemic’ reading is offered that seeks to downplay the radical nature of Wittgenstein’s proposal by assimilating his thought to more mainstream (...) epistemological views, or a non-epistemic, ‘quasi-pragmatic’ conception is adopted that goes too far in the opposite direction by, for example, equating ‘hinge propositions’ with a type of ‘animal’ certainty. Neither interpretative strategy, I will argue, is promising for the reason that ‘hinges’ are best not conceived as certainties at all. Rather, what Wittgenstein says in respect to them is that doubt is “logically” excluded, and where there can be no doubt, I contend, there is no such thing as knowledge or certainty either. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and criticize a number of influential anti-skeptical strategies inspired by Wittgenstein’s remarks on ‘hinges’. Furthermore, I argue that, following Wittgen- stein’s analogy between ‘hinges’ and ‘rules of grammar’, we should be able to get rid of Cartesian skeptical scenarios as nonsensical, even if apparently intelligible, combinations of signs.

The axiological account of deep disagreements is described and defended. This proposal understands this notion in terms of the existential importance of the topic of disagreement. It is argued that this account provides a straightforward explanation for the main features of deep disagreements. This proposal is then compared to the contemporary popular view that deep disagreements are essentially hinge disagreements – i.e. disagreements concerning clashes of one’s hinge commitments, in the sense described by the later Wittgenstein. It is claimed that (...) hinge disagreements are only plausibly deep disagreements insofar as there can be a specific class of hinge commitments that are axiological in nature, thereby lending further support to the axiological account of deep disagreement. (shrink)

Bergmann (2021) has written a sophisticated monograph on radical scepticism that offers a distinctive kind of commonsense response to this difficulty. My critic.

Quasi-fideism accounts for the rationality of religious belief by embracing the idea that a subject’s most fundamental religious commitments are essentially arational. It departs from standard forms of fideism, however, by contending that this feature of religious commitment does not set it apart from belief in general. Indeed, the quasi-fideist maintains, in keeping with the Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology that underlies the view, that it is in the nature of belief in general (i.e. religious or otherwise) that it presupposes essentially arational (...) commitments, and hence that there can be no specific epistemic objection to religious belief due to it having this feature. This paper explores how quasi-fideism deals with the problems raised by fundamental religious disagreement. In particular, how is quasi-fideism to avoid the charge of epistemic relativism? It is argued that once we understand the arational nature of these fundamental commitments correctly, then quasi-fideism is able to avoid a problematic form of epistemic relativism. Relatedly, it can also explain how a subject’s basic religious commitments can change over time in rational ways. (shrink)

Two of the main forms of anti-scepticism in the contemporary literature—namely, neo-Mooreanism and attributer contextualism—share a common claim, which is that we are, contra the sceptic, able to know the denials of sceptical hypotheses. This paper begins by surveying the relative merits of these views when it comes to dealing with the standard closure-based formulation of the sceptical problem that is focussed on the possession of knowledge. It is argued, however, that it is not enough to simply deal with this (...) version of the sceptical challenge, since there is a more fundamental sceptical problem underlying the standard closure-based sceptical argument that can be expressed in terms of the evidential basis of our beliefs. Whilst it is argued that neo-Mooreanism has a slight edge over attributer contextualism when it comes to dealing with the closure-based formulation of the sceptical problem, it is claimed that this view is in an ever stronger dialectical position when it comes to the more pressing evidential formulation of the sceptical problem. It is shown that this is so even if one adapts the attributer contextualist thesis along the lines suggested by Michael Williams and Ram Neta so that it is explicitly designed to deal with the evidential variant of the sceptical problem. (shrink)

Contemporary epistemology has explored the notion of a hinge commitment as set out in Wittgenstein’s final notebooks, published as On Certainty. These are usually understood as essentially groundless certainties that provide the necessary framework within which rational evaluations can take place. John Greco has recently offered a striking account of hinge commitments as a distinctive kind of knowledge that he calls ‘common knowledge’. According to Greco, this is knowledge that members of the community get to have without incurring any epistemic (...) burden, and as such is fundamentally different from other kinds of knowledge. I offer a critique of Greco’s proposal. While I agree that there is a variety of knowledge that counts as common knowledge, I contend that it is not to be understood as knowledge that one gets for free as Greco suggests. Moreover, I argue that our hinge commitments do not count as common knowledge—either in Greco’s sense of the term or in the alternative manner that I set out—because properly understood they are not in the market for knowledge at all. In defence of this claim, I suggest that Greco’s conception of a hinge commitment is both missing some crucial elements and also too broad in its extension, in that it encompasses both instances of common knowledge and hinge commitments proper. (shrink)

Support is canvassed for a novel solution to the sceptical problem regarding our knowledge of the external world. Key to this solution is the claim that what initially looks like a single problem is in fact two logically distinct problems. In particular, there are two putative sceptical paradoxes in play here, which each trade on distinctive epistemological theses. It is argued that the ideal solution to radical scepticism would thus be a biscopic proposal—viz., a two-pronged, integrated, undercutting treatment of both (...) putative sceptical paradoxes. A particular biscopic proposal is then explored which brings together two apparently opposing anti-sceptical theses: he Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation and epistemological disjunctivism. It is argued that each proposal enables us to gain a purchase on one, but only one, aspect of the two-sided sceptical problem. Furthermore, it is argued that these proposals are not only compatible positions, but also mutually supporting and advanced in the same undercutting spirit. A potential cure is thus offered for epistemic angst. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Wittgenstein’s critique of Moore in _On Certainty,_ and argues that this critique is largely misunderstood, for two reasons. Firstly, Wittgenstein partly misrepresents Moore. Secondly, Wittgenstein is wrongly taken to be an internalist regarding justification for knowledge. Once we realize these two points, we can understand Wittgenstein’s critique properly as a grammatical argument in that Moore fails to see how the concepts of knowledge and certainty relate to those of justification and evidence. On this reading, we can also (...) understand that Moore and Wittgenstein were in more agreement than many people have thought, even though Moore was not able to exploit and express his philosophical insights properly. (shrink)

Although certainty is a fundamental notion in epistemology, it is less studied in contemporary analytic epistemology than other important notions such as knowledge or justification. This paper focuses on Wittgensteinian certainty, according to which the very basic dimension of our epistemic practices, the elements of our world-pictures, are objectively certain, in that we cannot legitimately doubt them. The aim of the paper is to offer the best philosophical way to clarify Wittgensteinian certainty, in a way that is consonant with Wittgenstein's (...) fundamental insights. The paper critiques two alternative proposals for clarifying Wittgensteinian certainty that are philosophically unsatisfying: the rule view and the proposition view. Finally, it instead shows how viewing world-pictures as pictures, in the sense of unclear conceptions, is a more philosophically fruitful approach to understanding world-pictures. (shrink)

A skeptic claims that I do not have knowledge of the external world. It has been thought that the skeptic reaches this conclusion because she employs unusually stringent standards for knowledge. But the skeptic does not employ unusually high standards for knowledge. Rather, she employs unusually restrictive standards of evidence. Thus, her claim that we lack knowledge of the external world is supported by considerations that would equally support the claim that we lack evidence for our beliefs about the external (...) world. These considerations do not threaten the truth of our ordinary attributions of evidence, however, for such attributions are context‐sensitive in their semantics.It is argued that this solution to the problem of the external world enjoys all of the benefits. and suffers none of the problems, of other solutions to the problem of the external world. (shrink)

Annalisa Coliva (Int J Study Skept 10(3–4):346–366, 2020) asks, “Are there mathematical hinges?” I argue here, against Coliva’s own conclusion, that there are. I further claim that this affirmative answer allows a case to be made for taking the concept of a hinge to be a useful and general-purpose tool for studying mathematical practice in its real complexity. Seeing how Wittgenstein can, and why he would, countenance mathematical hinges additionally gives us a deeper understanding of some of his latest thoughts (...) on mathematics. For example, a view of how mathematical hinges relate to Wittgenstein’s well-known river-bed analogy enables us to see how his way of thinking about mathematics can account nicely for a “dynamics of change” within mathematical research—something his philosophy of mathematics has been accused of missing (e.g., by Robert Ackermann (Wittgenstein’s city, The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1988) and Mark Wilson (Wandering significance: an essay on conceptual behavior, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006). Finally, the perspective on mathematical hinges ultimately arrived at will be seen to provide us with illuminating examples of how our conceptual choices and theories can be ungrounded but nevertheless the right ones (in a sense to be explained). (shrink)

In this paper we argue that a dominant view of Humean naturalism involves a fundamental misconception of Hume's naturalist project. We shall show that the naturalist project as Hume conceives it is philosophically much more interesting than the form of naturalism commonly attributed to him. We shall also argue, however, that Hume's commitment to principles of empiricist epistemology prevented him from bringing his naturalist project to a satisfactory conclusion. Finally, we shall suggest that Wittgenstein shares Hume's conception of a philosophically (...) satisfactory form of naturalism, and that, unencumbered by empiricist doctrines, Wittgenstein was able to provide the sort of undogmatic unravelling of the sceptical problem that eluded Hume. (shrink)

Epistemic absolutism is an orthodox view that propositional knowledge is an ungradable concept. Absolutism is primarily grounded in our ungradable uses of “knows” in ordinary language. This paper advances a thorough objection to the linguistic argument for absolutism. My objection consists of two parts. Firstly, arguments for absolutism provided by Jason Stanley and Julien Dutant will be refuted respectively. After that, two more general refutation-strategies will be proposed: counterevidence against absolutism can be found in both English and non-English languages; the (...) linguistic argument for absolutism is subject to a methodological mistake as the linguistic usages of “knows” cannot accurately reflect its conceptual nature. Therefore, we should give epistemic gradualism, as opposed to absolutism, a more serious consideration. (shrink)

This paper seeks to widen the dialogue between the “epistemology of peer disagreement” and the epistemology informed by Wittgenstein’s last notebooks, later edited as On Certainty. The paper defends the following theses: not all certainties are groundless; many of them are beliefs; and they do not have a common essence. An epistemic peer need not share all of my certainties. Which response to a disagreement over a certainty is called for, depends on the type of certainty in question. Sometimes a (...) form of relativism is the right response. Reasonable, mutually recognized peer disagreement over a certainty is possible.—The paper thus addresses both interpretative and systematic issues. It uses Wittgenstein as a resource for thinking about peer disagreement over certainties. (shrink)

In “Other Minds,” Austin maintained that, unless there is a special reason to suspect the bird he saw is stuffed, he does not need to do enough to show it is not stuffed in order to be credited with knowing what he has just claimed to know: that the bird he saw is a goldfinch. But suppose Austin were presented with the following argument: You don’t know the bird is not a stuffed goldfinch. If you don’t know the bird is (...) not a stuffed goldfinch, you don’t know the bird is a goldfinch. Therefore, you don’t know the bird is a goldfinch. Which of the premises of this argument would Austin have rejected? My brief is that the answer is, “Neither”: Austin would have dismissed the very idea that he needed to choose a premise to reject. The burden of this essay is to explain why. (shrink)

Is disagreement about consciousness largely owed to no adequate initial clarification of the subject, to people in fact answering different questions clarified as actual consciousness. Philosophical method like the scientific method includes transition from the figurative to literal theory or analysis. A new theory will also satisfy various criteria not satisfied by many existing theories. The objective physical world has specifiable general characteristics including spatiality, lawfulness, being in science, connections with perception, and so on. Actualism, the literal theory or analysis (...) of actual consciousness, deriving mainly from the figurative database, is that actual consciousness has counterpart but partly different general characteristics. Actual consciousness is thus subjectively physical. So physicality in general consists in objective and also subjective physicality. Consciousness in the case of perception is only the dependent existence of a subjective external physical world out there, often a room. But cognitive and affective consciousness, various kinds of thinking and wanting, differently subjectively physical, is internal – subjectively physical representations-with-attitude, representations that also are actual. They differ from the representations that are lines of type, sounds etc. by being actual. Thus they involve a subjectivity or individuality that is a lawful unity. Actualism, both an externalism and an internalism, does not impose on consciousness a flat uniformuity, and it uniquely satisfies the various criteria for an adequate theory, including naturalism. Actual consciousness is a right subject and is a necessary part of any inquiry whatever into consciousness. All of it is a subject for more science, a workplace. There is no unique barrier or impediment whatever to science, as often said, no want of understanding of the mind-consciousness connection, no known unique hard problem of consciousness, no insuperable difficulty having to do with physicality and the history of science, no arguable ground at all of mysterianism. (shrink)

Two of the most orthodox ideas in epistemology are fallibilism and purism. According to the fallibilist, one can know that a particular claim is true even though one’s justification for that claim is less than fully conclusive. According to the purist, knowledge does not depend on practical factors. Fallibilism and purism are widely assumed to be compatible; in fact, the combination of these views has been called the ‘ho-hum,’ obvious, traditional view of knowledge. But I will argue that fallibilism and (...) purism are incompatible. The best explanation for fallibilism requires one to reject purism, while maintaining purism should lead one to reject fallibilism. It follows that the orthodox view of knowledge is deeply mistaken. (shrink)

According to its quietist readings, skepticism can be dissolved by demonstrating that the notion of ‘absolute objectivity’ is confused. The dissolution of this confusion is supposed to lead us to acquiesce in our finite and plain everyday life without being bothered anymore about the supposed need for objective knowledge. In contrast, I want to propose a transformative reading of skepticism according to which the philosophical practice of skepticism can be ‘epistemically transformative’. To this end, I will transpose L.A. Paul's notion (...) of ‘epistemically transformative experience’ from decision theory to the realm of philosophical practice and argue that the modern skeptical problem of an external standpoint can evoke transformative experiences that lead to a new, albeit non-propositional, insight into the finitude of the human condition. (shrink)

Scepticism and negative theology are best understood not as theoretical positions, but rather as forms of philosophical practice that performatively undermine our knowledge claims or our seeming understanding of God. In particular, I am arguing that both scepticism and negative theology invoke the failure of the attempt to understand the absolute, be it God or the notion of absolute objectivity. However, with reference to L. A. Paul’s notion of epistemically transformative experience, I am arguing that we still understand something about (...) the absolute through the experience of failing to think it. This, of course, is a non-propositional form of understanding, and I am arguing that there is something about the finitude of the human condition that can only be understood through a transformative philosophical experience with respect to the absolute. (shrink)

Section 1 of the paper reviews a family of “no good inference” arguments for skepticism about the external world, and a straightforward externalist reply. Section 2 reviews skeptical regress arguments, and another straightforward reply. Section 3 considers three objections to foundationalism that are inspired by Sellars’ critique of “the given” in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind,” and argues that none of these is effective against the kind of “externalist foundationalism” defended in Sects. 1 and 2.

The title and subtitle entail the main claims of this article. In the face of the present debate on the question whether Wittgenstein was a foundationalist, a coherentist, or both things, I suggest that, at least in a certain important sense, he didn’t adopt either of these positions. The point concerns the status of propositions that I characterize as “unheard-of propositions” and that constitute the most important subclass of so called “Moore-type propositions”. Unheard-of propositions (and the corresponding beliefs) are neither (...) doubted nor justified, they are not said and not even thought. We simply count on them or we take them for granted. In calling our attention on these primitive, spontaneous and instinctive certainties Wittgenstein is trying to correct an intellectualist bias in traditional conceptions of human being. This reading is confirmed through an analysis of the origin of our basic certainties: we have some of them naturally or instinctively, we acquire others by training, but in neither case there are rational processes at stake (nor irrational ones, of course). The debate between foundationalism and coherentism conceals precisely what Wittgenstein is trying to uncover: a stratum of certainties that, being objective, precede the order of knowledge and justification. (shrink)

This paper discusses the methods of the investigators in film noir. They are different than those employed by the classic detective of mystery and crime fiction, which involve observation, the collection of clues, logical inference, and are generally modeled on the methods of the scientist. I illuminate the methods of the noir investigator by comparing them to those applied by Ludwig Wittgenstein to philosophical problems. Both the noir investigator and Wittgenstein deal with problems that are intractable to the methods of (...) logic and science. Wittgenstein thought that philosophical problems could not be solved using these methods; I show that the problems that typically confront the noir investigator are similarly resistant to them. Wittgenstein and the noir investigator model alternative methods for solving epistemic problems and in doing so remind us of the limits of science and logic. (shrink)

In today’s ‘age of protest’, people have the right to publically resist what they perceive to be unjust and abusive. Sometimes, public protest is non-violent, but often it becomes destructive. People get hurt and property is damaged. Those who have the least are often affected most. This article explores the potential of the centuries old ethics of the Jesus tradition coupled with recent insights from psychology on empathy, for effective and necessary resistance against injustice and power abuse, but without the (...) futility of the violence and destruction. This way of love resists all evil, oppression and injustice, and has the power to break the spiral of violence. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 6, Issue 2-3, pp 79 - 96 The paper explores the idea of a “hinge epistemology,” considered as a theory about justification which gives center-stage to Wittgenstein’s notion of _hinges_. First, some basic methodological considerations regarding the relationship between merely exegetical work on Wittgenstein’s texts and more theoretically committed work are put forward. Then, the main problems raised in _On Certainty_ and the most influential interpretative lines it has given rise to so far are presented and discussed. (...) In light of the initial methodological considerations, some contemporary attempts at developing Wittgenstein’s ideas in an anti-skeptical direction, such as Crispin Wright’s and Michael Williams’s, are considered. Their intrinsic merits notwithstanding, it is argued that they fail to take proper measure of Wittgenstein’s own position. In closing, an alternative version of hinge epistemology is put forward and points of contact and disagreement with Wittgenstein’s own views are highlighted. (shrink)

Abstract: G. E. Moore claimed to know a variety of commonsense propositions. He is often accused of being dogmatic or of begging the question against philosophers who deny that he knows such things. In this paper, I argue that this accusation is mistaken. I argue that Moore is instead guilty of answering questions of the form ‘Do I know p?’ in bad faith.

The sceptic about the external world presents us with a paradox: an apparently acceptable argument for an apparently unacceptable conclusion—that we do not know anything about the external world. Some paradoxes, for instance the liar and the sorites, are very hard. The defense of a purported solution to either of these two inevitably deploys the latest in high-tech philosophical weaponry. On the other hand, some paradoxes are not at all hard, and may be resolved without much fuss. They do not (...) contain profound lessons about the human condition. Where should we place the sceptical paradoxes? (shrink)

Recent literature on skepticism has raised a nearly univocal voice in condemning skeptical argumentation on the grounds that such argumentation necessarily involves our adopting some nonordinary or unnatural perspective. Were this really so, then skeptical conclusions would not speak to us in the way in which skeptics think they do: We would be "insulated" from any such conclusions. I argue that skeptical argumentation need not rely on any nonordinary or unnatural standards. Rather, the skeptic's procedure is to offer a critique (...) from within. Having given my argument for this claim (which I call the 'continuity argument'), I consider and respond to two important objections. I conclude that the skeptic has a powerful meta-argument to be deployed in defending the legitimacy of his skeptical conclusions against the slings and arrows of (those I call) the half-true theorists. (shrink)

Bringing the views of Grayling, Moyal-Sharrock and Stroll together, I argue that in On Certainty, Wittgenstein explores the possibility of a new kind of foundationalism. Distinguishing propositional language-games from non-propositional, actional certainty, Wittgenstein investigates a foundationalism sui generis . Although he does not forthrightly state, defend, or endorse what I am characterizing as a "new kind of foundationalism," we must bear in mind that On Certainty was a collection of first draft notes written at the end of Wittgenstein's life. The (...) work was unprogrammatic, sometimes cryptic. Yet, his exploration into areas of knowledge, certitude and doubt suggest an identifiable direction to his thoughts. (shrink)

Recently, hinge epistemologists have applied Wittgenstein’s metaphor of hinges to religious belief. The most prominent proposal in this context is Pritchard’s “quasi-fideism”. This paper examines some historical precursors of the notion of religious hinges, with the aim of shedding more light on it. After outlining the framework of hinge epistemology and its application to religious belief, I briefly examine the views of Thomas Reid and John Henry Newman as acknowledged forerunners of this framework (or cognate views). Next, I turn to (...) two hitherto unacknowledged forerunners, the pragmatists William James and Charles S. Peirce. I then focus on some insights that the pragmatists offer. On this basis, I conclude that religious beliefs are a special class of hinges. As such, while they can be defended through hinge epistemology, they cannot constitute a model through which we can interpret the nature of hinges in general. (shrink)

While Cavell is well known for his reinterpretation of the later Wittgenstein, he has never really engaged himself with post-Investigations writings like On Certainty. This collection may, however, seem to undermine the profoundly anti-dogmatic reading of Wittgenstein that Cavell has developed. In addition to apparently arguing against what Cavell calls ‘the truth of skepticism’ – a phrase contested by other Wittgensteinians – On Certainty may seem to justify the rejection of whoever dares to question one’s basic presuppositions. According to On (...) Certainty, or so it seems, the only right response to someone with different certainties is a reproach like ‘Fool!’ or ‘Heretic!’. This article aims to show that On Certainty need not be taken to prove Cavell wrong. It explains that Wittgenstein, in line with the first two parts of The Claim of Reason, does not reject scepticism out of hand but rather questions the sceptic’s self-understanding. Using arguments from Part Three of The Claim, the article moreover argues that a confrontation with divergence calls for self-examination rather than self-righteousness. Precisely because Wittgenstein acknowledges ‘the groundlessness of our believing’ or, in Cavellian terms, ‘the truth of skepticism’, he is not the authoritarian thinker that some have taken him to be. (shrink)

This article defends Cavell and Levinas’ view that anti-skeptical arguments cannot attain universal assent. In the first half of the article, I argue that Conant’s reading of Cavell is mistaken in two respects: he ignores Cavell’s inheritance of Kant as well as the differences Cavell emphasizes between external world and other minds skepticism. In the second half of the paper, I examine affinities between Cavell and Levinas’ thought, viz., acknowledging the facticity of the other and their remarks on skepticism. I (...) close the paper by noting three metaphysical and ethical truths that arise from Cavell’s way with skepticism. (shrink)

The present thesis surveys different philosophical approaches to the nature of delusions: specifically, their ontology. However, since none of the various theories of the nature of delusions succeeds, I argue that there must be something problematic about the form of the analyses commonly offered. My general conclusion is that one cannot characterize delusions without taking away what it is distinctive about them.

In this paper, I present and criticize a number of influential contemporary anti-skeptical strategies inspired by G.E. Moore’s “proof of an external world”. I argue that these accounts cannot represent a valid response to skeptical worries. Furthermore, drawing on Wittgenstein’s criticisms of Moore, I argue that Radical skeptical hypotheses should be considered nonsensical combinations of signs, excluded from our epistemic practices.

Many contributors of the debate about knowledge by testimony concentrate on the problem of justification. In my paper I will stress a different point – the concept of testimony itself. As a starting point I will use the definitional proposal of Jennifer Lackey. She holds that the concept of testimony should be regarded as entailing two aspects – one corresponding to the speaker, the other one to the hearer. I will adopt the assumption that we need to deal with both (...) aspects. Nevertheless, I will show that her concept – which suggests regarding testimony as an act of communication conveying information – is too broad and, therefore, I will end up with a different twofold definition. (shrink)