An Analysis of "On Certainty"
On Certainty is a response to Moore's papers, Proof of an External World and A Defense of Common Sense in which Moore proposes a number of propositions that he claims to know with certainty. Propositions such as the following: "Here is one hand" and "There exists at present a living human body, which is my body (G.E. Moore, Philosophical Papers (1959), p. 1)." Moore continues to enumerate other propositions that he claims to know, with certainty, to be true. These propositions provide for Moore a proof of the external world, and as such, they supposedly form a buttress against the skeptic.
As we shall see as we examine On Certainty it is not only Moore's claim to knowledge that Wittgenstein criticizes, but he also critiques the skeptic, and specifically their use of the word doubt. Wittgenstein's response to Moore's propositions is not entirely unsympathetic, although he argues that Moore's propositions do not accomplish what Moore thinks they do, namely, to provide a proof of the external world. Moore's proof is supposed to undermine the doubts of the skeptic. It is also supposed to demonstrate that the conclusion follows necessarily, and if it does, then the skeptic's doubts are supposed to vanish - at least in theory. The proof would look something like the following:
Wittgenstein is challenging the first premise in the above argument; more specifically, he is challenging Moore's claim that he has knowledge of his hands. Having knowledge of something presupposes that there are good reasons (at least in many cases) to believe it, but exactly what is it that Moore has knowledge of? He claims to have knowledge of the existence of his hands, but what would count as evidence for such a claim? Do I know that I have hands because I check to see if they are there every morning? Do I make a study of my hands, and thereby conclude that I do indeed have hands? I have knowledge of chemistry, physics, history, epistemology, and other subjects, and there are ways to confirm my knowledge. However, in our everyday lives do we need to confirm that we have hands? And do we normally doubt such things?
From here I will examine On Certainty, sometimes line-by-line, other times a section at a time.
I've done this analysis before, but I'm re-writing it to update it. Hopefully, this analysis will be better than the original. I'm not sure how far I'll get, but I'll give it a go.
As we shall see as we examine On Certainty it is not only Moore's claim to knowledge that Wittgenstein criticizes, but he also critiques the skeptic, and specifically their use of the word doubt. Wittgenstein's response to Moore's propositions is not entirely unsympathetic, although he argues that Moore's propositions do not accomplish what Moore thinks they do, namely, to provide a proof of the external world. Moore's proof is supposed to undermine the doubts of the skeptic. It is also supposed to demonstrate that the conclusion follows necessarily, and if it does, then the skeptic's doubts are supposed to vanish - at least in theory. The proof would look something like the following:
1) Moore has knowledge that he has two hands.
2) Moore infers from the fact that he has two hands, to the conclusion that
there exists an external world.
3) Hence, Moore knows that an external world exists.Wittgenstein is challenging the first premise in the above argument; more specifically, he is challenging Moore's claim that he has knowledge of his hands. Having knowledge of something presupposes that there are good reasons (at least in many cases) to believe it, but exactly what is it that Moore has knowledge of? He claims to have knowledge of the existence of his hands, but what would count as evidence for such a claim? Do I know that I have hands because I check to see if they are there every morning? Do I make a study of my hands, and thereby conclude that I do indeed have hands? I have knowledge of chemistry, physics, history, epistemology, and other subjects, and there are ways to confirm my knowledge. However, in our everyday lives do we need to confirm that we have hands? And do we normally doubt such things?
From here I will examine On Certainty, sometimes line-by-line, other times a section at a time.
I've done this analysis before, but I'm re-writing it to update it. Hopefully, this analysis will be better than the original. I'm not sure how far I'll get, but I'll give it a go.
Comments (985)
"If you do know that here is one hand [G.E. Moore, Proof of an External World], we'll grant you all the rest. When one says that such and such a proposition can't be proved, of course that does not mean that it can't be derived from other propositions; any proposition can be derived from other ones. But they may be no more certain than it is itself (OC, 1)."
So, Wittgenstein grants that if Moore does indeed know that he has a hand, then Moore's conclusion follows (see post 1). The skeptic says that such a proposition can't be proved. This doesn't mean, according to Wittgenstein, that we can't derive them based on other propositions. However, the derivation may not be any stronger than the proposition we started with. My interpretation is that there is something foundational here, viz., that some propositions are foundational to our claims of knowledge or our claims of doubt. When you reach bedrock no part of the foundational structure is stronger.
"From it seeming to me--or to everyone--to be so, it doesn't follow that it is so. What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it (OC, 2)."
The skeptic may have a point (although it may not be the point he/she is trying to make), that just because people (or Moore) say something is so, it doesn't follow that it is. However, Wittgenstein points out that what we need to ask, is whether the doubt makes sense. Doubting occurs in a language-game, and language-games have rules - later Wittgenstein will point out that a doubt that doubts everything is not a doubt. Some kinds of doubting make no sense, i.e., if you start out doubting everything, then doubting loses all sense.
Knowledge has to be demonstrated - whereas Moore seems to just state his propositions as facts, and this needs to be shown or demonstrated in some way.
It helps to ask why skeptical doubt arose in the first place. Ancient skeptics produced various arguments for doubting dogmatic claims about the world that Moore makes. As for the coherency of doubting everything, the ancient skeptics were aware of those criticisms. One answer is that beliefs are based on what appears to be the case to someone, such as having a body with two hands to wave about, but that doesn't justify being dogmatic.
[quote=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/]The most widely discussed charge is that they cannot act without belief (Apraxia Charge). In response, the skeptics describe their actions variously as guided by the plausible, the convincing, or by appearances. The notion of appearances gains great importance in Pyrrhonian skepticism, and poses difficult interpretive questions (Barney 1992). When something appears so-and-so to someone, does this for the skeptics involve some kind of judgment on their part? Or do they have in mind a purely phenomenal kind of appearing? The skeptical proposals (that the skeptic adheres to the plausible, the convincing, or to appearances) have in common their appeal to something less than full-fledged belief about how things are, while allowing something sufficient to generate and guide action.[/quote]
Until one finds out they were wrong to be certain. In that case they didn't actually know what they were certain about. Unfortunately, I have been certain and wrong a few times before. Probably all of us have.
This is one argument for skepticism. We think we know various things. They we find out we don't actually know.
"If for e.g. someone says 'I don't know if there's a hand here' he might be told 'Look closer'.--This possibility of satisfying oneself is part of the language-game. Is one of its essential features (OC, 3)."
The language-game of doubt, and what it means in a particular context to overcome the doubt.
"'I know that I am a human being.' In order to see how unclear the sense of this proposition is, consider its negation. At most it might be taken to mean 'I know I have the organs of a human'. (E.g. a brain which, after all, no one has ever yet seen.) But what about such a proposition as 'I know I have a brain'? Can I doubt it? Grounds for doubt are lacking! Everything speaks in its favour, nothing against it. Nevertheless it is imaginable that my skull should turn out empty when it was operated on (OC, 4)."
Here we begin to see the connection between the use of the word know, and the use of the word doubt. The negation of the proposition "I know that I am a human being" illustrates this. Wittgenstein points out what it might mean, but we get a sense of how unclear the former proposition is by its negation. The negation being "I don't know that I am a human being."
What are the grounds for doubt? What are the grounds for knowing? Maybe part of the confusion lies in the fact that we can imagine situations were we can doubt such propositions. However, can we doubt the propositions Moore is using, and can we doubt them in Moore's contexts?
We can doubt his claims to certainty about an external world because it appears that he has hands. How do we really know (have certainty) the external world is as it appears to us humans? The problem is Moore's dogmatism.
If the argument is only that we can't doubt the everyday appearance of normal life, then sure. But it doesn't help Moore's case. It's just an argument for pragmatism, while Moore wants to argue for realism.
Such as someone in antiquity presupposing the Earth was motionless. It was as obvious as waving one's hands about. The sun, planets and stars are what move. Or things upon the Earth. But it's the Earth that provides the stationary ground upon which we have a means to measure motion.
Or some such obvious appeal to the way things seemed to be prior to convincing arguments for heliocentrism.
Interesting:
[quote=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collingwood/] In other words, the ‘realism’ which constitutes the target of Collingwood's critique is not the ontological thesis that there exist mind independent objects, but the epistemological thesis that there is such a thing as presuppositionless knowledge of reality. Collingwood's rejection of this realism develops out of an attempt to explain how forms of enquiry which make mutually exclusive absolute presuppositions can co-exist alongside one another.[/quote]
And:
Sounds like absolute presuppositions are similar to Witty's hinge propositions. But Collingwood argues we have mutually exclusive presuppositions across different fields of inquiry, which raises a problem for using those as a basis for making claims to certainty about the world.
If I presuppose there are good reasons for believing X, then I'm presupposing there is a justification for X. In this case presuppose means to entail.
"Whether a proposition can turn out false after all depends on what I make count as determinants for that proposition (OC, 5)."
This is an interesting point, many of our beliefs are indeed determined by what we make count as evidence. In fact, most arguments are over this very thing. For instance, some religious people believe there is evidence for the existence of God, but others do not believe there is evidence, or at least good evidence. Now, I am not saying that there is or there isn't evidence, only that a proposition is true or false for me or you based on what we allow to count as evidence. In fact, language-games can arise to support any system of belief. However, it's not the language-game itself that decides whether we have knowledge of this or that, otherwise we could create language-games to support any belief.
Language-games can give support for the correct use of certain words; and in the case of On Certainty, we are looking at how we use the word know. So, not all language-games are created equal. We need to look at the original use, and how a word has developed over the years, i.e., the language-game and grammar that surrounded the word's birth and growth.
"Now, can one enumerate what one knows (like Moore)? Straight off like that, I believe not.--For otherwise the expression "I know" gets misused. And through this misuse a queer and extremely important mental state seems to be revealed (OC, 6)."
This is where Wittgenstein begins to show that Moore's use of the word "know" is contrary to the word's original home, i.e., contrary to how the word is normally used. There is a kind of logic of use involved in Wittgenstein's method throughout On Certainty.
For the longest time I didn't know exactly what Wittgenstein was referring too, when he made the following statement about Moore's proposition: "...a queer and extremely important mental state seems to be revealed."
However, in a later passage he seems to clarify what he has in mind. In paragraph 42 Wittgenstein speaks of the "mental state of conviction," and that this state of conviction is something that occurs regardless of whether a proposition is true or false. Wittgenstein seems to refer to it as a subjective state of certainty, and we observe this in the way people speak or gesticulate. The way we gesticulate will often show our convictions. Moore's claim to knowledge seems to be more in line with this subjective state of certainty, than with real knowledge claims. This will be developed more as we look at these passages.
Finally, if some of you want to learn how Wittgenstein examines words using the methods in the Philosophical Investigations - I believe On Certainty puts Wittgenstein's methods (the methods of the PI) to use, i.e., we can learn how to apply his methods by a close examination of his notes.
Would you have preferred a different body part?
Probably because hands are harder to be skeptical about than a rock, since hands are part of the person doing the doubting. You can kick the rock, but it's still not as good as waving hands about.
However, it still doesn't accomplish what Moore wanted it too, unless one already agrees with Moore. A skeptic is not going to be persuaded. Moore is waving his hands to the choir.
This is very interesting. So Moore is misusing the word "know" to instead refer to a feeling of certainty.
As a side note, it's also interesting that Wittgenstein is referring to a mental state.
Well, hands aren't exactly "external" reality are they? Hands are too me to be proof of anything other than me, no?
Doubt takes something more.
Well, you might say your body is part of external reality. That you have a body moving about in the world proves there is a world. Some people want to argue the subjectivity/objectivity divide is false. It's all objective. Problem is it can go the other way and be all subjective.
So how do we know which one it is?
Where exactly is the boundary between internal reality and external reality? Presumably there is an internal reality since we're talking about external reality. Also, it seems to me that hands and other sensory organs are the interface between the internal and the external - a place, so to speak, where the external and the internal greet and converse with each other. Given this is so, I'd expect something other than bodily parts for a proof of the external world. :chin:
Our perception. Hands have nerves, so they're part of it.
Isn't Moore's claim like an astronomer thinking stars, galaxies, giant gas clouds, space dust, etc. exist by just looking at, as opposed to looking through, her telescope?
Pretty much. It accomplishes nothing against the skeptic. Like skeptics hadn't considered having hands before.
If proof means something like 'argument or sufficient evidence for the truth of a proposition,' then it seems to me that the very concept of proof is social. Who is the argument for? What is reason? If reason is radically private, how does it avoid being absurdly arbitrary?
The idea that was start in some kind of private mental space and have to somehow construct or justify the world from there is massive and misleading assumption. Why does our skeptic take this framework for granted? Why does the skeptic not doubt the existence of the mental, of the inner? Perhaps because the skeptic assumes without proof that language/thought is 'inside.'
You have to convince yourself before you can even try to convince an other.
Quoting path
Descartes?
But if there are no others, what does convincing oneself mean? If I'm alone and there is no world outside me, it doesn't matter what I believe. It's all equally real or unreal. Even reaching for a proof enacts a concern with getting it right. The standards driving the process are social.
Quoting TheMadFool
Yeah. Good example. So the skeptic starts with this framework of being a voice and an eye trapped behind a screen, a fairly detailed and wild assumption, and takes it utterly for granted. 'I don't believe anything, except that there's a screen between me and everything.'
The skeptic doesn't know he has a hand but is sure he has a voice, that he ought not believe without proof, that he understands correctly what the voice (which must be his is saying). This proximity of the 'inner' voice is a massive assumption. It's 'me.' Those words in my head are 'me.' Why is the skeptic sure that he is a singular consciousness? That words imply some kind of consciousness or 'mind stuff' opposed to 'non-mind stuff.'?
The general point is that to be intelligible at all is to presuppose all kinds of things, which function as background to our foregrounded concerns.
Well, call it mental, subjective, inner or whatever, the skeptic has doubt because of issues with perception, memory, equally good arguments for and against whatever, and the like. But it doesn't have to be solipsistic. It could be an inter-subjective kind of skepticism where we agree on human experience, but getting from there to claims about the external world are seen as problematic.
That kind makes sense. I think much of it boils down to how we use the word 'real' in various ways. I doubt that our skill at using this word can be converted to some explicit, exhaustive theory.
Yeah, probably not.
By the way, I like the spirit of skepticism. I like instrumentalism as a philosophy of science. I somewhat object to saying that a table, for instance, is 'really' atoms, etc. Or that the table is 'really' sensations. This is like trying to pin down a network of interdependent meanings by making some of them fundamental. The world and language function as a glob.
There's something like a 'constructivist' paradigm that can be taken for granted where philosophers are tempted to build up the world as experienced from 'matter' or 'sensation' or whatever. I don't think that it's wrong. It squares with certain other intellectual achievements. It's just limited, and I like becoming aware of strategies that we never consciously chose but just absorbed from the conversation around us. The apparently necessary thereby becomes contingent and the conversation is enlarged.
"My life shews that I know or am certain that there is a chair over there, or a door, and so on.--I tell a friend e.g. "Take that chair over there", "Shut the door", etc, etc. (OC, 7)"
Our lives show that we have certain beliefs, and many of these beliefs are shown by our actions. The very act of sitting at a computer and typing shows my belief that there is a keyboard; that I have hands; that I am controlling my fingers; that what I type is saved to a hard drive, etc, etc. I don't even think about it, i.e., I don't think to myself and say, "Is this really a keyboard?" After all there is no reason to doubt it, and even if I did doubt it, would that doubt really amount to anything? That I am certain of these beliefs is reflected in what I do. We all act in ways that show our certainty of the world around us. Occasionally things do cause us to doubt our surroundings, but usually these things are out of the ordinary. I am referring to our sensory experiences, i.e., generally we can trust our senses even if occasionally we draw the wrong conclusion based on what we see, hear, smell, etc.
The backdrop of reality grounds us, if this wasn't the case, then the skeptic would have an argument. However, the skeptic tends to doubt things that shouldn't be doubted. They doubt that which is outside the language-game of doubting; and they violate the rules of doubting within the language-game of doubting. Similarly, Moore is extending the use of the word know beyond its normal use, beyond the grammar associated with the word.
So the discussion between Moore and the skeptic, and the one here to which you have not much responded are in a sense, fake. One cannot have a discussion about whether or not one is having a discussion. Having the discussion at all is showing the certain belief, which one is then purporting to prove or doubt.
Firstly, there is no necessity that others should not exist for the idea of convincing yourself to fly. I'm certain that many people engage in the activity of proving/trying to prove a proposition to themselves without the urge to share the proof with others.
Quoting path
I guess the only inference that can be made from thinking is a thinker and while you're of the opinion that no more is possible, I'm looking at the glass half-full and say no less too.
I don't think you grasp what I'm gesturing at, which is admittedly a strange thing. What is thinking? Does this involve 'mental' stuff? Why believe in mental stuff is something as equally obvious as the external world is doubt-worthy? Don't all these 'concepts' live together?
The move from thinking to a thinker is substantial. But we can consider a more basic move: the move from a sequence of words into a cohesive voice that is mine. The skeptic starts not from zero but from a complicated assumption of selfhood and some 'mental' realm that acts as kind of screen between this self and an 'outer' world that may or may not 'really' be there.
Do you see this massive framework that is utterly taken for granted? Just taking the 'I' for granted as some unity of a voice that is assumed to be 'interior'? The (pseudo-) skeptic starts with an inherited situating paradigm as if it were necessary. He walks across the floor to check whether the wall is real, not noticing his trust in the floor.
I'm trying to point out a massive enactment of faith or trust that makes any particular doubt intelligible. Our skeptic doubts the 'outside' but not that the inside-outside thing might itself be a radical misunderstanding, etc. He takes the 'I' utterly for granted.
Yep. Indeed, the method of OC is far more important and interesting than any conclusions that it might be thought to draw.
It's important to realise that OC is an unfinished work. Any consideration made therein ought be treated as tentative.
:up:
Descartes' very bad idea.
Right. It's fascinating how something inherited like this old bad idea can become the 'ground zero' of a game of doubt. I remember being stuck in this framework myself once. It's the glasses we don't know we are wearing that get us.
"The difference between the concept of 'knowing' and the concept of 'being certain' isn't of any great importance at all except where "I know" is meant to mean: I can't be wrong. In a law-court, for example, "I am certain" could replace "I know" in every piece of testimony. We might even imagine its being forbidden to say "I know" there. [A passage in Wilhelm Meister, where "You know" or "You knew" is used in the sense "You were certain", the fact being different from what he knew.] (OC, 8)."
This passage seems to be straight forward, i.e., in many instances we can use the two words know and certain interchangeably; and this is probably where some confusion occurs. Except, as Wittgenstein says where it's "...meant to mean: I can't be wrong." - this seems to be a reference to Moore's propositions. Moore seems to be saying that here is a hand, and I can't be wrong about this, or many of the other propositions Moore uses. There seems to be something special about Moore's propositions, and Wittgenstein picks up on this. It's probably why Wittgenstein has some sympathy for Moore's argument.
It seems to be the case that Wittgenstein uses the word certain in both the subjective sense and the objective sense. The latter is akin to knowing, the former is reflective of my inner state of subjectivity.
I may never know. We've been talking about language in Bedrock Beliefs. One of the themes is how automatic it is. If I try to tell you what I understood by 'thinker,' that will be a fresh speech act on my part. And then you can ask me what I meant by some word in that speech act.
This is connected to using words 'under erasure.' Even as we criticize them, they must retain a certain legibility that makes such criticism possible. And it's never about a simple denial that there is a unified consciousness or that there is a thinker. Philosophers can't legislate the ordinary intelligibility of these words. They are radically dependent on their blind skill, and theoretical discourse cannot be self-founded or 'purified' of this 'thrown-ness.' It can and does move against such 'throwness' by articulating and otherwise blindly enacted paradigm that only then becomes optional. As I see it, such an 'escape' is always only partial and near the surface. The thinker (singular) is always mostly the plural 'we' among whom these tokens signify in an enacted, social form of life.
Well, you were basically objecting to Descartes before in the context of his cogito argument. I did a climb down and agreed with you that an "I" is, perhaps, too complex an entity to be inferred merely from thought. In what sense is my "thinker", here merely an entity whose function is thought, inappropriate?
It's not that there's something wrong with postulating a thinker. If I were to gripe, I might say that concepts are interdependent, that our understanding of thinking is entangled with a general understanding of the world. But the original issue is that radical skepticism is 'impossible' in that it needs to presuppose some thinker who experiences representations. In that sense it's not radical enough. It takes an old-school philosophical set up for granted. I'm suggesting that we can't intelligibly get behind some kind of setup like this. Why is taking a stream of words as a unified 'I' acceptable to our radical skeptic when the external world is not? How are reality and doubt intelligible apart from others?
So, your conception of radical doubt would be to doubt everything. If memory serves, Descartes did exactly that but came to realize he couldn't doubt the doubter for he couldn't deny the truth of experiencing doubt and neither can anyone else in my opinion.
Well I guess I agree that we can't doubt the doubter in some sense. But why can we doubt the world if we can't doubt the doubter? What can doubt mean without a world? What's the difference between a dream and reality if there are no other people? I guess I'm saying that the doubter is only intelligible against the background of a shared world, that all of this is built-in to language in some sense.
I don't think W. goes into Descartes at all. But it makes an interesting contrast. firstly, Descartes is explicitly looking for a foundation for knowledge about which he cannot be wrong.
Quoting Sam26
Descartes finds, or thinks he finds his justified belief that cannot be wrong. But because he does it on his own, in a 'meditation', his knowledge is not of the external world, but of a purported internal world. I suspect W. found it beneath his dignity to even consider such nonsense - or else he never bothered to read Descartes. He wasn't a great reader of the canon.
Moore at least tries to start in the world, by waving his hands and addressing his fellows. but his project is Descartes' project.
Wittgenstein rejects the whole project to find a foundation for knowledge. Whatever is knowable is doubtable and knowing and doubting are activities in the world, that is to say in a context. so one can always imagine a context - waking up in hospital strapped to a gurney, where one might reasonably doubt that one has a hand,. So one sees that both knowledge and doubt are both equally justified or unjustified by the context and this context is the world within which knowledge and doubt can exist.
So the picture one might choose to replace the idea of knowledge as a building with foundations is perhaps more of a boat that floats on the Sea of Circumstance.
Are you suggesting language is more than what people think it is - nothing but a mode of communication. Do you feel that language isn't just a passive medium of exchanging information but actively modifies the information itself? I couldn't word it better so you'll have to make do with that.
I'm tempted to call you out on what you said which prima facie looks like a contradiction. Do you mind elaborating? I may have missed the point.
Quoting unenlightened
I see. What other way to build knowledge on is there?
"Now do I, in the course of my life, make sure I know that here is a hand-my own hands, that is (OC 9)?"
The fact that we don't doubt that we have hands, at least in most cases, tells us something important about Moorean propositions. It tells us that they have a grounding that makes them exempt from doubt, at least in the contexts we are describing. This is also true of most of our sensory experiences, viz., those experiences with the world around us. Moreover, it is these experiences that seem to all fit Wittgenstein's bedrock propositions.
Ya, I think it is poor philosophy.
This one?
"I know that a sick man is lying here? Nonsense! I am sitting at his bedside, I am looking attentively into his face.-So I don't know, then, that there is a sick man lying here? Neither the question nor the assertion makes sense. Any more than the assertion "I am here", which I might yet use at any moment, if suitable occasion presented itself.---Then is 2 x 2 = 4" nonsense in the same way, and not a proposition of arithmetic, apart from particular occasions? "2 x 2 = 4" is a true proposition of arithmetic-not "on particular occasions" nor "always"--but the spoken or written sentence "2 x 2 = 4" in Chinese might have a different meaning or be out and out nonsense, and from this is seen that it is only in use that the proposition has its sense. And "I know that there's a sick man lying here", used in an unsuitable situation, seems not to be nonsense but rather seems matter-of-course, only because one can fairly easily imagine a situation to fit it, and one thinks that the words "I know that..." are always in place where there is doubt, and hence even where the expression of doubt would be unintelligible (OC 10)."
Consider the following: We are sitting together visiting a friend in the hospital. We are in a well lit room, and we are not under the influence of drugs or anything that would alter our perceptions, so there is no reason to doubt that we are looking at a sick friend. I say, "There's a sick man lying here. In fact, I know there is a sick man lying here. It's our friend Bob." You respond, "What's your point? Obviously there is a sick man lying here. Did you have any doubts?" Notice how out of place the proposition sounds. It is important to realize that if there was a reason to doubt the statement, then it would not be out of place. For example, if we were standing outside Bob's room, and it was not well lit, and you asked, "Is that Bob in there?" And I replied, "Yes, it's Bob." You ask, "Are you sure (the doubt), it's hard to see in here?" I respond, "I know that's Bob, because a few minutes before you arrived, I was in there talking with him." In this last example note how the use of "I know..." fits together with the doubt, and the resolving of the doubt. In the former example, where a doubt does not arise, the use of "I know..." seems like nonsense or silliness.
The problem it seems, is that because we can imagine a situation that fits Moore's propositions, then it follows from that Moore's propositions are good examples of what we know. But the problem may be that some of these propositions will work within the language-game, and some will not. One needs to understand the context. Therefore, is it proper to say, as Moore did, "I know I have hands." One cannot answer the doubts of the skeptic by simply using the word know, as if the utterance of the word conveys that you really do know. In fact, the statement that one knows is no more intelligible in this situation, than the statement that one doubts that one has hands. Both people are making the same mistake, viz., using the words out of the language-game that make them intelligible.
Wittgenstein seems to be making the same point about the mathematical proposition 2 + 2 = 4, i.e., when it is used outside of its normal range of use (outside the language-game in which it resides), it too, is out of place.
Consider how we use the word know in our everyday lives. We take a course in algebra, history, ethics, or physics, and the teacher wants to know if you know the subject. Is it enough to say to the teacher "I know algebra." Is that enough to alleviate the doubts of your teacher? Obviously not, we have to demonstrate our knowledge? We take quizzes, we take tests, and we answer questions in class, this is what convinces others that we have knowledge. Once the doubts are eliminated, then the question of knowing does not generally arise. If we say in a court of law that so-and-so is guilty of murder, then hopefully the evidence will convince us, so that very little doubt, or even no doubt remains. A claim to knowledge is a special kind of claim that requires an objective standard, so that we generally have no doubts that we have such knowledge. Moreover, the claim to knowledge is not a claim of absolute certainty. We do not need absolute certainty to say that we know that a proposition is true or false, but we do need a high degree of certainty. This is often seen in courts of law when the jury is told to disregard doubts that are not reasonable.
What possible doubt could there be in the examples above? Doubting has to have a context beyond the expression of the word doubt. Just as knowledge must have a context beyond simply expressing the word know. Just because someone is able to use the words know and doubt in a proposition, that does not mean that the proposition has sense.
Using the word know as Moore used it, is senseless, in fact, it creates bogus philosophical problems. Many so-called philosophical problems are just as senseless. The way we talk about free will and determinism, time, knowledge, and a whole panoply of other philosophical ideas, propositions, and words are also just as problematic. Once you come to understand what Wittgenstein is saying, or trying to do via his method, then many of the problems of philosophy simply vanish as pseudo-problems - many, but not all.
The idea that language is a medium is something I'm trying to put in question (following and paraphrasing my influences.) Is riding a bike with no hands a medium? Is chopping a carrot a medium? Why are we so quick to think of humans making noises and marks as a medium?
How sure are we that there is such a thing as meaning or information? Obviously these exist as tokens in human doings, but do we really know what we are talking about? Or do we use these words in the same way that we ride a bike? With a certain skill that we can't get clear about. (This also applies to words like 'know' and 'doubt' and 'really.')
I can say more stuff, I don't know if it will help. I'm not entirely certain I have understood Wittgenstein aright. And I'm not sure what you think is a contradiction in what I have said.
A recap. You cannot disagree with me, without presuming that there is someone, or at least something said, to disagree with. I contradict myself, therefore I am. But as you formulate it: "un contradicts himself, therefore he is."
The reality of our discussion cannot be a matter of dispute in our discussion. Our discussion thus forms an indisputable context within which other things can be known and/or doubted.
Of course tomorrow, you might be down the pub discussing with the barman, and doubting whether you had a discussion about Wittgenstein, with some weirdo called unenlightened. And in the context of your discussion down the pub, this discussion becomes doubtable, or knowable.
The context is the sea of circumstance, ever changing, but always the support
What exactly do you mean by "sea of circumstance"?
I can imagine a setting of circumstances A, B and C, etc. In A, we doubt B and C; In B, we doubt A and C; in C we doubt A and B, and so on. Noting that while in A, we're certain of A, while in B, we're certain of B and so on, it follows that we're both certain of each circumstance (A, B, C,...) and also in doubt about them.
To my reckoning, each circumstance presents a dilemma. Should I in a circumstance A, be certain of A or should I preemptively doubt it? (For) I most certainly will when I've left A and entered another circumstance, say, B? Which of, either certainty or doubt, is true of the circumstances we find ourselves in? Should I be certain, as I am when in the thick of a given circumstance or should I doubt, as I will, when I view a given circumstance experienced from the vantage point of another circumstance?
Well, how do you wish to go about putting into question the general conception that language is a medium?
The circumstances of your question are that you and I are connected via the internet and communicating via some electronic device through a website dedicated to philosophy. Am in the UK and you are ... Well I don't know, but you do. So there is a whole physics of electricity and a whole network of interconnection that is unquestionable, because it is the condition for your question to appear on my screen. That is the sea of circumstance on which your question floats. It's not that you cannot question any of that, or wonder if I am not some program in your computer or on the website, but there's no point asking me about that, is there? "Are you real?" is not a sensible question.
Incidentally, I see elsewhere that the op has left the site for political reasons, so I think I will leave the discussion here. It's 'posed to be about W. not my theory, and needs an expertise I don't have.
Since this thread has been abandoned by the OP, I'll just refer you to some of my other posts. Perhaps you can jump in on some of those other threads. Or, if you start one on the issue, I'd enjoy participating.
Since they flow on, best treat them together.
Note seems.
"I know I have two hands" does not provide the certainty Moore seeks.
I once had this conversation with an Afghani man who had both legs blown off by an American fragment bomb. He assured me that Moore was wrong, and that he did indeed need on occasion to check that, in his case, he really did not have his legs.
And I think it here important to go back to the following:
What we know depends on use; and hence, as you see from the case of my friend Soraj, on our circumstances.
There's some beautiful analysis of first, second and third person accounts here.
Anyone care to unpack this?
Shown, not said.
The emphasis on showing is in the original.
If we are thinking of knowing in terms of justification - a misleading term - then the justification here is a showing. "Here is my hand - no mistake is possible".
Here, to know is to be certain.
As I understand it, we can never get outside of our blind skill and finally say what 'I know' means. We can and sometimes do use this blind skill to imperfectly articulate what's going on. I think Wittgenstein is doing that in the quotes above. And you are analyzing a use of 'I know' in context and doing a translation, a fresh creative act that relies on your blind skill with English.
[quote=Wittgenstein]
At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.
...
Does a child believe that milk exists? Or does it know that milk exists? Does a cat know that a mouse exists?
...
Are we to say that the knowledge that there are physical objects comes very early or very late?”
[/quote]
[quote=link]
First of all, we learn language by interacting with others, and thus we can refer our private feelings to ourselves only after we have learned how to refer and how to distinguish between "private" and "public" in the first place. Thus the sense of what is private is derivative upon non-private communication, and there is, then, a holistic connection between any so-called private language and language's ordinary uses. Braver links this with Heidegger's holism in his description of tools in Being and Time, where the use of a tool, such as a hammer, presupposes a non-thematic understanding of an entire world of references within which the hammer functions, and this includes involvements with other human beings (other Dasein). In this regard, our existential being-in-the-world is our primary experience of everything, and it must simply be described rather than theoretically reconstructed, for such reconstruction would be a falsification.
[/quote]
https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/groundless-grounds-a-study-of-wittgenstein-and-heidegger/
I'm still not sure how to interpret 'showing.'
I'm dumbfounded that this was not remarked upon...
That implies there is something "outside of our blind skill ". There isn't. We can't say what cannot be said...
Which is a problem with those systematisers, Heidegger for one, who would say despite this.
...hence, "shown".
I'm tempted to agree with you. The thought of blind skill threatens the philosophical project. The fantasy is that we can take some position on the outside and legislate. The insight, if we want to call it that, is that metaphysics (including theory of knowledge) is impossible. But all of these words are caught up in that same blind skill, in conventions and slippage that can't be controlled from the outside, some dry room from which we peep down on the storm.
Quoting Banno
Heidegger is easy to hate, and I hate him half of the time. But he's also great at times. I guess he is systematic during some phases, but at other times he's highly anti-systematic. I like him as a critic, as a destroyer of metaphysics based on the subject. What Braver does to connect Heidegger and Wittgenstein in Groundless Grounds is pretty great.
Do you mean something like lived?
I know that I know that I know that I know... implies I am incapable of being wrong... that doubt has no place here. Juxtaposed to objectively...
I'm reading this as preparing the ground for the contention that knowledge cannot be private.
More preparation. Knowing as part of a language game, with all that this implies.
"Here is a hand", if it is to count against the idealist, cannot be part of the same sort of language game as "Here is Saturn". Rather it needs to be part of the setting up or explaining how that language game works. It's showing how the game is played.
What's blind about it? The term's an odd choice.
So here is the core criticism of Moore: If his argument is to work he must be using "I know that..." to mean "I am certain that..."; and then the inference "it is true that..." will follow. But we do say "I thought I knew that..."; and hence, certainty need not follow.
But then Witti adds: "an assurance from a reliable man that he knows cannot contribute anything." And further,
Which seems odd; then qualifies that with
All this seems to be playing with the notion of justification, looking at how the language of the game "I know..." works. Methodologically he is employing his own admonition from PI 66, where he talks about defining "game": "Don't think, Look!".
Moore's "I know I have a hand" needs to remove all doubt; but "I know" is not strong enough to do this. "I am certain" suffers a similar fate. But "It is certain..." does not. You might agree that I think I know, and still maintain that I am wrong; but if you agree that it is certain, then you cannot then say that I am wrong. (probably needs unpacking... complicity is achieved in the move from first person to third person).
Here he leaves Moore for a while, looking instead at rule following. Why?
There is a way of following a rule that is shown in implementing it, as opposed to merely stating it.
This... shown, not said. We can recognise when the rule has been followed, or not. It does not follow that we can state all the circumstances in which the rule might be broken.
It's the way that words just pour out of us in situations. We react appropriately, like we are riding a bike. I think of someone writing a dictionary as looking around at what happens and squeezing out the least wrong summary that he can, and I understand as like a work of translation.
Along these lines, the same word used in a million different instances has a million different 'meanings.' You and I could look at these individual cases and perhaps agree on some further elaboration. We could talk about what the word means in exactly that context (ignoring that fact that we're never in exactly that context but only imagining). As we did so we'd be using the same blind skill. The words would pour out from nowhere, with more or less hesitation or rewriting. So the skill is blind as taste is blind, though of course we do create fresh words to articulate/elaborate aesthetic reactions.
A further reflection on method; the picture has us enthralled. We need to see the rabbit as a duck - better, to see that we can see it either way.
...as if there were such as thing as "the meaning of..."
That picture has us enthralled.
Indeed! And we can only talk about that picture from within that picture. We can only bring down the house with the stuff we find inside. We are always thrown into a way of talking. We don't control it. We inherit it. We can only question it in terms that it has forced on us.
As I said before, I am tempted to put all of my terms in quotes, but that would annoy people. Along the same lines, it's just part of my blind skill to use 'I' and other mentalistic words as I try to criticize this mentalistic picture. Note that Rorty also stresses the dominance of pictures. In our haughty rationalism we don't notice that our framework is nothing but a picture...that language is a mirror or an eye...as opposed to a hand or something else. We think in metaphors, and flies in bottles and disposable ladders are doing the work for us.
I totally agree with this. We make dominant pictures optional. But to do so requires that we make them visible in the first place. Perhaps the primary force in philosophy is dragging such pictures from the darkness in which they operate.
If there is no outside, there is no inside. I suspect you would agree, but given your sympathy for Heidegger...
I do agree, but so does Heidegger. That's kind of his deal. Existence is being-in-the-world. The inside/outside talk is Cartesian confusion, Cartesian oblivion. FWIW, I find lots of Heidegger almost impossible to enjoy. But check out the first draft of B&T ('the Dilthey review').
Or look into Braver's fusion of Witt & Heid in Groundless Grounds. I'm not saying you need it. You'll probably agree and not be much moved.
To me it's hard to understand how someone can like later Witt and hate early Heid.
In absentia,
I agree that the phrase you mentioned is senseless out of context. As Hegel stressed, you can't offer summarized results in philosophy. The meaning isn't there in the words. It's distributed in everything that lead up to such a summary and in the form of life that makes the book intelligible in the first place. I know that Hegel is a pain in the ass too, by the way.
I do think English translations of Heidegger are often obscure and ugly. I don't know if it's the fault of the German. Probably to some degree. At the same time, lots of philosophers may be anti-poetic enough to prioritize accuracy over a new living book in English.
Quoting path
If the context is everything, then it's not a context.
That's the trouble: insisting on telling us details of the ineffable.
On this side of the pond, we say that 'X is everything' for 'X is important.' I agree that all distinctions break down when pushed to extremes.
Quoting Banno
What did Witt say about wanting to grunt? But then that grunt or conspicuous silence becomes a token in the game. (Heidegger also talked of conspicuous silence.)
This context thing is basically historicism. 'Meaning' is cumulative. We have to 'read ourselves in' to a certain intellectual community. Hegel, for instance, could take a certain jargon for granted. He was writing for his contemporaries. They wanted their Jesus and Progress rolled into one. How could it be made scientific? How could a certain tension in their form of life be resolved? So to study philosophy (if that means reading the famous dead) is also to study history. We try to feel our way into a form of life. This is a big theme in the Dilthey draft, as one might expect given its nickname.
To be sure, I can't choose the right words, the perfect words. What makes communication possible (inherited conventions) makes perfect communication impossible. The words aren't tied down to Platonic meanings. They drift as we keep using them in new ways and forgetting to use them in the old ways. If meaning is use, then use is unstable.
I think this actually connects to the OP. But it also extends the post above.
Tell me if the below doesn't sound one hell of a lot like Heidegger (who does acknowledge the influence, for what that's worth.)
[quote=link]
According to Yorck, the analysis and evaluation of the contemporary intellectual-historical situation is integral to philosophy—all the more so if philosophy self-reflexively grasps its ineluctably historical nature, which in itself is one of Yorck's main philosophical objectives. The basic idea for the historicity of philosophy is straightforward. For Yorck, as for Dilthey, philosophy is “a manifestation of life” [Lebensmanifestation] (CR, p. 250), a product or an expression in which life articulates itself in a certain way. But all life is intrinsically historical. Life is inconceivable without its historical development.
...
Consequently, Yorck rejects from the start the transcendental method in philosophy as insufficient for grasping lived historical reality. Transcendental philosophy reduces historical life to the merely “subjective,” which misses the genuine characteristic of Geist, spirit or mind, namely its real, historical extension and connection.
...
Yorck's primary category of historical life does not only challenge transcendental philosophy as too-narrow a foothold for philosophy. A fortiori, it also challenges the entire metaphysical tradition, which presupposes or searches for an ultimate objective reality (being, idea, substance, and so on), divorced from the ground of the always shifting historical life. Yorck rejects claims to “knowledge” sub specie aeternitatis. For Yorck, metaphysics is a flight from the historical reality ‘on the ground.’ By making historical life primary, Yorck effectively aims to dismantle the predominance of Greek metaphysics, including the modes of thought of modern science derived from it.
...
In the condensed and all too general format of the Correspondence with Dilthey, Yorck develops the practical “application” of philosophy in only the most fragmentary fashion. Its most important part is the actual clarification of the contemporary situation, the determination of the given historical possibilities, and the avenues for implementing some of them. Yorck holds that since the Renaissance and through the works of such thinkers as Galileo, Descartes, and Hobbes, the self-interpretation of life has found its centre of gravity in the cultivation of the theoretical understanding [Verstand]. The primacy accorded to theoretical understanding and what it projects as objective, unchangeable, and ultimate reality (metaphysical & physical) has ushered in “the natural sciences,” “nominalism,” “rationalism,” and “mechanism,” (CR, pp. 68, 63 & 155). But this has come at the exclusion of the full thematization, expression, and appreciation of human affectivity [Gefühl], including the underlying feeling of human connectivity through a shared life in history. Blocked-out are questions which affect the temporal, historical and personal existence of human beings, or what Yorck once calls “existential questions” [Existenzialfragen] (CR, p. 62), which relate to the life-goals human beings strive after, the recognition of dependency, and the awareness of human mortality, finitude, and death (CR, p. 120). The relative sidelining of these aspects in the psychology of human beings lies at the bottom of Yorck's diagnosis of the increasing self-alienation of modern man and the crisis of his time.
[/quote]
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/yorck/
What would it be like to think that this was not a hand?
How could doubt have its place here?
Not said, but shown; and hence, strictly nonsense.
Heiddy had a clue that language effected/affected a speaker. His notions of Dasein and Being proved that much, but... his account was horrendous and clunky. Changing the everyday meaning of some of the most common words did not help his cause.
Quoting Banno
This seems confused. The idealist doesn't doubt the existence of hands. They would agree that Moore can show that he has hands. What they doubt is the move from waving hands about, or "it is certain", to saying hands are physical.
The objection to this would be that "physical" is part of the language game. Yes, but physical means real, as in hands are material, not mental. And this is what Moore is trying to establish against the idealist. That his hands are proof of a material world.
Again the objection would be that is how the language game is played. Hands are used as being part of the material world. Sure, but this is means language is used in a naive realist manner. The idealist presumably has reasons to reject naive realism, and thus to suppose that everyday language is mistaken.
For the idealist, waving hands about doesn't mean your hands are physical, it just means you have a consistent experience of waving hands about. You don't get to make that epistemic leap just by pointing to an experience.
True, but what is this reality? Is it the stuff of everyday experience which populates ordinary language? The skeptic finds various problems with this.
The problem with "showing" is the question of what is being shown? That our experiences of the world are veridical? There are many examples which call this into question. The ancient skeptics had multiple arguments to demonstrate that. Modern science provides even more.
Quoting Sam26
This is either naive realism or pragmatism. All it establishes is that we have a consistent experience of a world. It's not a defeater for skepticism, because the skeptic begins here, and then goes on to point out everything that leads to the problem of perception.
I don't understand how Wittgenstein's method makes these problems go away. In our language game we say we have could have done otherwise. Thus, we're responsible for our actions. But then there are reasons to doubt we actually could have done otherwise. So what to make of that? It would seem our language game has created a paradox.
Or take Hume's critique of causality. We talk about causes all the time. And yet the actual cause never presents itself in experience. So why is causality part of our language game?
Is it really the case that philosophers are abusing language? Or are they pointing out the questionable assumptions used to create our language games?
Did skepticism originate with misuse of the Greek term for doubt? No, it arose because of illusions, hallucinations, dreams, madness, perceptual relativity, sophistry and what not.
IMO, you are correct here. A problem is only pseudo from the perspective of a later stage in the critical conversation. The danger in 'language on holiday' talk is that it can be its own 'language on holiday' for an anti-intellectualism that wants to (mis-)take itself as critical.
This is what annoyed Gellner so much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Gellner We can obviously also criticize Gellner, but I empathize with his frustration.
I like Rorty's use of Kuhn's abnormal/normal distinction. Successful philosophical revolutions are always 'abuses of language' that become the new norm. To fend off (all) 'abuses of language' is to fend of new philosophy, which is to say philosophy itself.
Quoting Marchesk
I also think of the skeptic as belonging to a pluralistic culture like our own. They can see what is attractive and problematic in many different perspectives. I also think of the skeptic as a lover of ideas who doesn't want to harden into a dogmatist.
To me a better also Wittgensteinian 'attack' on skepticism is on its own terms, for not being skeptical enough, for taking its very language for granted.
[quote=Witt]
If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything.
...
At the core of all well-founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.
...
We are asleep. Our Life is a dream. But we wake up sometimes, just enough to know that we are dreaming.
...
To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.
...
Belief in the causal nexus is superstition.
...
Perhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning.
...
A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
[/quote]
I picked some quotes as reminders for the particular purpose of suggesting that we don't read Wittgenstein as an anti-intellectual quasi-pragmatist.
This criticism misses the point. It's our consistent experiences that make radical skepticism lack any force. The point is that doubting in some circumstances is unreasonable, i.e., our doubting needs good reasons, just as our knowledge claims do. Moreover, as Wittgenstein points out, "My life shews that I know or am certain that there is a chair over there, or a door, and so on (OC 7)."
Of course there are problems with perception, however, note that if I have a perception of X, and it turns out there was a problem with what I perceived, then obviously the doubt is warranted. Most of what we perceive is unproblematic, which is why I use the example of sitting at the computer typing. The so-called defeater for radical skepticism is in the unproblematic cases.
Just as Wittgenstein points out Moore's incorrect use of the word "know," Wittgenstein also points our the incorrect uses of the word "doubt," both have their problems. No one is saying all skepticism is problematic. One needs to come to terms with where these words break down (knowing and doubting).
Because someone asserts that they know, that in itself is not enough to conclude that one does indeed know. That one knows needs to be demonstrated in one of the language-games of knowing. Even if it's determined that your not lying when you utter the words "I know...," it still is problematic without the demonstration of how you know.
Can you infer from your own utterance that you know? Yes. I can infer that I know based on the evidence that leads me to the conclusion that I know. I know that I know.
"There is a hand there" follows from the proposition "He knows that there's a hand there." If he indeed does know there is a hand there, i.e., he knows the evidence behind the claim, then he indeed knows it. However, this is a far cry from concluding that one does indeed know simply from the utterance "I know X."
Sure, so we can dismiss Descartes as being unreasonable when he set out to doubt everything. But the ancient skeptics did provide reasons for their doubts. You have the ten modes of Pyrrhonism which provide arguments based on the relativity of sensory organs, locations, situations and what not. Also that every dogmatic position can have an equally compelling counter argument.
Then you have Humean skepticism based on the problem of induction. A popular modern version of skepticism is Bostrom's simulation hypothesis. Then there are arguments based on the findings of science that the world we perceive is a kind of illusion. The Problem of the Many attacks our standard notion of regular objects as having well defined boundaries. And this forum has had many debates which involved QM and what that means for the kind of world we live in. I'm currently reading this book:
To assert that I know is different from agreeing that you know that I know and again from a dogmatic we know.
No-one can reasonably doubt Moore when he says that he knows his hand, But how could Wittgenstein possibly know that Moore's hand is real and not a fake hand, and again, no scientific encyclopedia is going to help in telling us that we know whether Moore does or does not have a hand.
Therefore it would appear that both Moore and Wittgenstein are correct in their assessment of knowing but not in telling us about the type of knowledge they mean by knowing. If they cast aside metaphysical differences as nonexistent or irrelevant then they can argue past each other forever.
Quoting Marchesk
Descartes doesn't need to provide a reason for his doubt because it is self-explanatory in the same way that Moore only needs to raise his hand to prove to himself that he has a hand. This kind of subjectivism is self-sufficient, absolute and certain in all respects to the subjective I. A second or third person demonstration is redundant. The ancient skeptics had a different empirical knowledge to doubt and not this self-proving subjective kind.
Radical skepticism is incoherent. On the other hand, so is Moore's argument that he knows "this is a hand." The same thing that grounds the correct use of doubting, also grounds the correct use of knowing. Both inextricably rely on the backdrop of reality itself, otherwise there is no foothold for doubting or knowing to get their meaning. Just as chess relies on the board and pieces in order to play the game. If you doubt the board and pieces, where do you go from there? You can't play the game.
The rules of language, or the rules of correct usage, tell us how we are to use these concepts (knowing and doubting). They're not created in a vacuum, but in a culture of correct usage. We can't just create our own uses, as many people do, and expect something coherent. To be fair, though, it must be said that many incorrect uses have to be pointed out because they're very difficult to see.
For Wittgenstein in On Certainty the proposition "here is one hand" is more a performative speech act than constative, where "here is one hand" is a naming by the observer of what the observer perceives rather than a description of what the observer believes to be in the world.
Wittgenstein's unaltering bank of a river within which the river of language constantly flows are these performative acts immune to the sceptic, an idea as later developed by Austin. When a dignitary performatively names a new aircraft carrier "HMS Albion", the sceptic cannot question that this is the true name of the vessel, as evidence is held in newspaper articles.
Wittgenstein's approach to the proposition "here is one hand " as performative rather than constative becomes the first step in a theory of language where public communication becomes possible potentially free of sceptical doubt.
Subsequent steps in a theory of of language would be in expanding the meaning of "here is one hand " by placing it within a coherent linguistic context and then discovering correspondences between language and the world.
:up:
In other words: I don't have the language, the language has me. And I am more within the language than the language is within me. To exist in a community where something like 'reality' makes sense in the first place is to already have learned this framework (to have learned to talk/think in terms of appearance/reality). With this in mind, there is a limit on how radical any facetious skepticism (that wants it articulate itself) can be. To speak at all seems to indicate an expectation that being understood is at least possible.
Once we understand the limits of language (how we use words like know and doubt), then we can see how some uses of words have gone beyond the board of use. It's as if we've removed the bishop from the board and are using it in our imaginary game. However, it's even more strange than this, because others are also playing the same imaginary game. When others join in, this gives us the illusion that we're really playing the game. There is a very subtle loss of meaning when we do this. It certainly looks like we're playing the same game. After all, we're using the same pieces (same words, i.e., they're spelled the same), but we're moving them in strange ways. Ways that violate the original intent of the pieces and their use.
Moore said that these rules are the rules of common sense, and has been criticised for not justifying to the sceptic why common sense should be the basis for the rules.
Wittgenstein said that once the proposition "here is one hand" is placed within the context of language, within a language game, as language is founded on logical propositions, and as logical propositions are beyond knowledge or doubt (being norms that are neither true nor false), scepticism is not able to function within language.
It is true that once the proposition "here is one hand" becomes part of a particular language game, both internally coherent and logical, then it becomes necessarily free from the sceptic.
However, the proposition "here is one hand" may be included within any number of internally coherent and logical language games, and the sceptic may rightly ask how Wittgenstein explained the basis on how to decide from the many possible language games the one that corresponds to reality.
In OC 7 Wittgenstein points out the important idea of showing a belief. He says, "My life shews that I know or am certain that there is a chair over there, or a door, and so on." Then he gives an example of showing, "I tell a friend e.g. 'Take that chair over there', 'Shut the door', etc. etc." These are only one or two examples of how we show a belief. The mere act of sitting in the chair or opening the door shows that we believe there is a chair or a door. Acts alone, show, or have the potential to show what we believe.
Yes, Moore did believe that his propositions were common sense propositions that all of us know, but Wittgenstein is challenging this idea. To most us it seems that Moore is correct. I mean if we don't know this is a hand, then what do we know?
"For 'I know seems [my emphasis] to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression 'I thought I knew' (OC 12)."
There are clearly a variety of correct uses of the words "I know," and each of these correct uses reflects one of the several ways we are able to objectively verify how it is we know that something is or is not the case. Some of the ways we verify how it is we know, include, logic (inductive and deductive reasoning), sensory experience (I know the orange juice is sweet because I tasted it), linguistic training (I learn how to correctly use words through linguistic training.), and finally, testimony (much of what we learn and know comes through the testimony of others). These are some of the ways we learn to correctly use the word know. Each of these ways gives a justification to our claim to know. One must demonstrate or show that one really does know. The claim "I know," does nothing by itself. All it is doing is showing your conviction that you know. One's conviction is only an assurance, but surely that is not enough to make the claim that you know (OC 15).
Given that this is the way we use the word know, what is the problem with Moore's proposition? The problem (one of the problems) is that Moore is using the word know in conjunction with a statement that generally has no need of justification. There are some basic statements about reality that do not need any justification, i.e., in some way they are foundational. These propositions (more like pseudo propositions) have the function of supporting our language, and hence, the language-game of epistemology. Wittgenstein never really worked out how we should describe these kinds of statements. He refers to them in a variety of ways. He calls them hinge-propositions, bedrock propositions, foundational propositions, etc. In OC 415 Wittgenstein says, "...certain propositions seem to underlie all questions and all thinking." This is one of the reasons I refer to these propositions as a kind of foundation, without which we no language. It seems to follow from this that talk of knowing falls apart without these bedrock propositions.
I think what Wittgenstein is referring to is a bedrock or foundational belief that undergirds everything. I do not think they should be called propositions.
If I claim to know the history of England, there are ways to verify my knowledge. And, note, that if someone doubts that you are an English historian, there are ways to remove the doubt, so to speak, by objectively verifying one's claim. The doubts of others is why one's claim to know needs justification. But what if one's claim to knowledge brings no doubt to mind. In other words, what if we generally can't doubt a particular claim (like Moore's claim, that he knows he has hands)? I'm talking about particular claims within specified contexts (for e.g. Moore's context). If Moore's claim cannot be doubted, i.e., we cannot imagine its justification, then it's not a knowledge claim. How we come to doubt someone's claim to knowledge is important in terms of understanding the correct use of know. Again, if it's not possible to doubt in a given context, then it's not possible to know. The proper doubts of others, is what tests our claims. This is why Wittgenstein points out the importance of the phrase "I thought I knew." It's the doubt that brings the negation of "I know." It's also the doubt that can affirm one's claim to knowledge.
"It's not a matter of Moore's knowing that there's a hand there, but rather we should not understand him if he were to say 'Of course I may be wrong about this'. We should ask 'What is it like to make such a mistake as that?'--e.g. what's it like to discover it was a mistake (OC 32)?"
Wittgenstein said that language has meaning within the context of its language game, meaning is determined by use, and the language game corresponds to a reality. A game such as chess has rules, but different games have different rules. A language game may be internally logically coherent and correspond to a reality, but each language game will correspond to a different reality. I look at the optical illusion "Rabbit and Duck" and see a rabbit, my reality is the rabbit. Another person looks and sees a duck, their reality is the duck. We may have the same perception but arrive at different interpretations. The sceptic may rightly ask for what reason should one interpretation have precedence over another.
Wittgenstein is correct that there is no room for a sceptic within a particular language game, but as the reality of each language game is relative, the sceptic may still ask for justification as to which language game is nearer to the absolute reality.
It's tough on philosophers, to be deprived of obvious choices. I know between certainty and doubt, one has to go but to disallow both is going to leave even the best thinkers scratching their heads.
I can get a handle on how certainty can be questioned but to claim, if I read the OP correctly, that doubt ain't it too is as perplexing as it is depressing.
Yes, part of what Wittgenstein said is that language derives meaning within the context of a language-game, and that meaning is closely connected with how we use a word in language-games. However, this is not to say that all language-games have the same force, or that we can arbitrarily make up any language-game and derive meaning from it. The same is true of use, I can't arbitrarily use words the way I want without the loss of meaning.
Not all language-games or all uses are correct. If I teach a child how to use the word pencil, and later the child points to a cat, and says, pencil, then their use of the word is incorrect, even if it's used in a particular language-game. Furthermore, note that use gets its force within a culture of agreement, and even this has its limits. So, there is a kind of objective reality in our agreement (at least generally). If there wasn't we wouldn't be able to communicate.
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that each of us has a different reality (a subjective view of things), which in turn causes us to interpret things differently. Without getting into your use of the word reality, suffice it to say that you, just as the child in my example, cannot derive meaning based on how you, personally, use words. No more than you can play the game of chess by using your own rules. No one would know what you're doing. You wouldn't be playing the game of chess, as much as you might protest. After all, you might protest, it's my reality.
Meaning is derived within our world of reality, but it's not subjective, i.e., it's not something I personally determine. Meaning is derived from the social nature of language within the confines of an agreed upon reality (the agreement is general in nature). The fact that the Earth has one moon cannot be seen in the same light as the duck rabbit illustration. I don't look at the moon and see two moons while you see one. Reality, in general, is not like the duck rabbit picture.
You seem to think that all interpretations are equal, and this goes back to your subjective view (or the skeptics subjective view as you presented it), as if my interpretation is the only one that counts for me. However, if I want to use language as a tool to communicate, then there are standards that correspond to the correct use of the words within that language. The standard is derived from a community of language users, not through some internal reality.
If the skeptic replies "why should one interpretation have precedence over another," then one could answer, that not all interpretations are equal. In other words, in terms of language and the language-game, again, meaning is not a matter of your personal interpretation. The radical skeptic (I'm referring to a specific kind of skepticism, not all skepticism) is not playing the game correctly. And, this must be viewed from outside our subjective view. It's viewed by looking at the community of language users, not one's personal interpretation. One's personal interpretation may or may not line up with the community, and this corresponds to the correct or incorrect interpretation. When I say correct and incorrect, I'm speaking generally, if it wasn't true generally, language would simply fall apart.
I'm not denying the subjective, I'm simply saying that the subjective has nothing to do with how meaning is derived within a society of language users.
Did he?
Where?
Wittgenstein isn't disallowing the use of know and doubt, he is saying that in some cases philosophers are not using the words correctly. By the way, I know that in some cases we use the word certainty as a synonym for know, but to avoid confusion I stick with Moore's use of know.
Not only does Wittgenstein compare the use of know with the use of doubt, as pointed out in previous posts, but he also asks us how a mistake would be possible in Moore's use of know. Moore seems to be saying that a mistake is not possible, as he says, "Here is one hand." And, if Moore would have left it at that, he would have had a stronger case, but he attached "I know..." to the statement, and it's here that problems arise. One problem is the connection between "I know..." and doubting, and the other is the connection between "I know..." and making a mistake. Seeing these connections is important if we don't want the force of "I know.." to be such that one can leap from the utterance of a statement (OC 21) to the truth of a statement. As if I can't be wrong or making a mistake. The possibility of being wrong is logically connected to "I know..." in fundamental ways.
Wittgenstein pointed out though, earlier (OC 13), that we can infer from our own statement that we know, but not from the statements of others. It must be demonstrated that you know to others. "'I know' often means: I have the proper grounds for my statement," i.e., we want to make sure you're not making a mistake. What are your grounds (the doubt), let's double check this (making sure there is no mistake). This either leads to "Ahh, you are correct," or "There is a mistake here." The question arises, how does Moore's use of "I know..." allow for the correction? It doesn't. Moore's use of "I know.." is supposed to have the force of truth in and of itself, but that would be weird.
Moore has found something significant though, and Wittgenstein respects Moore's for this. Moore has pointed out something special about these kinds of statements (Moorean statements or facts). They seem to provide a kind of foundational belief that is not only fundamental to epistemology, but fundamental to language. For myself, I have concluded that it leads to non-linguistic beliefs, but I've said enough about that, let's not debate this again. :nerd:
"But can it be seen from a rule what circumstances logically exclude a mistake in the employment of rules of calculation (OC 26)?" However, Wittgenstein asks, "What use is a rule to us here?" After all if we can make mistakes in our calculations, certainly we can make mistakes in applying a rule.
Is there some rule that can be applied to Moore's propositions? No, there isn't, at best we can give something akin to a rule (OC 27), for e.g., "in normal circumstances." "And we recognize normal circumstances but cannot precisely describe them. At most, we can describe a range of abnormal ones (OC 27)."
"What is learning a rule?--This. What is 'making a mistake in applying it'?--This. And what is pointed to here is something indeterminate (OC 28)."
Understanding these points gives us a glimpse into why it's difficult to follow Wittgenstein's points about Moore. It's not clear cut, it's indeterminate. You have to wrestle your way to the finish line.
I would dispute this "correctness" is determined relative to a language-game. There is nothing to indicate that one language-game would produce a more correct use of a word than another. So the game you play, when teaching your child the word "pencil" is just as correct as the other game which uses "cat" instead.
If that is the case, then the following is untrue as well. We can arbitrarily make up language-games, and derive meaning from those games.
Quoting Sam26
Quoting Sam26
This argument is untenable as well. There are no principles to determine what constitutes "playing the game correctly". It is a matter of your judgement, or my judgement, of whatever rules are apprehended as applicable. And this amounts to "one's personal interpretation". To step outside one's own personal interpretation, and get an objective view, or the view from "the community of language users" is impossible. So it really doesn't make any sense to assume such a thing as the correct or incorrect interpretation under these principles.
To make the judgement of correct interpretation, we would commonly refer to the intent of the speaker. But if dismiss this as a determining factor, and proceed toward a "game" system of modeling, there is no principle to determine the "correct" game, and its applicable rules.
The radical sceptic makes a valid point in pointing out that whilst Wittgenstein argues that each language game has its own set of hinge propositions, he did not justify why one set of propositional hinges should be more exempt from doubt than others.
I agree that in a sense my choice of language game is objective, in that some language games are more useful to me than others, which I why I chose the language game of 21st century western society rather than the language game of the Japanese Imperial Court during the Heian period.
AC Grayling discusses Wittgenstein in his Wittgenstein On Scepticism and Certainty, and refers to two main themes within OC - which he names OC1 and OC2.
OC 1 is a foundationalist refutation of scepticism, where beliefs are inherent within a system
and beliefs rest on foundations, such as passage 248 "I have arrived at the rock bottom of my convictions".
OC 2 is relativistic, where truth and knowledge are not absolute but vary with viewpoint and time, such as passage 65 "when language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change."
I agree with your reply, which I would classify as being within OC 1, where language games resist local scepticism by being founded on propositional hinges, but I would also agree with Grayling that the biggest philsophical problem with On Certainty is OC 2, in that the framework within which propositional hinges operate are themselves relative, and hard to resist against radical scepticism.
I agree that in On Certainty Wittgenstein did not use the words "the language game corresponds to a reality", but it seems to me that the inference within his writing is so strong that it would be difficult to argue that for Wittgenstein "the language game does not correspond to a reality"
Whilst Wittgenstein in his early philosophy did propose an isomorphism between language and reality, in his late philosophy, on the contrary, he was not explicit that language, being made up from language games, was isomorphic with reality.
I can only read On Certainty with the strong inference that Wittgenstein assumed a reality that language corresponded to.
Taking one example, passage 411, "If I say "we assume that the earth has existed for many years past" (or something similar), then of course it sounds strange that we should assume such a thing. But in the entire system of our language-games it belongs to the foundations. The assumption, one might say, forms the basis of action, and therefore, naturally, of thought."
On the one hand, the proposition "we assume that the earth has existed for many years"
belongs to the foundation of the speaker's language game. On the other hand, the speaker is assuming the reality of an earth existing for many years. It must logically follow that the speaker's language game must correspond with the speaker's reality.
In On Certainty, whilst Wittgenstein did not specifically say that "the language game corresponds to a reality", I would find it difficult to argue that Wittgenstein believed otherwise.
First, hinge-propositions, or what I call basic beliefs or foundational beliefs (foundation carries other baggage though), are outside any of our epistemological considerations (I think this is an accurate interpretation of W.), so they (the hinges) don't require any justification, nor can they be said to be true or false. The only kind of epistemological connection they have is that they're beliefs, but even this falls away when considering non-linguistic beliefs.
Second, the nature of these basic beliefs, is that they're all exempt from doubt for the reasons he gives throughout OC. One being, if we are referring to Moorean propositions, the doubt lacks sense, or as W. points out "what would such a doubt be like?, and don't understand this straight off (OC 24)." All basic beliefs (or hinges if you will) have this characteristic. If they don't, then they're not basic. Moreover, if it makes sense to doubt "This is a hand," in a particular context, then it also follows that, it's not basic. I think Wittgenstein gives good reasons why all basic beliefs are exempt from doubt.
Quoting RussellA
I think Grayling is incorrect about this. While it's true that basic beliefs are relative to the reality we find ourselves in, it's also true that the skeptic finds himself in the same reality, so their use of the word doubt is also dependent on that reality. The use of relative here needs to be clarified.
Good - I am glad I hadn't missed something so important.
I'd ask you to consider OC 191. It seems to me he is here directly contradicting the contention that the relation between a language game and reality is one of correspondence. What counts as a fact, what counts as real, is part of the same language game.
You are close to what I think is a key unsettled issue for such exegesis: are language games incommensurable with each other? There are some texts that seem to support this, but broader considerations seem to count against it. For my part I here remind myself that both PI and OC are incomplete; OC the more so; so it is entirely possible that Wittgenstein hadn't decided the question to his own satisfaction. Further, I think considerations from Davidson and Feyerabend lead to the conclusion that since language games are far from fixed, incommensurability is quite unlikely.
I think that there is an understanding of Wittgenstein that bypasses the forced dichotomy you attribute to Grayling. But I haven't read the article to which you refer - do you have a link?
Edit: This: http://www.acgrayling.com/wittgenstein-on-scepticism-and-certainty
Ya, the skeptic would still get the same treatment as far as I can tell. OC probably wouldn't have been written if Moore expressed his argument in some other way.
The skeptic is responding to Moore’s metaphysical realism. Waving a hand around doesn’t prove anything beyond the experience of having a hand. Moore thinks he can turn that into a metaphysical statement.
If they are distinct and different language games then they are incommensurable because commensurability would produce one game. This is why equivocation is a fallacy. The logical relationship between a word's use in one game, and its use in another game, cannot be established.
However, the inclination is to assume that language, in general, is one game. But this assumption requires commensurability between the various games, to produce the one game of language. It's like the question of what does "3" refer to. Does it refer to three distinct and different objects, or does it refer to one object, the number 3? It depends on how you use it. But how could these two different ways be commensurable?
I think this overstates the case. It is not that they can't be said to be true or false. They are accepted as true and further justification is not needed. As hinge propositions they are what justification hinges on.
But we need to look at his depiction of knowledge via the analogies of the Heraclitian river and relativity, that is, the rejection of some fixed, unmoving point:
96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were
hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid;
and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became
fluid.
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I
distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself;
though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.
98. But if someone were to say "So logic too is an empirical science" he would be wrong. Yet this is
right: the same proposition may get treated at one time as something to test by experience, at
another as a rule of testing.
99. And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an
imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away, or
deposited.
152. I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them
subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates. This axis is not fixed in the sense that
anything holds it fast, but the movement around it determines its immobility.
305. Here once more there is needed a step like the one taken in relativity theory.
"The Earth revolves around the Sun" is a hinge proposition. But at one time "the Sun revolves around the Earth" was a hinge proposition. It was not simply a matter of correcting a mistake. The fate of man hinged on it.
"I know this is a hand," "...is a misfiring attempt to express what can't be expressed like that (OC 37)"
I think this misses the point of what a hinge-proposition is. What makes something a hinge is not what people accept as true or false, which are epistemological ideas, but they are concepts that lie outside our epistemological concepts of true and false, and what it means to know. This is the whole point of Wittgenstein's challenge. If hinges can be said to be true or false, then it makes sense that we can doubt that the proposition is true or false. This idea allows Moore's problem (the problem as W. sees it) to creep back into our thinking.
If you would prefer, we can put this off until you are further along in your analysis.
As you know, the only example of a hinge proposition is a mathematical proposition. To exclude mathematical propositions from what is true or false is problematic to say the least.
The statement prior to the first mention of a hinge proposition:
340. We know, with the same certainty with which we believe any mathematical proposition, how
the letters A and B are pronounced, what the colour of human blood is called, that other human
beings have blood and call it "blood".
Between the two mentions of hinge propositions at 341 and 343 is this:
342. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in
deed not doubted.
And the statement immediately following the second mention:
344. My life consists in my being content to accept many things.
We do not doubt hinge propositions because they are somehow beyond doubt, but rather because of everything that hinges on them. To call them into question would be to call everything that revolves around them into question. It is fundamental to the logic of our investigations that certain propositions stand without question. It is fundamental to our way of life that certain propositions are not called into question. "If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put (343)."
I'm going to make one more comment before moving on, because I don't want any confusion about what I'm saying. It's not true that the only example of a hinge proposition is a mathematical proposition. There are mathematical hinges, such as, 1+1=2 or 2+2=4 and so on. However, I'm not sure why you would say these are the only examples of hinges. The reason the book is written is because Wittgenstein is saying that there is something special about Moore's proposition, viz., "I know this is a hand," which is by definition, given the context, a hinge-proposition. Moreover, there are many other hinge-propositions. For example, the rules of chess are hinge-propositions.
I didn't exclude mathematical propositions from being true or false, only hinge mathematical propositions. Only propositions that are hinges (mathematical or otherwise) are excluded from truth or falsity.
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree with some of this, but not all of it. It's the first sentence of this paragraph that is problematic.
If a proposition by its very nature is a hinge, then it's not doubtable. The hinge stands in a certain relation to the reality around us (the objects or things that make up the world), and to all the other propositions that connect to hinge-propositions. It's the hinge that stays put (which is why it's not doubtable), just as the reality around us stays put, at least generally, and it's because of this unique status that hinges cannot be doubted. They're bedrock, i.e., they allow the door to swing. The door being all the other propositions that are not hinges.
Two things must remain solid in order for most of the propositions of language (including mathematical propositions) to function. First, reality itself (the door frame), second, the hinge-proposition (hinge connecting to the door frame), these two remain fixed, which in turn allows the door of our life of language to function. If these things were not fixed, then no linguistic culture, no language-game of epistemology.
Maybe this clears some things up, but I'm not hopeful.
This is the only example of a hinge proposition that is given.
Quoting Sam26
This is what prompted him to put these thoughts down on paper, but he says addresses much more than Moore's proposition.
Quoting Sam26
Yes. What is at issue is what counts as a hinge proposition. You exclude propositions that are either true or false. I think this is incorrect.
Quoting Sam26
"In the first place there is the fact that "12x12 etc." is a mathematical proposition ... (654)
"The mathematical proposition has, as it were officially, been given the stamp of
incontestability. I.e.: 'Dispute about other things; this is immovable - it is a hinge on which your
dispute can turn.'" (655)
Are you claiming that the mathematical proposition 12x12=144 is neither true nor false?
Quoting Sam26
This is the claim that is in question. 12x12=144 is given as an example of a mathematical proposition. The mathematical proposition is said to be a hinge. 12x12=144 is true.
Quoting Sam26
That is why I pointed to the river and relativity. Nothing is permanently fixed. These analogies show how it is possible for there to be knowledge without eternal verities.
:up: :up: :up:
Amazing selection of Witt quotes. [Emphasis added.]
Is it even possible that the world around us doesn't exist? Is it possible that we've miscalculated in all of our calculations (OC 55)?" The answer is obvious with a little thought.
The reason why the hinge is not doubted, is because it is unreasonable to doubt it. It is unreasonable because of what fooloso4 says, so much hinges on it, not because it has a certain relation to reality. I don't think Wittgenstein discussed "reality". What would you even mean by that, other than so much (what we apprehend as reality) hinges on it?
I think that coherence and correspondence are useful concepts when discussing Wittgenstein's language games, in that it would be relatively easy to invent a language game based on bedrock hinge propositions that was internally logically coherent whilst ignoring the greater problem of ensuring that such a language game corresponded to external reality.
I am using terminology borrowed from AC Grayling's Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Certainty. That of foundationalism, OC 248 "I have arrived at the rock bottom of my convictions" and relativism, OC 65 "When language-games change, then there is a change in concepts, and with the concepts the meanings of words change". I used the link www.acgrayling.com/wittgenstein-on-scepticism-and-certainty
As Grayling concluded, "As OC stands, it stands defeated in just this way, for it only deals with scepticism at the lower, less threatening level, and fails to recognise that scepticism in its strongest form is, precisely, relativism"
Though it may be that Wittgenstein included passages on relativism in order to play devil's advocate whilst allowing him to work out his own foundationalist ideas.
On Certainty was intended to answer the sceptic. But did Wittgenstein succeed in his ambition ?
If Wittgenstein's position was that of a foundationalist - OC 88 "It may be for example that all enquiry on our part is set so as to exempt certain propositions from doubt, if they were ever formulated. They lie apart from the route travelled by enquiry" - the sceptic may validly ask why "certain propositions must be excluded from doubt"
If Wittgenstein's position was that of relativism - OC 256 "On the other hand a language-game does change with time" - the sceptic may also validly ask where is the justification that one language game corresponds more to external reality than another.
Although On Certainty is an incomplete work, could he have used more persuasive arguments ?
He could have proposed that "here is one hand" is a performative rather than constative statement, an idea Austin later developed more fully, partly based on Wittgenstein's writings.
He could have proposed that "here is one hand" is a Kantian synthetic a priori statement, where objects exist not in the world but in the mind of the observer. Wittgenstein was aware of Husserlian phenomenology, of which Kant's synthetic a priori was an important part. But as Wittgenstein seemingly was not a great reader of other philosophers, he tended to reinvent the wheel and seemingly did not take Kant's synthetic a priori as seriously as he should have.
Truth needs both coherence within a language and correspondence with the external world. On Certainty may be insightful about coherence, but could be more developed as regards correspondence.
"I make assertions about reality, assertions which have different degrees of assurance. How does the degree of assurance come out? What consequences has it (OC 66)?"
In the language-game of epistemology, which is what OC is concerned with, we make assertions about reality. For example, Moore's statement that "This is a hand," his own hand that is, is just such a statement. However, let's consider other such statements in different contexts. For instance, I'm in a room that isn't well lit, and I think what I see is a hand, I say, "I think that's a hand," as you strain to see what it is you're looking at. Another instance might be seeing what a magician presents as his hand while doing a magicians illusion. You're not sure what it is you're looking at. These kinds of statements give us differing degrees of assurance based on context. Much of what we think we know is based on "degrees of assurance," i.e., it's probability based.
One way that different degrees of assurance comes out is based on context. Are there good reasons to doubt in both of my examples. Yes. In my first example there is insufficient light, which gives rise to the doubt. In the second example we're watching the performance of a magician, whose is purposely misleading you. Again, good reasons for the doubt. However, in Moore's example one wonders what a doubt would look like. The case for a doubt in Moore's presentation seems lacking, to say the least, which is probably why Moore uses the example. "[A]re we to say that certainty is merely a constructed point to which some things approximate more, some less closely? No. Doubt gradually loses its sense. This language-game just is like that (OC 56)." This is just the way we describe what we mean by hand in English, it's part of the logic of language. It's part of linguistic training. How do you know this is a hand? It's what we mean by hand. When we teach a child how to use the word hand correctly a doubt might arise about whether the child has learned to use the word properly.
I think that you have grossly inflated the significance of what is nothing more than a statement of the obvious. More importantly, this traditional picture of foundations is rejected by Wittgenstein. He reverses the order:
248: "And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house."
Maybe you should start your own analysis in another thread.
When you said in your first post:
Quoting Sam26
I did not think by "we" you meant you.
This area of the forum, as the heading indicates, is for philosophical discussion.
So I'll do that now, out of respect for the project here.
Edit: Graylingstein
Or take the topic up elsewhere.
Edit:Quoting Fooloso4 Sam's account in the post immediately before the one here quoted answers your scepticism...or at least points to the answer found in OC.
I will leave, but my claim is not that it is the only example of a hinge proposition. It is the only example in the text specifically identified as such. I did not state the point clearly, I thought it would be understood, but clarified it in my next post:
Quoting Fooloso4
I'll stick around long enough for you or him to provide another example identified as such in the text.
Quoting Banno
This is wrong. I could explain why but I will not interfere.
Quoting Fooloso4
I think you are reading the text a bit too tightly.
There's three more examples, generalising the notion beyond mere mathematics. Others abound, including perhaps "Here is a hand" - that's were we seem to be heading...
I'm going to reference Ray Monk's book The Duty of Genius because it's probably one of the best researched books ever written on Wittgenstein's life.
"Wittgenstein's own view of scepticism remained that succinctly expressed in the Tractatus: 'Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked.' And it is in connection with this view of scepticism that he found something philosophically interesting about Moore's 'common sense propositions'. They do not give examples of 'certain knowledge', but, rather, examples of cases in which doubt is nonsensical. [This is the hallmark of a hinge-proposition.] If we could seriously doubt that Moore was holding up two hands, there would be no reason no to doubt anything else, including the trustworthiness of our senses. And in that case the whole framework in which we raise doubts and answer them would collapse: 'Certain propositions belong to my "frame of reference". If I had to give them up, I shouldn't be able to judge anything.' One such proposition might be the statement: 'That's a tree', said while standing in front of a tree:...
"The idea that there are certain judgements (among them, some of Moore's statements of common sense) that belong to our frame of reference [another hallmark of a hinge-proposition], and as such cannot sensibly be doubted, was developed by Wittgenstein in the work written during the eighteen months left of his life following his visit to the United States [referring to On Certainty] (pp. 557, 558, Duty of Genius)."
In OC 1 Wittgenstein comments that "If you do know that here is one hand, [taken from Moore's two papers] we'll grant you all the rest." So, Wittgenstein is challenging Moore's use of the word know in Moore's statement. However, keep in mind that the idea of a hinge-proposition doesn't even come up until later, he hasn't yet developed the idea, but if you read OC carefully you'll see how the idea immerges from Wittgenstein's thinking.
In OC 2 we again see one of the hallmarks of a hinge-proposition, "What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it." Doubt what? Doubt Moore's proposition, given in OC 1. In OC 4 Wittgenstein gives another example of this kind of statement, i.e., a statement like Moore's. "I know that I am a human being." In order to see how unclear the sense of this proposition is, consider it's negation." Considering the negation of a hinge-proposition is a way of seeing how unclear it is to doubt the statement.
OC 6 asks, "Now can one enumerate what one knows (like Moore)? Straight off like that, I believe not.--For otherwise the expression "I know" gets misused." The point is that we don't know what Moore claims to know in these statements, they are unusual to say the least, and Wittgenstein points this out as he tries to figure out the nature of Moore's propositions.
So, there is a reason Wittgenstein doesn't call Moore's propositions hinges, he hasn't yet developed the idea fully. In fact he dies before ever developing the idea fully.
There is a good deal of disagreement as what stands as a hinge proposition, as a review of the literature shows. Part of the problem is a lack of examples. The point I made is that 655 is the only example explicitly called a hinge proposition. This does not mean that mathematical hinges are the only hinges.
Before any of this I gave an example of what I think Wittgenstein means by a hinge proposition:
Quoting Fooloso4
Sam denies that it is.
I cited the example at 655 because Sam claims that:
Quoting Sam26
This is not only an incontestable example of a hinge proposition, more importantly it is contrary to what Sam has claimed. It is true that 12x12=144. Or do you too deny this?
I am well aware of 340 and 341, I cited them.
A bit of personal information before I go: I have more than a passing acquaintance with this text. I did my dissertation on Wittgenstein. It is gratifying to see that in the years since I presented a new generation of scholars have come to see things as I do.
That's apparent, and welcome, but you are not alone.
Hinge concepts are indubitable. That is, they are not to be subject to doubt; hence, they are "outside our epistemological concepts of true and false"... I don't think Sam is overdoing it here. That 12x12=144 is not subject to doubt; it could not be false, and hence is outside our considerations of true and false... that's how I am reading Sam, and I think WItti thought along similar lines.
This is correct. As soon as you allow true and false to enter the picture it destroys the idea of what a hinge is supposed to be. It allows the doubt to enter the picture. If I ask how you know it's true, or how do you know it's false we are back to Moore's mistake. Hinge-propositions are what support our language of epistemology. They provide the foundation to epistemology.
Quoting Fooloso4
That's great that you did your dissertation on Wittgenstein. I too welcome you to the discussion. I also have more than a passing interest in OC and Wittgenstein. I've been studying W. off and on for over 40 years. Moreover, I can cite plenty of scholars who agree with how I'm interpreting W. However, this doesn't mean that either of us can't be wrong. There are many scholars who have misinterpreted W., the universities are littered with them. To be honest though, in all my readings, I've never encountered your interpretation, that's not to say that others haven't interpreted W. the way you do. I just have never encountered it in my readings.
12x12=144 is indubitable, but that does not mean that it is not true that 12x12=144.
The truth or falsity of hinge concepts cannot be called into question and remain hinges, but that does not mean that the propositions themselves are not true.
I am reminded of a joke Wittgenstein once made: "we are not crazy, we are doing philosophy".
We do not question their truth we accept it.
Quoting Sam26
Perhaps you get far enough that you will have to confront this:
Quoting Fooloso4
In order to understand this you should attend to this:
Quoting Fooloso4
But all this really is disruptive of the narrative you are developing. So carry on.
I am trying to understand Wittgenstein's objection to Moore's use of the word "know". My current understanding is as follows, and I would be interested in your comments.
Wittgenstein found Moore's common sense approach as a reply to the sceptic interesting, as it had similarities with his own nascent thoughts about hinge propositions. However he disagreed with Moore's use of the word "know".
Moore could have said "here is one hand", meaning that ontologically in the world there is an object "one hand". For Wittgenstein, "here is one hand" is a fact in the world, it is not an interpretation, it has no truth value right or wrong, is therefore not open to doubt, is therefore not open to the sceptic and therefore a hinge proposition.
Moore saying "I know here is one hand" has a different meaning, in that in the mind of the object "Moore" are sense impressions. Moore interprets these sense impressions as ontologically there exists an external world in which there exist an object "one hand" and an object "Moore". As "I know here is one hand" is an interpretation, it has a truth value right or wrong, and therefore is open to doubt, and therefore open to the sceptic and therefore not a hinge proposition.
IE - for Wittgenstein, Moore, in adding "I know", is therefore opening his statement "here is one hand" to the sceptic.
It's true that we accept hinge-propositions, but we don't accept them because their true, truth has nothing to do with it. In fact, they're not even propositions in the true sense of the word, which is why Wittgenstein refers to them in many different ways. If Moore had said "It's true that I have a hand," it would have been just as unintelligible. In order to see how unclear the statement is, consider it's negation (as Wittgenstein points out in OC 4), "It's false that I have a hand," and here we see just how senseless the statement is. Only in certain contexts would these statements make sense, just as in certain contexts Moore's statements would make sense, but generally to utter these kinds of statements is a misfiring attempt to say what cannot be said.
And, most, if not all of the quotes you give that you think lend support to your position, don't. However, I'm not going to go through each quote when all that is needed is to look at the beginning of OC. He spells out the problems with these kinds of statements.
I may later address some of these quotes, but not at the moment.
:smile:
Quick question:
Jack Torrence is delusional. He sees a bartender who isn't there.
If he questions the existence of the bartender, is he abandoning a particular language game in favor of a more open-ended one where the question makes sense?
My interpretation and the interpretations of others who agree is that Wittgenstein found Moore's statements interesting because he found something special about them, not because there were similarities in their thinking. In fact, Wittgenstein goes to great lengths to point out the contrast between the way Moore is responding to the skeptic, and the way he might respond, or the way we should respond to the radical skeptic. It is true that Wittgenstein disagreed with Moore's use of the word know, this we know for sure.
Quoting RussellA
For Wittgenstein, even the statement "There are physical objects (OC 35)," is nonsense. He goes on to ask, "Is it supposed to be an empirical proposition?" Moore did say "here is one" in the sense that you put forth, but that still would have failed (if I'm following your point). Moreover, Wittgenstein isn't saying that "here is one hand" is a fact in the world. Do you see somewhere where he says that?
Oh, sorry. I'll head out here. But you agree he dropped out of a language game when he questioned the existence of the bartender?
One thing is for sure much of this depends on context, even Moore's proposition "I know this is a hand," has a use on particular occasions, Wittgenstein stipulates this. This seems to be what he's saying in OC 10 when he says, "'2x2=4' is a true proposition of arithmetic--not 'on particular occasions' nor 'always,'"
although, to be honest, I'm not sure. Again, though, consider its negation.
Wittgenstein points out that one of the ways we can see how unclear the sense of Moore's proposition is, is to point out its negation. I think we can do this generally with all hinge-propositions, which is why I said to consider its negation. It's false that 2+2=4.
This contradicts what Witt says at OC 10. As you quoted: “'2x2=4' is a true proposition of arithmetic--not 'on particular occasions' nor 'always,'"
Moore’s proposition is not a mathematical proposition, obviously.
Is there somewhere in the text where Witt states that hinge propositions, or indubitable propositions, are neither true nor false?
No, but I think it follows from his ideas.
In Tractatus 1.1 Wittgenstein wrote - "The world is the totality of facts, not of things"
An explanation of what Wittgenstein meant may be found in Russell, who had similar views
Russell wrote in The Philosophy of Logical Atomism - “I want you to realize that when I speak of a fact I do not mean a particular existing thing, such as Socrates or the rain or the sun. Socrates himself does not render any statement true or false. What I call a fact is the sort of thing that is expressed by a whole sentence, not by a single name like ‘Socrates.’ . . .We express a fact, for example, when we say that a certain thing has a certain property, or that it has a certain relation to another thing; but the thing which has the property or the relation is not what I call a ‘fact.”
It seems to me that "here is one hand" fulfills what Wittgenstein meant by a fact in the world.
I think what Wittgenstein intends, is that it doesn't make sense to ask this question, because to ask whether they are true or false is to doubt them. The truth of them is accepted without having to say they are true, or ask of them, is this true.
I of course do not agree with this, as I see that there is no such thing as a proposition, or any sort of belief, or idea which is indubitable. That supposition seems so obviously false. Hinge propositions are a fiction and that's why it's so difficult for these people who believe in them to agree on the criteria of being such.
There is nothing unclear about the proposition: "It's false that 2+2=4." It is clearly false.
What is unclear is how we could learn mathematics if mathematical propositions are neither true nor false. We are not taught that 2+2=4 is neither true not false or 2+2= n for any number is neither true nor false.
Quoting Sam26
Wittgenstein clearly states that 2x2=4 is a true proposition of arithmetic. He also clearly states mathematical propositions are hinge propositions. From this it should be clear that what follows is that at least some hinge propositions, namely mathematical propositions, are true. Moore, so to speak, has no hand in the truth of mathematical propositions.
Let me try a different approach. It probably won't help, but that's life.
If Moore's propositions or hinges cannot be known, it follows that there are no grounds/justification or reasons/evidence to say they are true. If it's nonsensical to claim that Moore can know "This is a hand," then it follows that it cannot be true either. It follows also that these basic beliefs cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed, i.e., they are arational beliefs or hinges.
If we know X, then at the very least we know they're true, but Wittgenstein is claiming that Moore's statements have no grounds to secure their truth, and thus they cannot be known. Hinges are fundamental arational beliefs that ground any talk about epistemology. They are a given, part of the reality around us. They are not ordinary propositions or statements.
Yes, I know I'm repeating myself.
I think a better approach would be to let go of Moore's hand for a moment and look at what was said about mathematical propositions.They are hinge propositions and true. If this is correct then it cannot be true that all hinge propositions are neither true nor false.
That is an important point and should not be overlooked.
Quoting Sam26
Wittgenstein points to many ways in which the term "know" is used and some ways it is misused. If Moore held up his hand as said: "This is a hand" we could look and confirm that it is indeed a hand. If he raised his hand and said instead: "This is a foot" we would know that it is not a foot. We have no difficulty distinguishing a hand and foot. We know what a hand is and what a foot is.
That Moore does not hold up his foot and say "This is a hand" is significant. He does, after all, know the difference.
Interpretative differences are to be expected, but there really should be no disagreement over whether it is true that 2x2=4. One interpretive rule I follow is that when my interpretation contradicts the text, the interpretation and not the text should be altered. But by all means continue in any way you see fit.
Sam, 2x2=4 is not an interpretation.
I don't think that holds. We can justifiably deny that his foot is not a hand, but there is no way to be certain, and that's the key distinction, that what we see empirically is indeed a hand. Fake barns may look like real barns but we cannot under any circumstances be certain beyond some empirical probability. If the criterion for knowledge is certainty, which is not true for any science, then we cannot have empirical knowledge.
Wittgenstein is clear:
"The mathematical proposition has, as it were officially, been given the stamp of incontestability. I.e.: 'Dispute about other things; this is immovable - it is a hinge on which your dispute can turn.'" (655)
It is also clear that 2x2=4 is a mathematical proposition (10) just as 12x12=144 is:
"In the first place there is the fact that "12x12 etc." is a mathematical proposition". (654)
I really do not want to get stuck on this point. I think this is clear and unambiguous. If you don't then there is nothing more I can say or show from the text.
I'm not sure I follow. Why would we deny that his foot is not a hand?
It is actually the exact opposite. Given the hostility and resentment I think it best that I do what I had intended to do and leave.
What if he raised his arm and said "this is an arm"? How would that act of holding up his arm be different from the act of holding up his his hand? How do you propose that we could confirm whether he's actually holding up a hand, or an arm?
Of course it is true that 2+2=4. No one here doubts that.
What may be contentious is whether 2+2=4 can participate in the activity of deciding if it is true or false. Sam, Wittgenstein and I do not think that it can - and hence that it is a hinge statement. Fooloso4 night well agree.
Did you change your opinion in the interim? Because you and Sam claimed earlier that mathematical propositions can be neither true nor false:
Quoting Banno
I think Sam's earlier suggestion that @Fooloso4 should start his own analysis in another thread. instead of offering his interpretation in this discussion, needs to be seriously re-considered.
Yes, it is true that 2+2=4; an it is true that 12x12=144 is not subject to doubt. It could not be false.
The same charity that has been afforded to @Fooloso4, you mean?
If you are keen, the related thread I started on the Grayling article awaits.
I must have mistaken this for a philosophy forum discussion. I didn't realise it was Sam's blog.
I'm wondering, does my behavior show what I do not doubt, or what I cannot doubt?
Take any of the usual examples you like -- object permanence seems an obvious choice. As I type here, it's clear that I do not doubt the continuing existence of my laptop, blah blah blah.
Is there some behavior I could engage in that would show that I cannot doubt such a thing? What does that look like, to behave as if I cannot doubt something? How does it differ from behaving as if I simply do not doubt it? -- That is to say, behaving as if I am content to accept it as so.
This is also correct. The rules for empirical knowledge are different than those for deductive mathematics. Empirically we can never ever be certain because nature and our senses are incorrigibly open to interpretive vagueness as well as to physical and sensory illusions.
I do hold to the idea that if a proposition is basic or hinge, then to say that it's true is just as mistaken as saying "I know this is a hand." So yes I'm saying that Banno. My interpretation of OC is not unique, there have been many papers written on this subject. However, I'm not saying there aren't instances where it makes sense to say that 2+2=4 is true. The thing about hinges is that they depend on context. If I'm teaching someone how to use the word hand in English, then I might say "I know this is a hand," i.e., I've learned that this is what I call a hand. So, in this case "I know..." means that I have learned how to use the word hand. The same can be said of 2+2=4, in some contexts it can makes sense to say it's true, other contexts not so much. I don't know what Wittgenstein would say about this. OC 10 doesn't give enough information. Moreover, Wittgenstein never edited his thoughts in OC, it's just a rough draft.
The fact that it doesn't make sense to doubt Moore's propositions, seems to also hold for the mathematical proposition 2+2=4. Can I doubt that it's true that 2+2=4. It seems senseless to doubt it.
I find no ambiguity in OC 10 regarding this. Wittgenstein plainly states that "2x2=4" is a true proposition, irrespective of any and all contexts (occasions, times):
Quoting Sam26
It's easy to disregard the parts that don't fit with your interpretation, but that's not very charitable to Wittgenstein. At any rate, it seems unusually specific to be classed as a careless error. Taken as what W intended to say, it also appears consistent with (and perhaps a precursor to) his latter remarks on mathematical propositions, e.g. 340, 350, 651-658.
Quoting Sam26
If it were the result of Wittgenstein's philosophy that hinge propositions are neither true nor false, have you considered that this might not be because they are indubitable, but because they are usually non-propositional (except for W's exposition of them)? If memory serves, I believe that Daniele Moyal-Sharrock regards hinges as non-propositional.
I do think of hinges as basic beliefs, and that they are non-propositional. I said this earlier in my posts. It might be that indubitable is the wrong word. I very seldom use the word indubitable, but on occasion I have. It seems to me that any system of belief, must have basic beliefs, including mathematics.
For OC10 leads to
A child though they knew 12x12 = 128. Where did they go wrong? There can be no justification here apart from understanding how to calculate; had they simply mis-remembered? Perhaps. It remains that it is not true that 12x12 = 128.
I'll just suggest that you are here over egging the cake. Let's leave it at that.
Of course if you change the context you make sense of the doubt. The point is that there is an inherited background that allows you to distinguish between true and false.
I am saying that when you treat a statement as a hinge in the relevant way, it is not subject to doubt, and hence cannot participate in the game of assigning either truth or falsehood to it, because being false cannot be assigned to it. Despite this, hinge propositions are to be counted as true.
I'm doing this because to follow your view, that hinge statements are not true, leads to the conclusion that no mathematical statements are true. While I see that for you this may be a grammatical convenience, it's too odd a locution to be helpful.
Does this mean that ontologically there is a world in which there is the object "one hand" and the object "Moore" ?
How does the object "Moore" know that in the world is another object "one hand" ? The only possible way that Moore could know there is another object in the world is through his sense impressions. Sense impressions such as the colour red, a sweet taste, a grating noise, an acrid smell or a silky touch.
But there is no information within these sense impressions as to what caused them, in that there is no information within the sense impression of the colour red as to what caused the emission of 700nm. Therefore, Moore can never know the cause of his sense impressions, although he may have a belief about what caused them, and beliefs can be doubted
But Moore said he did know that "here is one hand", which raises the question - how is it possible for Moore to know that "here is one hand".
We can say for certain that Moore knows his sense impressions, even though he cannot know what is causing them. As Moore is only getting his information about any external world through his sense impressions, and as sense impressions carry no information as to what caused them, it follows that Moore's thought that "here is one hand" cannot be knowledge of a world outside of Moore's mind, but can only be knowledge of a state of affairs within Moore's mind.
IE, when Moore says I know that "here is one hand", the true meaning of this is not that Moore knows what is in the outside world (even though he may believe what is in the outside world), but knows that within his mind is the concept ""there is a world outside me in which there is one hand".
I know with certainty that I have a back even though I cannot see it. Furthermore, this is personal subjective knowledge that I cannot doubt. You or Witt could, but I cannot.
It's important to distinguish this kind of personal certainty from Cartesian certainty of my mind, and also from personal sense-perceptual experience and opinion, and also from public scientific fact.
The color red is innate to people with normal color vision, calling it red is a learned cultural convention. To a young child there are no shades of red. Adults, especially people like artists or winemakers, educate themselves to notice shades and to expand their vocabulary for finer distinctions. Scientific measurements are not part of common discourse at all. We cannot see electromagnetic waves and what colors we do see is through complex perception preconditioned by cultural experience.
Wittgenstein's knowledge is different than Moore's I know. Empirical certainty for Witt is next to impossible, raising undeserved concerns about skepticism. However, in the reverse, if we had strong knowledge then we would be guaranteed certainty in the package.
I am sure that it was the same for Moore, in that Moore knew with certainty that he had one hand, which was personal subjective knowledge that he could not doubt.
Interesting theory. Do you mean that those people innately
or is it that they
Or both?
Or is it some weaker claim about an innate ability to develop responses (or experiences) in such a way as to recognise a "rainbow" of distinct (and/or fuzzy) classes (of either stimuli or sensations) that may be different from our own rainbow? But independently of learning what to call them?
it is not such a simple learned cultural convention. 3D rendering of 'red' objects encounters many issues, including different absorption, reflection, diffuse, and opacity spectra under different lighting conditions, and at different distances with different neighboring colors, both when seen during the day with the three rods and cones, and at night with visual purple when only the saturation is knowable and not the hue. We make an innate assumption of what 'color' an object is under 'typical daylight conditions,' which also vary geographically, and it's difficult to claim all that visual processing is purely learned, but rather a pre-existent part of the visual cortex. I'd also note that the visual spectra for color vision are centered on the color of plants, not blood, so the apparatus to see the colors we enjoy has been evolving for a very long time.
Science can only quantify instrumental readings. The readings are interpreted (guessed) to reflect some scientific aspect of nature. Personal experiences are very far from those instrumental readings because we are only presented learned useful perceptions that we can name and potentially act upon.
Color is not entirely out there for us to see even under fixed conditions. Color is an evolutionary theatrical interpretive production of our minds. With more colors we can better distinguish finer details in images. Twilight removes saturation and color from the world and we literally see less. That's why driving around in the evenings is more dangerous.
Naming can only roughly cover subjective, therefore directly incomparable, ranges of colors. Can we see shades of burgundy or green without some agreed upon standard ostensive palette?
One at a time, please.
Ok.
That should have been we've broken the thread, again.
For those of you interested, I'll provide a link:
http://www.kriterion-journal-of-philosophy.org/kriterion/issues/Permanent/Kriterion-mota-01.pdf
[i]A Plea for Rhees’ Reading of
Wittgenstein’s On Certainty: is
grammar conditioned by certain facts?[/i]
Sergio Mota
Abstract
"This paper is more than a plea for Rhees’ reading of the work
of Wittgenstein (particularly of On Certainty). My interest in
Rhees’ interpretation lies on its resemblance with my own reading,
on the one hand, and on its being (surprisingly) unmentioned by
other interpreters, on the other. The two core aims of this paper
focus on Rhees’ main ideas. First, I argue that although certain
facts that are accepted beyond doubt belong to the method,
which in turn is included in grammar, this does not mean that
these facts are expressions of rules of grammar. Second, I argue
that grammar is not conditioned by a certain class of facts (i.e.
general facts of nature), but a language-game is possible because
we do not call in question certain facts (i.e. grammar is not
conditioned by something like ontology). The point is that those
facts that are not called in question are beyond truth and falsity,
but this does not mean that these facts must be true. The logical
role these facts (and the sentences used to express them) play
in a language-game is not that of being true or false. Moreover,
grammar itself constitutes what is meant by ‘object’, ‘fact’, or
‘general fact of nature’."
[i]A Plea for Rhees’ Reading of
Wittgenstein’s On Certainty: is
grammar conditioned by certain facts?[/i]
Sergio Mota
"Accordingly, the goal of this paper is twofold, as it were. On the one hand, it is my interest to show that the proposition ‘grammar is conditioned by certain general facts of nature’ has no metaphysical, absolute
sense (i.e. that ontology does not condition grammar). By the expression “metaphysical sense” I mean expressions that refer to the essential, necessary, and universal features of reality. Thus, to say that grammar is conditioned by certain facts of nature may mean that there are essential and necessary features of reality such as general facts of nature, and that this is a truth about reality, which by way of different mechanisms, for instance by repeated exposure, condition our grammar. Furthermore,
to say that grammar is conditioned by certain facts sounds as though there was an absolute conception of grammar, as though everything we call grammar was conditioned by facts. However, I do not read Wittgenstein as though he were relating a bit of language to a bit of the world. In other words, we are not relating a bit of grammar and a bit of the world as though they were ontological items. Rather, in the same sense that grammar tells us what kind of object a thing is, grammar tells us what is meant by fact. But this does not mean that facts condition our grammar, or that objects condition our grammar (see below for further discussion). So I am not rejecting that there is a relationship between grammar and facts, I am just saying that this relationship is not captured by speaking of facts as conditions.1 However, when it is said that grammar is conditioned by certain general facts of nature it seems that it is the grammar as a whole that is conditioned, without focusing on concrete language-games. It seems that it is claimed that this class of general facts of nature is that on which the possibility of language itself
depends. I think that this is a metaphysical illusion produced by projecting onto reality what should remain within grammar (i.e. grammar tells us what is a general fact of nature)."
As is mentioneded this paper Rhees' has something important to tell us. And, along with this, is must be mentioned that Rhees' had discussions with Wittgenstein on this topic. Therefore, his insights shouldn't be overlooked.
So, there is a distinction according to this paper between the proposition that 'grammar is conditioned by certain general facts of nature,' and the idea that "grammar as a whole is conditioned, without focusing on concrete language-games" i.e., that a certain set of general facts of nature, gives us the possibility of language. So, language depends on reality in some important sense. The question arose, "How could language be conditioned by certain facts of nature?
I'm not sure I quite understand this yet. Time to read on.
If you are going to say that basic mathematical propositions are hinges, then you have to be consistent and say that they are not true or false in the same way that Moore's hinge-propositions are not true or false, i.e., not epistemological.
The reason I'm bringing this up has to do with a particular interpretation of Wittgenstein that is probably incorrect. Moreover, I want to check my own interpretation against the points brought up in this paper.
So, the question is, is language conditioned by certain facts of nature? First, what does it mean to say that language is conditioned by facts of nature? According to this paper conditioned by certain facts means something like "that there are essential and necessary features of reality such as general facts of nature, and that this is a truth about reality, which by way of different mechanisms, for instance by repeated exposure, condition our grammar (p. 78)." The question is, is this what Wittgenstein is saying? It's one thing to say that without reality there would be no language, but it's another thing to say that language is conditioned by certain facts of reality. Another way to say this, if I'm correct, is that language had to form in a certain way because of particular facts in nature or reality. It would be like saying that objects in nature condition our grammar (as pointed out in this paper).
The paper isn't rejecting that there is some kind of relationship between the facts of reality and language. It's rejecting the notion that language is conditioned by these facts. "[T]his is a metaphysical illusion produced by projecting onto reality what should remain within grammar (i.e. grammar tells us what is a general fact of nature) (p. 78)."
My idea has been that reality is foundational to language, i.e., that without reality there would be no language. This seems obvious.
Finally, this paper is contrasting the IMoyal-Sharrock’s interpretation against the Rhees' interpretation. The Rhees' interpretation is important because of his association and discussions with Wittgenstein regarding OC.
And also, "...language itself, grammar itself, constitutes what is meant by fact, and hence by reality. This is why grammar is presupposed when we speak of facts. In other words, in order to speak about facts
we already presuppose a grammar that constitutes what is meant by fact (p. 79)."
Seeking continuity, I have in mind the notion of logical space from Tractatus when considering the relation between language and the world... as in, in logical space, anything consistent can be said; but only a small subset of what can be said gives us a picture of the world that is true. So I'm understanding the autonomy of language as somewhat analogous to logical space, but using use instead of mere reference; something like only a small subset of the possible things that might be said are actually useful...
Nice!
p.83
Yeah, seems I'm following Reece here.
So, if I understand this correctly, when using the concept fact (state of affairs), it's not what's in reality that determines how we use the word fact, rather, it's the grammar involved in language that determines it's correct use. So, our grammar is isolated from reality in an important sense, and that sense seems to be how we use language in a culture, and it's arbitrary features. There is nothing in reality that tells me how to use the word fact correctly. The arrangement of things in reality (the state of affairs) is not what determines the correct use of the concept fact.
p.80
It wouldn't be correct to say, it seems to me, that there is no correct or incorrect use of grammar, but that there is no correct or incorrect use as defined by something in reality. By comparison Wittgenstein points out "...that cookery rules are not arbitrary because cookery is defined by its purpose, while grammar - or language - is not (Z. 320)." So, the rules of bread making, for example, are correct or incorrect based on how the bread turns out, i.e., the outcome in reality determines the correct or incorrect recipe. It's in this sense that the recipe for bread making is not arbitrary. However, the rules of grammar are arbitrary, i.e., they are not dependent or determined by reality.
The question, at least for me is, how does this affect what Wittgenstein means by hinge-propositions? Is epistemology completely determined by the rules of grammar, or is it akin to cookery rules?
"If concept formation can be explained by facts of nature..." The main thesis of the article is the rejection of this possibility. But Wittgenstein does not appear to rule it out. He states only that it is not of philosophical interest, or is not a philosopher's goal/purpose to discover.
Here W rejects the idea that "certain concepts are absolutely the correct ones", as though nature carved herself at the joints for us and we just pinned labels within those ready-made contours. But I think the paper may go too far the other way in suggesting (if I recall it correctly) that our language is therefore independent from nature or self-contained. This would seem to undermine the author's references to "the method", or to comparing propositions with reality, because what difference could such a comparison make if our concepts were unaffected by reality?
Any thoughts?
Post 1
3rd Revision
06/06/2023 by Samuel Naccarato
Bedrock Beliefs and Their Epistemic Importance
(My Philosophic View of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty)
Biographical Sketch:
Ludwig Wittgenstein was born in Vienna, Austria in 1889. He was the youngest of eight children, five boys and three girls. His father, Karl Wittgenstein, was a remarkable man who became a leading industrialist in the iron and steel industry; consequently, the Wittgensteins were very wealthy. In addition, Ludwig’s mother, Leopoldine, had exceptional musical talents and passed her love of music to the children. As a result, all the Wittgenstein children were exceptionally gifted with artistic talent and superior intelligence.
At a young age, Ludwig demonstrated an interest in machinery, which led to his interest in engineering. He was educated at home until the age of 14, then was sent to Linz in northern Austria to further his studies. After his education in Linz, Wittgenstein went to Berlin to study engineering (1906-1908). In 1908 Ludwig enrolled at the University of Manchester in England to study aeronautics. His research eventually led to the design of a jet reaction propeller, which was a mathematical endeavor. The mathematics of his research eventually led him to the philosophy of mathematics. Specifically to the Principles of Mathematics, published in 1903 and written by Bertrand Russell (not to be confused with the Principia Mathematica, published in 1910 and written by Russell and Whitehead). The main goal of thePrinciples of Mathematics was to establish that the propositions of mathematics rest on a few logical principles. Another mathematician from Germany named Gottlob Frege was also working on the same idea. Wittgenstein eventually meets with Frege to discuss some of his thoughts, and consequently, Frege recommends that he go to Cambridge to meet Russell. Russell sees talent in Wittgenstein, which encourages Wittgenstein to pursue philosophy.
If you want a more in-depth biography of Wittgenstein, there are plenty of books to read (e.g., Ludwig Wittgenstein by Ray Monk and Ludwig Wittgenstein by Norman Malcolm).
I will set out an epistemological theory that enunciates a particular set of propositions derived from Wittgenstein’s final notes called On Certainty, published in 1969. These bedrock beliefs (often called hinge propositions) were identified mainly by Wittgenstein in the final years of his life (1949-1951). I am not claiming anything original in my thesis except to point out that bedrock beliefs have an essential epistemological role that advances the subject of epistemology in ways that few philosophers, if any, before the writing of On Certainty, have considered. I am also not claiming that my thoughts necessarily agree with Wittgenstein’s, nor am I claiming that they disagree. Nevertheless, my thinking on this subject would not have gone in the direction it did without Wittgenstein’s keen intellect expressed in the Philosophical Investigations and in his final notes called On Certainty (hereafter referred to as OC).
Wittgenstein begins OC as a response to G.E. Moore’s papers, A Defense of Common Sense (1925) and Proof of an External World (1939), in which Moore lists several propositions that he claims to know with certainty, such as, “Here is one hand” and “There exists at present a living human body, which is my body.” These propositions supposedly provide Moore with proof of the external world, and as such, they seem to form a buttress against the arguments of the radical skeptic, which is why Moore is making the argument.
Moore says, “I can prove now, for instance, that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, ‘Here is one hand’, and adding, as I make a certain gesture with the left, ‘and here is another’. And if, by doing this, I have proved ipso facto the existence of external things, you will all see that I can also do it now in numbers of other ways: there is no need to multiply examples. But did I prove just now that two human hands were then in existence? I do want to insist that I did; that the proof which I gave was a perfectly rigorous one; and that it is perhaps impossible to give a better or more rigorous proof of anything whatever. …(G.E. Moore, Proof of an External World, 1939).”
It is undoubtedly the case that OC goes beyond Moore’s propositions, so it is not just about Moore; it is about knowing, doubting, making mistakes, reality, empirical statements, certainty, acting out beliefs, rule-following, etc., so it covers a range of topics about what we know, and how it fits into our language. It is important to note that not everything in OC should be seen as a response to Moore. However, Moore provides the impetus for Wittgenstein’s final notes and is mentioned throughout OC.
Wittgenstein criticizes Moore’s use of the word know and the skeptic’s use of the word doubt, and he emphasizes the relationship between the use of these words as an essential part of the language-games of everyday epistemology.
Bedrock beliefs provide the grounding for our language-games, which is analogous to how the rules, the board, and the pieces in chess function as the grounding (reality background) for the game of chess. In fact, without these beliefs it is hard to imagine how language would get off the ground. It would be like trying to imagine a game of chess without the rules, the board, and the pieces. For example, there would be no such thing as a bishop move without the rules, the board, and the pieces. Such a move would be nonsense. The same is true of our concepts, namely, knowing, doubting, making mistakes, rule-following, etc.; these would all be nonsense without the grounding of certain primitive or bedrock beliefs. Such beliefs are at the heart of a correct understanding of knowledge, directly affecting phrases like “I know that such and such is the case” and “I doubt that such and such is the case.”
Although Wittgenstein criticizes Moore’s propositions, he is not entirely unsympathetic to Moore’s argument, which would look something like the following:
1) Moore knows that he has two hands.
2) Moore makes the inference from the fact that he has two hands to conclude that an external world exists.
3) Hence, Moore knows that an external world exists.
OC begins with the following statement:
“If you do know that here is one hand, we’ll grant you all the rest (OC 1).”
Wittgenstein grants that if Moore knows what he claims to know, then Moore’s conclusion follows. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein argues throughout his notes that Moore does not know what he believes he knows. However, I think we are all inclined to agree with Moore. After all, if we do not know this is a hand, then what do we know? This inclination to use the word know as Moore uses it sets in motion Wittgenstein’s response. Is Moore justified in believing his claims are true? The answer to this question directly affects Moore’s proof because he assumes that the propositions he identifies are typical, which they are not.
Wittgenstein asks whether it generally makes sense to doubt that we have hands (OC 2). This question is crucial to Wittgenstein’s argument because it helps identify fundamental, bedrock, or primitive beliefs. Of course, there are situations where doubt about the existence of our hands would make sense, and Wittgenstein points this out (OC 23), but not in the context of Moore exclaiming, “Here is a hand, and here is another hand.” Nor would it make sense as given in a proof.
There are at least two kinds of bedrock beliefs. First, those we observe apart from the use of language. For example, the belief (seen especially in animals and young children) that we have hands and the belief that we are a body separate from other bodies. This is why some philosophers refer to these beliefs as animal beliefs, because of their fundamental or primitive nature. The act of using a hand or moving through space in relation to other objects shows these beliefs. This is not only observed in nonlinguistic children and animals but is apparent in all of us, irrespective of language.
The point of emphasizing the prelinguistic nature of these beliefs is to demonstrate their primitive nature. Bedrock beliefs prescind language. Thus, the ontology of bedrock beliefs gives them a unique standing in relation to our epistemic language. Wittgenstein points out the special status of bedrock beliefs in his opening remarks: does it make sense to doubt them (OC 2)? Again, their status (arational or non-epistemic status) is such that epistemic language would necessarily fail without them.
The second kind of bedrock belief is foundational but not bedrock. If we think of the foundation of a building, it is layered, starting with bedrock. On top of bedrock are other foundational components not as firmly in place as bedrock, but part of the foundation nonetheless. In other words, our prelinguistic beliefs are the bedrock of language. They are the precursor beliefs that allow language and life’s actions to take root. So, although one can refer to certain linguistic beliefs as bedrock (I prefer to separate them from other foundational beliefs), they stand out because they are less susceptible to change. For example, the bedrock belief that I have hands or am a body separate from other bodies will remain fixed for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, the rules of chess are foundational to the game, but they are a different kind of foundational belief; that is, they arise within language. The same is true of the rules of grammar, which are necessarily foundational to language use. However, although the rules in these two examples are foundational, they are not bedrock; that is, they are not as primitive or as fixed as there are objects (other people, trees, mountains, etc.) Many foundational beliefs can more easily change over time. For example, the rules of chess have changed over the years, and grammar rules have also changed.
If we return to the example of a building’s foundation, nothing is more fixed than bedrock; it is the foundation’s most fixed point. And if we look at the construction of a building’s foundation above bedrock, some foundational elements are more fixed than others and less susceptible to change. Wittgenstein’s riverbank analogy suggests much the same thing in the following:
“And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an imperceptible one, partly of sand, which now in one place now in another gets washed away or deposited (OC 99).”
_____________________
This ends what will be in the first video.
(My Philosophic View of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty)
Post 3
Wittgenstein points out that Moorean propositions (hinge-propositions) do not have a clear sense when trying to fit them within an epistemological framework. Consider the following quote:
“’I know that I am a human being.’ In order to see how unclear the sense of this proposition is, consider its negation (OC 4).”
Why does Wittgenstein ask us in OC 4 to consider the negation of the knowledge claim? Because a knowledge claim always stands in contrast to a counterclaim. They are claims or beliefs that have the proper justification for their conclusion. However, if the sense of your claim (your justification) to know is not clear, then it would follow that the claim to not know would be equally unclear. For example, knowing how to play the game of chess is logically connected with what it means to not know how to play the game. Knowing and not knowing necessarily play off each other. This is why Moore’s propositions lack sense. He claims to know “This is a hand,” but exactly what would it mean in his context to not know? This seems to be Wittgenstein’s point in OC 4. If you want to know what a hinge-proposition is, one need only look at the relation between the claim to know and not know (questioning whether one knows brings in the doubt) and whether both lack sense in relation to the belief. This is exactly the problem with Moore’s propositions, which is why the use of these beliefs (hinge-propositions) is not generally epistemological. What makes it difficult to understand Wittgenstein’s point is that hinge-propositions often have a use within our epistemological language-games, which seems to be why he still refers to them as propositions. They have a special role in our language. They are not propositions in the normal sense. They have a dual role, functioning mostly as bedrock beliefs, but sometimes taking on the role of standard propositions.
The epistemological use of “I know…” presumes a justificatory foundation for one’s conclusion. The nature of giving a justification is supposed to nullify a counterclaim, alleviate or remove the skeptic’s doubt, or demonstrate the objective certainty of your claim. A knowledge claim stands in contrast to its negation, and if the negation is not clear, then neither is the justification. This fits Wittgenstein’s point that “I know…” is very specialized (OC 11).
What does it mean that a knowledge claim stands in contrast to its negation? It means that any epistemological claim to knowledge must be demonstrated, and if the claim does not stand up to one of the language-games of justification, then your claim to know is not valid. Hence, the response “You do not know,” or “I thought I knew,” or any other negation of the claim. Again, any claim to know stands in contrast to what it means to not know.
The tendency is to use the phrase “I know…” as a sort of guarantee that you indeed know (a kind of inner state), does not guarantee anything. The epistemological use of “I know…” is not a reflection of one’s inner certainty or conviction. It reflects objective certainty based on a proper justificatory foundation. The correct epistemological use of “I know…” is often met with the questions, “How do you know (the doubt)?” What is your justification?
Confusion often arises when using the phrase “I know…,” and Moore’s use of know reflects this confusion. It is a paradigm case. In Moore’s case, the confusion is more challenging because of our strong convictions about such beliefs. After all, Moore believes he is justified (at the very least, it is a sensory justification), and most would agree with Moore’s argument because it seems so evident that we know we have hands in Moore’s context.
We have to get away from our emphasis on the internal in relation to objective knowledge.
Quoting Sam26
Is it that Wittgenstein rejects Moore’s language-game or that he is showing Moore what a language game is? Does the idea of rejecting a language-game make sense?
We know that there are many different language-games, and some of these language-games, (e.g. religious and political language-games) don't always reflect the facts. So I think Wittgenstein is pointing out how Moore's language-game fails to give a proof of the external world (Although, to be fair, Witt doesn't speak of Moore's argument in terms of a language-game). Moreover, Moore knows what a language-game is because he sat in on many of Wittgenstein's lectures.
Your 2nd question is something I thought about for a long time. I think we reject certain language-games all the time because they often don't reflect facts. So yes, I think it does make sense. In fact, it's important that we recognize that certain language-games don't reflect reality. There are constant battles between competing language-games, i.e., which language-games will prevail in our systems of belief.
I would say language-games never reflect the facts. Rather, facts only get their sense within language-games.
Quoting Sam26
Apparently you’re not a fan of Kuhn and Feyerabend.
From Wittgenstein's Zettel:
(352)
I like Jasmin Trachtler’s reading of the above quote:
“…even if grammar or concept formation corresponds to
general facts of nature, this does not mean that grammar
can be explained causally, nor that it can be justified by
“nature”—it merely means that grammar does not seem to
be completely random in a trivial sense. Grammar is, as
Wittgenstein says, autonomous (cf. BT 236r)—autonomy,
however, is not absolute independence as it is not a
“complete detachment.” We might have as well other terms
and make other conceptual distinctions. As Wittgenstein
emphasises, both in the 1930s and in his later
investigations, our concepts cannot be justified as the
“right” ones or as corresponding to “nature”: they are
neither “reasonable” nor “unreasonable,” neither “right”
nor “wrong.” As he puts it, the belief that “our concepts are
the only reasonable ones consists in […] [t]hat it doesn’t
occur to us that others are concerned with completely
di!erent things, and that our concepts are connected with
what interests us, with what matters to us” (LW II, 46).
With this, however, Wittgenstein does not want to set up a
hypothesis:
I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to.
There's a pinch of truth in saying language games do not reflect the facts, since the facts, being truths, are a part of the language games around truth. Better perhaps to say that the games are embedded in the world – so the builder's game inherently involves slabs and blocks and cannot be played without them.
There's also the ill-informed supposition that language games only ever involve language, which even a cursory reading will evict.
While he shows that Moore's use of "know" in "I know this is my hand" is problematic, I suspect Wittgenstein pretty much agreed with the argument Moore presents against idealism. "Here is a hand" shows that there is stuff around us to be dealt with, providing a foundation, a certainty. Again, there have to be slabs in order to engage in the builder's game
And yet one can be deceived about one's own hand. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3125296/#:~:text=The%20Rubber%20Hand%20Illusion%20(RHI,the%20participant%27s%20own%20occluded%20hand.
What is certain is not what is known or what is necessarily true, but what one cannot doubt in a particular context, which may be doubtful in another context. if I am not typing on a keyboard, you can safely ignore my post for the nonsense it surely must then be, unless it be from the hand of God.
As I read On Certainty it is not that one cannot doubt but that we do not doubt.
We are certain that the Earth revolves around the sun. In earlier times people were certain that the Sun revolved around the Earth. The Copernican Revolution was not simply a matter of exchanging places. It is that man is displaced from the center.
I can't decide if this shows hands to be illusions or reinforces their corporeality...
This seems to be what most people for whatever reason, simply cannot intuit on the surface of it. And yet mathematics is entirely arbitrary and works just fine. :grin:
I would say it's more than problematic. One cannot doubt the very thing that gives rise to knowing and doubting. So, I would say in many cases (especially in Moore's case) that his use of know is senseless. Wittgenstein seems to say that Moore's use of "I know..." is more like a conviction (OC 86, 91, 103). Witt is sympathetic to Moore's argument, but he implies throughout OC that Moore's use of know is not epistemological. It's not epistemological because Moore's use goes beyond the language-game of knowing, Bedrock beliefs are what ground our epistemological language-games. Justification comes to an end with certain kinds of bedrock beliefs, i.e., animal beliefs or prelinguistic beliefs. Of course not all bedrock beliefs are prelinguistic, some are intrinsic to many of our language-games.
"The truths which Moore says he knows, are such as, roughly speaking, all of us know, if he knows them (OC 100 - my emphasis)," which he doesn't.
About as useful as Berkley kicking a rock.
.
I interpret this differently. Wittgenstein is drawing our attention to the fact that philosophers treat claims of knowledge and certainty as if they are metaphysical claims, and this leads them to confusion. Both the skeptic and those like Moore who argue against skepticism suffer from this. They put demands and requirements on these terms that do not exist outside the puzzles they create.
I would agree that many philosophers do treat knowing as if it's a metaphysical claim (many people do this, not just professional philosophers), at least that's what their use of know amounts to. However, what Moore is appealing to, is a mental state of knowing (he does this without realizing it, or if he does realize it, it's an appeal to what we all take to be a self-evident truth or common sense), which is why Wittgenstein talks about Moore's propositions as an expression of a conviction. We see this from the beginning of OC; "[f]rom it seeming to me-or to everyone-to be so, it doesn't follow that it is so. Moore is appealing to our common sense, i.e., if we don't know this (Here is a hand.), then what do we know? This is why Moore's argument is so appealing. How can anyone doubt that this is a hand, and that we know it's a hand? Moore's proof would be something like the following:
1) Moore knows that he has two hands.
2) Moore makes the inference from the fact that he has two hands, to the conclusion that there exists an external world.
3) Hence, Moore knows that an external world exists.
It follows necessarily. Especially if we do know these Moorean propositions, which is why Wittgenstein says at the very beginning of OC, "If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest (OC 1)." However, does Moore know, and can the skeptic doubt these Moorean propositions. Wittgenstein thought that Moore's papers were some of his best work, but what I think appealed to Wittgenstein was the nature of these Moorean propositions (so-called bedrock propositions) and there role in epistemology. They ground our epistemology in important ways, without them there would be no knowing and no doubting. The language-game of knowing and doubting is necessarily dependent on bedrock beliefs.
We often appeal to our convictions as if they are a form of knowing, especially if they tend to be the convictions of most people. This is one of the reasons why ideology and religious (or any group set of beliefs) beliefs have so much power. The whole group, to one degree or another, is under the spell of their subjective convictions.
[Wittgenstein refers to certainty in two important ways: First, our subjective certainty, which often refers to our convictions, and second, objective certainty, which is just a synonym for "I know."]
This isn't so much about metaphysical claims, unless you are referring to mental states, as it is about the mental state of knowing and the misuse of the concept know. Consider OC 6, "[n]ow, can one enumerate what one knows (like Moore)? Straight off like that, I believe not.--For otherwise the expression "I know" gets misused. And through this misuse a queer and extremely important mental state seems to be revealed." Two things here are important to note, as already mentioned, misuse of the word know and one's mental state (consider OC 42).
Actually Moore is appealing to what seems to be obvious to all of us, viz, having knowledge of his hands. The skeptic makes the same mistake that Moore makes, viz., not only is there no knowing these Moorean propositions, but there is no doubting them either. The radical skeptic is even further out on the limb than Moore.
We often use the phrase "I know" as an expression of our conviction that we know, but this is not an epistemological use of the phrase. This is where there is confusion. An epistemological use of know must have an objective justification, i.e., it must be demonstrated that you indeed do know. Whereas using the phrase "I know" as an expression of one's inner subjective state (feeling or intuition) is not epistemological. The use of "I know" as Moore is using it, is just an expression of a belief, it's not knowledge.
It's in the demonstration of one's knowledge that we often find that what we thought we knew (this is where many are confused about Gettiers e.g.s) is just false. What we believe we know doesn't guarantee anything. Much of what we claim to know is probabilistic, and it can turn out later that some new fact overturns what we believe we know. Hence, I thought I knew. The definition of knowledge as JTB is necessarily the case, but your expression of I know is not necessarily the case. So Wittgenstein's point about the expression "I thought I knew" is an important epistemological point that is also associated with the use of doubt in terms of your claims.
The use of "I know" and "I doubt" is parasitic on the reality in back of our language-games. This is why bedrock beliefs are foundational to knowing and doubting. And it's also why some bedrock beliefs are outside our epistemology. Bedrock beliefs are neither true nor justified, but they are beliefs of a certain kind. Moreover, what's bedrock can change from context to context. For e.g. "I know I have hands" in Moore's context is nonsense or senseless, but in another context it can make perfect sense. Where it does make sense is where it's appropriate to doubt.
"It's not a matter of Moore's knowing that there's a hand there, but rather that we should not understand him if he were to say 'Of course I may be wrong about this". We should ask "What is it like to make such a mistake as that?'--e.g. what's it like to discover that it was a mistake (OC 32)?"
The mistake and the phrase "I thought I knew" are intimately connected.
I would include this idea of knowledge as a mental state as metaphysical.
Quoting Sam26
I consider the claim that there are mental states of knowing as a metaphysical claim. Do we have a particular mental state because we know or do we know because we have a particular mental state. Does knowing cause the mental state or does the mental state cause us to know? Is there a different mental state for knowing I have hands that differ from the mental state of knowing I have feet or fingers?
It is not clear to me whether you are accepting or rejecting an appeal to mental states.
Quoting Sam26
Quoting Sam26
From it seeming to be that there is this queer and extremely important mental state it does not follow that it is so that there is this state. It arises from the misuse of the expression "I know".
Quoting Sam26
I don't think Moore's claims that he had hands is a bedrock proposition and do not see how it grounds or plays a role in epistemology. It may have its place in his attempt to refute skepticism but it most contexts it is odd and out of place. It is an example of philosophers being puzzled by the puzzles they create.
The puzzles occur as a result of an analysis of knowledge it terms of an analysis of propositions:
I do not think that this can be overstated. Although setting it out requires time - that I do not currently have - and would be a distraction from the thread topic and turn into a critique of Witt's approach. Coincidentally, the same critique would apply to academic philosophy in general from the Enlightenment through mid 20th century. For example, the same critique can render Gettier toothless, for it is in treating beliefs as equivalent to propositions that gives rise to Gettier.
My point about mental states is that Witt believed that Moore's statement, "I know I have hands," is more about his mental conviction or belief than an expression of what he knows. I would reject, and I believe Witt rejects any epistemological view that appeals to some mental state as a way knowing. This seems clear. Using know in this way, as I pointed out, amounts to an expression of a belief without an objective justification. I thought I was clear on this point.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's seems clear that there are mental states that are generated by beliefs, but there are not mental states that correspond with knowing as opposed to believing. I believe there is a state of belief and that these states come out in our actions (linguistic, tone of voice, the way we gesticulate, etc). The subject of mental states can take us far afield, so I'll leave it at that unless there's a need for clarity.
Quoting Fooloso4
This seems clearly incorrect, viz., that Moore's statement that he knows he has hands is not a bedrock proposition. In fact, probably all the Moorean propositions given in his two papers are paradigm cases of bedrock propositions (or hinge-propositions). I believe this is a fundamental point made by Witt and most philosophers who study OC.
I don't see how you cannot see that these beliefs form the backdrop that allows all epistemological language to take place. It's similar to saying I don't see how the board, pieces, and rules of chess play a role in the game of chess. There would be no language without our inherited background beliefs, animal beliefs. These bedrock beliefs are crucial to language, and especially to the language-games of epistemology. They solve the infinite regress problem and the problem of circularity. Moorean propositions (hinge-propositions) show just where justification ends, and where doubt falls apart or makes no sense.
What are we to do with that proposition? What rests on it?
I agree that there are bedrock beliefs that are the backdrop of our epistemology, but I do not see why you would think that this is one of them.
Quoting Sam26
I think I have asked you this before. What revolves around these propositions?
Quoting Sam26
As I understand it a hinge proposition functions analogously to a mechanical hinge.
Why do you say there is no doubting them?
Why do you say there is no doubting them? It is not only possible to doubt the existence of your hands (as any more than appearances), but also your existence as a perceiving subject. There is a widely popular view for which nothing really exists and Moore argument seems no threat to it. I don't know him well but he seems to be a particularly naive realist.
Quoting Fooloso4
(I want to be clear that there are other names associated with these beliefs. The obvious one is hinge-proposition (OC 341), but others come to mind, such as, foundational belief, basic belief, hinge certainties, and animal belief (OC 359).)
I going to answer your question @Fooloso4, but my explanation is also to others who are trying to understand these ideas, so if I say some obvious things keep that in mind.
It's not just the belief about hands, but a whole system of beliefs that falls into the same category. These beliefs make up our inherited background. Moreover, I'm concentrating on those bedrock beliefs that are prelinguistic or animal because of their importance to epistemology and to language itself. Think of these beliefs as ways of acting, i.e., the actions associated with my hands show my belief that I have hands. This is about as primitive or bedrock as you can get because some of our first actions are with our hands. These bedrock beliefs are the ungrounded underpinnings of all the language associated with epistemology. Furthermore, I don't believe they are propositions in the strict sense because they fall outside our language about true and false. This doesn't mean that they can't function as normal propositions in some contexts, it just means that from a bedrock or animal position they are not normal propositions. Loosely speaking, they are states of mind or beliefs reflected primarily in some action. For e.g., like a a dog jumping up and down as it sees its master walking toward the house. These are very primitive beliefs that are prelinguistic or nonlinguistic.
It seems to follow from this that our epistemological language, viz., justification and truth, ends, when butting up against these bedrock beliefs. Included in our epistemological language is the use of the concept doubt. For e.g., "I know X." "How do you know that?" "I don't believe you do know it." - etc. So doubt is closely associated (probably logically associated) with knowing in important ways
The one thing that makes bedrock beliefs stand out is that doubting them makes no sense or is senseless. Why? Because the framework for doubting and knowing is built upon the inherited background of our surroundings. The inherited background is prior to doubting and knowing, i.e., you wouldn't be able to doubt or know without this framework. These concepts grow out of the framework, just as the game of chess grows out of the board and pieces. It's senseless to doubt the very framework that gives rise to the concept doubt. This is why global skepticism is senseless. If you did doubt the framework you would have to doubt the very words you're using.
It seems clear to me that Moore's statement that he knows he has hands is a prime example of a bedrock belief. It's definitely prelinguistic, and it generally cannot be doubted, at least in most contexts without having to doubt the whole of our inherited background.
"What do we do with [these] propositions?" It's a matter of recognizing their special place within language. They are the precursor beliefs to language, and by extension all of the language-games associated with language. So, "What rests on it?" Language rests on it.
I'll stop here for now.
Exactly. Moore's arguments are metaphysically naive. They assume that the true reality of our naively realistic extended world cannot be doubted. These 'bedrock' beliefs you speak of may be pre-linguistic, but they are also pre-philosophical.
If Moore's ideas worked we could falsify Buddhist doctrine simply by pointing out that we have hands. This idea is plainly absurd.
I think some confusion arises here over the difference between believing we truly exist as individuals but doubting we have hands, which would be madness, and doubting the true existence of perceiving individuals and their hands, which is a metaphysically sound position.
Are you saying that a bedrock belief (a term that Wittgenstein never used) and a hinge proposition are the same? This is what I take to be the difference. We reach bedrock when there is no further justification. The Earth revolves around the Sun, on the other hand, is a hinge proposition. The claim can be justified and, like a hinge, a great deal hangs from and revolves around it.
Quoting Sam26
"I believe I have hands" is as problematic as "I know I have hands".
I do not think that my dog believes it has paws. The question of their existence does not arise. Consider again OC 476:
Quoting Sam26
Using my hands does not show that I believe I have hands. If, however, I were to move my hands in odds ways, that might show that I believe my hands have magical powers.
Quoting Sam26
Wittgenstein does not limit what he says about bedrock, hinges, inherited background, to what is pre-linguistic:
Consider the following:
Compare this to your claim that:
Quoting Sam26
and both Copernicus' and Kant's revolutions. "Fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid".
Quoting Sam26
When Wittgenstein says:
this might seem to support your claim, but here he is not talking about language but the absence of doubt that if it were present would cause a kind of paralysis.
Language does not rest on things like the proposition that I have hands or feet:
For me it seems misleading to refer to the background, consisting of those things which are necessarily involved in our everyday lives. like hands, feet, legs, arms, ears, eyes, mouths, hills, valleys, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, fish, clouds, sun, stars, moon, human technology in all its forms, architecture, music, painting, poetry, philosophy to name but a few in a list of countless numbers, as a system of beliefs. These things are not beliefs but intimate and inevitable elements of human experience. We know them in the "biblical" sense of familiarity, in an analogous sense as that when it is said that " a man shall know his wife".
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. If you note the first sentence, it's beliefs about these things, hands, mountains, trees, etc. So we have primitive beliefs (animal beliefs) that are shown in our actions. I'm specifically referring to prelinguistic beliefs or nonlinguistic beliefs.
You're completely misunderstanding what I'm saying. You're not even close.
OK, so what exactly am I misunderstanding?
Perhaps you're right. I don't know him but am focusing on his argument about hands. If he cannot see the obvious flaws in this argument then I'm not tempted to read him.
Much of the discussion of hinges focuses on doubt and neglects the questions that we raise. He draws our attention to hinges not simply to address the problem of skepticism:
The idea of hinges replace the ideas of foundationalism.
The "door" is our investigations. Rather than resting on foundations they turn on hinges.
Wittgenstein only gives us one example of a hinge:
The mathematical hinge is not pre-linguistic. Neither are others:
It is the movement of the work of the community bound together by science and education by which our propositions, beliefs, and knowledge are held fast. The axis is not timeless or immutable, but change is not piecemeal.
What I'm saying is that our inherited background (that we live in a world with mountains, lakes, clouds, hands, feet, etc), which is not a system of beliefs, but informs what we believe, both linguistically and non-linguistically. So, there are, for example, prelinguistic beliefs (animal beliefs, bedrock beliefs, or basic beliefs), which are shown in our actions (OC 284, 285) alone, viz., digging a hole, using a hand, or even making a primitive tool. I'm not saying that the inherited background is a system of beliefs, but that the inherited background has a strong relation to what we believe, maybe it’s causal. So, if there were no hands, there would be no beliefs that correspond with the action of using our hands. The confusing part is parsing out the difference between the linguistic belief, “This is a hand,” as a statement, with an action alone that reflects a belief, they are quite different, and in many cases prior to language. This latter category of beliefs is foundational to language, which means bedrock (prelinguistic) beliefs are a prerequisite to language. Just as a chess board and pieces are a prerequisite to playing a game of chess.
The point of course is that the inherited background gives rise to bedrock beliefs, and also gives rise to language itself. This means that without the inherited background the language-games of epistemology (justification and truth) wouldn’t get off the ground. In other words, knowing and doubting are necessarily dependent on prelinguistic beliefs. This is why both Moore and the skeptics are wrong. I believe that Wittgenstein identified something that no other philosopher, that I’m aware of, has identified, viz., the foundation of epistemology. The place where justification ends. It’s something prior to any talk of epistemology, something primitive. It’s the limit of epistemology in many respects.
I want to say two final things. First, there are many kinds of bedrock beliefs, not just prelinguistic bedrock beliefs. There are bedrock beliefs that occur in language. For example, the rules of chess are bedrock beliefs, but they are linguistic.
Second, Wittgenstein never edited OC, so whatever one believes about this or that text is speculation (at least in many cases), because we have no idea what Wittgenstein would’ve removed or added to the text. Although I and other philosophers have arrived at very similar conclusions.
Shared intentionality- one way towards a theory of prelinguistic bedrock.
Prelingustic foundations for language? It’s necessary bedrock foundations without which, no language is possible.
This is an odd and questionable use of the term 'inherit'. While it is true that we live in a world with mountains, lakes, and clouds, they are not ours to be transferred from person to person.
The inherited background is a picture of the world:
Quoting Sam26
But, if I understand him, Wittgenstein is:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Sam26
I argued above that:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
And, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, (repeating 94 cited above):
I disagree, if I understand you, that facts are truths. They are two different things. Truths are about propositions, and what makes a proposition true is that it reflects or mirrors a fact or state of affairs. I see this as a common mistake, viz., mixing up these two concepts. One could say that the language-game of truth is about facts, and whether a proposition say, "The Earth has one moon," is reflecting a fact.
Quoting Banno
I agree with this.
Who in the world said this? Where did I even imply that the inherited background can be transferred from person to person? My point is exactly the same as how Wittgenstein uses it in OC 94. The inherited background is the world we find ourselves in, i.e., a world of mountains, trees, hands, etc. All of us inherit this background in virtue of the fact that we live in the same reality. Also, the inherited background is how we get our picture of the world.
Once again:
The inherited background is not the world but a picture of the world. Consider the "Mountains and Waters Sutra" of Zen Master Dogen:
(3)
This is the inherited background picture he has inherited and gives to his disciples. To state the obvious, it is not our background picture.
Quoting Sam26
This is not what Wittgenstein says. "it", what is inherited, refers to the picture not the things pictured.
I don't know what to make fo that. Are you claiming there are untrue facts? Or truths that are not facts?
There is a recent tendency to take "fact" to mean "empirical evidence" or similar. I do not use "fact" in this way. Quoting Sam26
Nor this; it is propositions that are true, or not. A truth is a proposition.
DO we differ in that you would suppose there to be truths that cannot be put into propositional form, whereas I would not call such things truths, but perhaps intuitions or sentiments?
If we go by the definition of a proposition in logic, then propositions/statements (which are not exactly the same, but close enough for our purposes) are either assertions that something is or is not the case. My e.g., "The Earth has one moon," is an assertion that something is the case. The assertion is making a claim about reality, viz., that there is a state of affairs that corresponds with the assertion. It mirrors reality. If it does mirror reality, then it's true, if not then it's false.
Facts are neither true or false in themselves. It's assertions in the form of propositions/statements that are true or false. To say a fact is true or false is a misunderstanding of the concept. Facts are what make statements true or false. We check our statements against the facts, against the empirical observation that the Earth indeed has one moon. So, no, I'm not claiming there are "untrue facts." there are only untrue or false statements.
And no, I would not say that there are truths cannot be put into propositional form. When we speak of true and false we are necessarily speaking about our claims (propositions/statements).
I will be responding to @Fooloso4 and @Janus soon.
As a question of exegesis, I remain unconvinced that this is right; But apart from exegesis, the picture theory is too close to what we might call 'conceptual schema' for my liking - after Davidson.
So I don't see the distinction you seem to think sits between the fact that the moon is a satellite of Earth and that the moon is a satellite of Earth. It's as if you would say that "The moon is a satellite of Earth", apart from our language games about the moon and the Earth, or that "The moon is a satellite of Earth" requires no interpretation. On that view, truth is relative to this or that scheme. Better, I think, to give away the duality of scheme (picture) and world, and so "reestablish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false".
Here we may have a proposition that acts like a hinge... opening the door of possibility to subsequent beliefs about the proposition... namely, whether or not it is true.
This, I believe, is one of the most important ideas to arise out of On Certainty, and it's critical to our understanding of knowledge.
The "belief" that I have hands does not arise from an inherited background but from the activities of using our hands. Sticking them in my mouth, grasping things, and so on.
Hinge propositions are regarded as true, but the question of their truth does not usually arise, except for some philosophers or when we can no longer hold to propositions such as, the sun revolves around the earth.
I agree with this. Part of what I mean by our inherited background is not only the fact that we have hands but also the use of our hands within the context of the reality we find ourselves in.
Quoting Fooloso4
This I disagree with, i.e., what hinge propositions are according to Wittgenstein (at least it seems like a general consensus), are those basic beliefs that inform our discussions of justification and truth (our epistemology). So, generally speaking, hinge propositions are the foundation of all talk of justification and truth. The key is the phrase "generally speaking," there are exceptions and Wittgenstein points these out. Of course, this only happens where a doubt makes sense.
"But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness: nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false (OC 94)."
1. First and foremost, the inherited background that forms the backdrop for our actions, linguistic and non-linguistic. This is the very framework that allows all of our talk about epistemology and doubt. The context of knowledge and doubt can only occur where there is a framework of foundational beliefs.
2. The formation of our beliefs against this backdrop, and here I'm thinking of Wittgenstein's hinge beliefs, examples include, "I have hands," "There are other minds," "The Earth has existed for a long time," and "I am a being separate from other beings." These beliefs are generally or mostly outside our epistemic language games of knowledge and doubt, which means they fall outside any need to be justified, and any need for them to be referred to as true or false. This seems to be part of the progression of the development of language, i.e., much simpler language games developed before the language games of epistemology.
3. Wittgenstein's view of language games within the context of our cultural forms of life. So, we need to be mindful of the different ways we justify a belief within the context of different language games. We might see, for example, correct reasoning (logic), testimony, linguistic training, sensory experiences, and some other methods or uses of justification within our forms of life. The same applies to the use of the concept of truth.
4. The meaning of these concepts (e.g. justification and truth) needs to be seen under the rubric of Wittgenstein's family resemblance. This helps to keep us from dogmatic definitions.
These are just some of the ideas that might inform my thinking on epistemology.
This is just a cursory view of the subject, but I think it's a good place to start.
Isn't the proposition that the earth revolves around the sun one of the basic beliefs that inform our discussions of justification and truth (our epistemology)?
The one example of a hinge given in OC is:
It is true, but its truth is not in question. It has been given the stamp of incontestability.
The term hinge appears two more times:
I think that at the root of our disagreement is with regard to our inherited background. I do not think it is fixed and immutable. Our inherited background is the history of a form of life. Our inherited background is not the same as the inherited background of someone living one hundred or one thousand years ago, or someone living in an isolated tribe.
If it is not then it will be from time to time subject to doubt. What had held fast as a hinge no longer does and will no longer be regarded as true.
Yes. This means, in part, that some things that had previously functioned as hinges no longer do, and some that now function as hinges may in time no longer be hinges. When he says that some propositions are exempt from doubt I don't think he means that hinges are atemporal or universal.
It would equally absurd that Moore stand in front of a lecture and say “I, with conviction, have two hands” along with “I know”. The most natural reaction would be to think something is not quite normal here.
"All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system. And this system is not a more or less arbitrary and doubtful point of departure for all our arguments: no, it belongs to the essence of what we call an argument. The system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which arguments have their life (OC 103, 105)."
Of course, this refers again to the "inherited background or world picture" that forms the system in which we have our forms of life, language games, and our talk about epistemology. This also includes things that are not only true but also false, which explains why the riverbed of hinges can change. Some hinges are more fixed than others and the changes are more imperceptible.
Now that I think more about it @Fooloso4 there are some hinges that tend to be more immutable. For example, that we are beings that move through space, that I'm a being separate from other beings, that there are other minds, other objects, etc. These may even be necessarily hinges given the laws of the universe. I don't know if I've brought this up before, but maybe that's where you got the idea from. So, there are hinges that range along a kind of scale, some being more or less immutable, and most not being immutable at all.
Wittgenstein makes the point that some propositions must be solid for us. This is important in terms of what can be rationally doubted within our world picture or inherited background. However, given how broad our world picture is, there will inevitably be false beliefs within it, so what might be a hinge at T1, might not be at T2. In the past, I've mainly focused on hinges that tend not to change or that change very little over time, but Wittgenstein's hinges are much broader in scope. In other words, Wittgenstein's hinges would include actions (linguistic and non-linguistic actions) within any system of belief, even beliefs that are mere myths. There are groups of language games within these various systems that support the system, including epistemological language games. For many religions, belief in God is a hinge. So, we end up with competing systems, with hinges in one system that aren't hinges in another system. What's solid in one system won't be solid in another, and what is doubtable in one system may not be doubtable in another.
That said, certain hinge beliefs ground all of our systems, and these hinge beliefs tend not to change or change very little over time. Again, examples include: "There are other minds," "There are objects," "We have hands," and "The Earth has existed for a long time, etc." These hinges should be in a group of their own because they tend to be the most solid and beyond the reach of any reasonable doubt. They seem to be core hinges.
What is the certainty that is presupposed? Well, we've been talking about this in the previous posts, viz., the world picture or inherited background. Doubting by its very nature requires a place of certainty. "If you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words either (OC 114f)."
There is an important point about doubting that's similar to a point raised in earlier posts about knowing, viz., both have uses that point to an inner feeling; Knowing as an expression of conviction and doubting as an expression of intuition or a feeling of unease. Both of these uses are proper, but they are different from the uses of these words in an epistemological context.
One could use the word doubt in a way similar to expressing an opinion, viz., there is no justification or very little justification for the doubt, similar to a feeling or intuition. However, just like many of our opinions, it generally carries very little weight. Just as knowledge is superior to mere belief, doubting backed by good reasons or good evidence is superior to a doubt that lacks some form of justification.
Some expressions of doubt are senseless. For example, doubting that there are other persons, grounds for doubt are lacking, everything speaks in favor of there being other persons and nothing against it. What would count as a grounding for such a doubt? "And couldn't we peacefully leave him to doubt it, since it makes no difference at all (OC 120)?"
Quoting Sam26
In one sense , it shouldn’t matter that certain hinge beliefs change slowly, because they do change. The river bank changes much more slowly that the flow of the river, but over long enough periods of time it can be seen to change as continuously as the river. The sense of every hinge proposition you mentioned (“There are other minds," "There are objects," "We have hands," and "The Earth has existed for a long time”) has already been put into question by writers like Husserl and Heidegger. To be clear, they are not claiming that these are false assumptions, but that their assumed intelligibility can be shown to be confused from the vantage of a different starting point.
"The propositions, however, which Moore retails as examples of such known truths are indeed interesting. Not because anyone knows their truth, or believes he knows them, but because they all have a similar role in the system of our empirical judgments (OC 137)." It's the role hinges play in our system of judgments that's important, and it's certainly not about whether they're true or false. "We don't for example, arrive at any of them as a result of investigation (OC 138)." If someone wants to say they're true, then I ask, "How do you know they're true?" If you point to some criteria for their justification, then I believe you're missing Wittgenstein's point.
There is a side issue with knowing that seems to get conflated with what we mean by knowledge (JTB), and what we claim as knowledge. A claim to know, even if one believes that they have the proper justification, doesn't always equate to knowing. This seems obvious, and yet people think that there is some problem with JTB because one can seemingly have a belief that's justified and true, and yet that belief can turn out to be false. Claiming to know is not necessarily knowing. We often believe we know, but later find out that we didn't know. It's simply a difference between one's claims and reality, they don't always match. Moreover, most of what we know is probabilistic and subject to what we think is likely the case, not what is necessarily the case. Given the probabilistic nature of most of our knowledge, it's reasonable to conclude that sometimes what we believe is justified and true, is simply false. This is just part of the nature of our claims and not a flaw in how we define knowledge (JTB). Within any system of beliefs, there will always be some false beliefs, even if we think those beliefs are well-established.
"With the word 'certain' we express complete conviction, the total absence of doubt, and thereby we seek to convince other people. That is subjective certainty.
"But when is something objectively certain? When a mistake is not possible. But what kind of possibility is that? Mustn't mistake be logically excluded (OC 194)?"
Wittgenstein uses certain in two different senses in OC, subjectively certain, as an expression of a conviction or feeling about a belief, and objectively certain, which is another way of expressing a piece of knowledge as JTB. So, certainty and knowledge both have their subjective and objective counterparts, and they are often confused.
OC 194 brings up a very interesting point, i.e., the tendency is to say, "I know...," and here one thinks one is using know in the epistemological sense (as Moore's does), as a guarantee that one knows, as if a mistake is not possible. However, if a claim to know is in itself knowledge, it would seem that knowing would lose its force, it would be akin to a conviction, opinion, or intuition. Knowledge must stand up to the doubt, "How is it that you know?" Note that with a mere belief, one might respond to the question "Why do you believe that?" with the answer "I just do," and that's acceptable as a mere belief; but a claim to knowledge as JTB requires more, it requires that the belief be justified and true. And of course, Wittgenstein in challenging Moore's use by asking what would count as a justification for "I know this is a hand." Wittgenstein is telling us that Moore's use of "I know..." is akin to an expression of a conviction, not objective knowledge as Moore thinks it is. Of course, this brings us full circle, viz., that the propositions that Moore retails as knowledge hold a special place within our world picture. Moore doesn't know, in his context, what he thinks he knows.
There is a lot to unpack here, and I've just scratched the surface.
If I was Moore, I would demonstrate my knowledge by showing him traditionally held techniques, actions accomplished by using a hand, and convince him that knowledge as JTB should be revised to demonstrable public action (DPA).
It seems very easy to say that a proposition is true because it tallies, mirrors, corresponds, etc. with the facts, but in Moore's case what does it mean? Moreover, what does it mean for any proposition to tally with the facts? There must be a way of deciding for or against a proposition (OC 198). Some propositions are determined to be justified and true based on what method of justification we're using, for example, logic, sensory experience, testimony, linguistic training, etc. To determine how most propositions are true we use one of these justification methods. The question though, for Wittgenstein has to do with certain kinds of propositions, Moorean propositions, which hold a special place in our system of beliefs, viz., the grounding of our epistemological talk of justification and truth. If justification comes to an end with hinges, then tallying loses its meaning with hinges, which seems to be why the question "What is tallying with the facts?"
"Really 'The proposition is either true or false' only means that it must be possible to decide for or against it. But this does not say what the ground for such a decision is like (OC 200)."
My interpretation is that the ground refers back to the world picture or inherited background, i.e., it grounds our very talk of justification and truth. Moore doesn't see that bedrock doesn't need grounding; it is the ground. Indeed, most of us don't see it. This solves the infinite regress problem, viz., where does justification end?
Wittgenstein's ideas seem to build on each other. At the bottom, i.e. the grounding or the world picture, then we have our actions (non-linguistic actions) within that grounding. On top of this comes a primitive language, then more sophisticated language games like knowing and doubting. Knowing and doubting come much later, it's parasitic on the world picture.
What I am emphasizing here is what Wittgenstein says in On Certainty in the following:
110 “….As if giving grounds did not come to an end sometime. But the end is not an ungrounded presupposition: it is an ungrounded way of acting.”
This stems from his epistemic consideration that in a literal sense nothing is knowable in the sense demanded by a philosopher. And yet he appreciated that everyone including himself ordinarily use the verb "to know" all the time. Therefore he concluded that the ordinary meaning of "to know" isn't an insinuation of ideal knowledge.
If Moore's knowledge of his hands is interpreted in that light, then had Moore later discovered that he didn't actually have hands, his discovery wouldn't contradict his earlier ordinary claim to "know that he had hands"
Yes, that's an important part of his thinking in OC.
Right, he never implies that "to know" means some infallibility on our part.
I don't think Wittgenstein would use phrasing like "P necessarily implies some fact," or what others use, viz., "P if and only if P," etc.
Quoting sime
Philosophers don't, as a general rule, hold to the notion that knowledge implies infallibility if that's what you're implying. Inductive reasoning is probabilistic, so any knowledge gained by inductive reasoning is not infallible by definition. I think Wittgenstein's point is that some uses of "I know.." are not epistemological as in Moore's case, at least that's part of Witts point.
I do not think Wittgenstein regards knowing and doubting as sophisticated language games. Both knowing and doubting in their nascent forms are primitive.
These examples of looking, sitting, feeling, believing, acting are all "non-linguistic".
OC 3 is just an example of where it might be proper to doubt and how we might satisfy that doubt. Moore's use is not such a case.
7 is referring to a subjective knowing and certainty. That's my interpretation.
None of the rest of your e.g.'s hurt my position. You don't seem to be following my position carefully. At least that's what it seems to me.
While a philosopher's epistemological considerations may involve sophisticated language games knowing and doubting need not.
Quoting Sam26
Perhaps not. You stated that:
Quoting Sam26
Epistemological considerations may come much later but knowing and doubting do not. It is not clear what the distinction you are making between knowing and doubting and their epistemological uses. If the point is that epistemology as an branch of philosophy arises later then yes, of course.
You say:
Quoting Sam26
I do not know what "knowing and doubting epistemologically" means. Knowing or doubting and such things as criteria and justification for knowing or doubting are two different things.
Quoting Sam26
Since hinges can and do change, even if only rarely and slowly, epistemological considerations are not off the table
So, I would say knowing comes into play when we, leaving aside considerations that evolve out of indulging artificially manufactured faux-doubt, cannot be wrong concerning what we know. In the primeval scenario, for example, you see the tiger on the path in front of you—you know the tiger is there. Alternatively, you hear a tiger-like growl somewhere in the bushes and you believe there is a tiger there, but there is some room for doubt.
So, going back to the 'Moore' example, I would agree with him that knows he has hands.
Witt seems to point to two senses of know and certainty throughout OC. He talks about using know as an expression of a conviction which is not an epistemological use. He also talks about subjective certainty which is the same as know when used to express one's conviction. This is what I mean by non-epistemological uses of these words. An epistemological use of these words includes the proper justification and their truth.
Quoting Fooloso4
While it's true that most hinges can and do change, some don't. I gave these examples earlier, but you seem to ignore them or you're not reading everything. My examples include, there are objects, there are other minds, we have hands, etc. It's hard to see how there are objects could change.
If you going to critique what I say at least read with more care. That said, I'm sure we have disagreements nothing new here.
It could simply mean that your inductive reasoning, which is a legitimate form of knowing is only probable (most of science is inductive). So, I could say without sounding weird that I have good reasons to believe I know X, but that there is a small chance I could be mistaken. This happens all the time. Evidence changes and so do our conclusions. I think the problem is when we conflate the meaning of knowledge as JTB for example, and one's claim to knowledge, they are two different things. The definition is one thing, that is what it means to know, but your inductive claim doesn't have the same force of necessity (if necessity is the correct word).
Science is a form of knowing in a participatory and a practical sense. We know the world, in the sense of participating in it, via science. It is practical too in the that it is a practice, a know-how. Propositional knowledge though, it seems to me, requires observation. I know I have hands because I can see them, observe myself using them and so on. I know it is raining when I am out and I feel the rain on my body and see the drops falling. In those kinds of cases, of which there are countlessly many in our lives, we cannot be mistaken, barring faux-doubt and bizarre thought-experiment scenarios, which I don't believe deserve our concern.
When you say "So, I could say without sounding weird that I have good reasons to believe I know X, but that there is a small chance I could be mistaken." I have no problem agreeing with you because it is not a claim that I know, but a claim to have good reason to believe that I know. And this highlights the strangeness of saying that I could know, without knowing that I know. For me, if I don't know that I know, as I say I do in cases like 'I am a human being' 'my body is bilaterally symmetrical (more or less)', I have hands and feet'. 'My head sits on my shoulders' and so on endlessly, then I would say instead that I don't know, but I believe or don't believe this or that, or I reserve judgement.
Science uses the same justification methods we all do, logic (inductive and deductive reasoning), sensory experience (observation), and testimony (peer reviewed papers, lectures, etc). It's just that science is generally more precise with these methods than the general public. Most knowledge in general is practical, not just science. Moreover, science draws conclusions based on whatever method of justification it's using, and these conclusions are in the form of propositions. If science presents a theory based on experiments or mathematical models, then someone probably believes the conclusions are either true or false. If they believe they're true or false, they're using propositions. Most all of what we know is in the form of propositions.
Knowledge can come in the form of a skill (know how) or in the form of a belief. Mostly when we talk about knowledge we're talking about beliefs not knowledge as a skill (like riding a bike or conducting skillful experiments). Although skills overlap with knowledge as a belief.
Quoting Janus
A claim to have good reason to believe X is partly what we mean by know. Good reasons are how we justify many of our beliefs and why we make claims that a proposition is true. It is a claim to know.
Part of Wittgenstein's argument against Moore is that we don't know we have hands. The hinge belief that we have hands is just part of the world picture we have along with a million other things, but it's not knowledge. I believe Witt is correct about this.
Knowledge claims are epistemological. Justification does not mark a distinction between epistemological and non-epistemological knowledge claims.
Quoting Sam26
I was responding to your statement that:
Quoting Sam26
A claim about hinge beliefs and a claim about some hinge beliefs are two different things. You also said:
Quoting Sam26
Does this mean that it is the role of some hinges but not others?
Again, what I'm saying is that there are uses of the word know, as Witt points out, that are not epistemological. For example, "I know...," as an expression of a conviction, which is what Moore's use of know amounts to. This is a non-epistemological use; it refers to how I feel about a belief.
I don't agree.
The top part of the lower section of Plato's divided line is pistis. The Greek term can be translated as belief, trust, persuasion, confidence, and as in the NT faith. In other words, what is not doubted. That is not to say what is indubitable. The philosopher raises doubts about things that are ordinarily not doubted. His concern is the truth of things. The move from opinion to knowledge is by way of doubt or skepticism (skeptis - to inquire). There is, however, also knowledge of the arts (techne) and Socrates own knowledge of Eros, from which his knowledge of ignorance arises.
With regard to knowledge and doubt in On Certainty:
What is this mental state?
When Moore says he knows he has hands, this does not refute the skeptic.
Wittgenstein is not denying that Moore knows he has hands. He is rejecting Moore's misuse of the term.
I might also tell a friend to move his hand. No question arises as to whether he has a hand or whether he knows he has a hand. He knows he has a hand. I know he has a hand. But this will not satisfy the radical skeptic.
Further, although rejects radical skepticism he does hold a more measured and moderate skepticism.
Empirical propositions do not have the certainty of mathematics. In the Tractatus he says:
We may not doubt whether the sun will rise tomorrow, but whether or not it will is a contingent rather than necessary fact.
I think Wittgenstein in "On Certainty" is exploring this distinction between contingent and necessary. In some ways in seems to be approaching a view of Quine where our most fossilized propositions can be up for revision. Consider the following:
213 "Our empirical propositions' do not form a homogeneous mass"
217 "If someone supposed that all our calculations were uncertain and that we could rely on none of them (justifying himself by saying that mistakes are always possible) perhaps we would say he was crazy. But can we say he is in error? Does he not just react differently? We rely on calculations, he does't, we are sure, he isn't."
167 "It is clear that our empirical propositions do not all have the same status, since one can lay down such a proposition and turn it from an empirical proposition into a norm description. Think of chemical investigations. Lavoisier makes experiments with substances in his laboratory and now he concludes that this and that take place when there is burning. He does not say that it might happen otherwise another time. He has got hold of a definite world picture - not of course one that he invited: he learned it as a child. I say world picture and not hypothesis, because it is the matter-of-course foundation for his research and as such also goes unmentioned."
447 "Compare with this 12X12 = 144. Here too we don't say "perhaps". For, in so far as this proposition rests on our not miscounting or miscalculating and on our senses not deceiving us as we calculate, both proportions, the arithmetical one and the physical one, are on the same level. I want to say: The physical game is just as certain as the arithmetical. But this can be misunderstood. My remark is a logical and not a psychological one."
613 "If I now say "I know that the water in the kettle on the gas flame will not freeze but boil", I seem to be as justified in this "I know" as I am in any. "If I know anything I know this".- Or do I know with greater certainty that the person opposite me is my old friend so and so? And how does that compare with the proportion that I am seeing with two eyes and shall see them if I look in the glass?-I don't know confidently what I am to answer here.-But still there is a different between cases. If the water one the gas freezes, of course I shall be as astonished as can be, but I assume some factor I don't know of, and perhaps leave the matter to physicists to judge. But what could make me doubt whether this person here is N.N, whom I have know for years? Here a doubt would seem to drag everything with it and plunge it into chaos."
I would say he was exploring this distinction between contingent/necessary and seeing that some empirical proposition can be held as firmly as mathematical propositions, and even these firmly held mathematical propositions we can imagine folk reacting to them differently where notions of "right/incorrect" seem to lose any sense.
The mental state Wittgenstein seems to be referring to is the mental state of conviction. Moore's use of "I know..." is just that, a conviction of certainty. In OC 42 Witt refers to what is expressed by tone of voice and gestures (expressing a conviction), which fits Moore's use of "I know..." as he pronounces "I know this is a hand," by raising his hand before an audience. It's not an epistemological use of the words "I know..." where one is expressing a justified true belief.
In OC 7 Witt points out that our lives show (by our actions) these kinds of hinge beliefs, for example, by getting the chair or shutting the door. These are the subjective certainties of our world picture, which is how we act in the world. It's a misuse of know in the epistemological sense, we don't justify these kinds of beliefs, which is what Moore is trying to do and why Witt is criticizing his use of know. If OC 7 isn't about one's inner certainty, then it would be making the same mistake Moore makes.
Just to reiterate, there's a difference between one's inner subjective certainty (or using know as an expression of a conviction) and the epistemological use of "I know..." as an expression of objective certainty (knowledge). Witt uses know and certain in both ways, and it's important to distinguish between the two.
I don't know Quine so can't comment on the comparison.
613 is interesting. First, he says he is justified in knowing that the water will boil. If it doesn't he assumes there will be an explanation, some factor he is unaware of. It does not threaten his picture of the world. The whole of physics has not come into question. But if this is not N.N. then everything is plunged into chaos. If this is not his old friend then everything he knows becomes uncertain.
447 seems to challenge 651 regarding the relative uncertainty of empirical propositions. But is my certainty that this is a hand the result of empirical observation?
It is as stated in 12: that "I know" seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. Stated impersonally, if someone knows something then it is true.
Quoting Sam26
What he says is that "life shows that I know or am certain". At 8 he states that:
Quoting Sam26
If I sit in the chair it is objectively certain that there is a chair. My sitting in it is all the justification that is required. But the requirement for justification is out of place. This does not mean that it is not an epistemological use of 'know'. It means that you are imposing the very requirements on the term 'know' that Wittgenstein is arguing against. If there are two different ways in which the term is used, it is the difference between the way it is ordinarily used and the mistaken sense in which it is used to mean that one who knows can't be wrong. There is no mental state of knowing that guarantees its correctness.
Quoting Sam26
The same is the case with all his writings except the Tractatus.
I would also like to point out that what is at issue extends beyond us. There are others reading, thinking, and in some cases commenting. I invite them to not move on just yet if they, like me, continue to be puzzled, and continue to find new things each time we read the text and what others say. To this end what I regard as most important is not simply getting Wittgenstein right but the attempt to get him right, even if we decide he gets it wrong. If is an exercise in thinking and seeing.
Do you think he put as much effort in his words as you are in interpreting them? Is it even in some way "right" to over-interpret any one human's words to this extent? Do you think the onus of understanding is on the author or the reader? If not the author, then can I write a post, and make you figure it out if you don't understand it? Do we not fall into the trap of some sort of "Appeal to Prophecy" if we can read so much into a relatively sparse text? What makes one person infinitely analyzable and others ignored? Can popularity become its own epiphenomenon, creating the meaning beyond the actual text? If that's the case, can this be done with any more-or-less abstract piece of writing? If so, what are we doing here doing practically infinite hermeneutics? Is that philosophically sound, or is it overmining? If an author tries to confound with too many questions, is that bad faith arguing, clever philosophizing, or "showing"? How do we know which is which besides preference in style, or what others say is supposed to count as preferential style? Can one actually put in more effort than an author in philosophizing a point of the author? If so, why? If that's the case, might it be more prudent to put the effort into taking what one learns and developing one's own ideas and philosophy instead of endless hermeneutics of really trying to "get" an obscure text?
I agree. Your disagreements interest me even if I don't have the urge to chip in. To post in a forum is to post for an audience as well as the one you're responding to.
On Certainty and for that matter PI is an un finished work. I would rather not like to think about “getting it right” as much as a continuation of what he had started. This is more exciting because it could take philosophy is new and interesting directions.
I'm not saying there's no value in discussing and defending these ideas because there is, and I know that others are reading as we write. The frustration is that people are constantly misinterpreting things, so I have to keep repeating myself. I think I'm being clear, but not so much apparently. I find it an agonizing process, but I can't stop. I stop for a bit, and then in a few months, I'm right back at it. It's a love-hate relationship.
Absolutely! He was a very careful and thoughtful writer.
Quoting schopenhauer1
How does someone know when something is "over-interpreted"?
I think there are interpretations that are wrong, but sometimes they might lead to interesting discussions.
Quoting schopenhauer1
There are some weak authors and some weak readers. Sometimes weak readers blame the author for what they cannot do.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Many years ago, when in school, I would offer get comments that my writing was "cryptic". I did not take this as a negative since many of the authors I liked were cryptic. I eventually came to see things differently. What occurred to me was that one needs to earn the right to have others figure out what you are saying. I have not earned that right. I now try to say things clearly.
With regard to your many questions, what I said above serves well for my response:
Quoting Fooloso4
The same can be said with regard to some other others as well.
Wittgenstein did not write books. He writes aphoristically. I think a good many of them are finished.
Quoting Richard B
What do you think that is?
Quoting Richard B
Do you have examples or do you have in mind what statements such as the following:
(PI 90)
I find that interesting and have quoted it many times, but I have no sense of what those possibilities are.
It is good to hear you say that. Thanks!
Quoting Fooloso4
Part II of the PI is often an overlooked, less quoted part of the book. But I believe it hints at the many directions Wittgenstein was possibly exploring. Lets take a look at some:
In these passages, it is not just analyzing the use of words that Wittgenstein is exploring.
Part II, section I, "One can imagine an animal angry frightened, unhappy, happy, startled. But hopeful? And why not? A dog believes his master will come the day after tomorrow? And what can he not do here? How do I do it? How am I supposed to answer this? Can only those hope who can talk? Only those who masters the use of a language. That is to say, the phenomena of hope are modes of this complicated form of life." I think here Wittgenstein is pondering the relationship between primitive reactions and complex form of life, is he not asking questions and looking for an explanation, and not just wanting to describe the language of hope?
Part II section ii, In saying "When I heard this word, it meant.... to me" one refers to a point in time and to a way of using the word. (Of course, it is this combination that we fail to grasp.) Again Wittgenstein is going beyond just the analysis of the use of a word, but looking also at the relation of reference and time.
Part II section v, "It is like the relation: physical object-sense impression. Here we have two different language games and a complicated relation between them-If you try to reduce their relation to a simple formula you go wrong." Here a fascinating discussion between two different philosophical outlooks one founded on a naturalistic view and the other a more introspective view?
Part II section x "How did we ever come to use such an expression as "I believe.." Did we at some time become aware of phenomenon (of belief)? Did we observe ourselves and other people and so discover belief?" A very interesting question, but will the answer come from analysis of the use of words?
Part II section xi "I shall call the following figure, derived from Jastrow, the duck-rabbit. It can be seen as a rabbit's head or as a duck's. And I must distinguish between the 'continuous seeing' of an aspect and the 'dawning' of an aspect." What is Wittgenstein doing in this passage? In trying to describe a picture, is he exploring how we borrow from our language to describe what seems to be a rather interestingly unique experience and to get another human being to see it as I do?
Lastly, Part II section xii "If the formation of concepts can be explain by facts of nature, would we not be interested, not in grammar, but rather in that in nature which is the basis of grammar? - Our interest certainly includes the correspondence between concepts and very general fact of nature. (Such fact facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality.) But our interest does not fall back upon these possible causes of the formation of concepts; we are not doing natural science, nor yet natural history-since we also invent fictitious natural history for our purposes.
I am not saying; If such and such facts of nature were different people would have different concepts (in the sense of hypothesis). But: if anyone believe certain concepts are absolutely the correct ones, and that having different ones would mean not realizing something that we realize-then let him imagine certain very general facts of nature to be different from what we are used to, and the formation of concepts different from the usual ones will become intelligible to him."
I think this is the most interesting direction Wittgenstein is considering here. The philosophy of concept formation. This is not about describing how we use our words, but exploring how we come to formulate our concepts.
The propositions Moore claims to know, viz., those listed in his paper A Defense of Common Sense are the propositions Wittgenstein is referring to. Besides the most commonly used of Moore's statements "I know this is a hand," others include, "There exists at present a living human body, which is my body," and (paraphrasing) "There are other human bodies of the same class that have lived on Earth and have had many different experiences." These are the propositions Wittgenstein is referring to as empirical propositions that we affirm without special testing. In other words, we don't normally need a justification (epistemologically) for these beliefs. These are hinge propositions (I prefer to call them hinge beliefs), and they fulfill the logical role of being bedrock, foundational, or basic to our whole system of epistemological language games. It's where justification ends (no special testing required). Why? Because special testing or justification gets its life from these hinge beliefs. Not only do these beliefs give life to our epistemological language games, but they also give life to the language games of doubting. Such beliefs also reflect an ungrounded way of acting, which is at the core of our world picture or inherited background.
And where it's proper to give a justification for Moore's propositions, i.e., the exceptions, then these propositions are not hinges. So, they can function as proper propositions in certain contexts, but not generally. As I've mentioned elsewhere, and where I've expanded on what I think follows from OC, is that these beliefs at their core are pre-linguistic beliefs, shown in our actions.
It's not only Moore's use of know that is problematic, but saying these hinge beliefs are generally true is also problematic in similar ways.
I agree with the significance of Part ll and that Wittgenstein goes far beyond the analyzing the use of words. What I am wondering about is the idea of taking philosophy in new and interesting directions. There are scattered comments about him seeing his work as preparatory for what others will do.
"Must I not begin to trust somewhere? That is to say: somewhere I must begin with not-doubting; and that is not, so to speak, hasting but excusable: it is part of judging (OC 150)."
One last tantalizing passage from Wittgenstein and his thinking about concept formation. From Culture and Value:
"Life can educate one to a belief in God. And experiences too are what bring this about; but I don't mean visions and other forms of sense experience which show us the 'existence of this being', but, e.g. sufferings of various sorts. These neither show us God in the way a sense impression shows us an object, not do they give rise to conjectures about him. Experiences, thoughts, - life can force this concept on us. So perhaps it is similar to the concept of 'object'.
This is not about pondering the use of the word "God", but pondering life itself.
In his Notebooks 1914-1916 he says:
It seems clear that Wittgenstein is not only saying Moore's use of know is a misuse, but also that it's not knowledge. The beliefs (arational and hinge beliefs) Moore claims to know are the bedrock, foundation, and solid "...part of our method of doubt and enquiry." It forms a whole system of beliefs that "...characterize the way [we] judge, characterize the nature of judgment (OC 149)." The "nature of judgment" includes our epistemological language games and our language games of doubting. This means that justification and truth are an outgrowth of what stands fast, which is why, generally speaking, hinge beliefs are not justified and not true or false. How can this be? There is no how or why it's simply how we act. "Why do I not satisfy myself that I have two feet when I want to get up from my chair? There is no why. I simply don't. This is how I act (OC 148)."
Does this mean that the system of our judgments doesn't change, of course not, it just means that at any given point in time, there is a system of judgment that we don't question. Some of the beliefs in the system will remain unchanged and some will be removed, and others added, but the system will always be there as part of our bedrock beliefs. That there is a system of judgment is unchanging, it can't be otherwise. There is a limit to reason, to justification and truth, and it's an arational system of beliefs.
Do I think Wittgenstein is correct? Absolutely, and it changes the nature of epistemology, and moreover, it shows the limits of epistemology. I believe many philosophers and thinkers have overlooked Wittgenstein's final remarks.
Is this not the nexus between the intellect and action, rationalism and pragmatism, where the human leaves the third person intellectual detachment and enters in the first person animal needing to survive and reproduce?
I read Pritchard's paper on Hinge Epistemology. The first thing to be noted, as can be seen in the title, is that he regards hinges as epistemological.
Quoting Sam26
That depends on what is being claimed. If someone were to say that they believe in God, I cannot prove them wrong. If, however, they claim that like Abraham God commands him to sacrifice his son then their belief in God and what God commands would need justification.
If a priest takes transubstantiated wine and attempts to donate it to a blood bank, whether his belief is true or false is in question.
The believer will insist that the wine has truly become blood. When chemical analysis confirms that it is wine the believer will reject the science. This is something he will say he knows. Something beyond scientific understanding. What we might regard as compelling ground may be something he thinks needs to be corrected by the word of God. There are deeper truths, he might say, that science is blind to.
So, where does this leave us? As far as I can tell, at an impasse. Such beliefs are not simple arational they are irrational.
I know that, what's your point?
He does not agree with your claim that hinges are not epistemological because:
Quoting Sam26
But since you said you were moving on I left it there.
Yes, the philosopher questions accepted beliefs, doubts them and subjects them to examination to try to determine whether they are actually true. But there are many beliefs the truth of which is not determinable.
Techne, or know-how is a different category of knowledge than 'knowledge as beleif" it seems to me, it is rather 'knowledge as ability'.
Quoting Fooloso4
I don't see the problem with saying that you know you have hands, or that you know any of the things that can be directly seen to be the case. I agree that this does not defeat radical skepticism, but I think the latter defeats itself, because it is trying to empty knowledge of all contexts, free it from all any any contexts whatsoever, and render it absolute.
About things which one claims to know, but which one cannot be certain about, I think when one says 'I know" one is always really saying "I think I know", which as I said earlier amounts to "I believe I have good reason to think I know this". But if we want to cast this as being more than merely belief (as opposed to the knowledge we have of those things of which we can be certain) this opens up the strange notion that we could know without knowing that know.
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree with that, insofar as it refers to inductively derived propositions, such as 'the Sun will rise tomorrow". If I am out in the rain and say, "it is raining", on the other hand; if that statement is to be counted as a proposition, then it would seem to be as certain as any mathematical truth. On the other hand, such an utterance might not be counted as a proposition, but merely as an observation. But it seems to me that what we observe and experience we most certainly know.
They believe the theory is true or false, so they do not know it be one or the other. On the other hand, in a different sense, theories are forms of 'know-how' in that they enable us to see the world in different ways, make novel predictions and so on. But that is not propositional knowledge it seems to me.
Quoting Sam26
That seems uncontroversial to me, I would just repeat that a claim to know is not knowledge in the sense of definitely knowing the truth of some proposition but is rather merely belief.
I think this not knowing is part of Socrates "human wisdom".
Quoting Janus
I don't think Wittgenstein does either, when said in appropriate circumstances. Proof against radical skepticism is not such a circumstance.
It is not that Wittgenstein thinks that Moore does not know it is a hand, it is that he misuses the word, as if it corresponds to a mental state that guarantees that what he knows must be true because he knows it. It is this that is not granted.
I know that he doesn't agree, I've talked with him and listened to his lectures on Youtube. My point in bringing him up was that he talks about how a religious epistemology might try to use belief in God as a hinge, i.e., as an arational belief. My view is that belief in God is not a hinge belief.
I have followed his disagreements with other philosophers who hold a similar position to mine. So, I'm familiar with his interpretation of Wittgenstein and his view on hinges.
In an earlier post you said:
Quoting Sam26
That belief is part of their inherited background of our world picture. That there is or is not a God is for them bedrock, foundational.
I believe this is incorrect, and it's a misunderstanding of what it means to know. I assume your use of the phrase "definitely know the truth" means to know with 100% certainty. Most of what we claim to know is not known with absolute certainty. Most of what we claim to know is what's probably true or likely the case, and this follows from logic (inductive reasoning). I think your idea of knowledge is too restrictive.
Also, a strong inductive argument wouldn't be considered "mere belief," since it would have strong evidence to support it. A mere belief to me is a belief that's based on no evidence or very little evidence, like an opinion.
For many religions, belief in God is a hinge.
— Sam26
I'm not saying that people don't use it as a hinge. I'm saying it's not a proper hinge. There could be some beliefs within any system, even ones that contain myths, that are viewed as hinges. What makes a belief a proper hinge is that it doesn't make sense to doubt it (what does making sense here mean?). Doubting that there is a God makes perfect sense. It's nothing like doubting there are objects, or hands, or minds, etc. People may act as though it's a hinge (belief in God), which shows they believe it's a hinge, that's all.
There seem to be certain core beliefs that most systems of belief recognize as hinge. In other words, there are overlapping systems of belief that contain the same core beliefs (hinges), but they also contain other beliefs, considered hinges, but not recognized as such within those other systems. So, you end up with systems with competing hinge beliefs. Sorting this out happens over time.
Not to those who are convinced otherwise. To doubt it would put everything, their whole system of beliefs, into doubt.
Is there any support in Wittgenstein for the notion of a "proper hinge"?
Of course they're convinced, which is why they consider it a hinge.
One could argue based on some of Witt's remarks that there are hinges of different kinds and that what's considered a hinge at T1, might not be at T2. We acknowledge that hinges change and that some of these changes are more pronounced than others. Wittgenstein doesn't use some of my terminology, but that's because I'm trying to expand on Witt's ideas. I'm not saying that all of my remarks can be supported by passages in OC or anywhere else. My remarks are a combination of my conclusions based on passages in OC, and my expansion of his ideas whether they agree or not.
Quoting Sam26
Consider the following:
A. From Euclid’s Elements
1. A point is that of which there is no part
2. And a line is a length without breath
3. And the extremities of a line are points
B. From Anselm’s Proslogion
1. You are something than which nothing greater can be thought.
2. And certainty this being so truly exists that it cannot be even thought not to exist.
If I had to characterize “hinge proposition” I would say it is one where a human accepts it and its logical consequences as a whole. This acceptance would not be because it strikes us as true but that it has some pragmatic effect on us that when we put them into practice it brings value and meaning to our lives.
Take example A and definition number 1. Does that strike one as true? You could probably make the case that it is plain nonsense by itself. But if one accepts the definition and moves forward with it, the fruitfulness may be seen. And the same goes example B.
I'm not sure that we have the same view on hinge beliefs. It depends on what you mean by "logical consequences" of a hinge belief. There is no doubt that hinge beliefs have consequences in our acts (linguistic and non-linguistic), and that there is a logical scaffolding to our belief systems. However, we have different views of hinges if you use "logical consequences" as a synonym for correct reasoning (inductive and deductive). Also, hinge beliefs don't depend on some practical effect. A practical effect would give some justification for the belief, which goes counter what a hinge belief is.
I definitely want to use “logical consequences” somewhat loosely here, meaning that Euclid and Anselm may not be using some shared universal logic here. Lastly, what I am emphasizing is these “hinge propositions” are a choice, you either use them or you don’t, and whether you use them or not may be because there is a value to them. Whether one can articulate the value is another story. I am sure there are these “hinge propositions” hidden in the background of every day life that most do not question and/or aware of.
Yep, belief/propositions have consequences when one uses them, I do not see how one escapes this existential fact about living in the world. If one goes on doubting one has a hand because of intellectual reasoning, yet keeps using the word in practice like everyone else, what was the point of doubting? Alternatively, if one chooses not to use the word “hands” because of some radical doubt, I pity one’s chances in surviving our world.
What may count as good reasons for you may not be what others regard as good reasons. Once again:
And one that has been quoted many times including by you:
Also:
Does the missionary convert the natives by providing good reasons? Are there good reasons to convert them? Are there good reasons to reject the missionary's Christian beliefs?
Well, I don't view good reasons as something subjective, as if it's just some decision I make arbitrarily.
Unpacking this can be tedious, but I don't think there is any problem here. I'm not talking in absolute terms but in general terms. You seem to be pushing Witt into a more relativistic position, but I don't. There is a relativistic point to all this of course, but there is also an objective component, which is more important.
A relativistic position might be one of many different positions called relativistic.
I take this to be related to the following:
There is no fixed point that serves as the basis for beliefs and judgments. The system of judgments varies from time to time and place to place and to some extend from person to person. Some might think this is a situation that must be resolved, but I do not think that Wittgenstein intends to offer any kind of solution.
Quoting Sam26
But you make a distinction between hinges that are proper and those that are not. You include belief in God with those that are not. For those who believe God may be what is most important and against which all other things are measured. For the same reason one who does not believe might also think it important. Wittgenstein seems to be content to let such differences stand.
How could we have, and why would we need, proof against radical skepticism, if it is incoherent?
Quoting Fooloso4
I think the counterpoint would be something like 'What could it possibly mean for it to be false?'.
You are equivocating between what it means to know and what it means to claim to know. They are not the same. If something is not true then we don't know it, despite whatever claims we might have to know it. And I would go further and say that if we don't know that we know it to be true, that is if there can be any doubt that it is true, then we don't know it either. I'm not imputing this to Wittgenstein but highlighting the point where I probably disagree with him. Is there anything that you believe could not possibly be false?
Moore thought it necessary, which is the reason he claimed to know he had hands.
Quoting Janus
Yes. That is what Wittgenstein does.
Perhaps the problem lies with presenting it or parsing it as a claim, rather than seeing it as being merely a statement of what would be obvious to everyone, because when something is presented or understood as a claim that seems to logically leave room for a counterclaim.
Let me ask, do you believe your position that “if there can be any doubt that it is true, then we don’t know it either” can be doubted as true? If so, this is not knowledge, just belief.
It is not really knowledge, but a stipulative definition of it, based on the logic I understand to be inherent in the idea of knowing. You may have a different interpretation of the logic of knowing, and that is to be expected when it comes to the meaning of terms and the understanding of the human experience those terms are meant to refer to.
Sort of like Euclid’s Element definition of a point: “A point is that of which there is no part.” But if asked by a Mathematician “what is a point?” And I reply with this definition, do I not demonstrate I know what a point is?
I find your definition of knowledge quite narrow. If someone ask me if I knew the verification principle of meaning, I would provide a definition, provide some examples to show what I would call something meaningful and not meaningful. This would demonstrate to someone I had knowledge of this principle, by providing the definition and showing its application. Why would we not say that I am knowledgable of this philosophical principle? The same goes with your definition of knowledge. The real question is why would I use this definition in the first place for, what value does it have, what clarity does it give me, yeah maybe it protects me from making any error but at what cost.
Why would you use that definition? The way I see it it clarifies the difference between knowledge and belief. I'm not sure what you would count as knowledge. Would you say that you know that the big bang theory or the theory of evolution is true? I wouldn't, I'd say rather that I have very good reason to believe they are true, but that I don't know if they are true.
What do you think I am losing by thinking about it that way?
"Wittgenstein's revolutionary insight in On Certainty is that what philosophers have
traditionally called 'basic beliefs' – those beliefs that all knowledge must ultimately be based
on – cannot, on pain of infinite regress, themselves be propositional beliefs. They are really
animal or unreflective ways of acting which, once formulated (e.g. by philosophers), look like
propositional beliefs. It is this misleading appearance that leads philosophers to believe that at
the foundation of thought is yet more thought. For, though they often resemble empirical
conclusions, basic certainties (or 'hinge certainties' or 'hinges' – as I shall also call them
following Wittgenstein's hinge metaphor [OC 341]) constitute the ungrounded,
nonpropositional underpinning of knowledge, not its object. In thus situating the foundation
of knowledge in nonreflective certainties that manifest themselves as ways of acting,
Wittgenstein has found the place where justification comes to an end, and solved the regress
problem of basic beliefs – and, in passing, shown the logical impossibility of radical or global
scepticism. I believe that this is a groundbreaking achievement for philosophy – worthy of
calling On Certainty Wittgenstein's 'third masterpiece' (The Animal in Epistemology:
Wittgenstein's Enactivist Solution to the Problem of Regress, by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock)."
Interesting question, not sure I can answer that from a personal psychological perspective. Additionally you bring in “truth” which adds an additional complexity. Nevertheless, I will give it a go in some general fashion.
Since you bring in the mix scientific theories, I will go with that theme. Is Newtonian and Einsteinian physics knowledge? I think it would be difficult to argue with a scientist to say that it was not. I presume you would argue that Einsteinian physics proved Newtonian physics false. But this sounds strange because Newtonian physics works very well in many circumstances. Our knowledge of Newtonian physics allows us to make many predictions that prove useful in going about in our daily lives. But instead of using a word like “false” should we not say “less accurate in prediction of measurable properties in situations at high speeds”?
Lastly, lets take a look at your definition of belief/knowledge in relation to Newtonian/Einsteinian physics: “if there can be any doubt that it is true, then we don’t know it either”. What is the nature of this doubt? That you could imagine otherwise?, For example, I can imagine something faster than the speed of light therefore Einsteinian physics is only a belief not knowledge. If this is how one sows the seeds of doubt on a scientific theory, thank goodness most scientists would ignore it as a philosophical eccentricity and get on doing science.
I would say they are knowledge in the sense of being kinds of know-how.
Quoting Richard B
No, I wouldn't say that. Aspects may be false, for example Einstein's idea that nothing can travel faster than light may be false. I would agree with saying that Newtonian physics is less accurate or less "fine-grained" than Einsteinian physics.
Quoting Richard B
It is believed that nothing can travel faster than light, but if that turned out to be untrue it would not invalidate Einsteinian physics, because the latter demonstrably works to a very high degree of accuracy.
I would say they are knowledge in the sense of being kinds of know-how.
Quoting Richard B
No, I wouldn't say that. Aspects may be false, for example Einstein's idea that nothing can travel faster than light may be false. I would agree with saying that Newtonian physics is less accurate or less "fine-grained" than Einsteinian physics.
Quoting Richard B
It is believed that nothing can travel faster than light, we don't know that for sure, but if it turned out to be untrue it would not invalidate Einsteinian physics, because the latter demonstrably works to a very high degree of accuracy.
I think it's ironic that Moore might have considered himself a champion of the external world, yet he presumes, as if it's given, that that which is performing the assessment needs no proof. It is only from the internal world's constructions, and in accordance with the laws of its own constructions, that the external world must be subjected to such tests. It is the external world which is certain, and Mind which is dubious.
And, it is doubly ironic that Moore uses his hands, his body as proof of the external world, when that is precisely and certainly what so called he is. Whether he is those fleeting projections in mind affecting everything is dubious.
I like to explore this idea that "we don't believe(or know) nothing can travel faster than light" or "we don't know that for sure." One reason I have often heard is that you would need an infinite amount of energy to move a mass to the speed of light that makes it impossible, and no one knows where to get an infinite amount of energy. So, we are waiting around to figure it out and that is why "we don't know for sure." But I think when we say "we don't know for sure" and "we don't believe nothing can...", or even "we know nothing can..." may be inappropriate expressions to use in this case. The reason being that this notion of the speed of light is intertwined with our notions of time, space, and change. For instance, if something is traveling at the speed of light, objects from that perspective are not experiencing time (I like to think of a observer moving at the speed of light away from a clock where the light ray hitting the hands of the clock never to reach the observer and so are frozen in time.). So, it is not that no object can move faster than the speed of light, but fundamental notions of time and space lose all meaning pass these limits. So, to say we believe or know nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, is more like saying, we can't give meaning to our notion of time and space beyond this limit. There is nothing to believe, know or even doubt. We may think we are imagining possible hypothetical possibilities, but that is not the case, these theories are limiting not only what can be physically achieve, but even what can be sensible imagined at a conceptual level. Now does this mean we can't redefine speed/time/space is some manner to our liking? Of course not, and maybe we can redefine these ideas in such a way that when we utter the words "faster than the speed of light.", they have a clear meaning. But this does not mean that terms like time/space in this new paradigm will resemble anything from the previous paradigm.
This is what I think Wittgenstein gets at a little in "On Certainty" when he said:
167 "It is clear that our empirical propositions do not all have the same status, since one can lay down such a proposition and turn it from an empirical proposition into a norm description. Think of chemical investigations. Lavoisier makes experiments with substances in his laboratory and now he concludes that this and that take place when there is burning. He does not say that it might happen otherwise another time. He has got hold of a definite world picture - not of course one that he invited: he learned it as a child. I say world picture and not hypothesis, because it is the matter-of-course foundation for his research and as such also goes unmentioned."
That we would need an infinite amount of energy is a central plank of the theory, but the theory might turn out to be wrong. Or there might be things we are not aware of that travel faster than light. The rest of what you say also consists of a number of corollaries of the theory, and this begs the question.
I'm not saying the theory is likely to turn out to be wrong, and I would agree that we have very little reason to believe it is wrong. On account of having little reason to believe it is wrong we believe it is right, but I don't count that as knowledge, but would rather call it belief.
In another sense, as per the quote from Wittgenstein, the scientific paradigms within which scientists work are not questioned, and are the background against which questions are asked and answered, and I think this qualifies them, insofar as they are methodologies or ways of working, as being knowledge in the sense of know-how.
Foremost, OC is not a coherent argument for a specific point of view. It would be an error then to attempt to interpret it in a way that is both complete and consistent. The work is incomplete, and so need not be consistent.
As part of W.'s notes from the last few months of his life, it is instead a window into the progress of this thinking. It shows us his approach in practice. The method of OC is far more important and interesting than any conclusions that it might be thought to draw.
OC hangs on a grand tension W. sees in Moore's "here is a hand".
Quoting Proof of an External World by G. E. Moore
Moore is replying to Kant, as is clear, and presumably the objection is to the argument that we never have access to the thing-in-itself. Moore's reply is to shake the thing in Kant's face.
Wittgenstein had great sympathy for Moore's view. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent; one can say nothing about the thing-in-itself; therefore leave it out of our conversation.
Yet W. was unsatisfied with Moore's response. OC is Wittgenstein working through the issues raised by that dissatisfaction.
Of course silence is only a small part of the tale. There is also the world - all that is the case; and as well, there is what we might do about it. We evict questions of meaning, looking instead to questions of use, and so trade silence for action.
Hence the appeal of hand waving.
In so far as Moore shows that there are hands, W. is on side. In so far as Moore knows that there are hands, W. remains perplexed.
While he shows that Moore's use of "know" in "I know this is my hand" is problematic, Wittgenstein pretty much agreed with the argument Moore presents against idealism and scepticism. "Here is a hand" shows that there is stuff around us to be dealt with, providing a foundation, a setting for certainty. There have to be slabs in order to engage in the builder's game, hands for there to be had shakes, and certainty within which to express doubt.
"Here is a hand" - we behave in this way, we set up a way of doing things that takes "This is a hand" as granted, as enacted in the way we do things.
And notice that it's "we" and not "I" - the confidence that this is a hand comes from communal agreement, not from the perception of a homunculus or solipsistic conviction. It is inherently a public activity.
The special place of some propositions is that bringing them into question is bringing in to question the game in which they are played - how do you recognise that this card is an ace, or that the standard Metre is a metre long, or that a dollar coin is worth one dollar.
In the Investigations Wittgenstein sets out two ways of "following a rule"; the first is seen in setting out the rule, interpreting it, translating it and so on; the second, The rule is enacted, not stated.
This focus on enacting a rule is the engine behind treating use rather than meaning, and behind the private language argument. A rule may well be stated, perhaps in order to pass it on to others, or for purposes of regulation. It is not that the rule is unstatable, although any statement might well be incomplete - hence family resemblance. Following and going against a rule is recognisable by a community, and forms the way in which a community functions - their "form of life". To state a rule is to set out its propositional content, what following or going against the rule consists in.
This informs the parts of PI now often referred to as W's philosophy of psychology. Following or going against a rule allows us to implement practices, ways of doing things, that have a social role despite in a sense not having an empirical grounding. So you cannot feel my pain, nor tell if I see red where you see blue, nor infer my beliefs indubitably from my actions, but despite this we have a functional - usable - language around pain, sensation, belief and so on.
One of the marvellous things about PI is the number of philosophical tools with which it presents us - beetles, family resemblances, private language, and so on. These are the tools used in On Certainty
For Wittgenstein, Moore's paper touches on many of the issues raised in PI. In On Certainty W. is taking the ideas of PI and applying them to notions of knowledge and certainty, exploring how a consistent account might be formulated.
But On Certainty does not present us with a "Third Wittgenstein".
Recent work in these forums has tended to focus on either the Tractatus or on On Certainty. The Investigations has dropped somewhat from view. The Tractatus was unsatisfactory, obliging Wittgenstein to reenter philosophy, and giving us the Investigations. Reading the Tractatus without referring to the Investigations will lead one to misunderstand the progress and errors in W's work. One must read each in the light of the other.
If the Tractatus had been complete and consistent, there would have been no need for the Investigations. It is a mistake therefore to treat the Tractatus as complete and consistent. This error is apparent in some threads hereabouts.
It is also a mistake to try to understand On Certainty apart from the philosophical tools presented in PI. Doing so has led some recent scholarship to supposing that because a rule is sometimes unstated, it must thereby be unstatable; that a rule may have no propositional content. In contrast, the considerations of the PI show that an unstatable rule can have no claim to being thought of as a rule. It is instead perhaps a sentiment or a habit.
The remedy for this misunderstanding of On Certainty lie in Philosophical Investigations.
I still think Moore and Wittgenstein did not sufficiently provide an alternative to Kant's project. Moore simply resorts back to what is sensory, but Kant's whole point was to refute Hume, and posit that there was a mechanism whereby the mind must interpret the immediate sensory experience into something intelligible. By doing this, it is always "the hand as it appears to us" and not simply "hand as it is in-itself". Moore didn't refute that with this famous "Here is a hand. Here is another."
Wittgenstein, in turn, seemed to just sideline the question as to social practice rather than how it is that the mind can turn raw sensory information into coherent thoughts. Cognitive science and anthropology already go a step beyond Wittgenstein by reincorporating the learning aspects with cognitive structures in the brain and evolutionary biology. So I am not sure either of these two attempts provide much of a response to Kant. If anything, it highlights that what Kant's project was about was central to understanding how humans gain knowledge of the world. You cannot just bypass the questions Kant poses by fiat by mere showing (Moore) or by turning it into a completely social phenomenon (later Wittgenstein).
What is it according to the Tractatus that we must remain silent about? The answer is, the sense (Sinn) of the world, as opposed to the sense of things in the world (6.41). Matters of value, of ethics and aesthetics as opposed to the accidental facts of what happens in the world. Things in the world, both as they are in themselves and as they are for us phenomenally, are not things about which one must remain silent.
I won't get into the odd notion of one's own hand as an external thing in itself. In any case, I don't think it has anything to do with the problems of On Certainty.
Quoting Banno
Wittgenstein does not evict questions of meaning. 'Meaning' has different senses that in German can correspond to Sinn and Bedeutung. The meaning of a word, how it is used, is not the same as a word being meaningful or having significance or importance. What is meaningful, matters of value, of ethics and aesthetics, are not matters of the use of terms. We might see from someone's actions that something has meaning for them, but the action does not explain the meaning of the action.
Quoting Banno
A baby grasps things. It uses its hands to put things in its mouth, including its hands. It does not become confident that its hand is a hand. It becomes confident in the use of its hands. That this is a hand arises when it learns the name of things.
Quoting Banno
I agree, although for reasons that perhaps differ from your own. I see it as a development of such things as the notion of a form of life, as part of the shift away from propositions as foundational.
From OC:
(OC 402)
(OC 359)
(OC 475)
Quoting Banno
The rule is determined by the practice rather than the practice being determined by the rule.
See:
And:
Quoting Banno
And what is the remedy for misunderstanding Philosophical Investigations? Certainly not a rule!
One has to wonder, is it possible for something to stand as its own presupposition, Kierkegaard's way of putting it. I think this question cuts deep into the issue, for it takes one to examine how presuppositional perceptual events (ordinary experiencing the world) can possibly hold within themselves that which both "there" undeniably, yet stands as its own presupposition in its "thereness".
Kripke gives good reason to doubt that this is what's really happening. It certainly sounds plausible, but falls apart in the details. Maybe the missing piece is empathy... emotional bonds.
Language games end where pure phenomena begin. But this can be doubted as well: for how is it "pure phenomenon," escapes being a contextual "game" constituent itself? It doesn't, and Derrida was right about the "trace" which puts all that lies outside of the trace under erasure, under metaphysical erasure. So close to the Tractatus here, no? The world is mystical and ethics transcendental and Wittgenstein is sounding like the mystic Russell said he was.
But as I see it, there is no way to reconcile "the world" and language beyond this: it is a pervasive "doubt" that yields an ontology of, if you can stand it, the cloud of unknowing, the mystical underpinning of hermeneutics. The cogito and its object stand in a mystical relation.
Rorty was said that it has never been shown how anything "out there" (this under erasure) can get in here (the head's brain thing). A fascinating insight, so simply put, even as one is deeply pondering Descartes, missing this obvious fact, that there is nothing epistemic about causality. It is not doubt that rules this thinking, but hermeneutics and contextuality.
There is more to this, though, in that postulating a "hand as it is in-itself" already posits a hand, already separating hands from non-hands, and so is already indulging in interpretation. It suffers a deep circularity.
But that's more Hegel than Wittgenstein. Hegel and Wittgenstein might find agreement in noticing that Kant's attempt to reach outside of reason to the thing-in-itself, is itself reasoning. We are always, unavoidably, immersed in the Logos.
Frankly I do not expect some here to agree with this, as there are quite fundamental things going on in Wittgenstein that some folk appear unable, perhaps temporarily, to apprehend. But that they cannot see it should not be taken as reason to shut down discussion of Wittgenstein. There are would-be gatekeepers on either side of the gate.
Since 'it is always "the hand as it appears to us"', silence is what remains for "the hand as it is in itself". Notice again that it is "the hand as it appears to us", not "the hand as it appears to me".
Others might agree that there is more to silence than mere inactivity. W's response to the second war was not to theorise, but to take on a menial job in a hospital - to act. Whereof one must be silent, thereof one must nevertheless act, appreciate, mourn, and get on with life. Waving one's hand in Kant's face is a silent act.
Hopefully in silence, baby sucks its fist, unawares of being a baby , or having a fist . That this is a fist arises as the baby takes its place in its family, in its linguistic community.
Trouble is, of course, that some things refused to sit neatly as either a thing in the world or a thing outside it. As W. showed in Remarks on Colour, an explanation of colour must take into account the way in which communities manage to get on with purchasing tins of paint despite their philosopher being unable to pin down what it is that is the same about red seen here, and seen there, and for you, and I. We need to ask not just what is it that the Tractatus must remain silent about. We need to go the step further and see why that silence needed to be broken by the Investigations.
"Here is a hand" is a hinge proposition. It has the structure of a statement and it has a truth value. That it is true need not be justified by other facts, need not be seen as a consequence of ratiocination; but, like something's being red or beautiful, this being a hand involves both how the world is and how we employ language.
The move from the Tractatus to the investigations is from removing complexity to accepting it as part of being human.
If there is a third Wittgenstein, it is the one Kripke invented.
I'd suggest that the social aspect of rule following provides the answer to Kripke's sceptic, along the lines of Davidson's notion of triangulation. And I would throw in Austin's "The meaning of a word".
It is a shame you left so much out of your post. It's an ongoing discussion.
Of course there is more:
(6.422)
Quoting Banno
In the builder's language there is no word for 'hand' but surely they are aware they have hands. They use them skillfully. The baby becomes aware that it has hands as it learns to use them, not as it takes its place in a linguistic community. It learns to use them skillfully. To touch things, to feel things, to hold things. That they are called hands comes later.
Quoting Banno
He came to see that the way he thought about language is not the way it works. Language is a social practice. It is not determined by an a priori transcendental logic. Is there anything he says in the Investigations that refutes the insight in the Tractatus that ethics and aesthetics are not matters to be resolved by linguistic analysis?
Aware?
There is some unpacking to do here. They use their hand, perhaps; but is that all there is to being aware of one's hands? The game takes place without mention of hands, as you say - so are the players aware of their hands? If the block falls on the apprentice's hand, they might become aware; perhaps in doing first aid. Again they become aware of the hand as it enters into their interactions.
Nice example, though. The baby and the builder are not unaware of their hands, any more than aware of their hands. "A dog cannot lie. Neither can he be sincere. A dog may be expecting his master to come. Why can't he be expecting him to come next Wednesday? Is it because he doesn't have language?"
Puts me in mind of this:
Quoting https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/private-language/#ComVieRev
We can take this further, though, if we leave exegesis and look at the broader context. Which comes first, meaning or mental content? Will we follow Sellers in taking mental content as deriving from linguistic meaning? Or Grice in taking linguistic meaning as deriving from mental content? Until there is more by way of evidence, it might be better to follow Davidson, and presume that mental content and linguistic meaning are interdependent.
Which of these three Wittgenstein might have accepted must now remain conjectural. His role was to show that rules have a place here, but are of themselves insufficient.
Quoting Fooloso4
There are deep differences between the aesthetics of the Tractatus and the Investigations:
Quoting Wittgenstein's Aesthetics (SEP)
So again, it is perhaps a mistake to see any of Wittgenstein's writings as complete, and hence an exegetical error to attempt to set out a coherent and complete picture.
It seems clear that certain facts of reality, those that we don’t normally doubt, create the surface that allows language games to be played. Similar to a chess board providing the surface area for a chess game. So, the language game of asserting and denying, viz., being true or false rests on Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions (or hinge beliefs), and thus, any talk of epistemology (justification and truth) rests on hinges. Another way to say it is that our methodology of evaluating propositions rests on hinges.
Part of the problem concerns the conflation of hinge beliefs with our normal beliefs (or you could say hinge propositions with normal propositions), they are quite different and have different functions. So, the language game of epistemology is only possible if we never question certain facts. Just as playing a game of chess involves never questioning the rules of chess. The logical role of hinges is that of being beyond doubt and therefore beyond truth and falsity. To bring in the idea that hinge beliefs are true and false is to miss one of the core points of On Certainty. It’s like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.
I won't get into early child development and body awareness, but researchers do not agree. Having spent a great deal of time with my own children I cannot agree either.
Quoting Banno
This is a different issue. Awareness of having hands, confidence that one has hands, knowledge that one has hands is first and primarily physical not conceptual.
Quoting Banno
From the article you cited:
This speaks directly to my question:
Quoting Fooloso4
and indicates continuity from the Tractatus to the later works. By silence he does not mean not saying anything at all about aesthetics. It is not a prohibition against expressing appreciation or what one experiences when seeing or hearing something beautiful. It is, rather, not to speak of such things as if they are the same as the propositions of natural science.
Quoting Banno
Has anyone claimed that they are?
How are we to understand the following?
It is not that grammar determines facts:
(Zettel 352)
Quoting Sam26
It is not that they are beyond doubt and truth or falsity, it is that their truth is not doubted. But this is not eternal and immutable. At one time it was accepted that the sun revolves around the earth and that no one has been on the moon.
Which is why the accounts of Sellars, Grice and Davidson are directly relevant. Davidson addresses the issue by setting out a triangulation between one's hand, one's beliefs about one's hand, and one's language concerning one's hand. There is a recursive relation here, not a simplistic causal sequence from hand to concept to word. We build on our beliefs and on our language in constructing our social world.
Using one's hand is not physical so much as animal. Hence:
.
For Wittgenstein aesthetics and ethics are shown in performance, so that expressions of ethical or aesthetic preference are all but irrelevant. One shows one's appreciation for a tailor by wearing his cloths. One shows one's understanding of what is right by making it so, The suggestion that ethics and aesthetics are matters to be resolved by linguistic analysis badly misrepresents W.'s view.
The word "hinge" is used only three times in OC. Perhaps its importance has been exaggerated. But let's consider this:
It is very clear here that it is certain propositions that are exempt from doubt. The game can only be played if certain propositions are, not exempt from truth or falsity, but treated as being true. I also think it worthy of note that "hinge belief" does not occur in OC.
This is not an aspect of these propositions, but an aspect of the game. One can of course move the Bishop down a column, but in so doing one ceases to be playing chess. A proposition's being a hinge is a role it takes on within a language game.
Hence "language games are only possible if we don’t question certain facts" as a part of that language game.
Specifically, that some empirical fact - "Here is a hand" - is to be counted as a hinge is in virtue of its place within the game, not in virtue of its empirical content.
So I'd be cautious about suggesting that language games rest on hinge propositions, as if the hinge were something apart from the door. "If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put"; without the hinge the door is a plank filling a hole in the wall. Again, being a hinge is a role within a language game, not a aspect of beliefs or propositions apart from the language game.
I agree with you, there are "strong foundational" propositions; even ones which we can conventionally settle upon as having nothing preceding it but the "truth". But doubt that it would be possible to "trace back" and "locate" the factual foundational proposition which is derived from no other. Because that proposition would consist of words; in whichever language, each word the strong and foundational, would likely have been derived from several, if not many preceding words. And before words, in some cases, grunts or gestures (though I accept that may be going too far).
And if you're referring to what the phenomenological crowd calls noumena, or something like, those too are, no matter how reasoned tge argument, just too vague to confidently rest at "no preceding concept."
I do not know if I have wandered far from Wittgenstein or any expectations of orthodoxy. So I apologize.
My point is, all of our propositions are weak, there is no accessible bedrock, beyond speculation, follwed by convention; reasoned, but still, speculation (since all of the mechanisms constructing reason, too, are now remote, far removed from that initial representation of the truth.
I think skepticism is the inevitable position, and philosophy, and philosophy forum, and this discussion persists because we are l intuitively skeptical in spite of intermittent settlements called belief knowledge or certainty.
That it is inevitable can be seen even in the language in propositions "I know I am x because" No you don't. We all so called know that everything we so called know is subject to adjustment. So even the language of the non-skeptic betrays skepticism is already built in. That temporary settlement we call knowledge, or certainty is nothing more than a functional belief necessitated by the way tge whole aystem--Mind--moves. There would be no human Mind or a very different one if tge mechanisms for belief didn't evolve. Or, in W terms, belief is a built-in "rule" of play.
To say I know I have two hands already implies that it is accepted by you, nothing more can ever be said. True so called certain can never be about a thing; it can only be the thing.
I can be certain that I am, only in the being, not in the knowing.
I do not think that one can use their hand to touch or move something without being aware that it is one's hand that one is using. If not one's hand then what?
Quoting Banno
One is not just like the other. How is being aware of one's hand just like a dog expecting his master but not expecting him to come next Wednesday?
Quoting Banno
It is true that much of our world, but not the world of a dog, is constructed within and by language, but it does not follow that a baby's awareness of its hands is.
Quoting Banno
An animal is a physical thing. It is not a question of one or the other. I first wrote biological, but that too could be misconstrued.
Quoting Banno
I was referring his statement regarding silence. The collection Culture and Value show that he did talk about these things.
Quoting Banno
Right. The question was:
Quoting Fooloso4
The answer is that there is not.
As I said:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting Fooloso4
One cannot move something with one's hand without using one's hand. But one can certainly - and indeed usually does - use one's hand without directing one's conscious awareness to one's hand...
Indeed, doing so is often counterproductive. Think of carrying a tray of drinks - one focuses on the glasses in order not to spill the contents; focusing on one's hands will not help. One is aware of the object one is moving, rather than of one's hands.
Go back to the post that initiated this somewhat tedious discussion:
Quoting Banno
Notice that it is the confidence that this is a hand that I am pointing to, not the confidence shown in using the hand. The baby may of course make use of its hand without awareness that what it is making use of is a hand.
Being aware that this is a hand stands seperate from making use of the hand.
WIfe's cat habitually shows us that its food or water is empty. These serve as a part of the world that the is common to us and the cat. The cat broke its lower left canine yesterday, in such a way that it was still attached to its jaw, but projecting forward out of its mouth. Wife noticed that the cat would go to eat or drink, and jerk back at the discomfort. The cat repeatedly took us over to the full food or water bowl, as if to say that the bowl needed fixing, that the food was hurting - apparently unaware that it has teeth as such. It very practically made use of the common features of the world, the bowls, in order to make us aware of its tooth. Whether the cat is aware that it has teeth, as distinct from being aware of how to bite or pull out its claws, is moot.
Quoting Fooloso4
Notice the misrepresentation of what I have said - being aware that "this is a hand" is like being aware that the dog's master will come next Wednesday in that both require a level of language acquisition. Being aware that "this is a hand" is not the same as making use of a hand to perform some task.
So it seems to me that you are "arguing" about points on which we mostly agree. It's more of argument for the sake of argument than any substantial difference. Might leave this chat there, since it would be more interesting to consider the substantial account offered by Danièle Moyal-Sharrock.
This is my theory:
We think of our interaction with the world as if it's a conversation we're having with it. When you look for your sunglasses, you're asking the world a question: where are my glasses? Then you listen for the world's responses. Those responses are what we call propositions. You hear the world say: They're on the kitchen table. If it turns out that it is your glasses there, it's a true proposition. True propositions are where you understood the world correctly. But if those are your friend's glasses, and you were mistaken, then it was a false proposition. You didn't hear the world correctly.
So when you see your hand and say this is a hand, you're repeating what world said. You're expressing a proposition. Then you ask yourself, is there any way I could have misheard the world's voice in this case? I guess some people say you couldn't have. But this line of thought is searching for cases where you can't mishear the world.
If we bring up the brain in vat scenario and attest that we may not be having a conversation with a world, but rather our own thoughts or some such, that's a tangential issue. It doesn't undermine the fact that having discussions with the world is primal.
All knowledge is about beliefs (unless we're talking about knowledge as a skill), and from the start of OC Witt talks about what Moore considers knowledge. Witt then goes on to explain that Moore's propositions, which are about what he believes to be the case (what he knows), have a special role. All the propositions, even those referred to as hinges, bedrock, foundational, etc., are about beliefs, which is why I refer to them as hinge beliefs. Indeed, Witt doesn't use that wording, but I think it's clear, at least in my mind, that hinge propositions (Moore's propositions) are about beliefs of a certain kind.
The difference between what some of you are doing in this thread and what I'm doing is that I'm trying to go beyond OC to where it might lead. For me, it's not always about getting the correct interpretation, because as you and I have mentioned many times these notes were never finished. We can argue endlessly over interpretations, which I find pointless (at least to some degree). What I think is important is getting a handle on Moore's propositions as endpoints (where justification ends) for epistemology.
Also, although Witt never talked about classifying hinges, I do think there are different kinds of hinges given a particular context or language game.
The title of the thread is "An Analysis of On Certainty". If you are trying to go beyond OC then you are no longer doing an analysis. In order to go beyond something you need to be clear what the ideas and claims are that you are going beyond. Where it might lead cannot be properly established if it is not clear where it is before going beyond it. Otherwise it may simply be a misunderstanding or something different than the text.
You say in that initial post:
Quoting Sam26
Have you moved beyond that task because you believe you have completed it to your satisfaction or have you moved away from it, having gotten from it what you need? Or do you just wish to avoid argument and the need to defend your own interpretation?
Fun fact: Socrates was imprisoned for his own safety. Just about everybody who knew him either wanted to kill him or make him "go away". And eventually succeeded, mind you. You don't happen to have access to any wild hemlock, do you? :smile:
"Never assume malice for what can be adequately explained by simple ignorance and misunderstanding (or earnest and genuine albeit unrefined or naive curiosity)." :cheer:
Were it not for those who follow this sacred principle, I likely may have not lasted the years myself. :grin:
If you do not wish to discuss and defend your opinions, which is standard philosophic practice, then just don't respond. The insult is uncalled for. I suspect it has more to do with the fact that I challenge you and point out your mistakes rather than the way I engage, although you might see them as one and the same. There are many here who do not share your opinion. Quite the opposite. The fact of the matter is that your views have changed considerably over the years. I doubt that would have happened without criticism.
In any case, given your problem with the way I engage with you I no longer will.
Happy Hunting.
I don't, but you might. Perhaps one advantage of so doing is that it displays how integral language is to our interactions with the world.
Again, that something counts as a hinge is not a general characteristic. One can set up circumstances where "This is a hand" does not function as a hinge. Counting as a hinge, being indubitable, is a role within a language game; something one does with a sentence.
Your last paragraph stand, I think. The vatted brain is still involved in the various discussions that make up the world, even if that world is a simulation.
The salient point I would make for you is that a game can only be played if some propositions are, not exempt from truth or falsity, but treated as being true.
I suspect saying that this or that belief is a hinge might mislead one into forgetting that the it is a hinge only within the games we play, the things we are doing - perhaps into thinking that it is a hinge always and in all circumstances.
So consider again the wider context of 13:3, one of the mentions of 'hinge"...
Notice how this ends by listing prerequisites for asking about a colour and playing chess. These are the what is held firm in order for the game to be played, the task to be done: 'Here is a hand".
As for types of hinges, there are I think at least two*. There are things that must be in place in the world in order for the game to occur - slabs and blocks for the builder, apples for the shop keeper, hands for Moore, and so on. There are also what might be called constitutive statements - getting the ball in the net counts as getting a goal; this wall counts as dividing my property from yours... See Searle.
There may be other candidates for taking on being undoubted for the sake of getting things done.
I sometimes find @Fooloso4's comments unhelpful because they offer a criticism - often quite minor - without an apparent alternative or solution. But there is also the more general point I've made about the exegesis of a text such as On Certainty, that as it is a work in progress, there is no reason to expect it to be coherent and consistent. What counts in such a text is exactly what you, Sam, have described yourself as doing - going beyond the text to see where it leads. Wittgenstein is not Aristotle. Not a body of rules to be assimilated, but a set of tools to be made use of.
Anyway, my notes on Moyal-Sharrock would now make an essay, if they could be put into some sort of coherence. I more or less agree with their text, all except the conclusion. I suspect Moyal-Sharrock is arguing against the likes of Fodor and in so doing has placed too much emphasis on belief as trust rather than belief as an attitude. This is where I would like to take this conversation next.
*Well, prima facie, at least two. It is worth considering if "This is a block" and "This is a hand" ought be analysed as "This counts as a block" and "This counts as a hand".
Edit: Oh, and another point about §340. Notice that the things listed - the colour of blood, that it is called "blood", how "a" and "b" are pronounced, mathematical propositions - are routine, mundane. So many of the examples given in OC have this characteristic - my address, that I am dreaming, that this is a tree... Calling these "hinges" perhaps gives them too much celebrity; they are a commonplace aspect of our use of words. Not so special.
[I]This is a hand [/I] is a proposition. I was giving you my handy dandy explanation of what a proposition is: that it comes from interaction with the world, framed as a conversation.
Ordinarily, Quoting Me
And yes, their illocutionary force is to say how things are.
I think your account is missing this: that propositions are not first or second person accounts. They're in third person. They aren't necessarily spoken by any human at any time. I think this is where Austin's usefulness ends.
It's a tricky point, but it's this: when you repeat a proposition, you're essentially repeating what you think the world would say. Expressing a proposition implies a world who (in our imaginations) can speak.
So you can't use any particular proposition to prove that there is a world. It doesn't work that way.
Odd. I would count "I have a laptop" as a proposition in the first person, and "You have an internet connection" as a proposition in the second person. True, rendered in a first order logic they do come out as third person, but I don't see that as a characteristic of propositions so much as of force.
But yes, there are unspoken propositions.
And yes, you can't use any particular proposition to prove that there is a world, since there being a world is presupposed by there being propositions.
The thing is, that the same P can be expressed by a lot of different methods: verbal sequence, marks on page, interpretive dance, sculpture, etc. Maybe I should say a P can be expressed in a first person account, but the P itself is denoted by what philosophers call "eternal sentences." Those sentences are from the narrator's POV. It's the world talking, so to speak.
Quoting Banno
Right. You can't express a proposition without presupposing a world.
Perhaps there is no solution. For a thinker like Wittgenstein that may be the point!
Quoting Banno
And where does that leave the reader?
(CV 17)
(CV 28)
The act of thinking, both for the writer and the interpretive reader, takes place without sight of the finish line. There may, in fact, be no finish line.
It is not just a stylistic peculiarity that Wittgenstein wrote aphorisms.
It is within the space and tension of interpretive uncertainty that we engage the text, whether it is a completed whole or not.
This is philosophy, not theology. Feel free to engage the ideas in play rather than becoming caught up in interpretation of the text.
As I understand it, interpretation is about the ideas in play. It differs from theology, or at least to some forms of theology, in that it does not assume the truth of those ideas. The ideas remain in play. It is about becoming clear as to what those idea are. It is all too common, for both "professionals" and amateurs alike, to make claims about what those ideas are for the author in question and then arguing for or against those claims. It is one thing to take an idea and run with it, it is quite another to attempt to understand the author. I do not think there is anything wrong with the former. Ideas can take on a life of their own, but I believe that some thinkers can teach us things and if we are to learn from them then we would do well to attend to what they say and take care to understand them. In a thread on a particular work by a particular author what that author says and means remains in question.
Start with thinking for yourself. Then all the philosopher does is broaden your horizons.
Thinking for yourself is not something that occurs in isolation. To the extent it does, we suffer from the isolation that comes from imagining we are original thinkers.
This is exactly what Wittgenstein is referring to in the remark:
(CV 18)
Many get this backwards. They recognize their own thinking in what he says, and believe he is in agreement with them.
(CV 8)
Thinking for myself, I agree with Wittgenstein. When as a freshman in college I took a course is something called "philosophy", something I knew nothing about. I arrogantly assumed that I, from the vantage point of the advances in knowledge since these dusty old books were written, had nothing to learn from them and much that I could teach them. Having had the good fortune of being introduced to primary works of philosophy and, more importantly, how to read them, I came to see just how wrong I was.
Over the years I have heard many people claim to be original thinkers. None of them are.
Quoting frank
We find in Plato's dialogues some who are angry and resent Socrates. They blame him for pulling the rug out from under them, for destabilizing what they assumed were the firm foundations on which they stand. They feel like they have been stung by a torpedo fish and are numb and disoriented.
:grin: Read more Emerson. He'll show how to think for yourself.
I have read Self-Reliance and a few other things that I do not recall at the moment. He is not to my taste. I have heard enough of my own thoughts and those of others not:
If I come to experience "the divine spirit" then perhaps I will accept that there is such a thing. Until I receive "a divine wisdom" I will think for myself and not think such a thing true based on what Emerson or anyone else may claim, and will not "accept the place divine providence has found for ..." me. He says:
Why must I accept that? Is trusting myself really the same as trusting transcendent destiny? Thinking for myself I do not trust it. But my trust in myself is tempered by my awareness of my ignorance of such things.
It seems to me that all this is thinking for myself but believing what someone has said to think and believe.
To each his own
I would say that what we are dealing with aren't propositions in the normal sense or Wittgenstein wouldn't have singled them out as hinge, bedrock, foundational, etc. I never thought they were exempt from truth or falsity. I said that generally hinges are not thought of as true or false. there are exceptions, and Wittgenstein gave examples of those exceptions.
"Treated as true" is an interesting phrase. How does this differ from normal propositions that we treat as true? Do we treat hinges as true, but they're not really true? Or, maybe we act as though they're true, like the rules of chess. "It's true that I have a hand" seems as odd as saying "I know I have a hand," again generally speaking because of the exceptions.
I've brought up the idea that there are pre-linguistic hinges (e.g. animal beliefs) that seem clearly to have no association with truth or falsity unless you bring in the linguistic concepts of true and false. This is also why I think there are different categories of hinges. It seems that this is implied in OC. It's "the deed" that comes first, i.e., how we act that shows the hinge.
Quoting Banno
I agree.
Much of what I've been doing is thinking out loud. So, my analysis is partly an exegesis, which is difficult because we don't know which parts of OC Witt would have left in or out of a final draft, and partly where I think his thoughts lead.
I think OC has something important to contribute to epistemology.
Right. That is, after all, what thinking for yourself is about.
There's a lot in that, most notably the notion that a proposition is something apart from the utterances that instantiate it.
Let's contrast two ideas. There is a similarity between "It is raining" and "Il pleut". How do we analyse this similarity? Here are two ways of thinking about this. The first is that there is something that both "It is raining" and "Il pleut" stand for or refer to, and that thing is the proposition present in "It is raining" and "Il pleut". The second is that the use to which we put "It is raining" is much the same as the use to which we put "Il pleut", and so the similarity between them is about their place in our language games.
In the first, an abstract entity is invoked, and immediately followed by all sorts of philosophical investigations - what is the nature of this abstract entity, the proposition? Is it real, is it a Platonic form, is it an eternal statement, and so on. Thousands of years of misguided verbiage ensue.
In the second, we might simply have a translation: "Il pleut" is true IFF it is raining, and no abstract entity is invoked.
If we see things in the first way, it seems legitimate to supose, as you do, "that the same P can be expressed by a lot of different methods", and to supose that the true form of a proposition is to be found in a disembodied third person account.
If we see things the second way, we simply have a group of statements with a functional similarity - in French or English, as in the first or second person.
Now of course there are all sorts of issues to be dealt with in seeing the issue in this second way, but amongst them is not the ontological status of propositions.
And if we see things in the second way, it remains that we might on occasions speak metaphorically of the proposition expressed by two differing statements, but we should baulk at going looking for that proposition. No need to hunt the Snark.
Quoting Sam26
I think they are exactly that: normal propositions. They do not differ in their structure from any other proposition. Where they differ is in the place they take in the things we do with words.
Hence "treated as...". "Here is a hand" might be treated as indubitable in Moore's lecture, but perhaps not in Frankenstein's laboratory.
Look at the wording of this:
"...has, as it were officially, been given the stamp of incontestability". Being outside of contention is a role taken on in the way we make use of mathematical propositions. It is given to the statement by the way we make use of it.
I've sometimes toyed with the idea that any proposition could take on the role of being indubitable, in a suitably constructed language game - in much the same way, after Feyerabend, that an observation statement can be discounted as a falsification if suitable auxiliary hypotheses are invoked. Here considerations go off into the nature of modality, and the sort of propositions that might be true in all circumstances. I think one is left with little more than the desire to be consistent in how one expresses oneself.
In OC Wittgenstein spends much effort in looking for propositions that are indubitable in all circumstances, but in all circumstances finds situations in which a proposition might be doubted:
Not at all. I said a proposition is what we imagine the world would say. If you notice, my account of propositions is very similar to Russell's. He believed a true proposition is simply a state of the world. But that left him confused as to how propositions can be false. My solution: we're descendants of people who thought the world could talk. That heritage is the origin of the concept of propositions.
I won't derail the thread further. I don't think you're likely to get what I'm saying. :wink:
Seems so. The world doesn't talk, people talk.
I know that. By the way, you haven't escaped abstract objects. A sentence is also abstract.
Ya, that's one of the disagreements we have, among others, but that's philosophy.
So, to make a start on Understanding On Certainty, Moyal-Sharrock, the contention there is something like that hinges are not belief-that, but belief-in, or trust.
Now I want to be clear that there is a use of the word "belief" that is belief-in, as opposed to belief-that. Indeed, it is clear from etymological considerations that this form is the earlier - back to the PIE root *leubh- for care, trust, love.
Moyal-Sharrock, I think rightly, rejects reducing belief-that to belief-in. Rightly, since these are at least superficialy different uses, with corresponding differences in their grammar. Belief-that takes a statement as its target, while belief-in takes some logical individual.
Moyal-Sharrock goes on to commit the reverse error, attempting to reduce belief-that to belief-in. Here we might do well to recall this:
We can interchange sentences between belief-in form and belief-that form; this does not show that either has some sort of priority.
Moyal-Sharrock's discussion is broad and strongly argued, and this is but a start.
Is it? A sentence is a string of words, and so at the least is not as abstract as something like "the thing that is common to 'it is raining' and 'il pleut'"...whatever that is.
The same sentence can be presented by any number of utterances, whether sounds or marks on a screen. Sentences are commonly accepted as abstract objects.
What I like reading secondary sources for is to compare my interpretation with that of others. I'm not saying there aren't good reasons to read secondary sources, only that when it comes to interpreting this or that passage in Witt's writings it's easy to go down the wrong path. Of course, it's easy to go down the wrong path no matter what you do, which is why it's a fool's errand to think this or that interpretation is correct. No matter what you say there's going to be a few people who will disagree.
I like reading Witt to see where it leads me.
I’ve been thinking for quite some time now that there might be a novel framework for understanding Godel’s incompleteness theorems by using Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions. Godel’s first incompleteness theorem states that in any reasonable mathematical system, there will be statements that are true but unprovable within the system. Godel’s second incompleteness theorem takes this a step further by showing that the system cannot demonstrate its consistency using only the axioms and rules of inference within that system.
I believe there is another way of looking at Godel’s conclusions that might solve the problems posed by Godel’s theorems. There seems to be a parallel between Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions and the foundational axioms of a mathematical system. Wittgensteinian hinges are outside any formal epistemological justification or doubt. If we carry this idea over into Gödel’s theorems, then the axioms of the theorems might be thought of in the same way, i.e., there’s no requirement for proof if they are the hinges that provide the framework for the system to function. In other words, the foundation is not proved from within the system but is necessary for the system to function. The foundational axioms act as hinges in the Wittgensteinian sense. This would eliminate Godel’s requirement for the axioms to be proved within the system. We could then think of the foundational axioms of mathematics, such as the Peano axioms or the axioms of set theory as hinge propositions of mathematics. They would be the basic beliefs of mathematics which would be outside any formal justification. This would eliminate the need for trying to prove the axioms within the system.
Although these two systems, viz., epistemology and formal logic, are different domains, it may be that Wittgenstein’s hinges could fulfill a role in each domain, which may provide a better way of understanding the difficulties of Godel’s theorems.
It seems to me that formal systems are held together by background beliefs, i.e., that you can’t create a formal system (epistemic or mathematical system) without the background. I’m specifically referring to the prelinguistic background that is even more fundamental than linguistic hinges. For example, the prelinguistic beliefs that occur as a result of engaging with the world, walking, running, touching, smelling, object and special awareness, etc. Even causal and simple logical relationships are probably part of these basic beliefs. So, the basic beliefs that are formed before linguistics play an important role in the more sophisticated linguistic beliefs (such as what it means to know) that come later.
Basic beliefs are important because they form the substructure that allows epistemic and mathematical systems to form without the need for justification, i.e., they are prior to our justificatory models. Basic beliefs, especially prelinguistic beliefs, are the scaffolding that allows our models of epistemology and mathematical systems to take root. These kinds of beliefs are necessarily prior to our world of justification.
I confess I don't have a background in mathematics, but I'm not sure I follow you here. As far as my understanding goes, Godel's incompleteness theorems do not show that a formal system of logic cannot prove its own axioms. That axioms cannot be proven by deductions from axioms is a foundational principle of mathematics and logic, and did not originate with Godel.
The incompleteness theorems show that formal systems of logic always produce truths that are not provable using only the axioms of the system. Even if those truths are adopted as axioms, further unprovable truths will still exist, generating an infinite list of axioms. If a given axiom ever makes that list 'complete', then the list can no longer be 'consistent', in the technical mathematical sense of those terms.
The truth-value of axioms in themselves is a question in the philosophy of mathematics (and philosophy generally). But your treatment of Wittgenstein's 'hinge-propositions' here effectively equates them with axioms – which is to say, claims that are accepted without being proven and on the basis of which formal logical reasoning depends. That is the basis of all formal reasoning, as far as I know, and not original to Wittgenstein or Godel.
Am I missing something? If Witt had meant that hinge-propositions were just like axioms, he would have said so. He had a good knowledge of mathematics, as I understand. But perhaps you are a mathematician too and you can explain where I'm going wrong here! Thanks in advance.
My point is that if we think of the propositions in Godel’s theorem (the ones that cannot be proven within the system) in the same way Wittgenstein thinks of hinge propositions (basic beliefs), viz., that hinges are outside our epistemological framework, then there is no requirement to prove the propositions within the system. We could think of Godel’s unprovable statements as hinge-like. So, Godel’s unprovable statements are necessary for the formal system to operate, just as hinges are necessary for our epistemic practices. The systems are held fast by viewing certain statements as hinges. I’m assuming you understand Wittgenstein’s point about hinges in OC.
Thanks for this.
Quoting Sam26
But again, this formulation of 'unprovable statements' that are 'necessary for the formal system to operate' makes them sound more like axioms. How do they differ from axioms?
As far as I can see, there has never been a 'requirement to prove the propositions' that 'are necessary for the formal system to operate' either in Godel or elsewhere – those propositions are axiomatic and Godel did not try to prove them or to show that they could or could not be proven.
Godel showed that there would always be true but unprovable statements within any axiomatic logic system. If these statements are incorporated into the system as axioms (which are precisely those statements that are accepted as true without being proven), either those new axioms will contradict the existing ones, or they will result in the emergence of further true but unprovable statements. No system can ever fully incorporate all these true statements as axioms and remain consistent.
Again, I'm not a mathematician. But what you describe as 'hinge-propositions' sound a lot more like axioms (which form the basis of reasoning) than true but unprovable statements (which are not axiomatic).
Quoting Sam26
Thank you, but that's probably too charitable an assumption! To be honest, after reading 'On Certainty', I was surprised to find such widespread discussion of 'hinge-propositions' in the secondary literature. Wittgenstein only mentions hinges briefly and never seems to use the phrase 'hinge-propositions' at all (at least not in the Anscombe/Wright translation, unless I'm mistaken).
In section 655 he writes:
He's talking about the proposition 12x12=144 here, which can be derived from basic axioms of arithmetic. I don't see how this relates to Godel's theorems but, again, no doubt there is much I don't understand here.
eta: I realise I've taken the above quotation out of context. But it comes from a section where Wittgenstein is teasing out certain epistemic similarities between mathematical propositions and empirical propositions. From 651:
And 653:
That's the context in which I understand the idea of 'incontestable', 'fossilised' or 'hinge-like' propositions in 'OC'.
As with everything 20th century tried to do away with by turning epistemology to language debates, it goes back to Kant :wink:
Quoting cherryorchard
An important difference between Gödel and Wittgenstein is that for the latter the synonymous concepts of hinge propositions, forms of life and language games are neither true nor false. They are outside all schemes of verification, since such schemes presuppose them.
The third is the only example explicitly called a hinge. It is both a proposition, and true.
Quoting Fooloso4
Wittgenstein is arguing that we conventionally equate the fact there can be no dispute concerning the meaning of a mathematical proposition with its being true. This is not how Wittgenstein treats hinge propositions. His critique of Moore’s supposedly ‘true’ statement ‘this is my hand’ revolves around Moore’s confusing an empirical truth claim with the indisputability of a hinge proposition (form of life, language game).
Where does he make the claim that we do not dispute 12+12=144 but it is not true or false that 12+12=144?
Engineering calculations do not depend on lack of dispute.
Quoting Fooloso4
He is linking hinge propositions with forms of life and language games. They are all incontrovertible for the same reason. Not because they are true, but because they form a system of logic on the basis of which true and false statements are intelligible. It is not that the sum of proposition 12+12=144 is not either true or false, it is that the practices that allow us to know this are not themselves true or false. Before we can answer ether 12+12=144 is true or false, it has to be intelligible. Hinge propositions provide the bedrock of intelligibility.
Your assumption that these are all terms referring to the same thing is questionable. The only thing that turns on bedrock, as Wittgenstein says, is the spade.
A hinge is not a foundation:
OC 152.
Mathematics is certainly a part of our form of life and mathematics does have its language games, but this does not mean that mathematical propositions are neither true nor false. The bridge would collapse if the calculations are wrong. We would not have landed on the moon if the calculations were wrong. Building bridges and moon landings are part of our form of life, but unlike our form of life the mathematical propositions are not arbitrary or t.a matter of convention or agreement.
Quoting Fooloso4
Once again, you assume as answered what is in question. Whatever you might take his "general thinking" to be, he calls 12+12=144 a proposition and nowhere does he claim that it is neither true or false.
Where does this article discuss mathematical propositions?
The riverbed is not bedrock. It changes, sometimes slowly and other times rapidly. The axis around which a body rotates is not bedrock and is not held fast by bedrock.
Quoting Fooloso4
Of course they are true or false. Wittgenstein isnt denying this. He is making a distinction between a micro and macro level of analysis. A particular qualitative system of interconnected logical elements ( the macro level). is implicitly used as a framework of intelligibility within which individual propositions can be true or false ( the micro level).
Quoting Fooloso4
The riverbed is bedrock. Bedrock changes slowly, because it itself is held in place by its relation to a slowly changing surround.
Right, Wittgenstein is not, but you said:
Quoting Joshs
If the only example he gives of a hinge propositions is true, then at least some hinge propositions are true.
Quoting Joshs
Bedrock is not made partly of sand:
OC 99. [b]And the bank of that river consists partly of hard rock, subject to no alteration or only to an
imperceptible one, partly of sand ...[/b]
The spade may turned when digging in a river-bank, unless it hits a rock, but a rock is not bedrock.
The river-bank analogy refers to empirical propositions (96), Bedrock occurs once (498) and refers to what is beyond doubt.
The river-bank analogy refers to the way that empirical
propositions can harden and change into conditions of possibility for empirical propositions. Wittgenstein distinguishes thoughout ‘On Certainty’ between empirical propositions and those propositions which we do not know through the test of experience, but which instead ground a way of interpreting experience. This is the distinction between the riverbed’s bedrock ( what is beyond doubt) and the shifting waters of the stream (empirical experience) that runs through it.
Axioms in a formal logic system are also outside all schemes of verification, because they are presupposed and form the basis on which those schemes proceed. Whether or not axioms are 'true' is, as I understand, an open question in the philosophy of mathematics. From this thread, I gather that the truth-value of 'hinge-propositions' is an open question in philosophy too.
Again, I fail to see a distinction between the 'hinge-propositions' that are being discussed here and the simple concept of axioms – claims we accept without proof in order to begin reasoning in the first place. But I also admit I do not recognise Wittgenstein as having theorised anything called a 'hinge-proposition' in 'On Certainty'. I accept that he used a door hinge as a metaphor for the way we reason, in sections 341 and 343 and again in 655. But the metaphor was not very thoroughly pursued in any of these cases, and did not strike me as particularly crucial to his line of inquiry.
Of course, the academic consensus would strongly suggest I'm wrong – that 'hinge-propositions' do indeed form a key part of Wittgenstein's argument in 'On Certainty'. I just can't seem to make that out in the text itself.
Quoting cherryorchard
I consider the notion of hinge proposition to be redundant; it’s just another way for Wittgenstein to talk about language game and forms of life, as a hinge on the basis of which we organize so many empirical claims that it makes no sense to subject it to doubt.
Nor is it a good idea to think of hinges as not propositional. if they are not propositional then they cannot fulfil the task set them, which is to show that other propositions are true. They cannot act as a hinge unless they are true.
It's a bit like saying that the hinges of a door must be either part of the door or part of the door frame, and so failing to recognise that they are neither and both.
Nor is it a good idea to think of Gödel's unproven sentences as "outside the system" - they are very much a part of the system.
Saying the riverbed's bedrock is not the same things as saying:
Quoting Joshs
I suspect that his use of the river analogy intentionally points back to Heraclitus. He says, for example::
The mythology is our world picture (95). That the riverbed of thought can change back into a state of flux means that it is not entirely stable or unchanging. It may not be doubted at some given point in time, but consider his example of being on the moon. It was not too long ago that the proposition: Man has never been on the moon, was beyond doubt. Although there are still some who doubt it, it is part of our scientific world picture that man has been on the moon. It is beyond doubt that we have been there. As before it was beyond doubt that we were not.
Nuh. The river bed is silt, sand and rocks. It stays relatively fixed while the river flows past. If it didn't, we wouldn't have a river - we'd have a swamp or a delta or some such.
Quoting Fooloso4
So what do you think it means to say that some proposition is part of our world picture? Is a world picture simply a set of facts that we believe are verifiably true? Or is a world picture a system of relations that include certain possibilities and exclude others? Is it the fact that man has been on the moon that alone constitutes the ground for its indubitably, or is it a system of grounds underlying this fact which make the fact indubitable (our awareness of the the science of space flight and our trust of media)?
Quoting Banno
When I have exhausted my justifications, I come
face to face with the limits that define the boundaries of a language game. This bedrock is fixed, but only relatively so.
Cognitive science and human language development are outside the scope of the propositions themselves, yet they explain a brain that can create propositional statements about the world.
If joint attention theory is correct, “hinge propositions” are simply those that must be formed when working with another in a common ground. The very act of and ability to coordinate attention forms these “hinge propositions” where a world exists, others have minds, etc.
So another candidate is Searle's status functions - those things that count as something. You can't doubt that those pieces of paper count as cash without ceasing to play the game of using cash, or doubt that the bishop stays on her own colour without doubting that you are playing chess.
I think this is a good point. There is something more to 'hinges' than just 'the presuppositions we agree to adopt'. And it has to do with whether disagreement could be meaningful within the terms of our game. But I think beyond that, 'hinges' have been over-theorised in comparison to their importance in the broader line of inquiry in 'On Certainty'.
At 108:
Much had to change within the system for it to be certain that someone has been on the moon. This includes having landed on the moon and our being aware of it. It the moon missions had been kept secret we might know that the science had changed enough that it might be possible but there would still be good grounds to doubt that anyone has ever been on the moon.
It is not either the fact or the system of grounds underlying the fact.
Only the system of grounds provides the relative certainty that Wittgenstein is talking about throughout the book. You’re making the same error as Moore, when he looks at his hand, articulates the proposition ‘this is my hand’, and declares this to be a certainty, beyond all doubt. He believes the facts are so strong in his example
that they speak for themselves. You and Moore are confusing an empirical fact with a holistic structure, a system of convictions underlying that fact. Youre conflating a testable proposition with a rule of testing. This system is not a disconnected collection of separate facts, but a unified gestalt i. which each conviction depend on the others for its sense
I assume this is directed toward me, so I'll respond. We know that much of what Witt was saying was directed at Moore's propositions in his papers Proof of an External World and A Defense of Common Sense, so we're referring to specific propositions that Moore says he knows. Moore believes he has a justification for claiming to know "This is a hand (as he raises it to the audience)." Witt resists this notion, although he starts OC with, "If you do know [my emphasis] that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest (OC 1)." It seems clear to me that when Witt refers to hinge propositions or Moorean propositions he's saying that you don't know what you think you know, viz., Moore's use of the concept know doesn't apply because these statements don't fall within the domain of JTB. We don't normally justify these basic beliefs or Moorean statements. There are of course exceptions to this general rule (generally we don't justify them) and Witt points these out.
If you're reading my statements in an absolute sense, I would agree they are not always outside our epistemological framework, but Witt is saying that they generally are not within our epistemological framework (which is what I'm claiming), i.e., requiring a justification. So, I agree, that these Moorean propositions are the foundation on which our epistemological framework rests, but that doesn't mean they are part of epistemology, they support epistemology. I think OC 1 is key to interpreting the thrust of my point because Witt is saying "If you do know..." then your conclusion follows, i.e., Moore's point is epistemological, but Witt doesn't agree.
I'll just make these points for now.
It is not one or the other, either the fact "alone" of landing on the moon "or" the system underlying the fact. We would remain doubtful if we were not made aware of the fact and we would remain doubtful if it could not be justified within the system
As to Moore, it is not his certainty that is at issue, but whether this is an adequate response to the skeptic. Unless someone has a prior commitment to some philosophical position that puts it into doubt, the response to Moore saying "this is my hand" would be to be as certain of it as he is. My dog does not require a system underlying the fact that this is my hand:
That this is a hand is in no need of justification. No need for a system of convictions underlying that fact.
Quoting Fooloso4
Wittgenstein’s saying that there are kinds of facts which are fluid, which can change their truth value.
A language game within which such facts makes sense is not fluid. It is certain in a way that such individual empirical facts can never be. No facts with the system can cause us to become doubtful of the system itself. ‘No one has ever been to the moon’ is not a fact ‘alone’ , it is the expression of a system of belief.
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree it is not Moore’s certainty that is at issue. It is his treatment of his certainty as an empirical fact rather than as a tacit commitment to a set of practices that hold together facts.
Why do we need to read Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" to get back to conclusions which Kant already implied with his ideas of "synthetic a priori truths"?
How does this relate to the fact of our having been on the moon or having hands?
Quoting Joshs
His having a hand is a commitment to a set of practices? The fact is, he either has a hand or he does not. This may be "fluid" in so far as his hand might be cut off, and then the fact is he doesn't have a hand any longer.
There are practice which involve having or using our hands, but this is not a commitment to a set of practices. The practices follow the fact that we have and use hands. Without hands the set of practices would no longer exist.
Quoting schopenhauer1
We don’t. We need to read On Certainty to reach conclusions that move beyond Kant’s thinking. Synthetic a priori truths begin by splitting off the world in itself from the activity of the subject and then piece them together again.
Quoting Fooloso4
Practices aren’t what we do with factual objects which precede our actions on them. Practices precede and make intelligible the meaning of a those objects.
@Banno
I think the "world in itself" didn't even concern Witt, nor did Kant really discuss much about it other than what it is not (the phenomenal). And it was the phenomenal Kant could discuss at length the various ways it is shaped by the cognitive apparatus. In fact, the "in itself' can be be almost aligned with Witt's famous "silence" on metaphysics, ethics, etc. So again, I just see this as stumbling upon what was already thoroughly discussed. He must have known he was mirroring this notion, no?
I don't mind the rehashing of old arguments, and even permuting them into language, but to not draw the parallels seems unnecessarily ahistorical.
I'm not sure what conclusions you're referring to. What do you think the conclusions of OC are?
That there is a necessary background that underlies epistemic practices.
:roll:
You are familiar with Kant's idea of synthetic a priori, no? The notion like "every event has a cause", he believes is "a priori" (outside experience), yet its very condition are necessary for which the possibility of knowing things in the world exist.
Witt's hinge propositions function the same.. They too are necessary conditions and outside experience.. Their examples might be different, but their functional roles are about the same. They both propose preconditions that are cognitive frameworks for knowledge and experience to take place.
I don't see Witt as saying hinges are like Kant's a priori statements, i.e., outside experience. Just the opposite, they are the experiences or beliefs that provide a foundation for epistemology. Think of them like the rules of chess, the board, and the pieces, without which there would be no chess game. There may be some overlap with Kant, but it's not what drives Witt's thinking. Witt's thinking in OC is just much different.
Well, he isn’t saying it’s like Kant, and that’s the problem as it is…
As for outside experience, I simply mean functions for which propositional truth can even take place. Kant thought they were simply necessary, modern theories would say they’re necessary but constructed from experience. Either way, the similarity is enough to draw the parallels, I.e necessary conditions. You can try to weasel out of it by saying “outside experience” was not mentioned so it’s fundamentally different, but I see that as being overly focused on that term to make a gulf rather than splitting hairs on a vague term that functions similarly.
I like to provide a brief defense of Moore's Proof of an External World. I don't claim Moore would agree of my defense, but let's just say I use Moore's position as a spring board to explore what I find as limitations to Wittgenstein approach to Ordinary Language. Let's begin where Moore ends his paper with the following:
“I can know things, which I cannot prove; and among things which I certainly did know, even if (as I think) I could not prove them, were the premisses of my two proofs. I should say, therefore, that those, if any, who are dissatisfied with these proofs merely on the ground that I did not know their premisses, have no good reason for their dissatisfaction."
Throughout the paper, Moore painstaking clarifies what it means by ideas such as "internal to our minds", “external to our minds’ and ‘to be met with in space”. After showing how all these ideas make coherent sense he goes on to provide the proof of "the existence of external things.” Moore thinks he has satisfied the conditions to be a rigorous proof. One of those condition being that a premiss which was something he knows to be the case and not something which only believe to be so. The premiss he cites is "I certainly did at the moment know that which I expressed by the combination of certain gestures with saying the words ‘There is one hand and here is another’. I knew that there was one hand in the place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my first utterance of ‘here’ and that there was another in the different place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my second utterance of ‘here’. How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case!”
Moore provides an excellent example where he demonstrates how this is a reasonable example of a proof. He gives the example of someone who is tasked in finding three misprints in a particular book. This individual could be incline to doubt whether three misprints are in the book, but the one giving the task could prove that there is by simply pointing to each one, 'There's one misprint here, another here, and another here.' Interestedly, Moore concludes, "Of course, A would not have proved, by doing this, that there were at least three misprints on the page in question, unless it was certain that there was a misprint in each of the places to which he pointed. But to say that he might prove it in this way, is to say that it might be certain that there was. And if such a thing as that could ever be certain, then assuredly it was certain just now that there was one hand in one of the two places I indicated and another in the other.”
It seems Moore is suggesting that he is not absolutely certain, in some philosophical sense, that "this is one hand and here is another" but nonetheless he knows this to be the case. Does this example need to fall in the domain of "Justified True Belief" to count as knowledge? I believe Moore is showing that we ought to revise this notion of what knowledge should be, what should count as knowledge. Philosophy sometimes can play a normative role, as well as a descriptive role.
Sure, Wittgenstein can look to see how the word "knowledge" functions in our forms of life. But sometimes concepts "evolve". I am sure the notion of "knowledge" has change from the Greeks, to the Medieval period, and to our Modern period. I would think if he explored the use of "to know" during these periods that they may be somewhat different. And did he not say in "The Blue and Brown Books",
"Philosophers very often talk about investigating, analyzing, the meaning of words. But let's not forget that a word hasn't got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it."
Well, maybe we can view Moore as trying to "evolve" the notion of knowledge. But like all things competing for our attention, may lose out to more appealing notions.
Well, not only you, and not in response to any particular post. I was just setting out a few thoughts regarding the direction of this thread. There's a slide from "here is a hand" not being known right down to a conclusion that hinges are non-propositional and preverbal. But I don't agree that if you get on one end of the slide, you must get off at the other.
So "Here is a hand" is not so much certain as it stands, but might be treated as certain, for some purpose.
Quoting schopenhauer1
For Witt they are not just cognitive but affective and valuative. Most importantly, for Kant innate categories make possible normative experiences but they themselves are non-normative and non-natural, whereas for Witt they are both normative and natural in that they consist of practices in the world. Witt’s practice-based concept of use unifies categories and experience via the same norm-generating processes, whereas Kant maintains a split between what is normative and non-normative, what is rational and irrational, what is categorical and what is not.
Are Wittgenstein’s notions of a language game, form of life and hinge proposition indebted to Kant’s categories? Of course, but one can say the same of the philosophies of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Heidegger Nietzsche and most other philosophers who have come since Kant. As has been said, in a certain respect we are all Kantians now. But it is one thing to show the indebtedness of modern philosophies to Kant, and quite another to claim that thinkers like Wittgenstein have reached “conclusions which Kant already implied with his ideas of "synthetic a priori truths"”.
This was his method of dealing with those:
The tough love school of enlightenment :clap:
I maintain they affectively function the same. There are things "beyond doubt". But as you said with "normative", Kant would place the necessity at the level of cognition (the container), and Wittgenstein at beliefs (the content). Kant is thinking beyond the confines of language, but necessities for which experience itself takes place. Again, why Wittgenstein seems to feel trivial. Why does saying commonsense things like, "Some things we must simply take for granted to move forward in a conversation", add anything to our knowledge?
This goes back to my claims earlier that if I say something as a politician like "Family is good", and that is taken as profound policy, something has gone wrong.
I get that Witt's later stuff is basically "Meaning comes from practice within a language community", but why cannot there be a robust debate as to whether philosophy of language come prior or after formal epistemology? Why does it have to subsume it, as many 20th century thinkers seemed to want (first with focus on formal language and logic, and then with ordinary language analysis). Meaning is use, yes yes.. But then whence meaning? Whence use?
You can't see the obvious here? You want a debate without words? See .
Quoting schopenhauer1
Or perhaps you are reading Kant into Wittgenstein. I agree here with @Sam26; hinges are not just the now quite problematic notion of synthetic a priori, nor are there clear conclusions in On Certainty. I think you have missed quite a bit of what is going on here.
One way of seeing the discussion is that Moore and Wittgenstein differ as to how they would use "know". Wittgenstein would have us use "know" only in situations where there is an explicit justification that can be given, in the form of a proposition, for the belief in question. Moore is happy for us to know things that are not justified in this fashion - "here is a hand" being a case in point.
It is worth pointing out at this juncture that in English there are usually considered to be two differing sorts of knowledge, explicit and tacit, or knowing that and knowing how. Both Moore and Wittgenstein conclude that explicit knowledge as grounded in tacit knowledge, Moore leaning on the fact that he knows how to hold up his hand, Wittgenstein leaning on a somewhat convolute argument that has had some misleading consequences. So there are folk hereabouts who take hinges to be non-propositional and not truth-apt, apparently not noticing that this renders them inconsequential.
One justifies that one knows how to ride a bike by getting on the bike and riding it. One justifies that one understands "here is a hand" by waving one's hand about. They agree that the "meanings" of words are seen in what we do with them, not in an explication.
Yeah I get it, you know the critiques I will say probably, that he is likened unto a "prophet", in this case a "Zen master", and whatnot. And what he says is "silence", like those Zen masters.
There are two major critiques here:
1) One can reasonably talk about the conditions for knowledge and experience and things prior to language, using language to describe them (Kant may represent this approach.. one done by many philosophers)
2) Witt's notion: at some point language games cannot exist without certain "hinge" beliefs. Yet we can explore where hinge beliefs originate to some degree, even using empirical methods (developmental psychology and such).
This is important because OC is not a finished work so we don't know what the editing process would have looked like, i.e., what passages would have been left in or left out. Although, certain ideas seem to have some staying power. For example, the idea that Moorean propositions are not normally justified, i.e., justification does have an endpoint. It ends with very basic beliefs. The problem is that what's basic in one context is not in another. One has to look carefully at the specific language games and contexts. In one context "Here is one hand," is outside epistemological systems, and in another, it's within the system. One needs to ask if it makes sense to doubt the proposition. That tells us a lot.
I'm mostly trying to take Witt's ideas and run with them. I'm not always agreeing with Witt or trying to stay within the confines of his thought process. I think it's fun to see where a particular line of thought goes. People who try to tell me that this or that passage says this as opposed to that are not paying attention. The thread is indeed called An Analysis of OC, but my analysis does sometimes go beyond Witt and will indeed stretch his ideas. I will at times debate this or that interpretation, but I'm not going to debate forever these differences, it distracts from the overall goal, which is to give a particular twist to OC, right or wrong. Many of my ideas coincide with what other philosophers have concluded so it's not that I'm so far out in left field that the ideas don't have some validity.
So, if I don't engage, mostly it's about not getting sidetracked or because I don't have the time to answer every question. Don't take it personally. As you've noticed I don't devote all my time to this, I post here and there.
Finally, I've devoted a lot of time to OC. I've read it more times than I can count. So, I do have fairly good background knowledge of Witt's thinking. There are only about 4 or five people in this forum who have as much or more knowledge of this text than I do.
I don't see this as a problem so much as a part of the answer: it's not that some propositions are always hinges, but that in order to play a language game we must set aside doubt for some propositions.
Certainty is something we do. It is not something that is found.
Well, this results in pages and pages about philosophical constructs such as the thing-in-itself... silence is much preferable. But it's not the silence of the Zen master, it's the silence of doing things.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Sure. The first step here is the one given above - that not doubting is something we do, not something we uncover.
Notice that this fits exactly with the core idea that we should look to use rather than meaning.
The other important idea, and there are probably many more, is the way we think of doubt, viz., just as knowledge requires justification, so does doubting. People tend to think that their doubts are always warranted, but they're not. Think of knowledge and doubting as two sides of a coin. Both require a justification.
In other words, the endpoints, i.e., where justification ends are a kind of foundational position, but a foundation without justification.
They are foundational in regard to what we do with them. Their meaning is their use in a language game.
Yes, but there is a sense where we are also forced into a foundational position if we want to play the game, whatever that game may be. However, this doesn't mean the foundation can't change, at least in some contexts.
"'Here I have arrived at a foundation of all my beliefs (OC 246)." This passage plays off of OC 245.
I don;t see a point of disagreement here. The next bit: "This position I will hold!" – that is, it is something I do!
"But it isn't just that I believe in this way that I have two hands, but that every reasonable person does.
"At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded (OC 251, 252, and 253)."
Again, these endpoints seem to be foundational.
The "but" wasn't meant to be a disagreement but an additional point.
These situations show that one is performing a practice in a particular way, and one’s understanding is this particular way of ‘knowing how’. These performances dont preclude the possibility that they might be performed in an entirely different way by some other culture, to produce entirely different meanings. If the game ‘chess’ is performed according to an entirely different set of rules in that other culture, then my playing chess according to my rules will not justify to that culture my claim that I know how to play chess. It will justify that I indeed know how to do something, but not what they understand as chess. What we do with words forms a system, and how that system of practices is organized as a language game determines its meaning.
If you and I inherit the same system of practices, then within that same system I may be able to justify that I know how to do something simply by doing it, which is what Wittgenstein means by certainty, that the performance simply IS the justification. Within this shared system of practices called riding a bike, I may make a mistake, and this possibility of error within the shared system is what Wittgenstein calls knowing. Justification, verification, being able to be wrong all are possible within a shared system, but are not applicable when we compare two different language games. If you and I are making use of different language games, then performances like riding a bike , playing chess or waving my hand which appear justified to me will not to you. They will appear unintelligible, even if you call my performance ‘incorrect’.
It seems to me that there is an important distinction between riding a bike and playing chess. I don't need to know anything about another person's language game to understand that a person confidently riding a bike has developed (at least) some intuitive understanding of the physics involved in riding a bike.
Can you show an example of bike riding that I will find unintelligible?
Quoting wonderer1
When I say the word ‘bike’ you already have a system of practices in mind, involving use of pedals, steering, balance, etc. Of course, your idea of bike doesn’t have to include all of those. Your bike may be electric and not have pedals, it may have three wheels and not require balance. But your practical understanding of bike will probably be general enough that you can participate with no problem in a language game in which criteria of successful bike-riding can be agreed on. But what if you live in a place where the language game ‘bike’ involved an entirely different system of relations, where bikes were flying, floating or digging devices? For you, someone justifying they know how to ride a bike by pedaling something with wheels on a street would be unintelligible as bike-riding.
Let's look at a few examples:
What is the propositional justification? As I read it, he intends the opposite. Looking and seeing does not require propositional justification. But, of course, as he knows, "look closer" does not satisfy the skeptic who questions the existence of what is seen.
Sit. Open the door. It is in such cases a matter of acting and doing not of saying. We know how to sit or open doors, but knowing that there is a chair or door in not a matter of knowing how. Justification does not even enter the picture.
This is related to 3: "look closer".
The passage continues:
This is the source of modern skepticism. What Descartes calls the problem of judgment.
This is what Moore misses. If one doubts the existence of the external world then one would doubt the existence of something in that world - a planet or a hand. A theory of perception inserts itself" between me and a fact", leading to doubt and the demand for justification
Anti-foundational foundations?
You are arguing that Wittgenstein does not think knowing requires propositional justification?
Well, you and I differ substantively on our readings. I don't see, then, how you can make sense of §10; nor of much that comes after, for a hundred or so pages. Wittgenstein argues that Moore is misusing "know" and should instead have said he certain that this is a hand. Hence the book's title.
I'll leave you to your variant.
Yes, if what you mean by anti-foundationalism, is traditional foundationalism. His presentation of a foundation is nothing like traditional foundationalism. It's a different way of thinking about the foundation. It's outside epistemological constructs, i.e., it supports and gives life to epistemology.
So supose we have a culture in which "certain performances... might be performed in an entirely different way... to produce entirely different meanings".
On what grounds could you then claim that this culture was playing chess?
Supose the rules they follow are phrased in terms of - I don't know, it's your argument - river gods against mountain gods or some such. If what they do is equivalent to a game of chess, then their rules are functionally equivalent to the rules of chess - a translation.
And if they differ so substantively that the actions performed are not equivalent to a game of chess, then you have no grounds to claim they are playing chess...
Same with your answer to ; if their "bike" is used to dig holes, then the equivalence of the name "bike" is incidental; your claim that the digger is a bike is groundless.
So I've been unable to make much of your post.
Do the examples cited require propositional justification? If so, what is it?
Quoting Sam26
I agree, but when he says, as you quoted:
It is analogues to the axis of our propositions at 152:
and:
But, of course, as he knew quite well, a house does not support its foundation. The point is, there are no indubitable foundations.
Just as there is no fixed point from which we can observe the motion of the universe, there is no fixed foundation for our knowing.
There is no fixed point, but there are fixed points within given contexts. You seem to add things not part of what I'm contending.
Again, choosing the foundation is an act, a way of using words.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/930609
So, cultural relativism?
Are you arguing that Wittgenstein does not think knowing requires propositional justification?
Because your question, "What is the propositional justification?", is odd, since both Moore and Wittgenstein point out that there is no propositional justification...
So, going over it again, Moore claims to know that this is a hand, despite not having a propositional justification. Wittgenstein objects, amongst other things, that this is a misuse of know, that Moore can be certain, but in the absence of a propositional justification, he cannot properly be said to know that this is a hand.
Now, you seem to think this is not quite correct, but it remains unclear to me what alternative you might be proposing.
Wittgenstein's view is that Moore can be certain, but not know, that he has a hand.
That can happen when you ignore parts of the text that have direct bearing on the issue. Rather than identify the propositional justification at 3 and 7 you ask about 10, as if what is true in one case must be true in all
But let's look at 10:
This has nothing to do with proposition justification of a knowledge claim because Wittgenstein denies that it is a proper use of the term 'know'. What is at issue is the occasion on which this proposition "I know" is used, not a proposition that justifies it.
Your claim again was:
Quoting Banno
The belief in question is that there is a sick man lying there. What is the proposition that justifies that belief? Or, more to the point, where is the need for justification?
Quoting Banno
You’re making Wittgenstein’s point for him. He sees Moore’s raising of his hand as a performance which is grounded in a picture of the world which cannot be proved more correct than any other. To doubt the truth of this picture is to substitute a different picture, a different language game, just as doubting the picture of the world implied by the rules of chess is to no longer be playing chess. Moore’s demonstration convinces doubters of its certainty by bringing them to look at the world in a different way, not by satisfying them of its correctness.
Quoting Banno
I agree with @Sam26. For Wittgenstein the distinction between certainty and knowledge is that between a conviction or picture of the world, and a justifiable proposition. My picture of the world may have telling grounds, but not grounds on the basis of which I can prove that picture to be more correct than any other.
Yes, but how much? A house does not support its foundation (248). The axis (152) is not a foundation and is not in need of a foundation.
And yet you say:
Quoting Banno
If Moore knows, that would mean there's a sense of "know" that amounts to being unable to doubt. And per Hume, you can't prove what you can't doubt. So Moore would have some kind of unprovable knowledge, which doesn't sound right.
But Wittgenstein denies that Moore does know
Read aaaaaalllllll the way to the end of my huge post.
Reading aaaaaalllllll the way to the end of your huge post it would seem that you are in agreement that Wittgenstein denies that Moore knows, while citing an argument that Wittgenstein did not appeal to.
So?
This not to contest what you said. My preference when interpreting a text is not to bring other texts into it. It adds another layer of questions. I don't know how Moore might have responded, or what Wittgenstein thought of Hume's contention if he was aware of it. It just makes it cleaner.
From a chapter on Hume and Wittgenstein in "Impressions of Empiricism" Oswald Hanfling says:
link
I don't worry as much about "interpreting texts" as you do. I'm all up in the web of ideas the work is a part of. Every philosopher pings off others in the vast forum of discussion we call philosophy.
I know it's your thing to put a philosopher's individual words under a microscope, but I wouldn't get anything out of that. And anyway, all I did was recall that Hume said you can't prove what you can't doubt. I think that actually does bear, if obliquely, on this particular work. I'm not overly concerned if you don't see that. :up:
Good, since I think he is right.
Quoting Joshs
I agree. What an odd pair you and Fool are.
I agree, except that "subjective" is counterproductive here. Moore would have "This is a hand" as an expression of something of which he is convinced - a self-justified true belief. Wittgenstein points out the ineffectiveness of self-justification, buts agrees that it is certain that "This is a hand". So he is loath to say say he knows "this is a hand", while agreeing that it is indubitable. His solution is along the lines of treating it as fundamental to the way we use word in our interactions, as a foundation to the word games. He does not come to a conclusion, although conclusions have been read in to the text by others.
For my part, something like Searle's account of language must be correct, were there are certain things that must be taken as granted in order for a language game to take place – there must be some agreement amongst the "players" as to what is occurring. On that account we might read "This is a hand" as something like "This counts as a hand for the purposes of our everyday encounters", where the ..."counts as..." sets up the institution of calling this waving, nose-picking, pen pushing thing a hand.
Problems will occur when hinges are said to be non-propositional, or not true, as Moyal-Sharrok wishes to. This needs a fair amount of tidying up, but it is clear that if some belief is going to function as part of an explanation for a behaviour, it needsmust be truth-functional.
Perhaps the difference I have with her is that I do take beliefs to be evaluative attitudes. Being so is how they relate to actions, and without acts, beliefs are nothing.
Quoting Fooloso4
This is an example that fits my case exactly. Wittgenstein is pointing out that there is no justifying proposition that supports "I know that a sick man is lying here", that it is instead something seen in what is before us. Hence, he says that it is nonsense to say "I know...".
You seem to think that it counts against what I have said, when it is entirely supporting what I said. So: Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, that's right - there is no justifying proposition, and hence saying "I know..." is for Wittgenstein illegitimate.
You seem to want to disprove my case by presenting things which support it.
Quoting Fooloso4
@Frank, you seem to behaving the same problem, with Fool, as I. That Wittgenstein dislikes Hume is bedsides the point. Wittgenstein takes it as read that knowing requires justification, and hence were there is no proposition to supply the justification, one cannot be properly said to know.
Quoting Banno
How else might your claim that:
Quoting Banno
be understood? I admit that I might have misunderstood you but you have not given any indication of how this is to be understood if not in a straight forward way.
In your latest attempt once again you ignore 3 and 7.
Quoting Banno
I don't think it counts against what you said. I think that it avoids the issue raised by 3 and 7. Unlike 10, they are examples where the term 'know' is used but no explicit propositional justification is present or needed.
Also:
SO allow me to address them directly:
Neither of these count against what I have said. In the first it is pointed out that "know" involves being satisfied that something is the case - seeking justification. The second shows that certainty is lived, acted out. These are central to, not inconsistent with, the account I provided.
I agree with this, but as part of the web the work should not get lost. If there is something unique about it that should not become part of a homogeneous whole.
Quoting frank
Well, its not individual words, its a matter of interpreting the text as a whole This is not the only approach. Is not yours. I have no problem with that and have read some interesting books and articles that take this approach.
Trouble is, this text is not a whole. It is an incomplete process, a work in progress. @Sam26 and I have pointed this out repeatedly.
I will respond one more time then drop it.
What you said is:
Quoting Banno
How does using "know' only in situations where there is a explicit justification that can be given in the form of a proposition fit these cases?
The quip to look closer is not a propositional justification. Taking a chair or shutting the door points to the fact that in doing these things we show that we do not doubt their existence. No propositional justification is needed for knowing that there is a chair or there is a door.
You are quite right – it's not. It is a prompt towards seeking justification - "Can't you see it?. Look closer".
But it seems you can't.
Quoting Fooloso4
This is not what Wittgenstein might say. He might point out that while you may be certain there is a chair, the lack of a suitable justification implies that it is improper to say you know there is a chair there.
He is setting up the discussion by considering various uses of the terms involved. (7) is not a conclusion, it is setting the grounds by showing how we use "know" to express certainty – see the other examples in the surrounding text. He goes on to unknot the ramifications of this casual use, in an attempt to make consistent sense of it.
Quoting Fooloso4
That would be for the best.
But as I understand it looking closer could never provide Wittgenstein with justification for knowledge, and thus it is odd to say that "looking closer" will somehow yield justification.
Quoting Banno
The oddity is that the ultimate justification for empirical knowledge is usually thought to be sense data, and so for Wittgenstein to say that sense data does not count as a justification seems to commit him to the view that knowledge of this kind does not exist at all. If nothing is self-justifying then how can anything be justified?
The question of foundationalism is here the elephant in the room, is it not? With Sam, I don't see how it can be avoided. Does Wittgenstein believe that knowledge exists at all? And if so, what would be an example of knowledge and its attendant justification?
Yep. He and I might agree with you. Here he is perhaps looking at common misuses of "know".
Quoting Leontiskos
Yep. Do you think Wittgenstein would agree that "the ultimate justification for empirical knowledge is usually thought to be sense data"? I doubt it. I can't imagine him using such a construct. it's the sort of thing he found so disagreeable in the Vienna Circle.
Sure I can see that, but I am wondering if he would be able to provide a legitimate use of "know."
And yet, in 3 and 7 he gives examples of things he knows without giving propositional justification.
By the way, I agree that whether Wittgenstein dislikes Hume is bedsides the point.
The point about texts as a whole is a general point regarding interpretation. For example, if an author says one thing and then another that seems to contract it, we need to pay attention and see it the seeming contradiction can be reconciled.
Quoting Banno
And as I responded: where does this leave the reader? And:
and:
If he says "x" and then a few pages later seems to contradict this, you might try to explain this away by claiming that the text is incomplete, but this seems to me to be a way a trying to avoid the problem.
Quoting Banno
How is "look closer" propositional justification? It is not about the proposition of looking closer but the act of looking closer.
Quoting Banno
And does he maintain this position despite his later arguments? That's kinda the point.
Quoting Fooloso4
It's not. Again, that's the point.
I think this idea has ramifications beyond epistemology. I think it solves the problem posed by Godel's two theorems. These hinge beliefs seem to exist in any system where proofs are required, whether epistemological or mathematical. This of course goes beyond anything Witt talked about in OC, but I think it has merit.
Quoting frank
Moore's paper, "Proof of an External World”, is an appeal to common sense. His intuition tells him that a philosophical analysis arriving at a radically skeptical answer is not a source of truth but evidence that something has gone wrong. I believe Wittgenstein would hold the same position as Moore when he says, “I certainly did at the moment know that which I expressed by the combination of certain gestures with saying the words ‘There is one hand and here is another’. I knew that there was one hand in the place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my first utterance of ‘here’ and that there was another in the different place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my second utterance of ‘here’. How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case!” However, Wittgenstein seems to think Moore is in error here in a different way. I believe Norman Malcolm summaries this position nicely when he says:
"But, this insight led Moore into an error. (This is the second layer of meaning.). His perception of the absurdity of saying , in that situation, "I don't know if I have clothes on (or have hands)" drew him into the assumption that it would be correct to say "I know I have clothes on." Yet what Moore had actually perceived was that nothing in that situation made a doubt as to whether he had cloths on intelligible. He should have concluded that both "I don't know" and "I know" were out of place in that context. "I know" is often used to express the absence of doubt. But the absence of doubt and the unintelligibility of doubt are very different things. Wittgenstein says in the Investigations, "I know...may mean "I do not doubt...but does not mean that the words "I doubt...are senseless, that doubt is logically excluded." Wittgenstein is referring here to the way that "I know..." is used in ordinary language. He is saying, correctly, that this expression is not used in ordinary language to make a conceptual, philosophical point. But this is kind of point that Moore needed to make, namely, the point that the statement "It is uncertain that I have clothes on" would be a conceptual absurdity in that situation. I suspect that Moore was misled here by the assumption of Excluded Middle: "Either I know it or I don't know it." He perceived that "I don't know it" couldn't be said, and wrongly concluded that "I know it" must therefore by right and true." (Moore and Wittgenstein on the Sense of "I know")
Some remarks on this summary
I find it strange to not say "I know here is one hand" in the particular context. Would it also be absurd for Moore to say in front of such an audience of skeptical philosophers that "I know it is raining outside" while looking outside the window while it is raining. Malcom says, "Being perfectly certain (i.e. objectively certain) of something in the sense of regarding it as unintelligible that one might be wrong-is an attitude, a stance, that we take towards various matters: but this attitude does not necessarily carry truth in its wake. (Nothing is Hidden)". But in these contexts, are they not carrying "truth in its wake." How is what Moore is doing, by holding up a hand and pointing to it and saying "Here is one hand" making a conceptual point only? Is this not a way of establishing the truth, or the correctness of what he is saying? Moore is not trying to describe the language game "I know", he trying to get the language game of "I know" right. He is responding to the skeptical philosopher that has taken the language game of "I know" and distorting it in such a way that knowledge becomes a logical impossibility. For Moore, in the example he provides, "knowing that" merges with "knowing how". Moore is aware of the truth, understands the fact that he has two hands by demonstrating that he can point to one hand and saying "Here is a hand." Why can't there be other ways of clearing up philosophical confusion other than describing how words are ordinarily use. For example, why not tidy up the concept itself, narrow its scope, broaden its scope, eliminate its absurdities, etc.
Do you think that's happening here? If so, what's getting lost? I'm asking.
I think the rudder of OC is that people could walk away from Moore's work thinking that because he used the word know, that his assertion is justifiable when it's not. In other words, he's heading off more mistaken metaphysics?
Whereas, I at least try to read "On Certainty," as being about, well... certainty—justification, etc. After all, Wittgenstein didn't title it "On Truth." At least, I think this is a more charitable reading. Certainly, there are folks like Rorty who think Wittgenstein is telling us about truth. Indeed, Rorty argues that the main benefit of Wittgenstein’s philosophy is that it has shown us that questions about “which pieces of our language lock on to reality and which do not,” and the questions of metaphysics and truth more generally, are “simply... a waste of time.”
Likewise there are post-structuralist readers of Wittgenstein who claim that his findings suggest cognitive relativism, discussed in the other Wittgenstein thread on nested forms of life.
Either of these views deflate truth. Yet in doing so they seem to recreate the same sort of skepticism that Wittgenstein is at pains to try to correct.
I'd argue that it is possible for us to accept that our notions of truth are inextricably bound up in malleable social practices and language games without jettisoning the idea that there is something external to human social practices grounding such notions, that our language games are not arbitrary, nor are they determined by "nothing but" social practices (i.e., the principles of social practice are not self-contained and subsistent, nor arbitrary and untinelligible). So, we can agree that claims as basic as "I have hands," require the use of some language game, that they always take place in the context of such a game, without having to conclude that our having hands or not is merely a matter of language games. All such systems have first principles, but this only implies a sort of deflation if one assumes first principles are arbitrary.
Ultimately, it seems to me that Wittgenstein is circling around the same ideas Aristotle grapples with in his writings on discourse and the instruments of reason. A crucial question here then, which I do think Wittgenstein leaves vague, is if reason is "nothing but" these tools and instruments.
Obviously for Aristotle the two are not equivalent. Logic isn't just about speech. Logic isn't just formal logic. By Wittgenstein's time logic has largely been reduced to mere form. Yet material logic is important too; there is form and matter. So he will tell us things like this in the Prior Analytics:
"All syllogism, and a fortiori demonstration, is addressed not to the spoken word, but to the discourse within the soul, and though we can always raise objections to the spoken word, to the inward discourse we cannot always object."
Basically, we can speak the untinelligible. We can say "square circle," or "A is B and ~B," but this is not equivalent with believing the untinelligible.
In a way, "On Certainty" is an excellent demonstration of the foibles of reducing logic, and discourse as a whole, to form (although it is perhaps not intended that way).
Yes. There is a direct through line with propositional analysis on one side and in the Tractatus' showing/seeing on the other, plus form of life in PI, plus doing/acting ("In the beginning was the deed.") in OC.
Quoting Banno
I don't think that is the point. Looking/seeing stands over/against/ beside propositional justification. A few of many examples:
(Zettel 461)
Do you mean by referencing Hume? No, not as it stands.
No, just in general. Is there something you think is being lost?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It is assuming there is something ‘external’ to human social practices which leads to dualism, skepticism and arbitrariness. Our practices are not on one side and the world on the other of a divide . Our linguistic practices are grounded in and express material circumstances as those circumstances interact with our practices. As Joseph Rouse argues:
In a remark to Drury Wittgenstein says :
Connections often obscure differences. When differences are taken into account the problem of what this guy is saying and what it means is compounded by what that guy is saying and what it means.
I don't disagree with the quote. However, I do disagree with your formulation that the world is "nothing but social practice," and "social practices all the way down." There is an important sense in which a rock or a horse is not a social practice. But you seem to be stretching the term "social practice," to the point where it has at best a merely analogical relationship to how the term is usually used, since it's straightforwardly ridiculous to claim a horse is a "social practice," given common usage of the term, so I may be missing something.
Is the idea at work here also a sort of panpsychism?
Anyhow, a rejection of subject/object dualism, a rejection of truth as mere correspondence, and embrace of enactivism and phenomenology (hallmarks of most pre-modern philosophy anyhow) need not require the assertion that a horse and its intelligibility have no principles/causation outside human social practice.
Here it is worth considering Kenneth Gallagher's summation of the metaphysical (as opposed to physical) principle of causation—“that the order of becoming and existence must be intelligible; that no phase of the process of contingent existence is intelligible in itself; and that therefore contingent existence is always relative existence, essentially referred, qua existing to another.” To be intelligible—to not be arbitrary—social practice must have its explanation in something other than itself since its essence does not explain its existence. On the view that the world is intelligible, such an explanation must be possible.
For example, human cultures have come up with different ways to categorize the colors. However, no cultures gave names to colors corresponding to light of ultraviolet wavelengths. Why? Because human beings, and our hominid ancestors, do not have photoreceptors capable of distinguishing UV light (unlike most insects). But the biology of the human eye, its lack of sensitivity to UV light, can only be considered a "social practice," if we use the term equivocally. Eyes are something humans have by nature, not an activity they engage in (except to the extent that all form is activity).
Quoting Fooloso4
Indeed. Imagine I am looking at a drawing of a duck , and you come along and say ‘I see the image of a rabbit there’. I say ‘where’? You respond ‘look closely’. If I then spot the rabbit, it wasn’t the result of a process of justification but of seeing differently, reconfiguring the pattern of connections among the elements of the picture such that something new emerges from the ‘same’ drawing.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
It’s not social practice all the way down, it’s normativity all the way down. That is, the contingent relationality of existence doesn’t ground itself in some non-normative explanation. Rouse doesn’t separate nature and culture. He instead refers to ‘nature-culture’ as a single entity. This doesn’t mean that linguistic practices directly influence the nature of DNA functioning in rats. It means that the physiological and environmental culture within which genes operate influence how they operate, and the environment within subatomic processes occur shape the nature of those processes and even their ‘lawfulness’.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
The biology of the human eye is not a social practice, but it is a practice. The eye exists by functioning, and its functioning takes place within an integrated internal and external milieu which continually shape how it functions, in a way not unlike the way that linguistic practices shape the meaning of concepts for humans. We know now that environmental factors directly shape genetic structures, so any attempt to locate a pre-cultural explanation for the origin of an eye will be lacking.
Good example.
Yea, it's a thing to take an issue and have Quine and Heidegger discuss it. You see the things they agree on, what the bone of contention amounts to. But I wasn't talking about that. With regard to this thread: what do you think is being overlooked about Wittgenstein's thoughts? Nothing?
The central importance of seeing.
Seeing as in the visual sense? Or seeing as something the mind does, as in "I see your point."
Both and more. Some things I posted in prior discussions. This in no way meant to be comprehensive:
113. I observe a face, and then suddenly notice its likeness to another. I see that it has not changed; and yet I see it differently. I call this experience “noticing an aspect”.
114. Its causes are of interest to psychologists.
115. We are interested in the concept and its place among the concepts of experience.
— Philosophy of Psychology - a Fragment
111. Two uses of the word “see”.
The one: “What do you see there?” - “I see this” (and then a description, a drawing, a copy). The other: “I see a likeness in these two faces” - let the man to whom I tell this be seeing the faces as clearly as I do myself.
What is important is the categorial difference between the two ‘objects’ of sight.
He goes on to say at 116:
But we can also see the illustration now as one thing, now as another. - So we interpret it, and see it as we interpret it.
The idea of seeing something according to an interpretation blurs the line between seeing and thinking. "Now I see it" can mean, "Now I understand". Seeing is not limited to passive reception, it involves both perception and conception.
254. The concept of an aspect is related to the concept of imagination.
In other words, the concept ‘Now I see it as . . .’ is related to ‘Now I am imagining that’.
Doesn’t it take imagination to hear something as a variation on a particular theme? And yet one does perceive something in so hearing it.
The focus on propositions can occlude the importance of seeing for both the early and latter Wittgenstein. Seeing connections involves making connections and seeing things in light of this perspective.
Working in philosophy -- like work in architecture in many respects -- is really more a working on oneself. On one's interpretation. On one's way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (Culture and Value)
What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a true theory, but of a fertile new point of view. (CV 18)
Must the justification for a belief that is true be in the form of a proposition?
Quoting Richard B
One doesn’t get a language game right or wrong, one gets issues defined within the parameters of a language game correct or incorrect . The game itself, the particular pattern of connections between elements that sets up the rules and criteria of validation, is grasped like a picture.
Not all beliefs have justification. If a belief is to count as a piece of knowledge, then according to the usual account, it must be justified. Hence unjustified true beliefs on that account do not count as knowledge.
If A justifies B, presumably the truth of A justifies B. I don't know what could count as a justification that could not be put into propositional form and take a truth value.
There's a bunch of misunderstanding about "propositional form". What should be understood is that if A justifies B, then B is true because A is true. Hence it should be possible to provide a proposition that states A.
If I say "the key is on the desk" what proposition justifies it? I might say that I left it there I might add that no one has been in the room. That keys do not just disappear. In the end the only thing that justifies it is not a proposition but finding the key on the table.
When Wittgenstein says:
It is not only that propositional justification is not necessary but that a proposition cannot serve as justification.
The justification is that you found the key on the table. Everything that follows the word "that" is a proposition.
Quoting Fooloso4
This sounds like you're misunderstanding what a proposition is.
Finding the key on the table is not a proposition. Saying I found the key on the table is.
Quoting frank
Perhaps. What is it about a proposition that I misunderstood?
They don't have to be uttered. Propositions are the primary truth bearers.
I think what Witt is saying there is that he demonstrates confidence in the existence of a certain chair by his behavior. Isn't that what you see there?
Yes, but the point is, they can be expressed.
Quoting frank
He does say:
he goes on to say:
We have to be careful to recognize distinctions in the sense of ‘existence’. For instance, if we ask ‘does this chair exist?’, we might mean , does it persist as relatively self -identical over time for me when I observe it. Or we might mean, does it exist objectively such that its existence does not depend on an observer. The kind of certainty of existence that Wittgenstein has in mind with respect to the chair is the certainty of the intelligibility of the scheme of understanding underlying any and all senses of the word ‘existence’. Put differently, it doesnt matter what we mean by the ‘existence of the chair’ for Wittgenstein. There can be 10 people in a room and all have a different sense of what the existence of the chair means. But all can be equally certain of their pronouncement that this is a chair, despite the fact that there is no correct proposition here to arrive at.
Built into the pronouncement is a set of rules or criteria for correctness , and it is these rules and criteria that are certain in a relative sense , for a period of time, not any particular fact concerning chairs that are framed by the criteria.
Is that a rabbit or a duck I see in that drawing? If I say I’m certain of the existence of a rabbit there, in Wittgenstein’s sense certainty here means only that I’m certain that I interpret the pattern of lines in that particular way rather than another way.
Right. He's not getting metaphysical. It's along the lines of phenomenology.
Yes. But he's just very confident about the chair. There isn't any sort of justification for some metaphysical position.
I agree.
I think Hume was the first to point out that there are things we're really confident about, but there's no empirical or logical justifications for it. Just sayin. :blush:
If you say "I know the key is on the desk" and asks how you know, asks for a justification for your claim, do you think Frank will find "Because I will find it there when I go in" satisfactory?
No.
"I left it there and no one has been in the room" is a justification for your claim. And a proposition.
Quoting frank
Yep.
But
I suspect that this sort of philosophical meandering would not have impressed Wittgenstein. Frank is right; there is a chair over there if it can be moved, sat on, sold at auction and so on. But this is not about phenomenology, not just about perceptions. It is about the interactions between you, the chair and the folk around you.
No. That would not be an adequate justification. That is my point. The justification would be to go to the desk and find it. To show it to him.
Quoting Banno
It is an attempt to justify my knowing that that is where it is. But it will not suffice. It might, after all, not be there. It is not justified by a proposition. Do you have a proposition that will justify it?
Quoting Banno
Right. Taking a seat or shutting the door is not a state of mind. If I was wrong and there is not a chair or a door I could not take the chair that is not over there or shut the door that is not there.
Quoting Banno
You are confirming my point! Where is the propositional justification?
That's kinda the topic of On Certainty.
The justification for a claim to knowledge is the answer to "How do you know?" It will not do here to simple repeat your claim - I know the key is on the table because the key is on the table; I know this is a hand because it is a hand.
This is what is being said in the first few pages of On Certainty. Moore is unjustified in claiming that he knows this is a hand. Yet, it is true that this is a hand; and he is certain that this is a hand. The remainder of the book is an exploration of this oddity.
Nicely put. How about I know this is a hand because I am pointing to it, we both see it, and we both understand what I am talking about.
Again:
Quoting Banno
Right. The justification is showing that the key is on the table. Showing that the key on the table - pointing to it, picking it up - is not a propositional justification. What would stand as a propositional justification?
Again, the justification for "I know the key is on the table" cannot be "The key is on the table"; that's just a repetition of the claim.
Thanks.
There are two ways to know - explicit and implicit, knowing that and knowing how. In PI Witti deals in knowing that – with propositional knowledge. But arguably Moore was dealing with knowing how – setting out how we use words like "here" and "hand" and "is".
And I don't think this is at odds with what Wittgenstein has to say.
So "I know this is a hand" might be more like "I know how to ride a bike" than "I know the distance to the shops".
The justification for "I know how to ride a bike" is getting on the bike and riding it.
I agree. But that is not what I said.
Previously you said:
Quoting Banno
If you still hold to this claim then it is not enough to say a propositional justification is and must be possible. If you cannot provide propositional justification then why should we assume that there is one? Why isn't showing the key on the table sufficient to conclude that I knew where the key is?
Quoting Banno
Perception is fundamentally about interactions between us and the world, seeing as a form of doing, as phenomenologists such as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty showed. And Wittgenstein’s copious analyses of perceptual phenomena in PI reveal an intricate link between his notion of ‘seeing as’ with respect to perceptual phenomena like the duck-rabbit and certainty pertaining to material objects.
yet
Wittgenstein juxtaposes these two statements, showing that knowledge must admit to the possibility of doubt.
So "I left the keys in the room and no one has been in there" is a justification, for "I know the keys are on the table" - there is room for doubt. But "The keys are on the table" is no justification for "I know the keys are on the table". Yet if the keys are on the table, then we can be certain that "The keys are on the table" is true.
Quoting Fooloso4
Good question, despite the mixed tense.
Supose that you had guessed that the key was on the table. Then "the key is on the table" is not sufficient evidence to conclude that you knew where the key is. A guess will not suffice - it is not a justification for your claim to know.
But moreover, this is the sort of puzzle that Wittgenstein is trying to unknot.
It’s a bit of both. The internal aspect can’t just simply be communal activity. Communal activity activates neural networks, but there’s more to it than purely experience arranging neurons.
Does this sound solipsistic to you?
I think we would find it very hard to explain "internal" here, apart from contrasting it with "communal".
Quoting Joshs
No. but this does:
Quoting Joshs
You might instead have said something about the chair being constituted at least in part by a common dialogue. Then there may have been some agreement.
I’m just saying you need that capacity for senses a priori, the community might shape it, but community alone, without these a priori capacities doesn’t seem to be the case. There is some cognitivist aspects to this. This also isn’t controversial afaik.
I don't see how to put these ideas together coherently. The a priori is theoretical, the supposed stuff we do prior to observation. The capacity to sense is biological. If the claim is that we need neural nets and sense organs before we can make observations, that's fine - but a priori seems to signify something logical, presumably something like that Kantian stuff about space being a priori intuition. I just find this line of thinking unproductive.
Might leave it there.
Prior to learning, the capacities to sense are there. The “place of perception” isn’t just from communal activity. The ability to sense has to be there too. Inevitably this leads to p-zombie conversations but it need not. It’s simply recognizing that subjectivity is not purely about communal learning. There is “something it’s like to be” something prior to it.
But we don't choose to 'look at axioms' as 'something that can't be proven within a system' – that is what axioms are (it is simply what the word 'axiom' means). The unprovable statements – or 'Godel sentences' – theorised in Godel's incompleteness theorems are not axioms.
Axioms are indeed something like Wittgenstein's 'hinges', in that we accept them without proof and they form the basis of a system of reasoning. But that has nothing to do with Godel or his theorems.
It also seems on the face of it very strange to describe 'hinges' as 'endpoints'. The whole idea of a 'hinge' is that it stays in place so something else can productively move or turn. If Wittgenstein had meant to conjure up the idea of an endpoint, he could surely have chosen a better metaphor than 'hinge'.
Quoting Sam26
I'm not sure what 'problem' you suggest is being solved here. What is the 'problem' posed by Godel's theorems? As I understand, the theorems are in fact quite useful and have practical applications in fields like computer science. No doubt, Godel's work poses problems for earlier mathematical projects like Hilbert's programme. But in contemporary mathematics, as far as I understand (not being a mathematician myself), Godel's work is not really a 'problem' to be 'solved'.
Further, the semantic counterpart to the unprovable statements in Godel's incompleteness theorems would not be anything like a 'hinge belief'. It would be something more like the liar's paradox – a self-referential statement that cannot be both true and provable at once. Godel himself used the example of the liar's paradox in the introductory section of his paper advancing the incompleteness theorems. Wittgenstein responded to that example directly in his 'Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics'.
As my understanding goes, contemporary mathematicians generally do not consider Wittgenstein's reading of Godel useful. I am not a mathematician and cannot claim to understand the mathematical implications of Godel's work or the validity of Wittgenstein's response. But I am cautious of philosophical theories that claim to 'solve', refute, or have other decisive implications for complex theories in fields like physics or mathematics.
If someone asked, someone who is just learning chess, “Is it true that bishops move diagonally?” I would answer “Yes.” And if they further asked, “How do you know (an epistemological question)?” I might respond “It’s just one of the rules of the game.” In this case, the use of true is not justified, it’s just accepted as a basic belief without any grounding.
“But it isn’t that the situation is like this: We just can’t investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put (OC 343).”
Not only do hinges make it possible for rational discourse, but they also set the limits of what can be reasonably doubted.
I don't have any problem with the general description, because it seems to pretty much the insight that "act follows on being," that the eye has a function as part of a being, etc. However, exchanging "act" for "social practice" seems to introduce an equivocal usage of "practice" and "social," or "normative."
The "not unlike" highlighted above is important because, if how rocks interact with flowing water in riverbeds is "normativity all the way down," it is so in a way that apparently uses the term "normativity" in a way disconnected from what it normally means (or at the very least the likeness is not at all apparent). The likeness between say "river bed evolution and language evolution" seems at best analogical, but I am not even sure what the analogy is supposed to be because these things only seem "not unlike" each other in the very general sense that all things might be said to have something in common.
Same with the usage of "culture" wed to "environment" below. TBH, it seems like trying to say two different things at once. In what sense is a physical enviornment a "culture." The claim that environments effect genes or subatomic processes seems pretty uncontroversial, but what is "culture" even supposed to add here?
I would add that environment-organism isn't a master-slave relationship. Living things have been altering their environments since life started. A successful biosphere bends its surroundings to its needs. What humans have done to the land surface of the planet is a drastic case of something that's pretty typical for living things.
Yes, that's a good point. This is why dispensing with final causality in biology is so difficult. But final causality also goes off the rails when we decide that what constitutes "a being" is arbitrary. Then we end up with attempts to explain the telos of rocks, which have no organic unity and are more bundles of external causes (obviously, they do act in the way all mobile being acts, but not in the way animals do).
I think some of the more successful attempts to explain culture have followed on the doctrine of signs/semiotics, and the distinction between the umwelt and the human species-specific lebenswelt.
True. Final cause is built into the meaning of life. I think people who want to look at the whole scene more holistically are experimenting philosophically. As you say, at the borders it starts to become confusing.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Culture is fascinating to me. I came across a book by a structuralist once (can't remember the name now). But he was talking about German religion specialists who discovered that Native Americans have symbolism that echoes what we call gnosticism. So they concluded that the origin of these images must be back more than 10,000 years. The structuralist point was that if you're going to push it that far back, just admit that you don't know where it's coming from, and that it could be arising independently due to structure.
To Josh's point, the eye has evolved independently around 50 times. Maybe a thing that life keeps doing in response to light is somehow structural? By the way, are you German?
Within the game, according to the rules, it is true that some things are allowed and others not.
Quoting Sam26
It is justified within the system.
How is this to the point re the environment or the physics of subatomic particles as culture or normativity?
Well, it doesn't help with that point. :grin:
Ah, ok. I thought the entirety of your post had gone over my head. Not German by the way lol. Seems like something like convergent evolution, or even just "chance" would explain similar symbols being used in disparate parts of the world, but speculating about antediluvian, continent-spanning gnostic societies does seem like more fun. Lumeria and Atlantis are probably the common denominator.
No doubt. :cool:
To say that hinges are justified in any epistemic sense is to miss the main thrust of OC. It would be to "...grant you [Moore] all the rest (OC 1)." Hinge propositions are not subject to verification or falsification (the doubt) within the system, they allow all our talk of epistemic justification and doubting to take root. In other words, they are the ungrounded linguistic framework that allows the door to swing (the door of epistemology). This is why justification ends with basic beliefs, and why it solves the infinite regress problem. They form the bedrock of how epistemic language gets off the ground in the first place.
And maybe life itself leaps forward with unreasonable confidence.
It's not reasonable or unreasonable it just is the framework we have to work with.
I think it's more like a leap in the dark.
There is not a single agreed upon sense or meaning or assumptions that define the term 'epistemic', but I do not think we can deny that epistemology deals with the problem of knowledge. Clearly from beginning to end Wittgenstein was concerned with the problem of knowledge. It is one thing to claim that his epistemology in OC differs from more traditional views, but quite another to deny that it is epistemology. Annalisa Coliva and Danièle Moyal-Sharrock have edited a book titled "Hinge Epistemology"
Quoting Sam26
In OC Wittgenstein identifies one hinge proposition: 12x12=144. This propositions is true. 12x12 = any other number is false. If one doubts it, it can quickly and easily be demonstrated. If this cannot be proven then there can be no mathematical proofs.
Quoting Fooloso4
To say that 12x12 =144 is a hinge proposition is to think of it as a rule for arriving at the product 144. The result of a calculation can be true or false but the rule for arriving at the result is neither true nor false. The rule merely stipulates the criterion for determining what would constitute the correct or incorrect answer.
Or, perhaps you are wrong!
Deleted. I decided that there is no benefit in responding to your churlishness.
Wittgenstein calls it a proposition not a rule. We follow rules. We do not follow propositions. Propositions are either true or false. Calling it a hinge does not change that.
(OC 341)
(OC 342)
(OC 343).
It is not, as some would have it, that a hinge is neither true nor false, it is that its truth is not doubted.
Quoting Joshs
What is the rule for arriving at the answer? When we calculate correctly we arrive at the correct answer. Are there infinite rules for the infinite amount of numbers that can be multiplied? Does anyone know or follow these rules or do they calculate?
1. Context and Purpose
• On Certainty is Wittgenstein’s response to G.E. Moore's papers Proof of an External World and A Defense of Common Sense.
• Wittgenstein challenges Moorean propositions (e.g. “Here is one hand”)
• As part of Wittgenstein’s critique he addresses skepticism and the nature of doubt
2. Hinge Propositions:
• Hinges are foundational beliefs that form the bedrock of our language games and knowledge claims
• They aren’t subject to traditional epistemological categories of justification and truth
• Examples include basic beliefs about having hands, the existence of objects, and other minds
• They are part of our inherited background or world picture
• There are a variety of different hinges, with some being more immutable than others
3. Knowledge and Certainty
• OC distinguishes between knowledge and subjective certainty (conviction)
• Moore’s claims are more akin to expressions of his convictions rather than knowledge claims
• Knowledge (JTB) requires truth, justification and the possibility of doubt
• Knowledge claims must be demonstrated rather than stated
4. Doubts Role
• Doubting is not always meaningful; some are logically excluded
• Doubt requires a framework and a context to make sense
• Universal doubting would undermine meaningful doubting
• Meaningful doubting must occur within a system where things are not doubted
5. Language games and Framework
• Certain propositions must be held fast within a language game (not questioned)
• Bedrock beliefs allow for the possibility of language and meaning
• Like the rules of chess, the pieces, and the board they provide the background for the game to be played
6. The Nature of Hinges
• They can be pre-linguistic or animal beliefs
• Hinges can be pre-linguistic rather than propositional
• They can change over time, although some are more permanent than others
• They can vary due to different systems of belief, though some core hinges are universal
7. Implications for Epistemology
• Challenges traditional epistemology that all beliefs within an epistemological framework require justification
• Some beliefs make justification possible
• Helps to understand the limits of knowledge and doubt
• Demonstrates how certainty is grounded in action rather than a specific theory
A Layered Theory of Epistemic Foundations
1. Foundation Layer: Pre-linguistic beliefs or certainties
• Consists of pre-linguistic or animal beliefs or certainties
• Pre-linguistic beliefs are manifested through action
• E.g’s include special awareness, object permanence, and bodily awareness
• These form the foundations of what makes the language games of knowledge possible
• Not subject to claims of truth or falsity because they precede such concepts
2. Framework Layer: Hinge Beliefs
• Built on top of pre-linguistic beliefs
• This is the riverbed of our system of JTB
• Differing levels of stability
o Bedrock hinges (nearly immutable, e.g., physical objects exist
o Cultural hinges (can change over time)
o Local hinges (depend on contexts or practices)
• Not justified by evidence or reasons but shown through our practices
• Makes the language games of justification and doubt possible
3. Operational Layer
• Built on the foundation of hinge propositions
• Requires:
o Meaningful doubt
o Methods of justification
o Context within language games
• Subject to verification and falsification
• They can be taught and demonstrated
Key Principles:
1. The Doubt Principle
• The language game of doubt requires a stable framework
• Not everything can be doubted
• There must be practical consequences to doubt
• Doubt is necessary for knowledge claims
2. The Justification Principle
• Operates within language games
• Different language games require different forms of justification
• Justification ends with hinge propositions
• Justification cannot have an infinite regression
3. The Principle of Context
• Knowledge claims only make sense within the language games of epistemology
• Some propositions can be epistemological in one context and be a hinge in another
4. Principle of Practice
• Knowledge is demonstrated by practice and by our statements
• Actions are more fundamental than statements
• Learning involves the acquisition of explicit knowledge and implicit certainty
• Practice grounds theoretical knowledge
Methodological Implications:
1. Epistemology
• Understand how knowledge claims function in practice (language games)
• Examine the relationship between our actions and our certainties (beliefs)
• Study the many language games of justification across contexts
• Understand the importance of our background reality in knowledge
2. Scientific Knowledge
• Scientific methods rest on hinge certainties
• Paradigm shifts involve changes in hinges
• Understand the relationship between theory and observation
3. Everyday Knowledge
• Acknowledge the importance of practical knowledge
• Again, recognize the role of the inherited background
• Recognize the relationship between action and belief
This is a way of understanding knowledge within the context of some of Wittgenstein’s thinking in OC and the PI.
A lot more work needs to be done, but this is the beginning of how I think of epistemology using Wittgenstein as a catalyst for my thinking.
Extended Theory: Foundations of Knowledge and Formal Systems
1. Parallel Foundations
A. In Epistemological Systems:
• Hinge beliefs serve as unquestioned beliefs
• Pre-linguistic beliefs ground our knowledge
• Pre-linguistic beliefs enable the practice of justification
B. In Formal Mathematical Systems:
• Godel’s unprovable propositions function like hinges
• Some mathematical truths must be taken as bedrock
• Some mathematical statements are necessary for system operation but unprovable within the system
2. The Foundation Principle
• All systems whether epistemic or formal require unprovable foundations (hinges)
• Unprovable statements are not weaknesses but necessary features
• Hinges do not limit systematic knowledge but are a requirement for all systems of knowledge
• The attempt to prove every statement within a system leads to the following:
o Infinite regress
o Circular reasoning
o Foundational assumptions (hinges/axioms)
3. Unified Understanding of the Limitations of Systems
• Epistemological systems are built on hinges
• Formal systems have unprovable but necessary truths
• Both systems require the following:
o Statements that cannot be justified within the system
o Statements that are necessary for the system to function
o Statements that must be accepted rather than proved
4. Knowledge Implications
A. Mathematical Knowledge:
• Some mathematical propositions must function as hinges
• These are not problems for the system but features of formal systems
• The unprovability of certain mathematical propositions in a formal system mirrors the role of hinges in epistemic systems
B. Scientific Knowledge:
• Foundational assumptions are necessary for a scientific system
• These function like mathematical axioms and epistemological hinges
• They are necessary to scientific progress
5. Practical Applications:
A. In Mathematics:
• Recognizing certain mathematical propositions as hinge like
• There are limits to formal proofs
• Recognizing the role of bedrock statements
6. Philosophical Implications
A. For Knowledge
• Knowledge doesn’t need complete proof
• Systems are reliable despite having unprovable elements
• Foundational elements and proofs have different functions
B. For Truth:
• What we accept as true can exist independent of provability
• Some truths must be simply believed without proof
• What we accept as true is not always provable
7. Integrating Epistemological and Formal Systems
A. Common Features:
• Unprovable foundations are necessary
• Accept starting points
• Seeing limitations as enabling features
B. Differences:
• Understanding the properties of foundational elements
• Different methods of verification
• Different types of knowledge acquired
Understanding this integration suggests the following:
1. The limits Godel discovered in formal systems coincide with the role of hinges in epistemology
2. Mathematical and JTB necessitate unprovable foundations
3. These are features of these systems, not problems to be solved
4. Having a clear understanding of these systems helps to better understand both domains
As far as I know, no one has made this connection, viz., between hinges and Godel's incompleteness theorem.
For example…
1. Types of Hinges
• Pre-linguistic beliefs (shown in our actions)
1. Spatial awareness
2. Continuity of objects
3. Causal relationships
• Rule-based hinges
1. Rules of chess
2. Mathematical rules/axioms
3. Any defined practice
• Varied hinges
1. Physical facts (“This is my hand”)
2. Social conventions
3. Rules of language
• Chess example
1. The rules can be learned as statements
2. However, their role as hinges is learned from:
a) Accepting their use in practice
b) Their role as enablers of the game
c) Their status as foundational
• Wittgensteinian Insight
1. Hinges have a particular function
a) Foundational framework
b) Beyond doubt in practice
c) Necessary for activity (science, linguistics, games, epistemology, etc)
d) Must be accepted to participate in the activity
One issue (among others) that emerges with hinge propositions within epistemology is understanding their relationship to truth. Propositions traditionally are thought of as either true or false. It seems clear that Wittgenstein is separating the traditional view of what we mean by proposition, with a more nuanced view given Moore’s propositions. For example, “If true is what is grounded, then the ground is not true nor yet false (OC 205).” This suggests that what separates hinges from other propositions is their role, viz., that they are foundational or bedrock. This bedrock status is what separates them from traditional propositions. “I should like to say: Moore does not know what he asserts he knows, but it stands fast for him, as also for me; regarding it as absolutely solid is part of our method of doubt and enquiry (OC 151).” The implication is that it is not justified or true because of evidence or reasons, but it is part of our method of inquiry that certain hinges (beliefs) stand fast. This is borne out in our forms of life. Our world picture comes before our talk of true and false. We inherit our background, it’s not a matter of it being true or false. The ground is what enables epistemological claims, which by definition include truth claims.
We can think of this as a kind of logic of precedence, i.e., before we can say anything we need a framework, shared practices, basic (subjective) certainties, and ways of judging. The ground is not yet true or false. In other words, hinges, which are the ground, are not true or false in this setting. This is simply the way I act, whether linguistically or otherwise.
We can think of the use of true in the same way we think of the use of know. For example, just as “know” can be used as an expression of JTB and as a conviction of what one believes, so the use of “true” can be used apart from its epistemological uses. This insight helps to explain Wittgenstein’s reference to the truth of 2+2=4. These basic mathematical statements, especially when functioning as hinges operate more like rules of practice, something akin to a rule of chess. They demonstrate how we operate with numbers rather than making truth claims. However, it depends on the language game or the context. Certainly, there are proper uses of “true” outside the context of epistemology, just as there are proper uses of “know” outside epistemology. The use of “know” has this dual nature, so too does the concept of “true.” The context of the language game is what drives the correct use.
Given that Wittgenstein never completed OC the term hinge proposition itself might be problematic. Alternative terms like bedrock beliefs, foundation beliefs, or basic beliefs might be better suited to capture their pre-propositional nature.
Again, thinking about the rules of chess. When we assert that "bishops move diagonally," this isn't something we prove or justify, it's just a rule we accept to play the game. It's like saying "This is how we move the piece," how we act when we play the game. We can say that it's true that bishops move diagonally, but this is different from saying that it rained yesterday, which we can defend by looking at the weather records and other evidence.
Imagine trying to prove that you have hands in a context similar to Moore's example. It would seem ridiculous because it's not something we normally need to prove. The subjective certainty we have about our hands is very basic, it's like the chess rule - we start with it, we act with our hands and we play chess using the rules of chess. We don't prove these things.
The key point is that some things in life aren't things we know in the JTB sense. They are the foundation that lets us know in the epistemological (JTB) sense. In other words, you have to accept the rules of chess before you can play the game, and there are certain things you have to accept about the world before you can start making knowledge claims.
We often use words like true and know in different ways. When we say, "I know my name," we're not really offering a proof, we're just expressing a basic certainty. It's different from saying the Earth is the third planet from our Sun, which we can prove by observation. Much of the confusion stems from the different uses of these words (true and know), some are foundational (hinges), and others are not.
Wittgenstein's hinge propositions (hereafter known as basic beliefs) from On Certainty offer profound insights into how everyday life connects with intellectual pursuits. The ideas contained in OC extend far beyond philosophical theory, reaching into reality on a practical level, namely, how we learn, know, and act in the world. One example of this is how we teach a child. We don't start by proving fundamental facts about reality - we show them how to interact with the world, which is closely connected with our forms of life. A child learns this is a hand not by proof, but by interacting with the world, non-linguistically or linguistically. This practical subjective certainty provides the foundation for later learning, especially the more advanced concepts of knowledge and doubt. We teach a child how to follow the rules of mathematics, we don't prove that 2+2=4. We show them how to count, and we show them how to interact in the world by using mathematics. They learn the basic beliefs of mathematics first. The certainty they acquire is through practice and participation in our forms of life. A child doesn't start by questioning these basic beliefs. For example, they don't question if a word refers to some thing, they start by learning the language games of the concepts. Questioning and doubting come later in the more advanced language games after the foundation has been put down.
Basic beliefs are why scientists don't question everything. There's a certain set of basic beliefs that stand fast in order for scientific investigation to proceed. A biologist doesn't question the existence of the microscope, they simply use the microscope. Basic beliefs make scientific investigations possible.
Wittgenstein's basic beliefs explain why there are cultural differences, viz., some cultures have different sets of basic beliefs. This is true even if some core basic beliefs are shared between cultures. This is also true of religious beliefs; each religion has its own basic beliefs within its religious system. This doesn't mean that all basic beliefs are equal, some are absolute (like there are other minds), and some change because they're challenged.
There are obvious implications for how we understand knowledge. Instead of seeing basic beliefs as requiring justification, we recognize that some certainties (basic beliefs) must stand fast in order for epistemological justification and truth claims to be possible in the first place.
These insights demonstrate that our relationship with reality isn't primarily theoretical but practical. This doesn't diminish philosophical inquiry; it just puts it in the proper light.
Quoting Sam26
Wittgenstein seems to suggest that the intelligibility of ‘water boils at 100 C.’ depends on such a bedrock of hinge propositions ( a ‘whole way of seeing nature’).
OC 292 - Our knowledge is part of an enormous system and the value of our beliefs or knowledge takes place in the broader system of beliefs and practices.
OC 293 - Again, some basic beliefs must remain fixed for practicality and if they didn't, we wouldn't be able to act effectively in the world.
One can look at these basic beliefs as foundations for action, both in linguistics and epistemology. This is why I think Witt is just giving us a foundation for our beliefs to stand on, but it's not a traditional foundational view.
Quoting Sam26
But they not just undoubted foundations. They are systems of significations which act to qualitatively organize facts in a certain way, with a certain sense. These foundations can be turned on their head, and then the facts become organized in a completely differently way, revealing a completely different sense of meaning, as when paradigms shift. Turning the foundation on its head isn’t doubting that foundation or making it false. It’s changing the rules of intelligibility. It’s not just that I beleive it’s true. I believe what is true according to a certain arrangement. I doubt particulars organized within a system of sense. The system of sense does not itself change by being doubted, but by ‘changing the subject’. Similarly, with the duck-rabbit drawing, I can’t doubt whether what I am seeing is a duck rather than a rabbit. When what I see appears for me as duck I am simply certain of it. I don’t switch from seeing the duck to seeing the rabbit by doubting the duck. I do so by seeing under a different aspect.
I believe water boils at 100’degrees the way I believe what I am seeing appears to me as a duck. For the drawing to no longer appear to me as a duck, the whole system of component parts will have to undergo a re-organization. For water no longer boiling at 100 degrees to make sense will imply a total re-organization of the underlying paradigm.
To doubt that water boils at 100? is not to doubt some observation, but to fail to understand what 100? is.
And again, it is a mistake to think that these propositions are not true. If they were not true, we could not use them to make observations or deductions.
Yes, they're examples of hinges. However, certain hinges (basic beliefs) provide the framework for the language games of epistemology to work. There is no mistake here about truth, it just depends on the language game being used. It appears that you're lumping all language games about truth into a single mix. Moreover, hinge propositions are not normal propositions, if they were he wouldn't have singled them out. So, in what sense are they true? You seem to ignore the examples I gave that point out how they can be said to be true, and the ways they cannot be said to be true. Maybe you can clarify.
Trouble is that language games are not discrete.
It is true that the bishop never changes from the colour square it starts on; this is a consequence of the hinge propositions that set the game up. If these hinges were not true, then we could reach no such conclusion about the bishop.
If it appears that I lump all language games about truth into a single mix, that is becasue the games around knowledge and the games around truth are not unrelated. One can only have justified true beliefs if there are truths.
And if hinge propositions are not normal propositions, they are not abnormal, either. There is nothing deviant or undesirable in their use. Rather than being distinct from epistemology, hinges are foundational.
Where we seem to disagree is on the idea that "One can only have justified true beliefs if there are truths." Obviously this is true, but this doesn't address my issue.
Sorry, I edited this.
Quoting Banno
I like the rest of what you said, but could you clarify the above? Sam26 pointed out in an earlier post that the sense of ‘ know’ and ‘true’ are not the same for hinge propositions as for particular facts within the games that they set up. Do you agree with this, and if so, how would you characterize the distinction between the sense of ‘true’ with regard to a way of setting up a language game and an observation within that language game? For instance, I would argue that observations are true or false, but language games are true or unintelligible. Unlike an observation within a language game, the language game itself cannot be true as opposed to false. It makes no sense to declare a language game false, only unintelligible.
Here is a hand. Therefore there are hands. f(a)??(x)(fx).
So "here is a hand" must be true.
I don't know what to make of "the sense of ‘ know’ and ‘true’ are not the same for hinge propositions as for particular facts within the games that they set up". I don't see that we need say there is a different sort of "true" for hinge than for other propositions. And if Wittgenstein is right then we cannot properly be said to know hinge propositions, since they cannot be doubted; and if that is so, then what is one to make of saying we know hinge propositions in a way that is different to other propositions?
So I do not see that there is a "distinction between the sense of ‘true’ with regard to a way of setting up a language game and an observation within that language game".
And language games are played or not. I don't know what to make of saying that they 'are true or unintelligible'. If a language game were unintelligible, what grounds could there be for claiming it was a language game at all? (Davidson, again).
So I'm not sure how to respond to your post.
Turning the foundation on its head requires doubting it. Only by doubting it, will we seek a better way. We will never "change our whole way of looking at things", unless we first doubt our current way of looking at things.
So for example, Witt says "water boils at 100 C". But @Banno qualifies this with "at sea level". The need for such a qualification gives reason to doubt the original way of looking at things, "water boils at 100 C". The skeptic might then propose the hypothesis that the boiling of water is a feature of environmental pressure rather than a feature of the internal temperature of the water, and experiments could be carried out accordingly. If the experiments confirm what is proposed, this could lead to us changing our way of looking at things, that foundation would be overturned. But this cannot occur without doubt, so doubt is an essential feature of shifting paradigms (ways of looking at things).
Would you say that deciding to change the rules of chess in order to make a more interesting game is an example of ‘doubting’ the current foundation of chess?
Quoting Banno
It seems that you and I read Witt in alignment with different communities of interpretation. The group I identify with believes that all uses of conceptual meaning produce senses of meaning. No word concept can have only one sense of meaning associated with it. If I say that something is true, it always must be asked in what sense , what context of use, within what language game I mean to use this word. This goes for the concept of ‘truth value’. To state that a truth value is a property of propositions that function as assumptions in an argument is to lay out the terms of a language games. Certain bedrock assumptions
must be in place in order for this game of true-false to be intelligible, and such assumptions are not themselves amenable to ascertainment of truth value.
Quoting Banno
We can be said to know a hinge proposition as being intelligible to us, as opposed to knowing something as in being able to prove it through some empirical or logical procedure. I ‘know’ this is my hand says that the proposition ‘this is my hand ‘ makes sense to me in a particular way, within a particular language game. I have learned how to see that world a certain way. That way can’t be ‘false or true’ since it is simply how things appear to me, how a convention was handed down to me.
P1: All knowledge in the traditional epistemological sense requires justification, truth, and belief.
P2: Hinge propositions, do not require (or cannot undergo) justification since they are bedrock.
C1: Therefore, hinge propositions do not fit into the traditional knowledge model (from P1 and P2).
P3: If something does not fit into the model of knowledge where it must be justified to be known, then based on JTB, it is not "known."
C2: Hence, hinge propositions are not known in the epistemological sense (from C1 and P3).
P4: If something is not known epistemologically, it does not meet the criteria of being justified or true in the traditional sense.
I think your conclusions work fine. A lot of philosophy would take issue with P1 and P4 (is P4 supposed to be a conclusion rather?).
Wittgenstein stays within his narrow analytic context (since he never much ventured beyond it), but the idea that:
A. Knowledge is belief.
B. That truth (particularly in a "traditional sense") requires justification.
Are both historically hotly contested issues. For the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions for instance, knowledge cannot be belief. If it was, this would lead to all the problems of representationalism and towards universal skepticism (of the ancient sort). Knowledge is, for them, rather the co-identity of the intellect and the intelligible that is known.
Or, in the mutable realm, we could consider how "acquiring carnal [I]knowledge[/I]" of another man's wife was considered a sin that had nothing to do with belief.
Then, more broadly, and more popularly in the modern context, truth is something like "the adequacy of intellect to being." But such adequacy, while it might itself be known through justification, is not defined in terms of justification and does not require it as some sort of "prerequisite."
And then if "justification" is meant to be something like: "moving from premises to consequents" in speech, propositional thought, writing, or formal logic, there will be further disagreement. Just for one example:
Now John of Damascus is a saint for both Catholics and the Orthodox, but you'll see ideas like this (and going further) embraced a lot more in eastern thought, and it leads to a much different view of justification. Whereas the cataclysmic Wars of Religion that rocked Latin Christendom elevated a very specific sort of rigorous, legalistic, and above all written/deductive form of "justification" as the norm.
Sounds about right to me.
Presenting an argument is a language game. If a proposition is to function as an assumption in an argument it must have a truth value. And " it always must be asked in what sense, what context of use, within what language game I mean to use this word"; and this is the case "If I say that something is true", or for any other use to which I might put language. And "To state that a truth value is a property of propositions that function as assumptions in an argument is to lay out the terms of a language game.
But"Quoting JoshsWell, no. We do assign truth value to some propositions, but we also work out the truth value of other propositions. Not all assumptions must be hinges.
But apart from that, we seem to be agreeing.
Wittgenstein certainly did not equate knowledge and belief. He consistently takes knowledge to be both believed and true, and spends much effort in working through what else is needed.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Truth does not require justification. A proposition may be either true or not true, regardless of its being justified, known or believed.
So it seems to me you are off target.
Of course knowledge must be true. A true belief is a belief though. The contested position would be that knowledge is merely (justified) true belief.
If knowledge is just belief, and one can never "step outside belief" to compare belief with the subjects of belief, then all knowledge is uncertain. This problem (and related infinite regresses of representations) are why correspondence definitions of truth had a nadir from late antiquity to the early modern period, and why folks like Hegel still vigorously object to them.
Right, that's what I said would be most controversial in Sam's premises.
You implied - stated - that Wittgenstein, and analytic approaches generally, equate belief and knowledge. That is not so.
Hegel doesn't object to much at all anymore. He has had others do that for him, what with being dead and all. Whether they represent his views or not is moot.
You still seem to be off target.
1. Where in the grammar of ordinary language do we find the idea that knowledge is justified true belief?
2. Where do we find Wittgenstein claiming that knowledge is justified true belief?
They do. "Justified true belief," was and is an extremely common definition of knowledge in analytic philosophy. Do you deny this?
The idea that it's absurd to say one "knows" that one has a toothache suggests that "knowing" is about justification. The idea that one can (indeed, just be able to) doubt anything one "knows" also makes it pretty clear that "knowledge" here is something like belief.
When he is talking about how it is nonsense to discuss whether a rod does or doesn't have length, or asking "are there physical objects," the key idea seems to be that knowledge involves both belief and verification. I don't think Sam is wrong on this interpretation (as noted, I do think many—on solid grounds—might reject Wittgenstein's premises.)
I don't know if we do. It probably varies by time and epoch as well. When someone says: "I know what it is like to lose a parent," they aren't talking about affirming the proposition that one of their parents has died, for instance. And "to know someone well," doesn't seem to be [I]just[/I] to have a lot of true beliefs about someone. We might have many true beliefs about someone we have never met and claim not to know them.
I'm pointing out that
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
is not a presumption of analytic philosophy. They are not equivalent. Knowledge is (sometimes) taken as that subclass of beliefs that are true, and that have some other feature often summarised as "justified".
But, see https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4982 This is not a majority view.
All this by way of pointing out that simplistic talk of analytic approaches will not cut it.
Hence, Quoting Fooloso4
...is spot on. "I know that this is my hand" is quite clear and correct English. If we are to look to use instead of meaning, then "justified true belief" might give way to a more nuanced account. So the charitable approach to "On Certainty" is that Wittgenstein is chastising those philosophers who would take the JTB account seriously, pointing out that it is just another example of doing philosophy badly.
Sorry, @Sam26.
See my last. I rather think that he can be read as showing that JTB is too narrow. But On Certainty is unfinished, so we simply do not have his conclusions. Just my conjecture.
I never suggested they were. I think what is "off the mark" is your reading comprehension. The premise that prior traditions rejected was that knowledge is a type of belief at all.
Nothing in that posts suggests "analytic philosophy tends to assume that all belief is knowledge." That is clearly false and a silly thing to suggest.
Good. But you did say "Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
That's pretty clearly an equation. The problem was more your expression than my comprehension.
And:
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
suggests that Wittgenstein had the contestable view that knowledge is the very same as belief. Again, you said as much. And again, he did not.
But if that is now not what you meant, we might move on. So now we can deal with
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
But one must surely believe what one knows? "I know it's raining, but I don't believe it!" is ironic? A play on our expectations?
Am I reading you too literally, again?
Yes, and my apologies if I implied otherwise. Your account of Wittgenstein is excellent, well-researched and coherent. But I do not quite agree with it. The problem is working out exactly where...
My target was a critique of Wittgenstein that misrepresented his views. Perhaps that has been cleared up.
His remark is about the grammar of the word 'know'. It makes no sense to say that I have a toothache but do not know it. If it is not the kind of thing that I do or might not know then it makes no sense to say that I do know it.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
What would it mean to know something but doubt it? I know by experience not to grab a hot pan from the stove. If I ever doubted it I no longer do. My knowing it has nothing to do with believing it or not believing it. I will get burned whether I believe it or not.
Quoting Banno
To be clear, when I equated ‘stating a truth value as a property of propositions that function as assumptions in an argument’ with ‘laying out the terms of a language game’,I didnt mean that all language games are expressible in terms of presenting a truth-apt argument. That is, I dont believe that ‘language game’ is just another word for a ‘proposition with truth values’. They are not the same thing. The latter is subordinate to the former, in the same way that moves in a chess game are subordinate to the rules of chess, and the rules of chess is just one among many possible language games. I’m equating a truth-apt propositional argument with the moves of chess, not with its underlying rules , and certainly not with the nature of language games in general. The underlying rules of a truth-apt argument are not reducible to formal logical notation such as ‘Here is a hand. Therefore there are hands. f(a)??(x)(fx).’ The bedrock of underlying assumptions making truth apt arguments intelligible don’t , and can’t, look like any statement in formal logic. A system of bedrock convictions is a gestalt structure of interdependent meanings.
Furthermore, because the system of convictions underlying the intelligibility of truth apt statements is only one particular language games among many possible games, one can no more use truth apt arguments to express language games in general than one can use the rules of chess to express any and all languages games.
I think there is a need here to distinguish between essential and accidental properties, as a way toward understanding this question. If we say that every single rule is essential to the game known as "chess", then changing any one of them would render the new game as no longer "chess". We'd then say that any such change affects the foundation. But if, for example, we designate only the position of "check" as essential to the game, then we are free to make all sort of rule changes, still call the new game "chess", and say that we have not doubted "the foundation".
So it all depends on what is determined as "the foundation". I believe that in many conceptions, there is no such thing as "the foundation", because numerous essential aspects are brought together, therefore numerous foundational aspects. Doubting, and changing aspects of a conception generally alter the conception by degree. However, I believe that we do have to acknowledge the reality of foundational aspects, such as when we turn things right around, like the change from the geocentric to the heliocentric model. Clearly the foundational belief was doubted.
Imagine if we turned the game of chess right around, so that each player started in an equal position of checkmate, with some pieces already taken off the board, and the players were allowed to move other pieces while the king was checked, and the goal was to get all the pieces back to what is now the starting place. This would render the check position irrelevant, and that change would clearly be the result of doubting the foundation, because "the object" of the game would be completely changed. In this case we can say that when the conception of "the object" is doubted, the foundation is doubted.
So, integrating JTB into OC involves rethinking how we use justification and truth, and how we think of beliefs. For example, justification often focuses on logic or rational argument, but Wittgenstein's approach is more practical focusing on the various language games within our forms of life. Also to acknowledge the limitations of justification as foundational or bedrock to our whole system of knowledge. Thus, what constitutes justification is based on the context of the language game being played. To understand this requires a good understanding of Witt's views in the PI.
My approach to truth is that it's more about their role in different language games. So, one role is that statements can be true as part of a framework, like the role of hinges or the role that rules play in a game. These are not truths that are justified, but truths that are part of our background certainty (and they can be used as propositions in an argument).
The other predominant role of truth is those that are justified, these are epistemological, i.e., they are used in our language games of epistemology. So, I don't think the use of truth is restricted to the language games of epistemology. I guess this is a dualistic approach to truth.
You can think of traditional JTB as being enhanced by OC. First, with the base layer of hinge propositions (or as I like to say basic beliefs or basic subjective certainties). In this layer justification and truth are about their role in our system of epistemology, viz., they're bedrock to our system of epistemology. In other words, they allow the language games of epistemology to take root.
The upper layers above the base layer (bedrock) are more akin to the traditional language games of JTB. This is where the typical role of inference takes place.
Then there is the role of skepticism in all of this or the role of doubting. Some claims don't need to be justified in response to skeptical doubt because they are part of what makes doubting possible.
This view of knowledge (JTB) is more holistic and is connected to a web of beliefs, practices (forms of life), and language games. So, JTB is enhanced by Wittgenstein and how it correlates with our practical life, viz., how we act (linguistically and as we move in the world).
By integrating these ideas the traditional model of JTB can be enhanced.
So, whenever I use JTB this is what I think about.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
A language game like chess has built into its assumptions the looseness of the relations among its rules. This looseness is what makes it permissible to tinker with individual rules without making the game unrecognizable or incoherent. What is considered accidental and what is essential is itself specified by the structure of the language game of chess. By contrast , the language game underlying the statement ‘water boils at 100 degrees’ cannot remain intact if this fact is questioned.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Wiitgenstein uses the word ‘doubt’ to indicate a situation where some particular feature within a language game is put into question, while leaving the game intact. This is why he says that some beliefs must be left certain in order to doubt anything. We can’t doubt the geocentric model by switching to a heliocentric model unless the two models have features that can be incorporated under the same language game.
Quoting Sam26
You say that the system of convictions that form the background certainty of a language game can be used as propositions in an argument . Banno says the kind of propositions that the ‘truths’ of a background system of convictions can be used as are those which assign a truth value. Do you agree with him? If not , what kind of propositional argument can these truths be used as? Can you give an example? I have problems with calling a language game an ‘argument’. What kind of argument is a form of life? If we try to persuade someone to adopt our way of seeing, are we presenting an argument or is our way of seeing the condition of possibility for arguments? Isnt the language game the bedrock, the groundless ground for arguments and the point where arguments end?
By this, Wittgenstein doesn’t mean that the elements of the background system form a meta-argument, but that they are not of the order of an argument at all.
I think the following metaphor is apt:
Sorry Josh, but I never said anything about a "system of convictions." You're confusing what I said about Moore's use of "I know..." (which is more like an expression of conviction as opposed to knowledge) with the framework of reality, made up of basic beliefs or certainties.
The statement, "I believe this is a hand," can be said (I don't like the term 'truth value') to be true in some language games. It's comparable to saying "It's true that bishops move diagonally." These are just certainties that grow out of very basic beliefs about our foundational background. For example, part of the background reality of chess is that there are rules, pieces, and a board, and it's this background that allows for the game of chess. In the same way, basic beliefs (hinges) are basic beliefs about our background (beliefs like "we have hands" "there are other minds" etc) - this background is necessary for the language games of knowledge and doubt to take place. This doesn't mean that basic beliefs can't be referred to as true, just not in combination with being justified, i.e., justified and true. So, you can't on the one hand believe that the foundation is not justified (i.e., hinges) and on the other say they are justified. It's necessarily the case that hinges aren't justified - that's the whole point of Witt's argument.
But did Wittgenstein continue to believe it was a good definition?
"Don't think, look!"
"I know I have a toothache - how silly of you to suppose otherwise!". "I know where my hand is".
These look to be reasonable, straight forward uses of "I know..." and yet they are problematic for the JTB account. The use of "I know..." is broader than the JTB account sanctions. The game is played, in such a way that the JTB account is inadequate to explain it.
Would he also say that you don't know that you have a toothache?
And if he did, would he be right? Or would he be delineating "know" in an arbitrary fashion, against his admonition to look to use?
I don't think it contrary to the OC to say Wittgenstein was arguing for the inadequacy of Justified True Belief. And he would be in good company.
But this is one of the problems with working on an unfinished document.
I'm sure he didn't align himself with the traditional accounts of JTB. So, no, I don't think he would agree with traditional JTB. This was acknowledged above in my account, although not explicitly.
Quoting Banno
They do look reasonable, after all, Moore thought so. I wouldn't say they're problematic (although they're problematic for Moore's account) for JTB. I would say they aren't JTB at all, and that's Witt's point.
Quoting Banno
I don't see any indication that Witt was specifically arguing against JTB. He was arguing against the misuse of language, specifically Moore's misuse of know. Moreover, Moore's use of know, strictly speaking isn't a case of JTB. I think that's more to the point.
So there are legitimate uses of "I know..." that are not instances of justified true belief?
I mean...
Quoting Sam26
I was equating “system of convictions” with the expression you did use: “truths that are part of our background certainty.”
Do you distinguish between what you call the “framework of reality” and what Wittgenstein calls a system of convictions, which I see as equivalent to language games, hinge propositions and forms of life?
Quoting Sam26
Someone is trying to learn the rules of chess. They are afraid they are getting it wrong, so they ask if it is true that bishops move two squares up and one step over. Even as they ask this, they doubt that they have it right. Notice how in this example, it makes sense to talk about true vs false and doubt. But what is one doubting, what is one getting wrong, the language game of chess? But that can’t be, because it doesn’t make sense to doubt a language game. So what is true or false, or to be doubted, about the statement ‘bishops move diagonally’ if not the rules of chess?
Isnt my telling someone their belief that ‘bishops move two squares up and one step over’ is false akin to the adherent of an heliocentric account telling the adherent of a geocentric account that their belief is false? In both examples, aren’t the concepts of falsity and doubt misplaced? We act as though believing a bishop moves two squares up and one square over is incorrect in the same way as miscalculating the product of 25 x 347, when in fact it is an example of producing rules of a different language game than that of chess.
Rather, I was wondering whether you made that acknowledgement. The wording 'Not every language game involving the use of "I know..." is about an epistemological language game (JTB)' strikes me as problematic, again. Epistemology is, arguably, the study of "I know..." more than of JTB.
Cheers, thanks for humouring me.
Quoting Sam26
I quite agree.
My take on that is that chess is a game (or perhaps even a sport, though I personally don't think so) while math is not a game. The very expression "language game" should be retired from Philosophy of Language. It served its purpose, it now has the same epistemological status as the Aether or the Phlogiston.
By ‘game’, Wittgenstein meant a discursively produced and reproduced system ( convention) of intelligibility. I consider math to be a discursive convention as well.
Sure, but not in the same way that chess is a discursive convention. You don't do math because you want to win some math tournament. You're doing basic and applied research. What basic and applied research are chess players doing when they play chess?
While it's true that many of our convictions are hinges (basic beliefs), I wouldn't use "system of convictions," and Witt never used this wording. He did equate Moore's use of "I know..." to that of an expression of a conviction, which closely resembles a strong opinion, although not always. Sometimes one's conviction is the result of JTB, it's just that the conviction is justified as opposed to Moore's conviction which isn't justified, nor can it be.
I've explained in other posts the answers to your last two paragraphs. Please, I don't want to re-write it, or even search for where I talked about these issues.
You are neglecting the qualification "at sea level". That qualification indicates two essential conditions, temperature and pressure. So, the statement "water boils at 100 degrees" is in fact doubted by the addition of that qualification. However, the language game remains intact, only slightly changed by that doubt. If however, as in my example, it turns out that water boiling is completely a feature of external pressure, and internal temperature was just a ruse, then we'd want to rid ourselves of that language game, as being a faulty representation.
Quoting Joshs
Obviously, I do not accept the common interpretation of how Wittgenstein portrays "doubt". I believe that we can and do doubt foundational rules. And, I also believe that the foundational aspects of the geocentric model were doubted, and this doubt is what allowed it to be replaced by the heliocentric. So I think it is very clear that we do doubt foundational aspects, and completely destroy important conceptual structures, even though vestiges of the old may still remain in our language games ("the sun rises", "the sun sets"). These vestiges become metaphors, so sometimes instead of ridding ourselves of the faulty language game, we allow it to remain in the form of metaphor.
Quoting Sam26
How exact do you need the wording to be? He said my convictions form a system.
:up:
That makes sense. I think that, aside from difficulties from outside "Wittgenstein space," though, there is invariably the difficulty that people read the book in very different ways.
I agree, it might suggest this if I had only written the quoted part and not clarified in the next paragraphs. Nowhere though do I suggest that the problem is that "not all beliefs are true and justified," but rather that belief does not imply identity between the intellect and what is known, and does not capture what is meant by many uses of "to know" (e.g. sensing as knowledge, to "know how to ride a bike," or the original example of "carnal knowledge,")
People speak this way without irony all the time. "So you believe you could have fixed the problem?"
"No, I [I]know[/I] I could fix it."
People often get offended when their knowledge is impugned as mere belief/opinion.
Of course one affirms what one knows. So yes, it wouldn't make sense to essentially affirm and deny the same thing. Generally, the distinction involves [I]understanding[/I], a grasp of the thing known, as opposed to merely holding a justified opinion that also happens to be true.
For instance, does one "know Jimmy Carter," if one affirms some justified beliefs about the man but has never met him? Certainly one doesn't "know how to fix a car" or "train a horse," or "know horses" through merely holding justified true opinions about them, and the same goes for "knowing what coffee tastes like." And we might question if one "knows justice" or "what is just" by being able to affirm informed, true opinions about just action.
English is hardly unique in its many senses of the word to know. Attic Greek, for instance, offered up distinctions between sophia, gnosis, techne, episteme, phronesis, and doxa. And no doubt, there is plenty of analytic thought, particularly more recently, that pays particularly close attention to the distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how" (and even "knowing why").
The question is which sort of knowledge is paradigmatic of knowledge in its fullest sense (or maybe none and we have a sui generis plurality?) In general, justified true belief has, in part because of the particular philosophy of language and rationality in vouge, tended to focus on the justified/informed affirmation of true propositions.
However, it seems fair to question if the horse tamer and the horse researcher, who both read on and spend their lives with horses, might [I]know[/I] horses in a way that someone who has simply read some books on them (and so holds justified, true beliefs) does not. I suppose the philosophy of perception/imagination is relevant here too.
A big issue in OC is precisely what comes up when all knowledge is demonstrative knowledge. This problem is an old one. In this case, an infinite regress of (circular) syllogisms would be required.
But then the knowledge is in some sense prior to and constitutive of the language.
Are you saying that our fixer knows they can, but doesn't believe they can? The point here to work through the various ways in which "I know" is used? it would be prejudicial to supose that any was paradigmatic.
Perhaps, depending on how "belief" is defined. If belief is just something like "the affirmation of a proposition," then one would always believe what one knows (although we might say that it is things/principles that are primarily known, not propositions).
This doesn't suggest that knowing is a form of believing though. Whenever one is running, one is also breathing, but running doesn't consist in breathing. Similarly, swimming entails but does not consist in not drowning. In the same way, belief might go along with knowledge without being what knowledge consists in.
Sure. It would be equally prejudicial to suppose they are all unrelated as well though. Are they related? I should think so.
Bedrock convictions (hinges) are also split into prelinguistic convictions and linguistic convictions. Prelinguistic convictions are shown in simple actions like picking up an object which reflects the conviction that I have hands. Our actions show these convictions apart from language, but they can also be expressed as part of language, however, language comes later. As language forms it will convey another layer to these convictions, viz., linguistic convictions, such as the rules of chess. Prelinguistic convictions are not subject to doubt because the use of the concept of doubt is a linguistic function (it's not necessarily a linguistic function, although the concept is) especially as part of Moore's argument and as part of the skeptic's argument. The prelinguistic props up the linguistic. It would be logically impossible for the latter (linguistic convictions) to exist without the former. This is why the skeptics' doubting is nonsense. We don't start with doubts, we start with subjective and collective certainty that enables the language games of JTB and the language games of doubting.
I'm further arguing that Wittgenstein's hinge propositions are probably a necessary function of Moore's reference to his statements as propositions and not so much that Wittgenstein thinks of them as traditional propositions. This seems obvious given Wittgenstein's reference to Moore's statements as hinges. But there is an important point that Wittgenstein's writing alludes to, viz., that hinges are not true in the traditional epistemological or propositional sense. In other words, they don't carry truth values in the same sense that traditional propositions do where they're open to verification or falsification. Bedrock convictions aren't subject to the justificatory machinery of JTB. They are the frame that stands fast for the machinery of JTB (JTB for me consists of different language games in the Wittgensteinian spirit). So, the truth of bedrock convictions is tied to the language game of conviction rather than justification. Normal propositions (true and false propositions) are subject to justification and doubt, but bedrock convictions are not. I have the conviction that I have hands (shown in my actions), and this conviction expresses another use (another language game) of the concept true that is foundational to our systems of epistemology and doubt. The truth of bedrock convictions is a pragmatic and necessary one. They are structural.
Imagine trying to answer some question – like what’s true or what’s real, or whether you’re really sitting in a room typing. You ask yourself, “How do I know this?” or “How do I know that?” You’re like the kid who keeps asking “Why?” to every possible answer but never concluding because you’re in an endless loop of whys. You can’t seem to get anywhere because you can’t prove everything, no one can.
A philosopher named Wittgenstein who wrote about this kind of stuff said that there is a way to avoid this endless loop. His solution was that we accept certain basic beliefs without proof. He called these hinges, like the hinges on a door that allows them to open and shut. Without the hinges, the door falls off; without basic beliefs, language, and our thinking would similarly fail.
So, what are hinges? They’re everyday basic beliefs that we don’t usually question. For example, “The Earth existed 10 minutes ago,” or “I have hands.” These are the kinds of basic beliefs that we accept as true without normally requiring proof. We take them for granted because they’re part of how we live and act in the world. Wittgenstein pointed out that we need these kinds of beliefs to even start to ask questions or to figure things out. For example, before you open a door you don’t start wondering if the door exists, you assume it exists, and that's a hinge. It’s not like it’s magically true; they’re what we rely on to do the things we need to do. They’re like the rules of a game that we agree to accept to play the game. You don’t ask, “Do bishops move diagonally?” – everyone accepts the rule who plays the game that bishops move diagonally.
Another guy named G.E. Moore tried to say, “I know I have hands,” as if it was a matter to be justified or a matter of proof. Wittgenstein disagreed, saying that it wasn’t a matter of proof. He said that these beliefs were so basic that a proof wouldn’t make sense. Such beliefs are where questions begin. They are the foundation that supports what we know and doubt. Without hinges we would be confused, unable to reason or doubt. It would be like having a chess board and pieces but no rules. You couldn’t play the game.
Quoting Sam26
Seems to me the latter is what Moore was arguing. He believed ‘I know I have hands’ to be certainly true, but not subject to justification or proof. Wittgenstein argued that the proposition ‘I know I have hands’ is not subject to doubt. It is neither a true nor false belief.
Could you supply some quotes in support of your argument? I just read Moore’s ‘A Defense of Common Sense’ and section 4, where he brings up the example of ‘my hand’, seems to depict it as an empirical truth without need of proof.
Quoting Sam26
I would say that true or false pertains to whether something is or is not the case, an issue of adequation between the representing and the represented. The kind of certainty pertaining to hinge propositions is not that of adequation , of whether something is the case, but of how something is the case.
That other propositions are dependent on hinge propositions is a piece of the puzzled that must not be lost. A hinge that is not a hinge proposition cannot fulfil this role.
Quoting Sam26
And yet they are true. If they were not, then the door could not move, the investigation could not take place.
"There is no such thing as noesis,"
"Truth is strictly a property of propositions,"
"Judgement is only proper to discursive reason, not to simple (reflexive) understanding,"
"Everything and anything is only intelligible and true or false as respects its context in a language or some belief system," ...
and the like hinge propositions for accepting a "Wittgensteinian epistemology," or does Wittgenstein's thought apply to all epistemology?
If "I possess a nous/intellect" can be considered on par with "I possess hands" then it would strangely seem that Wittgenstein's points simply wouldn't apply to those in the "I have a nous and am thus capable of intellectual apprehension," camp. Or would Wittgenstein's conclusions still hold true for [I]all[/I] "systems" (even those that deny that they are systems, or that knowledge primarily involves systems or language) regardless of hinge propositions?
If the latter, how could this claim to universality be justified? If it isn't justified, wouldn't it just be one of many possible hinge propositions?
I hadn't thought of it before, probably because I vigorously disagree with Wittgenstein's presuppositions, but I think it's possible that there is something self-refuting here, even when taken in its own terms. Or if not self-refuting, then at least self-undermining. The conclusions would be "what is true, given certain presuppositions." But then, many people think Wittgenstein's view of knowledge is pretty dismal, resting far from "certainty," (indeed, it wouldn't even be called "knowledge" in much thought) so why wouldn't we just reject those presuppositions and choose to "play a different game?"
Yes, perhaps I wasn't very clear there. I meant an "intellect" in the classical sense (nous), as in "being capable of noetic intuition, a simple, non-discursive, reflexively known grasp of truth (i.e. one that is self-justifying because the knower is identical with the intelligible known)."
If this was true, then Wittgenstein's analysis of justification would have to be radically altered. Such a hinge proposition would be the difference between his conclusions re "where justification must end," and something like Aristotle's consideration of the same question in the Posterior Analytics (which comes to quite different conclusions).
Now, many justifications of noetic intuition or "transcendental apriorism" exist, but that is sort of beside the point. It can also be taken as a starting point (and indeed, often is in many strawman presentations of the tradition :rofl: ). But if it is taking as a starting point, the conclusions about truth and knowledge will look quite different.
This seems to me to introduce a sort of self-undermining instability into the epistemic conclusions drawn from the analysis.
Yes, my point was not that hinge propositions involve noesis (indeed, the concept presumes there is no such thing as noesis). Rather, it was that, for Wittgenstein's analysis to hold up, noesis must be denied as a possibility. It must be the case that we cannot possibly know truth as truth outside the context of discursive justification (or, on some later interpretations, that truth and knowledge are definable exclusively in terms of "systems/rules" of discursive justification).
Otherwise, if there is noesis, then there [I]can[/I] be knowledge of truth as truth without discursive justification (which is also not dependent on language). Noetic understanding is justified in that it knows itself as true (and indeed there are arguments that judgement is itself most proper to understanding and not reasoning/ratio, e.g. https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/QDdeVer15.htm, article I). But then beliefs regarded as "hinge propositions" might not be senseless to question, and might be very well "knowable" (given the far less restrictive definition of knowledge this opens up).
Or, perhaps one way to frame the presupposition that is needed would be to say "all justification for judgements lies in discursive reasoning/ratio, not simple understanding," with maybe the added caveat that "all justification makes use of language, and only occurs in this context."
But the existence of noesis itself seems like it could be the subject of a "hinge proposition." Yet if it can be, then Wittgenstein's conclusions themselves would only apply given certain hinge propositions.
Are the hinge propositions that hold up the analysis common to all, or at least most men then? It hardly seems that they can be given transcendent apriorism was the dominant epistemology for about two millennia.
This seems like a problem for folks like Rorty who would like to use Wittgenstein to say things about language and the possibility of metaphysics for [I]all[/I] of philosophy.
.
They are not different uses of "truth". They are different uses to which the proposition is put by the language game. Some propositions stand within the game, others set the game up. Those that set the game up cannot generally be doubted within the game. Hence the game hinges on them.
Not known as propositions. They are known as in knowing how to ride a bike. "Here is a hand" is a recipe for how to play the game of dealing and speaking about physical objects. Not a knowing that, but a knowing how.
Are you trying to say there is no such thing as knowing that?
I do agree with your rejection of 's attempt to limit the applicability of these ideas.
"Knowing that" is dependent on "knowing how", in that one can only present a true sentence if one knows how to present a sentence. This is an outcome of looking towards use rather than meaning, since the use to which a piece of language is put is as much a doing as a saying.
Present a true sentence? Do you mean make an assertion?
Couldn't I know that P without ever communicating about it to anyone?
1. They’re not open to judgment – typical propositions like “It is raining,” are moves subject to true or false on evidence (OC 243 “compelling grounds”). Hinges are the board itself without the hinges no moves happen. Their truth is accepted as a precondition that makes testing possible. They’re true because we live them – e.g. grabbing a cup, not proving hands exist. They’re simply not candidates for truth/falsity. They set the stage for the testing of true and false.
2. Typical propositions can be doubted (this is key) – “Is it really raining?” If you doubt that you have hands you are not refining the truth; you’re opting out. The truth of hinges is a kind of immunity, not a verdict reached by evidence or reasons.
3. Hinges aren't true because they’re factual, but because they’re the frame facts rest on. The hinge “The Earth exists” isn’t a discovery, it’s the ground for discovering rain (OC 99 “riverbed”).
Sure, hinges look like typical propositions, i.e., they have a subject and predicate, but the job of a hinge is not the same. You don’t come to know its truth by investigation. It’s the rule that allows the game to move forward. Treating hinges like typical propositions is like trying to prove to someone that it's true after explaining the rule in chess that stipulates how bishops move. It’s not a move that we judge in that way, it’s the condition or foundation of the game, just like the pieces and the board. Hinges enable truth talk, they’re a precondition. Their truth is a necessity, just as the rules of chess are a necessity that enables chess games.
Propositions can be true or false, but hinges are true as a condition of being a hinge, i.e., it's their foundational role. Moreover, it’s our acting that cements them in place, not any fact that establishes their truth.
Why?
Does Wittgenstein demonstrate things like:
"Noesis is impossible."
"Truth is strictly a property of propositions,"
"Judgement is only proper to discursive reason, not to simple (reflexive) understanding,"
"Everything and anything is only intelligible and true or false as respects its context in a language or some belief system," ...
and the like?
I don't think he does at all. I think he dogmatically assumes these as a given and goes from there (maybe because he exposed himself to no other philosophy in his lifetime).But if noesis is possible his entire analysis is wrong. If this is not the case, can you show why?
It's sort of like Hume's "Problem of Induction," which just dogmatically presupposes Hume's deflationary account of causation and nominalism out the gate, and then goes from there (i.e. a sort of question begging that gets ignored because the presuppositions are common).
The Christian in acting their life cements the hinge "God as the ultimate source of all power", which is their truth. The Atheist in acting their life cements the hinge "there is no God", which is their truth. The Agnostic in acting their life cements the hinge "it is impossible to know whether there is a God", which is their truth.
The hinge is absolutely true within the system that it plays a foundational role. However, the truth of a hinge is relative to which system it is playing a foundational role.
The role of the hinge seems to be in ossifying differences between peoples. The hinge doesn't appear to include a mechanism for recognizing its own fallibility. Is this a correct understanding?
This is an interesting case, because God was often considered as the ontological ground of truth. Truth is most properly in the Divine Intellect, secondarily in things' adequacy to the Divine Idea/Logoi ("ontological truth," e.g., Scotus), and finally in the adequacy of the human mind to the "truth of/in things" (hence man is not the measure of truth in these theories, which the hinge proposition theory seems to reverse to some degree).
You are, rightly according to most readings of Wittgenstein, applying Wittgenstein's conclusions to all knowledge. However, as mentioned above re noesis, the existence of God—particularly of God as "truth itself"—would seem to undermine Wittgenstein's conclusions in a rather radical manner. That "I have hands" is a "hinge proposition" in Wittgenstein's sense of "hinge proposition" would itself rely on accepting certain hinge propositions (namely the denial of many Christian, Platonist, Islamic, etc. theories of truth and the fundamental beliefs that underpin them, since these would presume a different notion of the truth of "I have hands" and of reason, justification, and understanding themselves).
Yet belief in God certainly seems like it could qualify as a "hinge proposition," and yet it would seem that if it is embraced it refutes the notion of a "hinge proposition" as Wittgenstein sees it.
I suppose part of the issue here is a claim to universality by a theory that seems to deny the universality of truth. This parallels the classic problem of the post-modern contention that there are no universal/absolute truths, or that everything is mutable (claims taken to be universal, absolute, and immutable, some hand-waving about how their sense might shift notwithstanding). One would have to assert that the presuppositions of the theory are universal and beyond repute.
For those who believe that god exists, then god exists. This is a tautology. It follows that they believe the proposition "god exists" to be true and the proposition "god doesn't exist" to be false. For those who believe that god exists, the proposition "god exists" is a hinge proposition and is a tautological truth.
For those who believe that god doesn't exist, then god doesn't exist. This is a tautology. It follows that they believe the proposition "god doesn't exist" to be true and the proposition "god exists" to be false. For those who believe that god doesn't exist, the proposition "god doesn't exist" is a hinge proposition and is a tautological truth.
For Wittgenstein, a hinge proposition is foundational to the system within which it is foundational. This is a tautology. For Wittgenstein, the proposition "hinge propositions are foundational to the system within which it is foundational" is a hinge proposition and is a tautological truth.
As the hinge propositions of the Christian and Atheist are tautological truths, they do not undermine Wittgenstein's conclusion, which is also a tautological truth.
Quoting RussellA
There is no doubt that Christians and other religions consider belief in God a hinge belief or foundational conviction. There is also no doubt that such language games exist. But just because there are language games that express these ideas doesn’t mean that all language games have equal footing. Some language games have a much better grounding, and we are constantly revising them.
However, the question of whether belief in God could be a hinge in the OC sense is an interesting question. Consider the following: “God exists” might ground certain practices like prayer, morality, and cosmology in the same way that “The Earth exists” grounds geology. Doubting that “God exists” would unravel the entire language game of many religions, just as hinges would unravel epistemology.
Also, for many, “Belief in God” isn’t up for debate within their lived belief system. It’s not a hypothesis that’s tested (for many) it’s a conviction that’s lived.
On the other side of the argument, “I have hands holds across contexts and language games. Atheists function without belief in God, but how would they function without the belief we have hands? Moreover, belief in God is doubted by many, and it’s debated in theology and philosophy. Wittgensteinian hinges resist doubt (OC 19 “incapable of doubting”). The belief that God exists invites doubt, even among those who believe.
I would say that in some cases, especially if someone had a direct experience of God, it could be a hinge for them. I think consciousness is a hinge, and if consciousness is fundamental, then it could be considered a hinge. Moreover, some might argue that consciousness/mind as fundamental might be God. I’m not sure, although I believe consciousness is fundamental.
There’s much more that could be asked and questioned, but this subject should be in another thread.
Your question @RussellA is a good one and is being debated by some philosophers.
But are Wittgenstein's conclusions "tautologically" true for both the Christian and the atheist as well, or just for fellow Wittgensteinians?
From the perspective of the Patristics, or say, Thomism, Wittgenstein is simply deluded about the nature of truth, knowledge, and justification. If their disagreements come down to differences in hinge propositions (which they might), then how does the Wittgensteinian justify the claim that his conclusions are true not just for himself (and other Wittgensteinians) but for all human beings (and presumably, all rational agents)? Or does he not, and Wittgensteinian epistemology is simply "true for Wittgensteinians," just as you say "God exists" is true for theists, and not for atheists.
For, leaving aside the proper interpretation of Wittgenstein, to say that "God exists" and "God does not exist" can both be simultaneously "tautologically true" obviously requires a view of truth that is likely to differ fundamentally (i.e. in terms of bedrock understanding) from most historical views, under which claims that something is simultaneously both true and not-true, without qualification, is absurd and "senseless."
Belief in God is not "epistemically neutral" however. It isn't something you can just choose to first "bracket out," if you are then to declare that your "bracketed consideration" applies equally for atheists and the faithful. For, the concept of divine illumination would contradict the idea that it is impossible to "know" without discursive justification. Yet this sort of simple knowing would challenge the notion that "I have a body" is the sort of thing that "cannot be known."
To assume that God can be "bracketed out," is to assume that God is irrelevant to the fundamentals of epistemology and the nature of truth.
This is a problem that I think is endemic to a lot of philosophy, from all eras, but maybe particularly contemporary analytic thought. The idea is something like:
"You can't say anything about metaphysics until you tackle how we can know anything. So we will bracket out metaphysical and physical concerns and just focus on epistemology."
But of course, it seems fairly obvious that metaphysical and physical considerations of "how we know" might indeed have crucial implications for how we want to construct our epistemology (e.g. as a "metaphysics of knowledge"). Moreover, as Przywara makes a good case for, this bracketing is never actually successful. One cannot actually set aside all considerations of being qua being (of parts and wholes, act and potency, etc.) and do any analysis at all. What ends up happening here is rather that metaphysical and physical assumptions are let in, and simply not acknowledged as such. For instance, "we shall bracket out the question of universals and proceed with a consideration of epistemology" amounts to "we shall assume nominalism is true, and develop our theories from there." But of course theories of universals and abstraction play a massive role in realist epistemologies, so this just becomes a sort of implicit question begging.
You can see the same sort of thing at work in the position that: "we shall begin with an analysis of language, since we must know our tools before doing any inquiry into epistemology or metaphysics."
This is not an entirely bad idea, but its implementation can be pernicious.
I can't believe you would say such a thing. I have disagreements with Witt, but to call him deluded, it seems to me, demonstrates your delusion. Even people who disagree with Witt wouldn't make such a comment. It shows your bias and lack of knowledge on the subject.
Quoting Sam26
What do you see as the ‘rules’ of ‘I have hands’ such that they hold across language games? Would Wittgenstein accept that there is any sort of understanding that holds ACROSS language games? Wittgenstein would not have used ‘I have hands’ as an example of a hinge proposition if it were not possible to conceive of a language game in which such a phrase were not intelligible, or intelligible in a way that was incommensurable with Moore’s intent. Non-neurotypicals would be just one example of a population in which ‘I have hands’ might not be intelligible in Moore’s sense.
As far as belief in God, there are many kinds of faith in God, many kinds of conceptions of who or what God is, or where he/she/it is , or how they are. What you’re looking for as a hinge is the underlying metaphysics making intelligible both the kind of faith and the kinds of doubt that accompany it, rather than the proposition ‘God exists’.
Maybe try reading (and quoting) the entire sentence? For most Patristic thought, all men begin fundamentally deluded about truth, and we remain so for as long as we are focused on the mutable world and are not "climbing the ladder of virtue" (so for most of us, our entire lives lol). It would hardly be unique to Wittgenstein. It's like how Epictetus says "most free men are slaves (to the passions, etc.)"
Yes, based on many past theories of knowledge, Wittgenstein's assumptions are radically wrong. In exactly the same way, according to Wittgenstein's thought, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Avicenna, etc. were also deluded, "speaking nonsense," and writing a great deal where they should have remained silent.
Philosophers disagree. One cannot maintain that Wittgenstein is right and that many other's were not gravely mistaken or vice versa. They put forth contradictory theories of knowledge.
In the same way, if a contemporary physicalist is correct, Berkeley would be deluded.
But yes, I do think Wittgenstein was deluded about the nature of truth and knowledge. He never read much philosophy outside a very narrow niche and it blinded him to other options. I still respect his work and find it interesting. You seem to be falling into the trap of: assuming that if anyone disagrees they cannot possibly have understood (which brings up the question: "why do so many great thinkers passionately disagree with one another? Did they all fail to understand each other's work?"
Kant accuses virtually all prior thinkers (most of which he never read a page of) of being dogmatists for instance. Nietzsche's claims about Christian and Hindu ascetics are not flattering (the man studied neither tradition). Either their critiques are valid, or they aren't. It follows that if some people are right, others are very wrong (but maybe wrong in informative ways).
Edit: I don't mean to imply above that Kant is guilty of some grave error for not wading through thousands of pages of historical analysis. He had other things to do. Rather, philosophy has perhaps been collectively guilty of receiving the critique too dogmatically.
I think you're probably correct about Wittgenstein, but I have seen later sympathetic commentators try to link together all of humanity (or all embodied lifeforms in our universe) through a "shared form of life," that grounds important constants (generally as a way to defend Wittgenstein from charges of extreme relativism).
But then the "form of life" must be explained, since it is very vague in Wittgenstein's own work, and is doing a lot of lifting here. If this is done in terms of a broad paradigm of scientific realism, it does seem to get quite far from Wittgenstein's original thought, at least as far as I can tell.
Fair enough, putting God to one side.
One could argue that although the proposition "here is one hand" can be used across different language games, it could have different meanings. For example in the language games of the Direct and Indirect Realist.
For the Direct Realist (1), the proposition "here is one hand" is true, as they believe that the hand exists in the world. For the Indirect Realist (2), the proposition "here is one hand" may or may not be true, as they believe that the hand may or may not exist in the world.
The Indirect Realist is able to function successfully even though they believe that the hand they perceive may or may not exist in the world. For example, the Indirect Realist stops at a traffic light when they perceive the colour red, even though they believe that the colour red may or may not exist in the world.
For Wittgenstein, the hinge proposition "here is one hand" is independent of any world. As a hinge proposition, it is the foundation of the language within which it is a part, regardless of its truth, where truth is a correspondence between language and the world.
Notes
(1) Direct realism is the view that i) the external world exists independently of the mind (hence, realism) and ii) we perceive the external world directly (hence, direct). For the Direct Realist, we directly perceive hands that exist in the world.
(2) Indirect realism is the view that i) the external world exists independently of the mind (hence, realism) but ii) we perceive the external world indirectly, via sense data (hence, indirect). For the Indirect Realist, we also directly perceive hands, but the hands that we perceive may or may not exist in the world.
https://philosophyalevel.com/aqa-philosophy-revision-notes/theories-of-perception/
Quoting RussellA
It isn’t independent of any world. On the contrary, it is the product of practical discursive engagement with others and with material circumstances in the actual world in which we live. That is why it is a form of life rather than a transcendental ideality. For Wittgenstein truth would be a correspondence between a hypothesis and an empirical event of the world , in which both hypothesis and world show themselves as already organized intelligibly on the basis of the same language game.
Merleau-Ponty put it this way:
The first rule might be assumed embodiment, i.e., I act as if I have hands by grabbing and pointing for e.g..
The second rule might be realizing there is a linguistic baseline. It’s a shared certainty that’s voiced. Pass the potatoes assumes hands, doubt this foundation and things stall.
The third rule is immunity to doubt. Doubting here would break the frame or foundation, not allowing further linguistic action.
Yes, I think Wittgenstein would allow for basic understandings across language games. E.g., when we first believe things, it’s a broad swath of things. That I have hands underpins many of the language games of science, daily chat, games, etc
Quoting Joshs
I'm looking for both.
Good questions.
.
Quoting Sam26
Wittgenstein argued that the general is never to be understood as including within it the particular, that there is no one thing that members of a category have in common. Thus there can be no general language game including within it particular language games. There are only family resemblances among language games, and this family is not itself a game.
Quoting Belief
and
Few beliefs are openly the result of "judgement", if by that is meant explicit ratiocination. That some belief is indubitable does not imply that it is unstatable. If a belief is not true, it cannot be used to justify another belief.
That beliefs can be put into the form "I believe that p" where p is some proposition is pretty much constitutive of the philosophical conversation about belief.
Moyal-Sharrock presents a divergence from, rather than an elucidation of, On Certainty. Not unlike Kripkenstein.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, yes. Pretty much from the get go of the Tractatus, truth belongs to propositions, what is the case can be said to be the case, and the limits of our language are the limits of our world. Hinge propositions are not tautologies, not mere axioms or truisms.
Where is the demonstration? Asserting something with no support is not a demonstration. The opening of TLP is just dogmatic assertions. There is certainly no investigation and refutation of contrary positions, for instance, or even concrete examples of how what is asserted will actually cash out.
I disagree that Kripke does violence to Witt. I don't see why you would say that.
Demonstration? Were is the "demonstration" that this text is in English? Where is the "demonstration" that this is a hand?
Yeah, I understand that, from previous conversations. Kripke has fun with a misdiagnosis of PI. I maintain that PI§201 and thereabouts answer Kripke. And I think mine the more standard response.
I don't think so.
FIne. Perhaps he did not do violence, so much as changed the subject.
I don't think he changed the subject. Had Kripke discussed it with Witt, I think Witt would have laughed and said, "How about that?"
Ahhh! :lol:
Part of Wittgenstein's response might have been an admonition to look - that despite the apparent problem, "and yet language works!"
Like my answer to implies, there is a way of understanding a rule that is shown in following or going against it, in specific cases. It's what we do.
Where did I say that?
Well,
Quoting Sam26
Hinges, hinge beliefs and hinge propositions...
@Sam26 suggested to me that "I don't want this thread to become an argument about the existence of God, and whether belief in God is a hinge."
However, it does seem that Pope Pius X did establish what Wittgenstein would call a hinge proposition about Thomism.
===============================================================================
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, the Law of Non-Contradiction states that a proposition cannot be both true and false at the same time.
However, Wittgenstein's hinge propositions are neither true nor false.
There are many definition of "truth", but for me the most informative definition of truth is the correspondence between a proposition in language and a fact in the world.
Wittgenstein's hinge proposition is a foundation of the language of which it is a part, regardless of any correspondence between the hinge proposition and a fact in the world.
Therefore, the fact that the same hinge proposition may have different meanings in different language games does not break the LNC.
The hinge proposition
You are conflating two different types of propositions within the language game. There is the hinge proposition and there is the ordinary proposition.
You are right that the ordinary proposition is the product of practical discursive engagement with others, but the hinge proposition is a different thing altogether.
This is why Wittgenstein critiques Moore's "here is one hand". The whole point of Wittgenstein's hinge proposition is that is not the product of practical discursive engagement with others.
"Here is one hand" is the hinge proposition that is a foundation of the language within which it is a part.
"Here is one hand that is slightly larger than the other and is wearing a yellow glove" is the ordinary proposition that does engage with the world.
The actual existence of God is sort of besides to point IMO. The point would be that people have often held conceptions of truth that would invalidate Wittgenstein's conclusions. Hence, Wittgenstein would need to prove that his presuppositions about truth must hold for everyone for his epistemic conclusions to be universal. Yet as far as I can recall he doesn't really take these on, he just assumes the core premises as obvious (see below).
The example from noesis is probably better than the examples from the relationship between God and truth, but I would imagine not everyone is particularly familiar with the concept.
Wouldn't this solution require the two assumptions that:
"Truth is primarily about (linguistic) propositions," and;
"Everything and anything is only intelligible and true or false as respects its context in a language or some belief system."?
But these are oft contested claims. For example, I would argue that it was true that the Moon orbited the Earth in 65 million BC. No languages existed then, yet this was still true. And further, I'd say that the truth of things (ontological truth) is the measure of the truth of the human intellect (the intellect's adequacy to being), rather than a human language being the measure of truth. I would imagine that I am in the vast majority today and historically in holding a position that is [I] something[/I] like this. Which doesn't mean that we're correct, only that the conception that truth is actually about language needs to be justified.
Second, I'd also defend a notion of sense knowledge. Other animals also possess sense knowledge. Yet sense knowledge is obviously not linguistic. So either it isn't really knowledge, or not all knowledge is linguistic. Likewise, one can know how to ride a bike," and yet this knowledge is neither propositional nor linguistic, and its truth is signified in successfully riding a bike (whereas linguistic utterances would be signs of truth in the intellect). If all truth and knowledge were linguistic those with severe aphasia would cease to know anything, yet they seem to still know many things.
"This is a hand" or "we have bodies" are general assumptions that most have held throughout human history. Whereas:
"Noesis is impossible."
"Truth is strictly a property of propositions,"
"Judgement is only proper to discursive reason, not to simple (reflexive) understanding,"
"Everything and anything is only intelligible and true or false as respects its context in a language or some belief system," ...
and the like, are hotly contested philosophical issues. Indeed, Wittgenstein's presuppositions here are the fringe position in the broader history of philosophy. Yet, if noesis is possible for man, if the Thomists are right about the nature of truth, etc., then Wittgenstein's conclusions would not hold up.
Can he just presuppose these controversial claims as the "rules of doing epistemology?" If they are the "rules of epistemology," then why did most philosophers for most of history think Wittgenstein was wrong about noesis and the nature of our access to truth, or of truth itself?
The view that different things could be "true for different people" based on different hinges is far more akin to the popularity of "we do not have bodies" or "other minds do not exist." That is, it is a radical conclusion. But if one is going to draw a radical conclusion from controversial premises, will it do to simply claim that the premises are beyond demonstration (and thus presumably beyond repute)?
It reminds me a bit of the late-Hegelian position that "because the system is presuppositionless it is infallible."
Quoting RussellA
Where do hinge propositions come from, and where do empirical propositions come from? If only empirical propositions are the product of discursive engagement with others, then how do we learn hinge propositions? From within the solitary imagination of the individual mind? Are we not brought up to see the world a certain way? And can we not be brought to look at the world in a different way?
If empirical propositions are formed through contact with the world and with others, what does it say about this world we are in contact with that it appears to us already interpreted through our hinge propositions? And what does it say about hinge propositions that we are brought up with them through cultural discursive transmission, and that they can be altered through practical discursive persuasion? Perhaps hinge and ordinary propositions are not two sharply distinguishable entities , but more or less fluid, more or less hardened aspects of the same practical discursive processes. Cannot hinge propositions be likened to Kuhnian scientific paradigms? How do we arrive at a new paradigm if not via contact with the world?
Conceptions of truth don't invalidate Wittgenstein's conclusion.
Wittgenstein proposed that "here is one hand" is a hinge proposition. A hinge proposition is a foundation of the language game within which it is a part. This makes sense, in that "god exists" is a hinge proposition of the Christian language game and "god doesn't exist" is a hinge proposition in the Atheist language game.
As I see it, for Wittgenstein, within a language are hinge propositions and ordinary propositions, and these are different things. IE, not every proposition within a language is a hinge proposition.
There are many definitions of truth. For example, see SEP article on Truth. However, I find the most informative definition to be when a proposition in language corresponds with a fact in the world then that proposition is true.
The hinge proposition "here is one hand" does not engage with the world, and is therefore neither true nor false, whereas the ordinary proposition "the cat sat on the mat playing with the mouse" does engage with the world, and can therefore be either true or false.
Wittgenstein's main conclusion is that "here is one hand" is a hinge proposition. A hinge proposition is a foundation of the language within which it is a part. It is not a demonstration of the existence of the world.
I agree that the hinge proposition "here is one hand" is neither a tautology, axiom or truism. It is the foundation of the language of which it a part, and allows the rest of the language to take place.
In a different language game, "this is a mountain" could be a hinge proposition allowing the rest of the language to take place. Discussion could then be had about mountaineers, snow falling on the mountain tops, the difficulties of skiers, which ski lodge to visit and the best flights for the skier to use from their home country. It would include the truth or falsity of propositions such as "Italy is the best country to visit for the serious skier". But it wouldn't include the truth or falsity of the proposition "this is a mountain".
Being neither true nor false, the hinge proposition cannot be invalidated by conceptions of truth or falsity.
Why?
Noesis seems to be the real content of consciousness. For example, the consciousness of the thought that here is one hand.
Wittgenstein's conclusion is that "here is one hand" is a hinge proposition within a language game.
It is the case, however, that Wittgenstein was of the general opinion that thinking and language were the same.
Language would be of no use if the meaning of the words couldn't be thought about. Even though "here is one hand" is a hinge proposition, the meaning of the words can still be thought about.
The hinge proposition "here is one hand" doesn't negate the consciousness of thought that here is one hand.
I would agree with that. Sometimes an atheist finds god and sometimes a religious person loses their faith.
Both could come from a discursive engagement with the world. But as different people engage in different ways with the world, some propositions may be hardened into ordinary propositions and some hardened into hinge propositions
For example, it could be accident of birth, in that 93% of the population of Saudis Arabia is Muslim and 2% in South Africa. It could be innate within a person's character. It could be the teaching that they have had. It could be peer pressure. It could be particular life experiences.
Even though there may be a state of flux in a societies hinge proposition, it is still a useful concept and perhaps informative in explaining the undoubted gulf between Christian and atheist, liberal and conservative and Indirect and Direct Realist.
The term "noesis" has been revived by modern thinkers in a number of ways that are quite different from the term's historical meaning, so perhaps that is a source of confusion here. I mean noesis as in "the direct, non-linguistic, non-discursive, reflexive grasp of truth by the intellect" (e.g. as detailed here https://theses.gla.ac.uk/2741/ for instance). I think it's fairly obvious that Wittgenstein doesn't think such a faculty exists, and that if it did, the entire theory of hinge proposition wouldn't be required. What makes things intelligible, on the view of most accounts featuring a faculty of noesis, is the intelligibility present in things, which is grasped by the mind, not things' place in a language game for instance. Likewise, truth in these theories if often framed in terms of identity instead of correspondence (e.g. Plotinus and the reception of Aristotle in Islam). That's a substantial difference that emerges from these different premises.
Just for one concrete example, Aristotle deals with a very similar set of questions in the Posterior Analytics. But he comes to a radically different conclusion about the nature of truth and human knowledge. I don't think either Wittgenstein or Aristotle's analysis is inconsistent or in error, at least not in particularly problematic ways for their main conclusions. Both were great logicians. However, their starting assumptions differ.
Again, I agree that Wittgenstein's conclusions seem to be true given his starting assumptions (or a view similar to them, e.g. the modern analytic view of "correspondence truth" you begin from). You seem to agree with his starting assumptions. Fair enough. But are his starting assumptions (e.g. that truth is primarily about language and statements, that "truth only takes place within language games") unimpeachable?
I don't think they are, and I don't think his conclusions hold if you don't grant him this and other premises. But my point is that people with different hinge propositions will clearly not grant Wittgenstein the premises he presupposes in his analysis, as evidenced by the fact that they are historically unpopular positions (and really, relatively recent developments which never supplanted the dominance of a view that holds to a sort of ontological truth in "physical things").
So, I don't see how the fact that "Wittgenstein's conclusions hold up if we make similar assumptions to him," says much on this particular issue. I'd agree with that. But for the conclusions to apply to epistemology tout court, they need to either rely on uncontroversial premises (they don't) or the premises need to be demonstrated (they aren't).
I'll just refer back to the quote I shared earlier, from a quite influential thinker/authority from an earlier epoch:
There are obviously different assumptions about the role of language in "knowing" and "truth" here. For the Damascene, one can know what is unutterable.
There is something odd about the claim that we assume that this sentence is in English. Hinge propositions are not mere assumptions. Suggesting that they are looks like shoehorning new ideas into old conceptual apparatus.
I don't understand the relevance of the example. That certain text is written in a given language isn't the sort of thing that would be a hinge proposition, nor would it be an assumption that is relevant to Wittgenstein's conclusions (nor would it be controversial).
Unless you think:
"Noesis is impossible."
"Truth is strictly a property of propositions,"
"Judgement is only proper to discursive reason, not to simple (reflexive) understanding,"
"Everything and anything is only intelligible and true or false as respects its context in a language or some belief system," ... etc.
Are as obvious as the fact that this post is written in English or that you have hands? What's the idea, that somehow these presuppositions are necessary for language? But that seems obviously false, because they weren't positions held through most of the history of philosophy.
Well, yes it is. That this sentence is in English is something you cannot doubt, in the act of reading it. It's a neat example of
"This is in English" is exempted from doubt by our reading it. To doubt that it is a statement of English one would have to supose that it does not say that it is in English.
You do not get a choice as to whether to see it as in English or not.
Now to be sure, there might be a language in which the sentence "This is in English" meant what in English we mean by "The cat is on the mat". If this were so, and you were familiar with that language, you might justifiably wonder whether the marks "This is in English" ment that the sentence was in English or that the cat was on the mat. But that would be to doubt what you were reading. If you take the sentence as saying that it is in English, then you cannot also doubt that it is in English. And if you take it as saying that the cat is on the mat, then you will cast into doubt the whole of this post, along with the rest of the forums and a large part of what you know. If that is what you want to do, then there is not much point in continuing this discussion.
Hence,
Notice that "we are forced to rest content with assumption"; we are not offered a choice here, such as that there is only one line through a given point that is parallel to another line, or that If A is true then ~A must be false. If we are to deal in euclidean Geometry, we are forced to accept the Parallel Postulate; and if we would deal in classical logic, we are forced to assume the excluded middle.
The Parallel Postulate is constitutive of Euclidean Geometry, and Excluded Middle is constitutive of classical logic.
A proposition is not a hinge in any absolute sense, but just in virtue of the role it takes on in a language game. So the same proposition may be a hinge in one game but not in another.
If you assume p, you can't simultaneously doubt p.
But if you cannot reasonably doubt P, does it follow that you choose to assume P?
There is a difference between an assumption and a hinge proposition, not captured in Tim's recount. Perhaps the difference is a bit subtle, and perhaps one might just say that to assume is to exempt from doubt - but this would be to agree with Wittgenstein rather than to point out some error of his.
I've never had the impression that people can choose hinge propositions. I know someone earlier mentioned the rules of chess, where you can't play the game without assuming them. In the context of the game, you can't doubt them without exiting as a player. But life isn't a game one can exit. You don't have a choice.
Maybe you could be confronted with something new, as when the Zulu man is shown a map, and grasps long range distances as he'd never done before. The way he sees space has been altered. But he can't go back to the way it was before.
So I'd say hinges are too bound up in living as a human to doubt them. Is that how you see it?
but then...
Again, being a hinge proposition is a role taken on within a language game, rather than a property of certain propositions in all cases.
This is part of how hinge propositions differ from supposed necessary or a priori propositions.
This by way of agreeing that hinges are too bound up in living as a human to doubt them.
Cool quote.
Quoting Kranky
It makes no sense, as one is having a thought, to also doubt that one is having that thought. Doubt has no place here.
But what language an archeological text is written in is an empirical question, no? It's only obvious if you know the language in question, otherwise it's something you can discover. I know Latin well enough that I can identify a Latin text, maybe, but it is by no means obvious. I might need a book, Italian can be pretty close. "This is in Latin" is definitely something I might be mistaken about.
Anyhow, I still don't see the relevance of the example. Are you claiming that Wittgenstein's epistemic presuppositions are "just seen" and essentially unimpeachable, beyond analysis, and beyond repute?
If this is so, why did most philosophers for most of history not accept such presuppositions? And if if Wittgenstein's presuppositions only appear relatively recently, how are the conclusions he draws for them "absolute" such that they apply to all epistemology and not just people making the same assumptions?
To be honest, "I am right about these contentious premises because it is impossible to think otherwise because it is the very prerequisite for thinking/language" strikes me as very much the same sort of thing the empiricists lampooned the rationalists for when they claimed thought was impossible to challenge their conclusions because it is impossible to think without their "innate ideas."
So are you claiming there's some foundation to knowledge? What is it?
Nothing of the sort. I am just pointing out that Wittgenstein starts from assumptions about the nature of truth and knowledge that were common to his niche, but which are not common to philosophy more broadly. His conclusions follow from these assumptions.
If one starts with different assumptions (which presumably might stem from different hinge propositions), then it doesn't seem like Wittgenstein's conclusions will follow. Yet presumably his conclusions are supposed to be universal, covering the whole of epistemology.
For instance, I don't think one has the demonstrate that a faculty of noesis exists in order to point out that presupposing as a given that it doesn't seems unwarranted. So too for the assumptions about the relationship between truth/intelligibility and language.
If one is troubled by Wittgenstein's conclusions the most obvious next question is: "are his premises true? What reasons does he give for us to accept them?"
They certainly don't seem like premises that "must be accepted as the very basis of using language."
Could you expand on that? What assumptions about the nature of truth and knowledge do you think he started with?
The opening of TLP makes several clear. The ones that jumped to mind as problematic are:
"Noesis (a non-discursive, non-linguistic, reflexive grasp of truth) is impossible."
"Truth is strictly a property of propositions,"
"Judgement is only proper to discursive reason, not to simple (reflexive) understanding,"
"Everything and anything is only intelligible and true or false as respects its context in a language or some belief system," ... etc.
"It is not the case that truth is first in things, then in the senses, then in the intellect, and that human language is a sign/symptom of truth, but rather truth is a property of language games."
Not only Wittgenstein, but many modern philosophers don't accept the concept of Transcendental Aprioris, of which noesis is a part.
As described by MR Burgess, noesis is a part of Transcendental Apriorism, a Rationalist doctrine originated by Plato. It proposes that a solitary thinker using pure reason can unlock the deepest mysteries of external reality. This is an epistemological problem, the notion that the pure human intellect, purged of sensory contamination, can transcend the limits of experience to reach a Platonic understanding of reality.
Plato called the highest form of knowing "noesis". In modern terms, insight. Noesis is the highest form of human thought, and allows the mind direct apprehension of universal truths. Noesis is in opposition to dianoia, discursive thinking and analytical explanations. For example, explaining how a car engine works.
Many modern philosophers from Kant onwards, including the Logical Positivists and AJ Ayer, reject Transcendental Apriorism. However, Burgess argues that such rejection has been too cursory, and the theory should begin to be taken more seriously.
Defenders of Transcendental Apriorism will have a difficult task in justifying how a solitary thinker only having access to their sensations and just using pure reason will be able to unlock the mysteries of the reality of an external world. As WH Walsh wrote in Reason and Experience "There seems to be little difficulty in showing that metaphysics in this sense is an impossible undertaking".
(to be continued)
I don't think he would accept or reject it. He would say we have no way of definitively answering the question.
Is that line actually in the TLP?
A believer in Transcendental Apriosis is a Rationalist who proposes that a solitary thinker using pure reason can understand reality.
Wittgenstein's hinge propositions are part of the language game. The language game is part of a form of life. A form of life is what society does in the world.
The Rationalist using pure reason could never know a form of life where someone asks of another "bring me a slab"
Surely, for this reason, Wittgenstein would reject Transcendental Apriorism?
I think the point of the TLP is to show that when we talk about "understanding reality" in some rarified sense, we're doing something with language that it's not designed for. What sorts of things go on beyond the realm of language? There's nothing to say about that.
In other words, Witt wasn't trying to say that consciousness excludes anything beyond the word circus. He was just pointing out that going on and on about things that are beyond language is foolish.
Sure. My point is not about archeology, but about the sentence you are reading now. To doubt that this sentence is in English is to doubt that you understand what this sentence says.
Point being that in order to engage with the text one must first accept certain propositions, even if not explicitly. That this post is in English being one such proposition. Such propositions are good candidates for hinge propositions.
That might not be a prerequisite for thinking but it is probably a prerequisite for replying coherently to this post - for continuing this discussion.
It's perhaps not an axiom, nor self-evident, maybe not even assumed, but it is what we do.
I think that you are partly right and partly wrong.
Partly wrong in that a Wittgenstein sentence, such as "snow is white", does correspond with the reality of the world. The Tractatus is basically setting out a correspondence theory.
There are two aspects to a Wittgenstein sentence. Simple sentences such as "snow is white" are true when they correspond with facts in the world. Complex sentences, such as "snow is white and trees are green" are true by virtue of the Truth Table.
Partly right in that Wittgenstein is vague in justifying whether a Wittgenstein proposition, such as "Jack believes that Mars is green", do correspond with the reality of the world.
When you talk about consciousness, it depends whether you mean from the point of view of the Rationalist, which includes Transcendental Apriorism, or from the point of view of the Empiricist.
Wittgenstein did not agree with the Rationalists, who believe that concepts and knowledge can come from a solitary thinker using pure reason isolated from contaminated empirical experiences.
There are a lot of interpretations of the TLP, changing in character over time. I don't think any of the various interpreters can claim to have more sway than the others. Witt is so in the category of food for thought.
I came to the TLP from having been immersed in Schopenhauer. It's really obvious that he's responding to Schopenhauer, especially chastening him about getting transcendent in the speculation department.
So I see what you're talking about, but I don't think he's talking in terms of a correspondence that a realist would approve of.
more in a bit
I agree, more or less.
It seems to me that there are three main theories of perception: Idealism, Direct Realism and Indirect Realism
In the Tractatus, truth is basically a correspondence between language and the world. "Snow is white" is true if snow is white.
In Philosophical Investigations, truth is basically a correspondence between language and its own conditions for being true. "Theft is wrong" is true if theft is wrong.
I agree that Wittgenstein includes references in Tractatus to a "gramophone record" and in Philosophical Investigations to "bring me a slab". These objects exist in our world, which makes one assume his approach is that of Realism.
However, this is not necessarily the case, in that although gramophone records and slabs exist in a world, the question is, where does this world exist. This is something that Wittgenstein is very vague about.
For the Idealist, the world exists in the mind. For the Direct Realist we directly perceive the world and for the Indirect Realist we directly perceive representations of the world.
Wittgenstein in general should not be read from the viewpoints of either Idealism or Realism
Thinking of the "world" as either mind-dependent or mind-independent may not be how to approach Wittgenstein.
It's the world of hinges.
By the way, I might submit a paper as part of the Philosophy Forum's paper challenge. I'm not sure yet, but I'm working on it. It depends on how lazy I am. :grin:
Wittgenstein's Hinges Reimagined
Abstract
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889-1951) final notes were published posthumously as On Certainty (1969). In these notes, he introduced the concept of hinge propositions (OC 341) as a response to G.E. Moore’s arguments (“Proof of an External World,” 1939) against the radical skeptic. Wittgenstein’s hinges function as indubitable certainties outside the domain of epistemological justification. They differ from traditional propositions by enabling traditional truth operations to function. This paper reimagines hinges as foundational convictions, namely, as arational certainties that act as a foundational platform that grounds our epistemological language and systems of proof.
Building on this foundation, the paper extends Wittgenstein’s hinges to Kurt Godel’s incompleteness theorems (1931), which demonstrate that any consistent formal system of arithmetic will necessarily contain unprovable statements. Godel’s mathematical discovery parallels Wittgenstein’s hinge insights, revealing the need for system-enabling certainties that ground both frameworks. The problem of infinite regression further illustrates the need for foundational convictions.
This bridges the gap between mathematical formalism and epistemological foundationalism and challenges the notion that any comprehensive proof is possible in either domain. The paper offers a novel approach to understanding the limits and foundations of human knowledge.
If it's helpful, Wittgenstein actually commented on Gödel's work (and Gödel commented very briefly on Wittgenstein's commentary). We've discussed it here before a few times. You might already be aware, but IIRC it was in some ancillary papers, so it is easy to miss.
These are contradictory statements.
A hinge proposition cannot be both outside the domain of epistemological justification, including justifications such as truth and falsity, and be inside the domain of epistemology justification that enables truth operations.
I can see how you might think they're contradictory, but I'm making a subtle distinction about truth, which I believe Wittgenstein is also making. Hinges aren’t true in the same way that ordinary propositions are, i.e., they're beyond the truth-testing game. Their truth is their unshakeable role in our practices. Wittgenstein points out, “It belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are indeed not doubted” (On Certainty 342). They’re not conclusions; they’re the ground.
The truth of traditional propositions is tied to evidence or falsifiability. “It’s raining” is true if I look out and see rain; it’s false if I don’t. Hinges can't be meaningfully doubted without collapsing the system. Doubting “The earth exists” isn’t false, it’s nonsensical, as no test could apply outside the framework of everyday epistemological language. Doubt is essential to how we use traditional propositions. “The keys are on the table” invites checking; it’s true or false based on what I find. However, again, the truth of a hinge, which is like a foundational conviction, is indubitable (impossible to doubt, unquestionable).
Hinges are indubitable not because they’re proven beyond doubt but because they’re the foundation of doubting, outside the game of justification. Ordinary propositions play inside that game, subject to the rules hinges silently uphold. Wittgenstein’s move is to say: what Moore calls indubitable truths aren’t truths in the propositional sense. they’re the very backdrop that lets propositional truths get their life.
Think of a conviction, one could hold that it's true without appealing to justification, it's bedrock to a system of beliefs that are justified and true. These truths are essential to how I act in the world, but their function is much different.
If I repeat myself, it's for effect.
I agree that ordinary propositions are truth apt. For example, "it is raining" is true IFF it is raining
Quoting Sam26
It is not that "hinges aren’t true in the same way that ordinary propositions are", but rather that hinge propositions are not truth-apt at all.
It is not that "their truth is their unshakeable role in our practices", as hinge propositions have no truth.
It is true that in Philosophical Investigations there is a role for hinge propositions in the language game, but here the word "true" refers to the role that the hinge proposition is playing, not to the hinge proposition itself.
The word true shouldn't be applied to a hinge proposition. For example, as in "hinges aren't true in the same way" and "their truth".
Do you have any support in the literature?
The two language games I'm referring to are seen in one use of 'I know.." as an epistemological use, the other use as an expression of a conviction. Something I believe to be an indubitable truth, which doesn't have a justification like normal propositions. There is no justification; it's a lived conviction shown in our actions.
It's ok if people disagree that's just the nature of philosophy.
Quoting Sam26
Let me offer two ways of thinking about this distinction between ‘I know’ as epistemological and ‘I know’ as hinge conviction, and you tell me which one you prefer. According to the first way, in both the epistemological and the hinge ‘I know’, truth is a correspondence between what I believe to be the case and what is actually the case. But the hinge ‘I know’ doesn’t have a justification or proof for its conviction that the way things really are corresponds to the way I believe them to be.
In the second way of thinking, only the epistemological ‘I know’ represents my conviction (justifiable or not) that what I believe to be the case corresponds to what is actually the case. The hinge ‘ I know’ is not a conviction that what I believe corresponds with the way things actually are. It functions prior to correspondence, and the split between hypothesis and experience. Both what makes hypothesis and any possible experience that could
validate or falsify it intelligible are already framed by the hinge conviction.
There are different types of "I know". I think I know, I feel I know, I believe I know, I am sure I know. I know I know. IOW, "I know" always comes with the hidden label in the front.
There is a difference in meaning between i) hinge propositions cannot be doubted and ii) hinge propositions are exempt from doubt
Wittgenstein says "exempt from doubt"
For example:
i) That Paris is in France cannot be doubted means that we started with a doubt and then concluded that our doubt was baseless.
ii) That Paris is in France is exempt from doubt means that we are not even allowed to doubt at all.
There are different types of doubts too i.e. rational doubts based on reasoning, and psychological doubts based on feelings, emotions and beliefs.
When a doubter is psychologically motivated by such as the groundless beliefs or Machiavellianism & Hyper-Competitiveness syndrome, he will not notice or understand the rational side of arguments or knowledge on the facts even with the clear evidence and rational explanations on the matter.
There would be no way to stop him from the doubting unless the causes for the psychological motivations for the doubts are resolved.
True, but on a thread about Wittgenstein's On Certainty, the question is, how did Wittgenstein describe doubt?
I understand W said that hinge propositions / certainties cannot be doubted or are not allowed doubting. I don't agree with that. Anything and everything can be doubted by the psychologically motivated minds.
If someone decided to doubt whether if the earth exists, or Paris is in France, then there is no way stop him from the doubting. Psychology overrides and takes precedence to reasoning.
In OC 341 Wittgenstein writes "That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn."
"Exempt from doubt" has a different meaning to "cannot be doubted."
Is there anywhere in On Certainty where Wittgenstein writes that hinge propositions cannot be doubted?
What is the illocutionary difference between the two expressions?
Cannot doubt vs exempt from doubt
My previous example was:
i) That Paris is in France cannot be doubted means that we started with a doubt and then concluded that our doubt was baseless.
ii) That Paris is in France is exempt from doubt means that we are not even allowed to doubt at all.
But in addition - cannot could mean:
i) not allowed - as in you cannot speak in an exam
ii) not able - as in you cannot climb Mount Everest because you are unfit
Exempt could mean
i) not applied - as in food is exempt from vat
ii) not present - as in summer nights are exempt from frost
:ok: Seems to be delicate nuance in the uses, but the gist of the claim seems it is impossible to doubt?
FYI, USA has 23 towns and cities called Paris, and the French government folks could decide to change Paris to "Sartre" or some other names they feel more suitable one day. :)
Not really. "Impossible to doubt" has a different meaning to "exempt from doubt" OC 341
For example, "food is exempt from vat".
How would you replace "exempt" by "impossible" in the above sentence?
How Are Hinges True?
Hinge propositions, like the earth has existed for more than ten minutes or "I have two hands” —aren’t true in the way we typically think of propositions being true (i.e., through evidence, justification, or correspondence to reality). Wittgenstein’s point in OC is that hinges are the bedrock of our epistemic practices—they’re what we don’t doubt to even start asking questions or justifying anything else (OC 341-343). So, their truth isn’t about being proven; it’s about their role in our forms of life.
Hinges are true in a practical, functional sense—they’re the scaffolding we rely on to play our language games. In OC 94, Wittgenstein says, “I do not explicitly learn the propositions that stand fast for me. I can discover them subsequently like the axis around which a body rotates.” They’re true because they’re embedded in how we act and think, not because we’ve epistemologically validated them. For example,things don’t vanish randomly (OC 342) isn’t something we test - it’s what lets us test other things.
Their truth comes from being immune to doubt within our system. In OC 115, he writes, “If you tried to doubt everything, you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.” Hinges are true in the sense that they’re the ground we stand on—doubting them unravels the whole game, like pulling the tablecloth out from under a dinner party.
Traditional truth often means a proposition matches reality (e.g., “snow is white” is true if snow is, in fact, white). Hinges don’t work that way. “The earth exists” (OC 99) isn’t true because we checked; it’s true because our entire way of living—building houses, farming, launching rockets - assumes it. Their truth is more like a lived certainty, not a verified fact. This is very similar to the rules of chess that allow the game to be played.
Justification, as an epistemological practice, stops at hinges. Wittgenstein says in OC 204, “Giving grounds, however, justifying the evidence, comes to an end;—but the end is not certain propositions’ striking us immediately as true, i.e., it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game.” So, if hinges aren’t epistemologically justified, what kind of truth do they have?
If justification is epistemological, hinges live in a pre-epistemic space. Their truth is a kind of certainty that’s more basic—almost instinctual or animal, as Wittgenstein hints in OC 475: “I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination.” The truth of “I have hands” (OC 153) isn’t argued for—it’s a certainty I live with, like breathing. It’s true because it’s part of the scaffolding of my existence, not because I epistemologically proved or justified it.
How can you have a conviction (OC 102) that's not an expression of something you believe is true? Hinges are true is a matter of pragmatics or a way of acting, it's a different language game. Again, like the rules of chess. Someone might ask you "Is it true that bishops move diagonally?" and you reply, "Yes," but does this mean that it's true in an epistemological sense? No,
OC isn't a finished work, so we don't know which passages would have been left in or eliminated.
"It is raining" is true1 IFF it is raining
You say that hinge propositions are true2, where true1 and true2 are different.
But how have true1 and true2 been defined? A proposition that corresponds with a fact is true1. A proposition that is exempt from doubt is true2 (OC 341)
The definition of true1 is well established, and there are many references in the literature. However, the definition of true2 does not seem to be established at all, and I haven't found any references to it in the literature.
It seems that true2 is your personal definition. There is nothing wrong with inventing definitions, in fact I invented the definition "peffel". However, no-one other than me uses it.
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Quoting Sam26
In other words, "bishops move diagonally" is true IFF bishops move diagonally.
Truth is the relation between the proposition and the fact.
Truth is neither the proposition nor the fact.
Quoting RussellA
One way of understanding ‘exempt from doubt’ is the way I suggested here:
Quoting Joshs
You don't. It was a suggestion for W if he used the word "impossible" rather than "exempt", it would have been clearer in the point.
"Exempt" is normally used for the situation where an object is free from liability, duty or restriction. Hence it seems not a proper word to use for doubt.
My idea is that you can doubt on anything and everything if you choose to do so. Even the fact "Paris in France." could be doubted under the simple syllogism.
Names of cities could be changed into some other name through time.
Paris is a name of the city.
Paris could be changed into some other name through time..
which implies Paris might not be in France sometime in the future. (weak doubt for the possibility in the future = still a doubt).
Being a hinge proposition is a role in a language game. Doubting is a language game or a part of a language game. Being a hinge proposition is being unavailable for doubt in the language games being played. Language games are not discrete - does that need saying?
Some hinge propositions are of the form "...counts as...", and as such their role is in setting up the language game. "The piece that only moves diagonally counts as a bishop"; "This counts as a hand"; "'P' counts as true if and only if P". These sentences set up being a bishop in Chess, being a hand in ontology, and being a true sentence in epistemology.
Are all hinges of this form? I'm not sure. You decide. Have a look at propositions you think are hinges and see if they fit, and if they do not, ask if it is because they are not analysable as "...counts as..." or becasue they are not hinges.
Notice that one can form a T-sentence for any proposition, hinge or otherwise. There is no special nature of truth peculiar to hinge propositions. Again, being a hinge proposition is something we do with a proposition when we use it to set up a language game.
This is how truth and hinge propositions work.
Quoting Corvus
In a language game are ordinary propositions such as "it is raining" and hinge propositions such as "here is one hand".
All ordinary propositions can be doubted. I say "it is raining". You say "are you sure?"
The whole point of a hinge proposition is that it is exempt from being doubted. Doubting a hinge proposition cannot even be considered.
:up: Continuing:
For example, in a language game, "here is one hand and the hand is holding a mug of coffee", "here is one hand" is the hinge proposition and "the hand is holding a mug of coffee" is the ordinary (non-hinge) proposition.
Being an ordinary proposition, "the hand is holding a mug of coffee " can be true or false, depending on whether or not it corresponds with what is actually the case in the world.
But the truth-aptness of this ordinary proposition is only intelligible if the language game has been founded on a hinge proposition.
Because, if a language game was not founded on a hinge proposition, and there were no hinge propositions, then the meaning of each expression would depend on its context within the language game.
IE, the meaning of "the hand" would depend on its context "the hand is holding a mug of coffee", and the meaning of "holding a mug of coffee" would depend on its context "the hand is holding a mug of coffee". Although this language game might be perfectly coherent, it would be ultimately be nonsensical.
For a language game to make sense, within the language game there must be something extra-linguistic that founds the language game within the world, and these things are the hinge propositions.
Hinge propositions are extra-linguistic, even they they are part of the language game.
The truth for hinges is pragmatic, not formal. Wittgenstein ties truth to our forms of life, not to logical definitions. In OC 241, he says truth and falsity depend on our shared language, our forms of life, not on a formal standard like the T-sentence. Thetruth of “I have hands” isn’t in a T-sentence; it’s how I live: I use my hands every day, and I don’t doubt them. In OC 204, he says our acting is what matters. The T-sentence is too abstract, it doesn’t get at the pragmatic, action-based nature of hinges’ truth.
The language game of hinges is different. The game of truth for empirical propositions (“It’s raining,” check the window) is different from the game of truth for hinges. In OC 243, he says, “One says ‘I know’ when one is ready to give compelling ground - but with hinges, there is no such possibility.” Hinges don’t play the game of justification or demonstration. They’re certainties we live by. The T-sentence assumes a single game of truth, but Wittgenstein’s approach is more pluralistic. The truth of hinges is a different game—one of lived certainty, not formal equivalence.
Not all hinges fit the "counts as" mold (if that's your point @Banno): "The Earth has existed for more than 10 minutes" or "Objects don't vanish randomly" are background certainties (convictions), not rule-setting propositions. I think Wittgenstein's pragmatism captures the truth of these certainties and fits our life forms much better.
We treat hinges as true for practical reasons. And the fact that they're not doubted demonstrates they don't play the true/false game. We accept them as true, period.
For example, I often "take it as true" that my colour judgements are synonymous with the optical colours, due to learning the colors by ostensive definition; in spite of the fact that the definition of the optical colours makes no mention of my color judgements.
If this is the case, then hinges represent an extension of thought from Wittgenstein's earlier remarks in relation to private language, and possible represent a footnote to, or even an attack on, Frege's anti-psychologism that sought to clearly delineate truth from "taking as true".
There are many different definitions of "truth" (SEP - Truth)
Wittgenstein did not consider the hinge proposition as being true.
What definition of truth are you using when you say that hinge propositions are "true"?
What are the philosophical / epistemological / logical grounds for hinge propositions being exempt from doubt?
What does "hapa kuna mkono mmoja na katika mkono huu kuna kikombe" mean?
I can tell you that this is a coherent language, where each part is fully in context with all the other parts of the sentence.
The question is, where is the key that unlocks the meaning of the whole?
Can the key be found inside the text, or can it only be found outside the text?
Only if the meaning of each part was exempt from doubt in your mind could you understand the meaning of the whole.
Any part whose meaning is exempt from doubt in your mind can be called a hinge proposition.
They're a pragmatic lived foundational/bedrock truths, but without the possibility of being false, i.e., doubted. Remember, if you doubt the truth or falsity of a traditional proposition, you're challenging one of the true/false paradigms. Hinges are beliefs accepted without question. If you doubt them, nothing follows, even the questions fall apart.
I guess you could doubt them, you just exit the language game when you do.
Maybe I am misunderstanding the point here. It seems to me that we misunderstand and misuse words all the time. Someone might confuse an uncommon word like "dearth" with "surfeit," when it means the opposite. They might even use the word in this way (hell, I've done this lol). Yet eventually we might come to doubt the meaning of the part if it is behaving strangely (e.g. if the context implies an alternative meaning).
But to 's point, which perhaps you will disagree with, it hardly seem that this should mean exiting the "language game" unless "language game" is rather carefully defined (and I fear this would have to be done in an ad hoc manner).
When Descartes starts doubting away in the Meditations, he doesn't stop writing in French. We live in the aftermath of massive efforts to standardize dialects and spelling, where universal compulsory education has ironed out a lot of divergence, but from what I understand it was quite possible to have doubts about understanding text or speech in some close dialect, to be unsure if one had grasped the meaning quite right, particularly if one knew the broader language (as opposed to dialect) as a second language. Italy for instance is rather famous for this and there are some jokes about it in old literature.
You can still sort of get this experience in Scotland or Jamaica, or even moreso in pidgin dialects. Or, for a less expensive experience, go read the BBC Pidgin page. You will understand some, not understand other parts, and be unsure about others: https://www.bbc.com/pidgin
Written pidgin is probably not the best example though. I feel like it's pretty intelligible to English-speakers. Spoken is an entirely different story, and very much in a grey zone (for me at least).
Quoting frank
In order to doubt anything, one must rely on that which is beyond doubt. In other words, one cannot exit all language games and still be capable of doubting.
Quoting sime
Doesn’t this kind of truth depend on a comparison or correspondence, even if only ‘taken as’ correct, between color judgement and optical colors?
Quoting Banno
Is this what’s called anaphoric or prosentential logic? I’m
thinking of Brandom here.
Apparently you can't doubt that you exist (in some sense).
It's logically impossible to doubt that you exist. Doubting your existence shows your existence. :grin:
I would think not, although it would depend on how we define doubt. I do think they can confused and usure, have misapprehensions, or "second guess themselves" though. Doubt, to me, would require some distinction between reality and appearances, but also the knowledge of beliefs as true or false, making it properly intellectual.
However, a sort of sensuous misapprehension/confusion seems analogous to proper, intellectual doubt. And there the same seems true. You cannot experience this towards everything at once. Some background of sensuous intelligibility would be needed, else it would be sheer confusion, something like the results of a concussion or stroke.
No. Quite distinct.
Might be interesting to do a thread on Davidson's approach to meaning. I'll think about it.
Well, no, T-sentences are not just a reinvention of correspondence. The sentence on the left might not have any correspondence at all, and yet the T-sentence would be true:
Usually a T- sentence is treated extensionally. That's probably enough for here. There are however, intensional treatments that use them. in Montague semantics this is fairly straight forward, but in constructivist treatment it would be more interesting - something like "S" is true ??p(p is a proof of S), perhaps
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The trick is to avoid saying that hinge propositions are not truth apt while at the same time saying that they are true... as here:
Quoting Sam26
then
Quoting Sam26
See the problem? And the answer is the role take on by the hinge...
It's what we do.
Notice the difference in direction, the change from word-to-world to world-to-word. The world is changes so that "hand" refers to this, so that bishops only move diagonally, and so that "P" is true only if P.
Notice also that what we say is amongst the things that we do. Saying, and hence propositional knowledge, is a sub-class of doing, and hence know-that is a sub class of (parasitic on...) know-how.
Notice also that what we do can be put into a propositional form - usually first-order. Hinges can be put into propositional form, and also have a realisation in what we do. Hence, again PI§201 - there is both a way of saying that this is a hand and a way of doing with hands.
Quoting Sam26
There is no "language game of hinges". Being a hinge is a role in a language game, it's what we do in order to be able to "play".
Quoting Sam26
This is a hinge becasue we assume it in order to continue on with the game - to deal with the Earth in our usual way, "the Earth" counts as something that has been around for a very long time. So the car you recall parking in the garage will be found in the garage. "Objects don't vanish randomly" might render as "to count as an object is to have relative permanency" - and the role here is to rule out some things as objects...
Quoting Sam26
Yes; and moreover, we only get to do stuff becasue we take certain things as indubitable. The alternative is solipsistic catatonia.
Quoting RussellA
But all language games are embedded in the world; the counting of apples involves apples and charts, the building involves blocks and slabs. It is not peculiar to hinge propositions to be about how things are - all propositions do that.
The language game that includes the sentence "Sherlock Holmes lives at 221B Baker Street" is embedded in a world of literature rather than a world outside literature.
It seems that Wittgenstein agrees that there is a world but never specifies exactly where this world exists.
My understanding is that in a sentence such as "here is one hand and in the hand is a mug and in the mug is an elephant", not only is every part a hinge proposition but also every part can form a T-sentence.
Each part, i) "Here is one hand", ii) "in the hand is a mug" and iii) "in the mug is an elephant" has to be a hinge proposition in order to allow the rest of the language game to take place.
That a language game is embedded in the world means that there is a correspondence between the language game and the world. If the language game was not embedded in the world, then there could be no correspondence between the language game and the world.
That there is a correspondence means that the T-sentence can be formed from each part, i) "here is one hand" is true IFF here is one hand. ii) "in the hand is a mug" is true IFF in the hand is a mug, iii) "in the mug is an elephant" is true IFF in the mug is an elephant.
In a T-sentence, what does "true" mean? It seems to mean that in the event that something is the case in the world, something does obtain in the world or something is a fact in the world, then that fact can be described by language.
Wittgenstein wrote that some propositions are exempt from doubt.
Where does Wittgenstein write that those propositions which are exempt from doubt are "lived truths"?
Revisiting on hinge propositions, they could still be doubted in theory since doubts can be methodological like that of Descartes, or psychological.
A man who lost his hands in the war or work will doubt he has hands, even if he now has robotic hands.
Folks living in Paris in Texas USA could doubt if Paris in France.
Folks who believe life could be simulation could doubt if the Earth exists.
When we exit the language game, we are in the philosophical game where we discuss about all types of propositions if they make sense.
Descartes doubted everything including even his own existence. But one thing he could not doubt was the fact that he was doubting. The fact that he was doubting proved that he was thinking, and therefore cogito ergo sum.
I have heard about "lived experience", but not "lived truths". What is "lived truths"?
As a starting position, Wittgenstein in On Certainty did write that some propositions are exempt from doubt.
You point out that in ordinary language we do doubt the meaning of some words all the time, so where in ordinary language are those propositions that are exempt from doubt?
In the Meditations, Descartes was discarding all beliefs that were not absolutely certain. He was not discarding all words about which he was not absolutely certain. I can doubt ever getting a good meal in Paris without doubting the meaning of the words "I can doubt ever getting a good meal in Paris". I can use words whose meaning I am certain about to express ideas about which I am not certain.
We may doubt the meaning of some words all the time but we never doubt the meaning of all the words all the time.
As an example consider the sentence "it seems to me that we misunderstand and misuse words all the time."
If I doubted the meaning of every expression within the sentence, the sentence as a whole would be meaningless to me, making it impossible for me to respond to it. But I am responding to it, meaning that in practice I am certain as to the meaning of the words used.
If I doubted the meaning of every expression within the sentence, language as a means of communication would be impossible.
For example, in the sentence "Inaonekana kwangu kwamba hatuelewi na kutumia vibaya maneno kila wakati." there is not a single expression whose meaning is exempt from doubt in my mind
But we know that language does work in enabling communication, therefore there must be some expressions within our language exempt from doubt, as Wittgenstein wrote.
It may be the case that in a sentence there are words whose meaning I am not certain about,
but in that situation I can refer to a dictionary, which may then remove any uncertainty as to its meaning.
If I find the meaning of a word uncertain, I would reach for the Dictionary, not stop writing.
That was my question to @Sam26 who wrote "hinges are about lived truths".
True, but they don't doubt that they have the doubt as to whether the Earth exists.
They believe that doubts are also simulation.
I cannot doubt that I doubt, even if I am a simulation.
There is your certainty. We don't normally make claims using hinge propositions in daily life. We only discuss about them in the philosophy games (as opposed to the language games).
He does, very specifically: The world is all that is the case. Show us where he retracts this, if you like. But it seems to be his starting point. And of course, what is the case is what is true - true sentences. So the world is what is said by true sentences.
Asking where the world exists is inappropriate. Games of "where" occur within the world.
Quoting RussellA
Well, there's your problem.
Quoting RussellA
Very little. "S" is true iff S holds under an extensional, compositional interpretation. A rigid and tight definition. It is not substantive, and not only a correspondence or coherence theory. As it stands it does not assume metaphysical realism, nor systematic consistency of beliefs.
OC 205 seems to indicate that the true/false idea shouldn't be used with hinges, but again, he's talking about traditional hinges. Moreover, we can't forget OC 206, where Wittgenstein points out that if someone asked, "but is that true" (referring to hinges), we might respond "yes," Which gets to my point that we do treat hinges as true in a practical sense, i.e., a lived certainty. In other words, I act in a way that shows their truth. The act of opening a door shows my certainty that there is a door to be opened, and it shows my certainty that I have hands. This practical certainty is a very practical truth.
Wittgenstein's pragmatic view handles different kinds of hinges "I have hands," "The Earth has existed for a long time," and "2+2=4." Their truth is seen in how we live them, whether through actions, practices, or the rules of the game.
§205 is about grounds. You understand that to mean that it is about hinges. Look at §204:
Hinges must be both propositional, and an act.
Hence, they are not propositions that set out how things are in the world, but propositions that set out how we are to talk about the world. They are the rules that set up and constitute our language games. They don't represent the world; they set the terms on which representation takes place.
Quoting Banno
How does Wittgenstein overcome what seems to be a circularity?
1) Hinge propositions are the rules that constitute our language game.
2) Within this language game there can be representations of the world.
3) The world is what is said by true sentences.
Removing any reference to "world"
4) Hinge propositions are the rules that constitute a language game that can represent what is said by true sentences.
It seems that such a language game is self-referential.
There is a difference between asking is it true that "here is one hand" and asking "is it true that here is one hand".
Asking is it true that "here is one hand"
See OC 204
"Here is one hand" is a hinge proposition because it is a rule that constitutes the language game. The end is not a certain proposition that strikes us as true, it is our acting.
Asking "is it true that here is one hand".
See OC 206
If someone asks us "is it true that here is one hand", we may answer "yes, but I cannot give you any grounds". The expression "here is one hand" in this instance is not being used as a hinge proposition. It is not being used as a rule that constitutes the language game but is being used as a part of the language game.
To my understanding, "here is one hand" can be used both as a rule that constitutes a language game and as an expression within a language game. The first is not truth-apt, but the second is.
Problem with hinge proposition is vagueness of its definition. There are other propositions that I don't doubt at all, and they are not hinge propositions. For example,
If I won the lottery jackpot last night, I have 24 million pounds in my bank account today.
I didn't win the jackpot.
Therefore, I don't have 24 million pounds in my bank account today.
Above is not a hinge proposition, but it is the absolute true fact (which is verified via the logical reasoning and reality), and I don't doubt it at all. It is exempt from doubting.
There are many ordinary propositions such as above which are exempt from doubts, especially when verified by sense perceptions, personal experience or logical reasoning on the reality.
I understand that you want to use OC 205 to support your position, viz., that hinges are not true or false. My point is that OC 206 says, "If someone asked us 'but is that true [referring to a hinge]?' we might say 'yes' to him..." OC 206 refers to a response about hinges, and 205 refers to traditional propositions. In other words, hinges (the ground) are not yet true or false in the same way traditional propositions are true or false. He then points out in 206 that despite not being able to call the ground true or false, you can still say they're (hinges) true (206). This indicates to me and others that truth can be ascribed to hinges, just not in a propositional sense. They're like subjective truths that we all hold firm or as indubitable.
What would it mean to say one is certain or one has a conviction, which Wittgenstein points out over and over again, about hinges other than you believe they're true? This is a bedrock truth that cannot be doubted or falsified, which is why they're not like traditional propositions, which can be falsified.
Our differences go a little deeper because my idea of a belief is that it goes beyond propositions. In other words, our actions show our beliefs apart from language.
Wittgenstein defines what we call the hinge proposition as being a proposition that is exempt from doubt.
For Wittgenstein, if "here is one hand" is a hinge proposition and therefore exempt from doubt, there is no reason why "here is no hand" must also be a hinge proposition and therefore exempt from doubt.
Similarly, "here is the Jackpot", "here is no Jackpot", "here are winnings" and "here are no winnings" must also all be hinge propositions and therefore exempt from doubt.
These hinge propositions may be combined into language games:
1) "here is the Jackpot" and "here are winnings"
2) "here is the Jackpot" and "here are no winnings"
3) "here is no Jackpot" and "here are winnings"
4) "here is no Jackpot" and "here are no winnings"
Your particular case is 2) "I didn't win the jackpot"
It is true that your proposition "I didn't win the jackpot" is exempt from doubt.
But I assume that combining two hinge propositions doesn't form a single new hinge proposition.
This is perhaps why "I didn't win the Jackpot" is not a hinge proposition, even though exempt from doubt, as it is a combination of hinge propositons.
As I understand it:
A hinge proposition enables a language game.
A hinge proposition must be exempt from doubt in order to ground the language game.
A language game is contingent because it describes how the world is.
In the mind of the user of the language game, it would be wrong to say that this language game either represents or corresponds with the world. It would be more accurate to say that this language game "is" their world, meaning that there is no other world outside the language game itself.
In other words, we use the language game to understand the world, and this world is nothing other than the language game itself.
Like the formal logic cannot capture or cope with the whole reality, language alone cannot capture or understand the world. Free reasoning based on inference and sense perception must be accompanied for the full capture and proper understanding the world.
Yes, but perhaps for a different reason.
There is language and there is the world.
For the Direct and Indirect Realist, there is a world that exists independently of any human observer. It would seem that for the Direct and Indirect Realist, language alone cannot fully capture or understand the world.
But for Wittgenstein, what is the relation between language and the world?
It seems to me that for Wittgenstein, language "is" the world.
It is not the case that the proposition "here is one hand" is a representation of a world or corresponds to a world, but rather the world is embodied in "here is one hand".
In a sense, a similar concept to that of the Indirect Realist who doesn't perceive a representation of the colour red but directly perceives the colour red.
There is nothing the other side of a world embodied in language.
"Here is one hand" is a hinge proposition not because it is needed to enable a language game that can represent or correspond with a world, but because the world is embodied in the hinge proposition.
What are the implications? We can only understand the world using language. But if the world is our language, and language cannot understand itself, then this inevitably puts a limit on our understanding of the world.
You need more than language for accurate understanding the world i.e. rational thinking and inferring with the observations on the reality.
Language alone can misled folks into the muddle rather than truths on reality. Think of the sad cases where some unthinking folks just read what the internet shady websites says, and accept whatever they say on the topics of even logic, and then just blindly trust them. and even taunt the others' correct ideas.
We need critical thinking and rational inference on the reality coming to our own conclusions on the world. Language is a representational and descriptive tool of the world. Language alone cannot reveal the whole structure of the world.
No. I couldn't make sense of Russell's post - the confusion is legion - but nothing to do with you.
Your confusion towards propositions is apparent. I suspect it derives from too much veneration of propositions and beliefs.
A proposition is one action amongst many. You can show that there is a hand by using it to pick your nose or by saying "Here is a hand"; much of a muchness.
Almost all beliefs are beliefs that... That is, they are propositional.
What makes a hinge proposition different is that for the purposes of the game in which it is a hinge proposition, it is taken to be true. Your seem to want something more, but what, remains unclear.
In other games, the hinge may be doubted.
A hinge is never doubted, or it wouldn't be a hinge.
But is what Wittgenstein believed?
Is it not the case that Wittgenstein believed that our language "is" our world, where the world is embedded in language through the hinge proposition?
In other words, if someone asked me "is it true that hinges are beyond doubt", I might say "yes".
If someone asked me "is it true that one feels pain when stung by a wasp", I might say "yes"
The truth is that one feels pain when stung by a wasp. It is not the pain that is true.
The truth is that hinges are beyond doubt. It is not the hinge that is true.
It is an interesting idea of W, but not sure if it is 100% correct. I feel the world has nothing to do with language or hinge proposition. The world is totally separate from us, existing on its own never saying anything at all. It is doubtful also if the world would listen to us if we said something to it i.e. the world has nothing to do with language. We just use language to describe it, and communicate with others.
If we lived alone like Zarathustra in a cave somewhere on the remote mountain, then we wouldn't need language at all, and still live ok hunting, cooking, watching the stars at night and enjoying the sunshine during the day.
You believe that the world is totally separate to us.
However, this was not the case for Wittgenstein.
According to GEM Anscombe in her paper "The Question of Linguistic Idealism", she considers Wittgenstein to be a partial linguistic idealist.
Partial, in that for Wittgenstein some things don't depend on linguistic practice, such as numbers, horses, wolves, days, etc, whilst some things do depend on linguistic practice, such as rules, rights, promises, etc.
Linguistic idealism is the position that our language does not describe an empirical reality that we are aware of through our sense perceptions, but rather our language determines what kind of contact we have we the reality of the world. Linguistic Idealism undermines the traditional Realist/Idealist debate.
For Wittgenstein, the world is not totally separate to the language that we use to describe it.
I would rather agree with the world of Heideggerian or MP's, of which the structure or existence is disclosed or revealed by language. The world will happily keep existing without language or humans. Perhaps language and humans cannot exist without the world? It seems the case that the world has existed prior to the existence of life for long time.
Hinges are layered. Some hinges, the most basic kind, like "The Earth has existed for more than ten minutes," must be accepted to even have a language or a language game. Here, I'm speaking of the most basic beliefs (such beliefs are the precursors to language) shown only in our actions (although they remain even after language develops), apart from language. The act of sitting on a chair shows my belief in chairs. The act of using my hands shows my belief in hands, etc. This is where hinges start, and they are more fundamental than the hinges that form as part of language. "[I]t is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language game (OC 241). The truth is shown in the actions. This is different from traditional thinking about truth because these truths cannot be doubted or falsified.
You're going a bit too far. My point is that when referring to truth, Wittgenstein is not only thinking in terms of traditional propositions. He applies truth to hinges, too. This is in reference to my discussion with Banno. The truth is built into the actions. The actions show their truth.
A historical individual or institution decided that when someone waves one hand the action is to be named "here is one hand", rather than "here are five fishes", for example. Similar to JL Austin's performative utterance.
With the passage of time, that "here is one hand" indicates the action of waving one hand is now beyond doubt, and is therefore a hinge.
Years later, Moore waves one hand and says "here is one hand"
The proposition "here is one hand" is true if and only if Moore waves one hand.
The action of waving one hand shows the truth of the proposition "here is one hand"
But the proposition "here is one hand" is not the hinge that is exempt from doubt.
Therefore, the action of waving one hand doesn't show the truth of the hinge.
The hinge that is exempt from doubt is that the proposition "here is one hand" indicates the action of waving one hand.
The hinge is neither true nor false. The hinge enables truth and falsity in the language game.
As Wittgenstein wrote, Moore knows that the earth existed long before his birth, and we all know the same as he (OC 84).
I only know about the earth because of language.
A person without language (suppose they had been born on a desert island and raised by Mona monkeys) could not know about the earth.
The problem is, how can I know about something that is independent of language when I can only know about it within language?
For example, in what sense does "earth" in language capture the reality of the earth, being 12,714 km in diameter and having a mass of 5.9722 × 10^24 kg.
Quoting RussellA
Why would you supose you only know things within language? No wonder.
Sure you do. But of course that means you can't say what that more is. And yet you seem to claim to.
The "more" is something like what we do, including what we show. But that can be put into proposition form.
The world is all that is the case. Truth is built in and assertable. Having "hinges" outside of propositions breaches this basic and central tenant, this most central of Wittgenstein's hinge propositions. Here, he is not making a mere observation or assertion but setting up the philosophical game he played throughout his life. He is setting out the extent of the world. Now you want things that are outside the world, that are the case but not true, or true but not the case.
That's inconsistent.
Most folks wouldn't need such information in their life on the earth. Especially if you were a Zarathustra in the remote mountain cave living alone, the earth is a place where you are born, find food, cook, lie down for sunshine and enjoy watching the stars in the night sky. All these activities can be performed without knowing language.
(Subjectivity here isn’t about individualism but about what is shared by all of us, i.e., it's communal agreement.)
Quoting Banno
I'm not talking about anything outside the world. His hinges are tied to the world, i.e., there would be no hinges without the world. You're tied to the notion of propositions and language, but hinges, at least some hinges, support the very ideas you're proposing. The language game of propositions wouldn't exist without these basic certainties.
I think we can get locked into formal definitions and miss these subtleties.
Again, sure. This sort of thing is already in 'meaning as use" motif. I'm not aware of his having addressed Tarski directly, and certainly Davidson's view is after and reliant on Wittgenstein.
Unfortunately I don't have access to the Floyd articles on the topics that concern you. The tension between us might be similar to that between prose and proof that she discusses. It's pretty unlikely that W. did not grasp the formal argument, as some have suggested. But it might be mistaken to supose that the tension between formalism and prose is strictly either-or. Gödel uses a notion of "truth" that is independent of proof, while Wittgenstein looks more to some form of constructionism; another tension that you will need to deal with in your new project.
I'll put my previous argument to you again, since it seems to me that it is central, but perhaps not as obvious as I had thought. Briefly and dogmatically...
1. The world is all that is the case. This I take as a view that W. kept throughout his thinking.
2. In the Tractatus, W. argues that there are important aspects of the world that are shown, but not said.
3. In PI, W. adds that there are also things we do, and that these include what we do with words - that it is what we do with words that is important, not abstract and private "meanings".
4. In OC, W. adds that there are some things that we say which ground what we do, including our use of words. These are effectively not about the world, but rather set up the language we use. This is best understood in the terms Anscombe later set out, as a difference in direction of fit.
Now the difficulty faced by the recent fad of reading Wittgenstein as suggesting that there are non-propositional truths is that it is difficult to give instances of things that are true and yet unstatable. And this is a pretty direct consequence of (1) - that the world is all that is the case - the world is what can be stated to be true.
Truth is more than a propositional notion in that it is how the world is, of course - but that is repeating the difference between "the cat is on the mat" and that the cat is on the mat; between making noises and making assertion, between saying and doing.
I don't see that you have provided a notion of truth that is adequate to these tasks, and i think this is so not becasue you have not done enough with "truth", but that you have tried to do too much.
Point 1:
You seem to agree that truth is more than a propositional notion, tied to our actions, which aligns with Wittgenstein’s meaning as use (PI 43). You point out that this is already present in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and I agree – it’s a cornerstone of my argument. In OC 204, Wittgenstein says, “It is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language game.” I build on this by showing how the truth of hinges is demonstrated in our actions. For example, sitting in a chair shows the truth that chairs exist, a prelinguistic certainty (OC 148), whereas linguistic actions – like saying “I know the Earth exists” in a communal context reflect lived certainties (OC 206). Your acknowledgment doesn’t fully address my layered view of hinges, which makes a distinction between prelinguistic and linguistic certainties. This is crucial to understanding how truth operates at different levels of our practices. I’ll return to this point as I address your other critiques.
Point 2:
There is a tension between Godel’s formal notion of truth and Wittgenstein’s constructivist approach, which suggests the need for further investigation. Godel’s incompleteness theorems (1931) rely on objective truth—unprovable statements are true in a mathematical sense, independent of proof within the system. You argue that Wittgenstein leans toward constructivism, which ties truth to our practices (OC 241). However, my analogy between Godel and Wittgenstein is structural. Godel shows that formal systems require unprovable statements to function, and Wittgenstein shows that epistemological systems require unprovable hinges that enable justification and doubt (OC 115). Both systems rely on unprovable foundations despite being in different domains (formal systems vs lived practices). This supports my argument about the limits of human knowledge without conflating the two notions of truth.
Point 3:
You argue that truth is propositional, rooted in the Tractates’ “the world is all that is the case” (T 1), and that hinges are effectively not about the world” but set up our language (as per Anscombe). You trace this through Wittgenstein’s development—PI’s focus on what we do with words (PI 43), and OC’s hinges grounding our language use. I disagree with your interpretation on two grounds. First, your reliance on the Tractatus overlooks Wittgenstein’s evolution in On Certainty. In OC 241, he says, “It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life.” Truth is embedded in our communal practices, not just what can be stated. Hinges aren’t merely linguistic setups—they’re tied to the world we live in (OC 94: “I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness…”). Sitting on a chair shows my belief in chairs, this is an action in the world, not just a language rule.
Second, you claim that hinges can’t be non-propositional truths because truth is statable, which misses my layered view. Prelinguistic hinges, like “Chairs exist,” are shown in actions before language (OC 475: “I want to regard man here as an animal…”). Their truth is in the acting itself—sitting on a chair demonstrates its truth (OC 204). Linguistic hinges, like “I am not a brain in a vat,” are stated, but their truth is still pragmatic—I live as if the world is real. In OC 206, Wittgenstein says we might say ‘yes’ if asked if a hinge is true—we treat it as true because we live it, not because it’s a justified proposition. My view isn’t about unstatable truths; it’s about truths shown in actions, which later we articulate. Your propositional focus overlooks this prelinguistic layer, where truth precedes language.
Point 4:
Finally, you claim I haven’t provided an “adequate” notion of truth, suggesting I’ve tried to do “too much” by extending truth beyond propositions. I believe this is an unfair critique because it doesn’t fully engage with my pragmatic view, which is specific to hinges, not a universal redefinition of truth. I argue that truth for hinges is shown in our actions—physical (sitting on a chair) and linguistic (using words in language games)—and embedded in our forms of life. This isn’t a new theory of truth but a way of understanding how truth functions for hinges, aligning with Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. In OC 204 he emphasizes acting, and in OC 206, he notes we treat hinges as true - as a lived certainty. My layered view ensures this applies to both prelinguistic hinges (truth in acting) and linguistic hinges (truth in language games). Your T-sentence model assumes truth is propositional, but prelinguistic hinges aren’t propositions—their truth is in the acting itself. My notion of truth is adequate for hinges—it captures their lived, communal nature, offering a nuanced perspective on how truth works in our practices, not just in statements.
Today, that "here is one hand" means waving one hand is beyond doubt, and is therefore a hinge.
Neither "here is one hand" nor waving one hand is a hinge. "Here is one hand" means waving one hand is the hinge.
But suppose, as you say, that this hinge is true.
Then, this hinge is true because "here is one hand" means waving one hand.
IE, "here is one hand" means waving one hand is true because "here is one hand" means waving one hand.
But this is an example of the Law of Identity. where the notion of truth is redundant. We say A is A. We don't say A is true because A.
What makes Moorean propositions ("Here is one hand.") a hinge, according to Wittgenstein, is their status as bedrock certainties. This particular bedrock certainty is prelinguistic (not all hinges are prelinguistic, but bedrock certainties are), i.e., it's shown in our actions. Our actions alone demonstrate our certainty that we have hands. (This is not an objective certainty, i.e., it's subjective and communal, not individualistic, meaning they’re shared in our forms of life.) Many such bedrock hinges fall into this prelinguistic category and they're the foundation for language itself. These prelinguistic certainties or beliefs are a necessary precursor for all our talk of justification and truth (i.e., traditional propositional talk). The subjective certainty in these bedrock hinges is lived, prelinguistic beliefs shown in actions—is equivalent to what we hold to be true in a pragmatic lived sense, but not in the traditional, propositional sense. You still seem to want to think of them in the traditional sense. They don't function like that.
We treat certain actions as true in a very practical way. The act of opening a door shows that we treat this hinge as true in a very practical and pragmatic sense. There is no doubt here, there is just action that reflects our subjective communal certainties.
How are you defining "hinge"?
Is the hinge 1) the Moorean proposition "here is one hand", or 2) the prelinguistic bedrock certainty, here is one hand.
Hinges are layered, arational (arational because they are not subject to the rational processes of justification, doubt, or proof that characterize traditional epistemological theory), foundational convictions shared by all humans within our forms of life that serve as indubitable certainties grounding our epistemological language, systems of doubt, and justification. They exist both prelinguistically and linguistically, with their truth shown through our actions rather than propositional validation.
:smile: I appreciate your definition.
Prelinguistic
In the world are facts, such as i) here is one hand, ii) the apple is green, iii) the mountain is next to the tree.
These facts exist within human Forms of Life. They exist prelinguistically and are beyond doubt. They are bedrock certainties.
Question 1. Are these prelinguistic facts hinges?
The notion of truth is redundant.
If the apple is green then the apple is green.
Nothing is added - if the apple is green then it is true that the apple is green.
Linguistic meaning
Today, that "here is one hand" means here is one hand is beyond doubt.
The notion of truth is redundant
If "here is one hand" means here is one hand then "here is one hand" means here is one hand
Nothing is added - if "here is one hand" means here is one hand then it is true that "here is one hand" means here is one hand.
Linguistic correspondence
"Here is one hand" is a hinge proposition because its meaning is beyond doubt, as we know that it means here is one hand.
"Here is one hand" is true IFF here is one hand
The truth of the proposition "here is one hand" is contingent on there being here is one hand in the world.
Wittgenstein in Tractatus did not describe facts as lived truths
Do you have any reference that supports you in describing prelinguistic facts as lived truths?
Hinges are layered, arational foundational convictions shared by all humans within our form of life. They serve as indubitable certainties grounding our epistemological language, systems of doubt, and justification. Hinges operate on both the prelinguistic and linguistic levels, with their truth shown in our actions rather than in propositional form.
Prelinguistic Hinges: These are the most foundational convictions, such as “Chairs exist” (shown by sitting) or “I have hands” (shown by using them), which are instinctual, prelinguistic beliefs embedded in our actions before language develops (OC 475: “I want to regard man here as an animal…”; OC 148: “Why do I not satisfy myself that I have two feet…? There is no why. I simply don’t. This is how I act”). They form the primary layer, enabling both language and language games by providing the unarticulated certainties on which linguistic practices are built (OC 115: “The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty”).
Linguistic Hinges: These are articulated convictions that develop within language games, such as “I am not a brain in a vat” (OC 114) or “2+2=4,” which remain indubitable and ground specific epistemic or mathematical practices (PI 23). They build on the prelinguistic layer, extending its certainties into linguistic frameworks while retaining their foundational role.
Arational Nature: Hinges are arational, neither true nor false in the traditional epistemological sense because they are not subject to justification or doubt (OC 205: “If the true is what is grounded, then the ground is not true, nor yet false”). They are the “hinges on which our questions turn” (OC 341-343), exempt from the true/false evaluation applied to propositional statements (OC 243: “One says ‘I know’ when one is ready to give compelling grounds… However, with hinges, there is no such possibility”).
Foundational Convictions: Hinges are foundational convictions that anchor our epistemological systems, providing the ungrounded basis for language, doubt, and justification. They are the inherited background against which we distinguish true and false (OC 94: “I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness…”). In OC 102, Wittgenstein says, “There are propositions which… are expressions of a conviction,” highlighting their role as the untested certainties we live by.
Shared Within Our Form of Life: Hinges are communal, not individualistic, they are subjective certainties shared by all humans within our form of life. The prelinguistic belief in chairs’ existence, shown by sitting, is a universal certainty across humans, persisting even after language develops.
Truth Shown Through Actions: The truth of hinges is pragmatic and lived, shown in our actions, both physical and linguistic, rather than through propositional confirmation. For prelinguistic hinges, truth is in the acting: sitting on a chair shows the truth of “Chairs exist." For linguistic hinges, truth is shown in lived practices within language games: treating the world as real reflects the truth of “I am not a brain in a vat” (OC 206: “If someone asked us ‘but is that true [referring to a hinge]?’ we might say ‘yes’ to him…”). This truth is a new category, pragmatic, lived truth, quite distinct from propositional truth, as it exists apart from language for prelinguistic hinges and remains action-based for linguistic hinges.
A valuable post. If I may add my thoughts to your conversation.
I am using "here is one hand" to indicate a proposition in language and (here is one hand) to indicate something in the world.
The requirement for action is limited
In the beginning, the meaning of the proposition "here is one hand" can only be shown by an action, such as waving one hand or pointing to the one hand. In other words, in the beginning, how would anyone know that "here is one hand" means (here is one hand) rather than (here is one finger), unless there was some kind of action?
However, once the process has been repeated a sufficient number of times, then it may become a certainty beyond doubt in the minds of the community that "here is one hand" means (here is one hand). This is along the lines of JL Austin's Performative Utterance.
However, in the world, no action is required to know that (here is one hand) is a certainty beyond doubt. If I see (here is one hand), then there is no uncertainty in my mind that (here is one hand). I don't need to see it wave, be pointed at or open a door for me to be certain beyond doubt that (here is one hand). (Here is one hand) may remain static for me to know beyond doubt that (here is one hand).
The truth of (here is one hand) is no different to the truth of (an apple). As we don't say that (an apple) is true, there is no reason that say that (here is one hand) is true. Is (the Moon) true, is (Mount Everest) true? Then why should (here is one hand) be true?
Prelinguistically, action is not required to know (here is one hand) and in addition, truth is redundant.
Imagine opening a door; you don't ask yourself if the hinges will do their job by holding the weight of the door and allowing it to swing, you simply trust they'll do the job. Now compare this to our everyday beliefs, you don't consider whether or not the ground won't vanish under your feet, or whether the person you're talking to really exists. These bedrock assumptions are what we call hinges, and they're the grounding of every action and question you ever ask, yet you rarely stop to justify them.
Wittgensteinian hinges aren't based on theories or logical proofs. They're the unspoken bedrock certainties that make epistemology possible. If someone asked you, "How do you know the Earth will be here tomorrow?" You'd probably reply, "I just do." Questioning hinges feels absurd, yet without them, you couldn't even begin to act or think.
Wittgenstein is making a profound point. Just as the door would fail to function without its hinges, so would our entire system of thought or epistemology collapse if we tried to justify all of our bedrock convictions. Hinges are the silent pillars holding everything up, everything we know, and we rarely notice them.
Wittgenstein's Hinges and Gödel's Unprovable Statements
By: @Sam26
Abstract
In Ludwig Wittgenstein's final notes, published posthumously as On Certainty (1969), Wittgenstein introduces the concept of hinge propositions as foundational certainties that lie beyond justification and doubt (OC 341-343). These certainties support our language-games and epistemic practices, offering a distinctive perspective on knowledge that challenges traditional epistemology's demand for universal justification. I argue for a structural parallel between Wittgenstein's hinges and Gödel's 1931 incompleteness theorems, demonstrating that consistent mathematical systems contain true statements that cannot be proven within those systems. Both thinkers uncover fundamental limits to internal justification: Wittgenstein shows that epistemic systems rest on unjustified certainties embedded in our form of life, while Gödel proves that mathematical systems require axioms that cannot be demonstrated within the system itself. Rather than representing failures of reasoning, these ungrounded foundations serve as necessary conditions that make systematic inquiry possible. This parallel suggests that foundational certainties enable rather than undermine knowledge, pointing to a universal structural feature of how such systems must be grounded. This analysis has implications for reconsidering the nature of certainty across epistemology and the philosophy of mathematics.
Introduction
We often perform actions without hesitation, such as sitting on a chair or picking up a pencil, without questioning the existence of either. This unthinking action illustrates Wittgenstein's concept of a hinge proposition, a fundamental certainty that supports our use of language and epistemological language-games. Wittgenstein compares hinge propositions to the hinges that enable a door to function; these certainties provide the underlying support for the structures of language and knowledge, remaining unaffected by the need for justification.
Wittgenstein's hinges bear a remarkable resemblance to Gödel's incompleteness theorems, revealing unprovable mathematical statements. This resemblance points to deeper questions about how both domains handle foundational issues. Both Wittgenstein and Gödel uncover limits to internal justification, a connection I will examine.
Traditional epistemology often misinterprets hinges by forcing them into a true/false propositional role, neglecting their foundational status embedded in our epistemic form of life. These bedrock assumptions precede argument or evidence, forming the foundational elements of our epistemic practices. Similarly, Gödel's incompleteness theorems showed that any consistent arithmetic system contains true statements unprovable within the system and cannot demonstrate its own consistency.
This connection is significant because it highlights the boundary between what counts as bedrock for epistemic and mathematical systems. Both rest on certainties that lie beyond justification, certainties that are not flaws in reasoning but necessary foundations that make knowledge claims possible. This paper argues that ungrounded certainties enable knowledge, rather than undermining it, and that hinges and Gödel's unprovable statements serve a similar purpose. By examining the parallels between Wittgenstein and Gödel, particularly the role of unprovable foundations and the need for external grounding, this paper sheds light on the nature of certainty in our understanding of both epistemology and mathematics.
Section 1: Hinges and Their Foundational Role
Wittgenstein's concept of hinge propositions is crucial to his thinking, particularly in the context of epistemology. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein introduces the idea of hinges as certainties that ground our epistemic practices. While Wittgenstein never explicitly distinguishes types of hinges, his examples suggest a distinction between nonlinguistic and linguistic varieties, revealing different levels of fundamental certainties.
Nonlinguistic hinges represent the most basic level of certainty, bedrock assumptions that ground our actions and interactions with the world. These are not expressed as propositions subject to justification or doubt but embodied in unreflective action. For instance, the certainty that the ground will support us when we walk is a nonlinguistic hinge that enables movement without hesitation. Similarly, our unthinking confidence that objects will behave predictably, that chairs will hold our weight, that pencils will mark paper, represents this bedrock level of certainty. These hinges operate beneath the level of articulation, forming the silent background against which all conscious thought and language become possible.
Building upon this bedrock foundation, linguistic hinges operate at a more articulated but less fundamental level. These are certainties embedded within our language-games and cultural practices, often taking the form of basic statements like "I have two hands" or "The Earth exists." Unlike nonlinguistic hinges, these can be spoken and seem propositional, yet they resist the usual patterns of justification and doubt. Other examples include statements such as "I am a human being" or "The world has existed for a long time," assertions that appear to convey information but function more as structural supports for discourse than as ordinary claims requiring evidence.
These two types of hinges show how certainty operates at different levels in grounding knowledge. Nonlinguistic hinges form the deepest stratum, revealing the unquestioned backdrop that makes any form of questioning possible. Linguistic hinges, while still foundational, represent a layer above bedrock that anchors shared discourse within specific contexts. Both types resist justification, but their resistance stems from different sources: nonlinguistic hinges from their pre-rational embodiment in action, linguistic hinges from their structural role within our language-games.
Wittgenstein breaks with traditional epistemology here. Rather than viewing these certainties as beliefs requiring justification, he recognizes them as the ungrounded ground that makes justification itself possible. He notes, "There is no why. I simply do not. This is how I act" (OC 148). Doubting these hinges would collapse the very framework within which doubt makes sense, like attempting to saw off the branch on which one sits.
A crucial distinction emerges between subjective and objective dimensions of these certainties. While our relationship to hinges involves unquestioning acceptance, this certainty is not merely psychological. These assumptions are shaped by our interactions with a world that both constrains and enables our practices. The certainty reflected in our actions has an objective component, as it emerges from our shared engagement with reality and proves itself through the successful functioning of our practices.
This interpretation of hinges as operating at different foundational levels finds support in recent Wittgenstein scholarship, though it diverges from some prominent readings. Danièle Moyal-Sharrock argues that hinges are fundamentally non-propositional, existing as lived certainties rather than beliefs or knowledge claims (Moyal-Sharrock 2004). While my distinction between nonlinguistic and linguistic hinges aligns with her emphasis on the embodied, pre-propositional character of our most basic certainties, I suggest that some hinges do function at a more articulated level within language-games, even if they resist standard justification patterns.
Duncan Pritchard's interpretation emphasizes hinges as commitment-constituting rather than knowledge-constituting, arguing they represent a distinct epistemic category that enables rather than constitutes knowledge (Pritchard 2016). This view supports the parallel with Gödel's axioms: both hinges and mathematical axioms function as enabling commitments that make systematic inquiry possible without themselves being objects of that inquiry. The mathematical case strengthens Pritchard's insight by showing how even formal domains require such commitment-constituting foundations.
This analysis extends beyond epistemology to reveal a striking parallel with Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which demonstrate analogous limits within formal mathematical systems. Just as Gödel showed that mathematical systems rely on axioms that cannot be proven within those systems, Wittgenstein's hinges reveal that epistemic systems rest on certainties that cannot be justified internally. This comparison suggests a fundamental structural limitation in rational grounding, whether in mathematics or human knowledge, and invites reconsideration of what it means for knowledge to be properly grounded.
Section 2: Gödel’s Unprovable Statements as Mathematical Hinges
Gödel's incompleteness theorems, published in 1931, establish fundamental limits within formal systems, revolutionizing our understanding of mathematical foundations. Gödel demonstrated that within any consistent system of arithmetic, there will always be statements that are true under the standard interpretation but cannot be proven within the system itself. For instance, the statement asserting the system's own consistency, a meaningful mathematical claim about the system's properties, cannot be demonstrated within that system, even if the system is indeed consistent. Moreover, no such system can demonstrate its own consistency. Such statements are meaningful propositions with definite truth values that reveal structural limitations inherent to formal systems. This limitation persists even when systems are extended. Adding new axioms to prove previously unprovable truths creates strengthened systems that, if consistent and sufficiently powerful, generate their own sets of true but unprovable statements. The cycle of incompleteness is thus perpetual, revealing not a flaw in particular systems but a structural feature of formal mathematics itself.
This limitation mirrors Wittgenstein's hinges in important ways. Just as hinges are certainties that cannot be justified within the epistemic systems they support, Gödel's results show that mathematical systems require axiomatic starting points that cannot be proven within those systems. The Peano axioms, which establish the foundation for arithmetic, exemplify this necessity. These axioms are not accepted because they are provable; they cannot be proven within the systems they generate. Rather, they are adopted as systematic starting points that enable mathematical development, chosen because they make possible coherent, productive systems.
The parallel extends to the necessity of external acceptance. Gödel's systems require axioms accepted from outside the formal system itself, while Wittgenstein's hinges are certainties not arrived at through investigation but accepted as part of our form of life (OC 138). In both cases, what enables the system lies beyond the system's internal capacity for justification. Mathematical axioms and epistemic hinges both function as ungrounded grounds, foundational elements that make systematic inquiry possible precisely because they are not themselves subject to the forms of scrutiny they enable.
Yet there is an important difference here: mathematical axioms are typically chosen for their elegance, consistency, and power to generate interesting mathematics, while hinges appear more embedded in contingent cultural and biological practices. Yet this difference strengthens rather than weakens the parallel. If even mathematics, often considered the paradigm of rigorous proof, requires unjustified foundational elements, how much more must everyday understanding rely on unexamined certainties? The universality of this structural requirement across domains as different as formal mathematics and lived experience suggests a fundamental feature of how systems of thought must be organized.
Both domains thus reveal that functioning without such foundational elements is implausible. Mathematical systems risk incoherence without axiomatic starting points, just as epistemic practices risk collapse without the bedrock certainties that Wittgenstein identifies. The parallel illuminates a shared structural necessity: systematic thought requires ungrounded foundations that enable rather than undermine the possibility of reasoning within those systems.
Section 3: Beyond Internal Justification: A Cross-Domain Analysis
Both Wittgenstein and Gödel reveal that justification operates within boundaries, where certain elements serve as foundations that cannot be further justified within their respective systems. Both thinkers expose a basic structural feature of systematic thought: the impossibility of a complete system of justification in either domain.
Traditional approaches to knowledge often assume that proper justification requires tracing claims back to secure foundations that are themselves justified. This assumption generates the classical problem of infinite regress: any attempt to justify foundational elements through further reasoning creates an endless chain of justification that never reaches secure ground. Both Wittgenstein's hinges and Gödel's axioms reveal why this demand for complete internal justification is not merely difficult but impossible in principle.
As Wittgenstein observes, "There is no why. I simply do not. This is how I act" (OC 148). This insight captures something crucial about the nature of foundational certainties: they are pre-rational in the sense that they precede and enable rational discourse rather than emerging from it. Hinges are not conclusions we reach through reasoning but lived realities that make reasoning possible. Similarly, mathematical axioms are not theorems we prove but starting points we adopt to make proof possible.
There is an important difference between these domains. Hinges emerge from contingent practices embedded in particular forms of life, while mathematical axioms are selected through systematic considerations within formal contexts. Hinges reflect the biological and cultural circumstances of human existence, whereas axioms reflect choices made for their mathematical power and elegance. If anything, this difference makes the parallel more compelling by demonstrating its scope: if even the most rigorous formal disciplines require unjustified starting points, the necessity of such foundations in everyday knowledge becomes even more apparent.
This cross-domain similarity reveals what appears to be a universal structural requirement. Systems of thought, whether formal mathematical theories or practical epistemic frameworks, cannot achieve complete self-justification. They require external elements that are not justified within the system but make systematic inquiry within that framework possible. Rather than representing failures or limitations, these unjustified foundations function as enabling conditions that make coherent thought and practice possible.
Recognizing this structural necessity transforms how we understand the relationship between certainty and knowledge. Instead of viewing unjustified elements as epistemological problems to be solved, we can understand them as necessary features that allow knowledge systems to function. Both mathematical proof and everyday understanding depend on foundations that lie beyond their internal capacity for justification, yet this dependence enables rather than undermines their respective forms of systematic inquiry.
Conclusion
I have argued for a fundamental parallel between Wittgenstein's hinges and Gödel's incompleteness results: both demonstrate that systematic thought requires ungrounded foundations. By examining how epistemic and mathematical systems share this structural feature, we gain insight into the nature of foundational certainties across domains of human understanding.
The parallel between these seemingly distinct philosophical insights suggests that the limits of internal justification are not accidental features of particular systems but necessary conditions for systematic thought. Recognizing this gives us a more realistic picture of how knowledge actually functions, not through endless chains of justification reaching some ultimate ground, but through practices and formal systems that rest on foundations lying beyond their internal scope.
Rather than viewing these limits as philosophical problems requiring solutions, this analysis suggests embracing them as structural necessities that make knowledge possible. Wittgenstein's hinges ground our epistemic practices in the lived realities of human existence, while Gödel's axioms ground mathematical systems in choices that prove their worth through the coherent theories they generate. Both reveal that the search for completely self-grounding systems is not merely difficult but misconceived.
I believe this perspective has broader implications for understanding certainty and knowledge. It suggests that the interplay between grounded and ungrounded elements is not a flaw in human reasoning but a fundamental feature of how systematic understanding must be structured. By recognizing this necessity, we can develop more nuanced approaches to foundational questions in epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, and potentially other domains where the relationship between systematic inquiry and its enabling conditions remains philosophically significant.
References
Gödel, K. (1931). Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, 38, 173-198.
Moyal-Sharrock, D. (2004). Understanding Wittgenstein's On Certainty. Palgrave Macmillan.
Pritchard, D. (2016). Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing. Princeton University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On Certainty (G. E. M. Anscombe & G. H. von Wright, Eds.; D. Paul & G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Basil Blackwell.
Very very good. Your explanations of both Wittgenstein and Gödel are clear and crisp. That is, there's an admirable brevity to both, without loss of import.
While I still have some reservations about thinking of Gödel sentences as foundational, I have great sympathy for your conclusion. The belief in an ultimate grounding for our rational systems is fundamentally flawed, such that there must always be things taken as granted rather than demonstrated.
You set out clearly an issue that is fundamental to rationality.
What I would like to do is develop an epistemology based on JTB, but with a Wittgensteinian twist - for example, demonstrating how our methods of justification apply across various language games within our form of life.
My first reaction is that of course there need be nothing in common between the various language games. My second, that not all language games involve justification.
I'm not sure what you mean by "...there can be nothing in common between the various language games." Your second point "...that not all language games involve justification" is true, but all language games involving knowledge claims do involve some sort of justification (logic, linguistic training, sensory experience, testimony, etc.). Unless you mean there are uses of the word knowledge that aren't epistemological, then I agree.
Just that whatever constraint one puts on a language game, someone may find a game that undermines that constraint...
A puzzlement more than a point.
If there are variable language games, are there also variable human forms of life that play those games, or is there but one?
If there are many, then we cannot know who shares our form, and so we cannot know that we are playing a language game at all. My conversation with a parrot isn't public use.
If you say there is only one human form of life, then that belief must itself be a hinge, because we cannot derive it from language use (which presupposes it), and we cannot claim to know it empirically without violating Wittgenstein’s broader rejection of a metaphysical correspondence theory.
Quoting Hanover
I’ve always thought that language games and forms of life were synonymous.
Quoting Hanover
I beleive there are many. But if so, how did Wittgenstein come to know that there are language games? Perhaps from the experience of initially finding a set of discursive practices within a foreign community to be incoherent, and then later learning how to engage with that form of life. This may have led him to surmise that if the sense of meaning of word use is only contingently grounded within a particular language game, then even within that game, reference to pre-existing rules and criteria of meaning of words do not guarantee how they will be understood.
With regard to my conversation with a parrot (or with an A.I.), to the extent that I claim that I understand the parrot and the parrot understands me, I must be drawing from some already available normative discursive structure of meaning, which is likely to come from the language games I share with my human discursive community. Isnt this what we do when we interpret our pet’s behaviors in anthropomorphic terms? Which is not to say that we can’t enter into a language game directly with our pet dog.
Quoting Sam26
What’s you think is the difference between a language game and a form of life?
So, not synonymous.
And calling for a block or buying an apple would look more or less the same, in various different cultures.
Consider Quine's Gavagai as a language game. Identifying the referent of "Gavagai" perhaps doesn't much matter, provided you participate int he hunt and get your share of the stew.
Quoting Hanover
Wittgenstein’s form of life refers to shared practices, behaviors, and instinctive foundations that make meaning possible, and this is true whether cultural (like rituals) or universal (like pain reactions). These forms of life give rise to distinct language games, viz., rule-governed and flexible ways of speaking within these activities (e.g., science, chess, or humor). Forms of life vary across cultures and domains; it’s crucial to stress that not all are rigidly rule-bound; some are organic (e.g., grieving), and boundaries often blur. There is no single, overarching form of life for Wittgenstein. I believe he rejects the idea of a universal logic or framework underpinning all language and meaning. Instead, meaning emerges from multiple and diverse forms of life, each with its own internal rules or norms. For instance, the language games of religious belief and scientific proof operate differently, with no master form to reconcile them. While overlaps exist (e.g., counting in math and carpentry), these practices resist being flattened into one system. I guess you could say the key takeaway is pluralism: meaning is always local, grounded in the practical and contextual ways we live and speak.
Quoting Banno
Perhaps a form of life can be understood via Witt’s description of a family of resemblances, which ties together discrete games on the basis of commonalities that are intertwined but not reducible to a single shared thread:
Yep. Quite agree.
Here are all the mentions on PI:
And from OC:
So not synonymous with "language game", but more the ground on which they take place.
My OP on two ways to do philosophy is along these lines.
Explanation - or justification - requires a contrast between what is explained and the explanation. For an explanation to function it must take what is being explained as granted - an explanation as to why the wasabi plants are thriving grants that the wasabi plants are thriving. The explanation explains and accepts something external to itself.
What our explanations - justifications - have in common is that there is something to justify. What our language games have in common is that they are embedded in the world, and together they make a form of life.
If we're going to rely upon metaphysical similarity to create meaningful language, why not leave it at the beetle?
Yes, and we certainly cannot know that we are playing the same language game as someone else.
If so, how would we recognise it as a 'form of life"?
Are language games explanations-justifications or are they structures of intelligibility providing the criteria for justification?
Yes.Quoting Banno
We couldn't. We'd assume it, but it could be a robot. You and I could be differing forms of life. It's assumed many humans don't share forms of life. You also could be a bot.
We assume we are similar forms of life. It's a hinge belief. This is a metaphysical assumption. It's the Cartesian solution. God would not so deceive us.
My point is I'd rather not play the Wittgenstein game and just assume my beetle is yours. Metaphysically the same.
Quoting Banno
However, language games are embedded and make use of stuff in the world - apples and blocks and so on. Hence they presume the world is a certain way - that it contains blocks and apples.
So I think the general point remains, even if not all langauge games are explanations-justifications.
What do you think?
I don't think that quite right. We might participate in a form of life or a language game, without sucha n assumption.
Hence my reference to the Gavagai example. We don;t have to assume that Gavagai means "un-detached rabbit part" in order to participate in the hunt and the feast.
But how do you link this to form of life? Differing languages don't exclude similar life forms. The French and the English can have differing forms of life.
If social interaction dictated form of life, then a loyal dog that returns with prey shares a form of life.
Form of life is feeling like a deus ex machina.
We don't need determinate meaning to get on with the language games nor with the forms of life.
That doesn't seem quite available here?
To play the game is to move blocks and apples around. What counts as a block or an apple is constituted by the game, as much as prior to the game.
1. Manipulating the world is playing the game; and
2. Naming objects one manipulates is part of the game (this can be read in two directions. I've arbitrary chosen one as a possible reading).
The former point, yes 100% get you there. More or less agree too.
The second point I can't quite grok. Is this to say that the operation of non-language to language (i.e pointing and slapping the X, to "Slab!") is also part of the game?
I don't think I get that from Witt or other concepts of language use/games.
It's only a block so far as it participated in the game of building.
This is of course quite contrary to the view that there are already blocks outside of the language game.
Quoting Banno
I don’t know that Witt would want to separate the perception of things from the things themselves. He discusses this in relation to the duck-rabbit drawing in his analysis of what it means to ‘see something as’. Rather than our perception being an interpretation or perception of something external to it (a pre-existing something), the ‘seeing as’ is fundamental.
But I walk away from "perception" because it is seen as private. Seems to me that form a Wittgensteinian perspective, perception as a private experience drops out of the language game.
That is, roughly, that if what counts as a block is constituted by the language game, then so is what is perceived as a block.
Neither the block nor the perception of block are outside of the game.
Not as clear as I'd like. This is not to say that there is nothing more than language. There certainly are blocks.
Edit: Quoting Banno
Even clearer .
Cheers.
Think that made my day.
It's a rare thing.
Quoting Banno
These two come off as contradictory:
1. There are only blocks within the game of building.
2. There is more than language; there certainly are blocks.
Does it clarify to say instead “there certainly are things outside of language games, it’s just that they are not ‘blocks’ until we bring them into a game such as building.”
But this doesn't address the meta element of the form of life, which is critical to holding the system together. The Wittgensteinian enterprise is to dispense with the relevance of the metaphysical as the foundation of meaning, but if it creeps back in, then it has failed.
To address the form of life in your Gavagai example would require a linguist who is attempting to interpret the language not of a foreign people but of a lion. The lion represents the being with a differing form of life, who, per Wittgenstein's clear statement, we would not understand. The Gavagai example is no different from French to English to German. That is, all those folks share a form of life. We're looking for those who don't.
Consider AI. You can speak back and forth with AI, with full understanding, but I submit you are not playing a language game with ChatGPT. It is a lion. It lacks your form of life. What this means is that there is a metaphysical anchor to meaning. It is use by something like you. What is like you isn't decipherable by simply looking at the person, the lion, or the dolphin. It is something inherent within that being that processes like or not like you. If not, you are left with a convincing parrot, lion, AI program, or Searle's Chinese speakers as playing language games, which they are not.
So my problem here is that if we're going to say that we're taking as a hinge belief the uniformity of thought processes among various people, why not just make it a hinge belief that we truly have the same beetle metaphysically. If we're going to reduce this down to an object of foundation/hinge/faith, why choose one method over the other?
You have misunderstood.
The bit you miss is that language games and language are not the same.
A language game - moving blocks, counting apples - is not confined to language.
So, "There are only blocks within the game of building" is not confined to language. It directly invovles blocks.
And so a language game involves more than just language.
How will you respond?
This supposes that the we and the French participate in the same Form of Life...
Are you confident in that? :wink:
Even less so with ChatGPT, since it participates in a form of life in the way of a block or an apple.
Quoting Hanover
That's certainly not something I'm suggesting. "The unity of thought processes" cannot be confirmed in any other way than by what people say and do. It's not a "hinge belief" that brings about any unity. The unity is seen in what is said and done, and that alone.
Hence, we do not have to agree on a hinge belief about gavagai in order to go on the hunt. It;s the doing that counts.
I think I see. And thanks for the reply.
Language itself is not the game. Interesting. Because “a language game involves more than just language.”
Does this then make sense:
In the case of building with blocks, we can construct a language game wherein two people work together and one yells “block” and as the other person hears the language and plays the game of building the other then brings the block because he heard “block” and knows the game. The 1. language game of building here involves 2. language and 3. blocks (likely among other things and more language and more complex gaming). But it takes 2 and 3 before 1 can emerge.
And when you say “we are always already in a language” (which I think you said a few times), does that mean we are always sort of given into a language game, already playing by communicating through language, or does it mean something else, like in a language but not in a language game? I took it to mean we are already in a game when we are thinking/communicating in a language about the world.
What do you mean by “already in a language” then?
You are presupposing that it is a mere presupposition. How about thinking that in the absence of any possibility of demonstrating that a faculty of noesis exists, the conclusion that is does not is warranted? Or more modestly a pragmatic conclusion that if it cannot be demonstrated to exist then it is of no philosophical use?
This is what the eliminativist says about consciousness. Of course there are demonstrations, that's why it was the dominant theory. But if one presupposes epistemic standards that remove it by default (much as behaviorism and eliminativism make consciousness epiphenomenal by default) one hasn't done much of anything except beg the question.
And that's not really the point. If such a faculty is accepted as a hinge proposition, it shows that the theory of hinge proposition itself is not presuppositionless, but fails to obtain given certain assumptions.
Where the empiricist tradition has ended up, bottoming out in denying consciousness, denying truth as anything more than a token in "games," etc., along with the radical skepticism engendered by arguments from underdetermination, which are undefeatable given its premises (likewise for Hume's attack on induction), is arguably a reductio conclusion against the initial assumptions.
Why change the subject to consciousness. Consciousness is obviously amply demonstrated.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Are you suggesting that noesis has been accepted as a hinge proposition? If so, what evidence do you have that that is so?
Noesis has not been demonstrated to exist. If you disagree then show the evidence that it exists. And note, I am treating the belief in noesis as the idea that our metaphysical intuitions can be known to give us, or at least sometimes can be known to give us, a reliable guide to the nature of realty?not reality as sensed, which is obviously intelligible to us, but reality in a purportedly absolute or ultimate sense.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus Hume did not attack induction?he merely pointed out that inductive reasoning is not logically necessary in the way that valid deductive reasoning is.
So a rabbi and an anthropologist walk into a bar, and Ludwig asks "why are you here?" They each say "it's the right time to be here. " And they don't communicate because their forms of life vary, despite the syntactically correct response, yet the question and answer were entirely different to each.
The question then is where is this form of life? You say, I don't care where it is, I just need to know that it is. I see it in the way the anthropologist looks at and speaks of evolution and the way the rabbi prays and reads his Talmud.
But my response is it absolutely matters where it is because unlike meaning of language being use, form of life is not in behavior. It is assumed from behavior, but not caused by behavior, meaning a rabbi who mimics an anthropologist to avoid persecution remains a rabbi.
Form of life is inherent in the being. ChatGPT given time will be spoken from the perfect robot, whose behavior will perfectly mimic the human's. I contend it will not use langauge. It is a lion.
A thought experiment: would a community of AI generators that speak publicly create langauge because they all have the same form of life?
Would their language be just as much language as the one we speak?
This last parenthetical sentence ought give us pause when considering the usefulness of "form of life".
I can't follow your reasoning here, sorry. Was that your point?
The form of life is what we do. It's not here nor there. Consider:
The form of life as "a kind of knowing one's way about".
Are you after something about the supposed missing internal life of a community of AI's? Do you think I am suggesting that there is no "internal life" for the users of "gavagai"? I'm not; I'm just pointing out that you may get your rabbit stew regardless of that internal life. Or not.
I don't think its arguable, either. The use of the words (or, the fact of, i guess) is clearly a language game. Simply moving objects isn't. No?
Quoting Fire Ologist
3 distinctions to grapple with? 1. Language, 2. the world to which language is applied, in a 3. language game.
Or Quoting AmadeusD
This sounds like using language itself is a game (maybe because it comes with syntax, or subject/predicate functioning)? Or is language still not itself a game, and we can talk about language without its gaming application?
I think these are valid questions, no? I certainly don’t know how to address.
This seems true even without Wittgenstein's insights. We play games with our interlocutors. Some explicit uses would be sarcasm or hyperbole.
Yes, i am familiar. I agree, but the actual moving of the object doesn't seem to me part of the game. Like orange slices at half time.
I don't understand this. If "Block" did not result in the apprentice moving a block, then we have no game. Moving the blocks is constitutive of the block game.
Quoting AmadeusD
Yeah. The master moves blocks by giving a command as much as by pushing them with their hand. I'm sorry you can't see that. It prevents you participating fully in this discussion.
Quoting Banno
I would be hard pressed, but i can certainly see my way to it, yes!
Wittgenstein's Hinges and Gödel's Unprovable Statements
Abstract
In Ludwig Wittgenstein's final notes, published posthumously as On Certainty (1969), Wittgenstein introduces the concept of hinge propositions as foundational certainties that lie beyond justification and doubt (OC 341-343). These certainties support our language-games and epistemic practices, offering a distinctive perspective on knowledge that challenges traditional epistemology's demand for universal justification. I argue for a structural parallel between Wittgenstein's hinges and Gödel's 1931 incompleteness theorems, demonstrating that any consistent, effectively axiomatized system capable of arithmetic contains arithmetical truths that cannot be proven within the system. Both thinkers uncover fundamental limits to internal justification: Wittgenstein shows that epistemic systems rest on unjustified certainties embedded in our form of life, while Gödel shows that any consistent, effectively axiomatized system strong enough for arithmetic has statements it cannot settle from within and cannot, from within itself, prove its own consistency. Rather than representing failures of reasoning, these ungrounded foundations serve as necessary conditions that make systematic inquiry possible. This parallel suggests that foundational certainties enable rather than undermine knowledge, pointing to a universal structural feature of how such systems must be grounded. This analysis has implications for reconsidering the nature of certainty across epistemology and the philosophy of mathematics.
Introduction
We often perform actions without hesitation, such as sitting on a chair or picking up a pencil, without questioning the existence of either. This unthinking action illustrates Wittgenstein's concept of a hinge proposition, a fundamental certainty that supports our use of language and epistemological language-games. Wittgenstein compares hinge propositions to the hinges that enable a door to function; these certainties provide the underlying support for the structures of language and knowledge, remaining unaffected by the need for justification.
Wittgenstein's hinges bear a remarkable resemblance to Gödel's incompleteness theorems, revealing unprovable mathematical statements. This resemblance points to deeper questions about how both domains handle foundational issues. Both Wittgenstein and Gödel uncover limits to internal justification, a connection I will examine.
Traditional epistemology often misinterprets hinges by forcing them into a true/false propositional role, neglecting their foundational status embedded in our epistemic form of life. These bedrock assumptions precede argument or evidence, forming the foundational elements of our epistemic practices. Similarly, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems show that any consistent, effectively axiomatized system capable of arithmetic contains arithmetical truths unprovable within the system and cannot, from within itself, prove its own consistency.
This connection is significant because it highlights the boundary between what counts as bedrock for epistemic and mathematical systems. Both rest on certainties that lie beyond justification, certainties that are not flaws in reasoning but necessary foundations that make knowledge claims possible. This paper argues that ungrounded certainties enable knowledge, rather than undermining it, and that hinges and Gödel's unprovable statements serve a similar purpose. By examining the parallels between Wittgenstein and Gödel, particularly the role of unprovable foundations and the need for external grounding, this paper sheds light on the nature of certainty in our understanding of both epistemology and mathematics.
Section 1: Hinges and Their Foundational Role
Wittgenstein's concept of hinge propositions is crucial to his thinking, particularly in the context of epistemology. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein introduces the idea of hinges as certainties that ground our epistemic practices. While Wittgenstein never explicitly distinguishes types of hinges, his examples suggest a distinction between nonlinguistic and linguistic varieties, revealing different levels of fundamental certainties.
Nonlinguistic hinges represent the most basic level of certainty, bedrock assumptions that ground our actions and interactions with the world. These are not expressed as propositions subject to justification or doubt but embodied in unreflective action. For instance, the certainty that the ground will support us when we walk is a nonlinguistic hinge that enables movement without hesitation. Similarly, our unthinking confidence that objects will behave predictably, that chairs will hold our weight, that pencils will mark paper, represents this bedrock level of certainty. These hinges operate beneath the level of articulation, forming the silent background against which all conscious thought and language become possible.
Building upon this bedrock foundation, linguistic hinges operate at a more articulated but less fundamental level. These are certainties embedded within our language-games and cultural practices, often taking the form of basic statements like "I have two hands" or "The Earth exists." Unlike nonlinguistic hinges, these can be spoken and seem propositional, yet they resist the usual patterns of justification and doubt. Other examples include statements such as "I am a human being" or "The world has existed for a long time," assertions that appear to convey information but function more as structural supports for discourse than as ordinary claims requiring evidence.
These two types of hinges show how certainty operates at different levels in grounding knowledge. Nonlinguistic hinges form the deepest stratum, revealing the unquestioned backdrop that makes any form of questioning possible. Linguistic hinges, while still foundational, represent a layer above bedrock that anchors shared discourse within specific contexts. Both types resist justification, but their resistance stems from different sources: nonlinguistic hinges from their pre-rational embodiment in action, linguistic hinges from their structural role within our language-games.
Wittgenstein breaks with traditional epistemology here. Rather than viewing these certainties as beliefs requiring justification, he recognizes them as the ungrounded ground that makes justification itself possible. He notes, "There is no why. I simply do not. This is how I act" (OC 148). Doubting these hinges would collapse the very framework within which doubt makes sense, like attempting to saw off the branch on which one sits.
A crucial distinction emerges between subjective and objective dimensions of these certainties. While our relationship to hinges involves unquestioning acceptance, this certainty is not merely psychological. These assumptions are shaped by our interactions with a world that both constrains and enables our practices. The certainty reflected in our actions has an objective component, as it emerges from our shared engagement with reality and proves itself through the successful functioning of our practices.
This interpretation of hinges as operating at different foundational levels finds support in recent Wittgenstein scholarship, though it diverges from some prominent readings. Danièle Moyal-Sharrock argues that hinges are fundamentally non-propositional, existing as lived certainties rather than beliefs or knowledge claims (Moyal-Sharrock 2004). While my distinction between nonlinguistic and linguistic hinges aligns with her emphasis on the embodied, pre-propositional character of our most basic certainties, I suggest that some hinges do function at a more articulated level within language-games, even if they resist standard justification patterns.
Duncan Pritchard's interpretation emphasizes hinges as commitment-constituting rather than knowledge-constituting, arguing they represent a distinct epistemic category that enables rather than constitutes knowledge (Pritchard 2016). This view supports the parallel with mathematical axioms: both hinges and mathematical axioms function as enabling commitments that make systematic inquiry possible without themselves being objects of that inquiry. The mathematical case strengthens Pritchard's insight by showing how even formal domains require such commitment-constituting foundations.
This analysis extends beyond epistemology to reveal a striking parallel with Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which demonstrate analogous limits within formal mathematical systems. Just as Gödel showed that sufficiently strong systems face statements they cannot settle and cannot prove their own consistency from within, Wittgenstein's hinges reveal that epistemic systems rest on certainties that cannot be justified internally. This comparison suggests a fundamental structural limitation in rational grounding, whether in mathematics or human knowledge, and invites reconsideration of what it means for knowledge to be properly grounded.
Section 2: Gödel’s Unprovable Statements and a Hinge-Like Limit
Gödel’s incompleteness theorems (1931) mark hard limits within formal theories. In any consistent, effectively axiomatized system strong enough for arithmetic, there are arithmetical statements that are true under the standard interpretation but not provable by the system’s own rules; and no such system can, from within itself, prove its own consistency. These are structural limits, not defects of a particular axiom set, and they persist under extension: add new axioms to settle an undecidable statement and—so long as the strengthened theory remains consistent and comparably strong—new undecidable statements arise in turn.
This limitation mirrors Wittgenstein’s hinges in an important way. Just as hinges are certainties that are not justified by the very practices they enable, Gödel identifies a limit on internal vindication: even very strong formal systems have truths they cannot prove and cannot establish their own consistency from within. The point is not that axioms ought to be proven (axioms are adopted), but that every practice—including mathematics—runs on enabling commitments that do not receive their warrant from the inferential moves they make possible.
Independently of Gödel, formal theories begin with axioms that are adopted rather than proved. Gödel’s results then add a further limit: even once the axioms are fixed, some truths remain unprovable and the theory cannot certify its own consistency from within. Wittgenstein’s hinges play an analogous enabling role in our epistemic life: background certainties we do not arrive at by inference but that make inference possible.
Yet there is an important difference here: mathematical axioms are typically chosen for their elegance, consistency, and power to generate interesting mathematics, while hinges appear more embedded in contingent cultural and biological practices. Yet this difference strengthens rather than weakens the parallel. If even mathematics, often considered the paradigm of rigorous proof, requires unjustified foundational elements, how much more must everyday understanding rely on unexamined certainties? The universality of this structural requirement across domains as different as formal mathematics and lived experience suggests a fundamental feature of how systems of thought must be organized.
Both domains thus reveal that functioning without such foundational elements is implausible. Mathematical systems risk incoherence without axiomatic starting points, just as epistemic practices risk collapse without the bedrock certainties that Wittgenstein identifies. The parallel illuminates a shared structural necessity: systematic thought requires ungrounded foundations that enable rather than undermine the possibility of reasoning within those systems.
Section 3: Beyond Internal Justification: A Cross-Domain Analysis
Both Wittgenstein and Gödel reveal that justification operates within boundaries, where certain elements serve as foundations that cannot be further justified within their respective systems. Both thinkers expose a basic structural feature of systematic thought: the impossibility of a complete system of justification in either domain.
Traditional approaches to knowledge often assume that proper justification requires tracing claims back to secure foundations that are themselves justified. This assumption generates the classical problem of infinite regress: any attempt to justify foundational elements through further reasoning creates an endless chain of justification that never reaches secure ground. Both Wittgenstein's hinges and Gödel’s incompleteness results reveal why this demand for complete internal justification is not merely difficult but impossible in principle.
As Wittgenstein observes, "There is no why. I simply do not. This is how I act" (OC 148). This insight captures something crucial about the nature of foundational certainties: they are pre-rational in the sense that they precede and enable rational discourse rather than emerging from it. Hinges are not conclusions we reach through reasoning but lived realities that make reasoning possible. Similarly, mathematical axioms are not theorems we prove but starting points we adopt to make proof possible.
There is an important difference between these domains. Hinges emerge from contingent practices embedded in particular forms of life, while mathematical axioms are selected through systematic considerations within formal contexts. Hinges reflect the biological and cultural circumstances of human existence, whereas axioms reflect choices made for their mathematical power and elegance. If anything, this difference makes the parallel more compelling by demonstrating its scope: if even the most rigorous formal disciplines require unjustified starting points, the necessity of such foundations in everyday knowledge becomes even more apparent.
This cross-domain similarity reveals what appears to be a universal structural requirement. Systems of thought, whether formal mathematical theories or practical epistemic frameworks, cannot achieve complete self-justification. They require external elements that are not justified within the system but make systematic inquiry within that framework possible. Rather than representing failures or limitations, these unjustified foundations function as enabling conditions that make coherent thought and practice possible.
Recognizing this structural necessity transforms how we understand the relationship between certainty and knowledge. Instead of viewing unjustified elements as epistemological problems to be solved, we can understand them as necessary features that allow knowledge systems to function. Both mathematical proof and everyday understanding depend on foundations that lie beyond their internal capacity for justification, yet this dependence enables rather than undermines their respective forms of systematic inquiry.
Conclusion
I have argued for a fundamental parallel between Wittgenstein's hinges and Gödel's incompleteness results: both demonstrate that systematic thought requires ungrounded foundations. By examining how epistemic and mathematical systems share this structural feature, we gain insight into the nature of foundational certainties across domains of human understanding.
The parallel between these seemingly distinct philosophical insights suggests that the limits of internal justification are not accidental features of particular systems but necessary conditions for systematic thought. Recognizing this gives us a more realistic picture of how knowledge functions, not through endless chains of justification reaching some ultimate ground, but through practices and formal systems that rest on foundations lying beyond their internal scope.
Rather than treating these limits as problems in need of a cure, we should take them as structural conditions of inquiry. Wittgenstein’s hinges anchor our epistemic practices in the lived background of a form of life; in mathematics, axiomatic choices provide the starting points of a theory. Gödel’s incompleteness results mark the corresponding boundary on internal vindication: even with the axioms fixed, a system strong enough for arithmetic has statements it cannot settle and cannot, from within itself, prove its own consistency. Both lessons show that the demand for a completely self-grounding system is not merely difficult but misconceived.
I believe this perspective has broader implications for understanding certainty and knowledge. It suggests that the interplay between grounded and ungrounded elements is not a flaw in human reasoning, but a fundamental feature of how systematic understanding must be structured. By recognizing this necessity, we can develop more nuanced approaches to foundational questions in epistemology, philosophy of mathematics, and potentially other domains where the relationship between systematic inquiry and its enabling conditions remains philosophically significant.
References
Gödel, K. (1931). Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, 38, 173-198.
Moyal-Sharrock, D. (2004). Understanding Wittgenstein's On Certainty. Palgrave Macmillan.
Pritchard, D. (2016). Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing. Princeton University Press.
Wittgenstein, L. (1969). On Certainty (G. E. M. Anscombe & G. H. von Wright, Eds.; D. Paul & G. E. M. Anscombe, Trans.). Basil Blackwell.
I have argued that this parallel is more metaphorical than substantive, because the two concepts operate in fundamentally different domains and address different kinds of problems. To claim a direct parallel between the mechanics of hinges and incompleteness is to make a category error. There is only a broad formal similarity between the two. Gödel saw his results not as a reason to abandon formalism but as a guide to discovering new, intuitive axioms from set theory that could extend our mathematical knowledge. He was a mathematical Platonist who believed we had access to mathematical truth beyond formal systems. For Wittgenstein, the problem of skepticism is dissolved, not solved. The response is to stop looking for a philosophical foundation and recognize the foundation in our ordinary practices.
Thank you for the response. I am not claiming that hinges and incompleteness are the same thing; I am arguing that they share a structural feature, a limit on internal vindication, that clarifies why both epistemic practice and formal mathematics proceed as they do. By “foundational,” I do not mean an inferential base that justifies the rest; I mean constitutive certainties that enable assessment and inquiry without themselves being earned by inference.
On the charge of “mere metaphor” or category error, my claim is second-order. Hinges are arational certainties that do not get their warrant from the very inferences they enable; they are part of the background that makes asking for reasons possible. Gödel’s results show that any consistent, effectively axiomatized system strong enough for arithmetic contains arithmetical truths it cannot prove, and cannot, from within itself, prove its own consistency. In both domains, there is a principled limit on what counts as from-within justification, that is the level at which I am drawing the parallel.
Gödel’s own Platonism is not essential to this point. Whether one seeks new axioms on intuitive grounds or not, incompleteness and the second theorem still mark the same internal limit. Extending a theory yields only relative vindication, inside the stronger framework undecidable truths reappear, and consistency still lacks a proof from within.
On Wittgenstein and skepticism, I agree that the problem is dissolved rather than solved. That is exactly why calling hinges “foundational” in a non-traditional sense matters, they are enabling conditions rooted in our form of life, not premises that do evidential work. The analogy respects this, it does not revive a search for ultimate grounds, it explains why the demand for a self-grounding system misfires.
There are important disanalogies, and I acknowledge them. Gödel sentences are ordinary propositions with determinate truth conditions, many basic hinges are enacted and often non-propositional. Mathematics is deliberately revisable and pluralistic; hinge certainties are far more stubborn and pre-theoretical. These differences do not touch the structural point. My thesis is modest and substantive; both domains exhibit a limit on internal justification, and seeing that parallel helps explain why the quest for a completely self-grounding system is not merely difficult, it is misconceived.
Part 2 of my book (a subsection):
Chapter 6: Epistemology and the Nature of Knowledge—A Deeper Dive
We often talk as if knowing were simple. I say I know my car is in the driveway, I know my closest friend’s name, I know the sun will rise tomorrow. Such claims feel immovable in ordinary life, and the confidence that accompanies them belongs to how these judgments function for us. Yet, when we press the matter, when we ask what gives that assurance its footing, we find that certainty is not a free-standing monument but part of a wider practice in which reasons, entitlements, and background certainties cooperate. The appearance of simplicity is instructive: it invites us to pause, examine the ground under our feet, and say what must already stand fast for talk of reasons, proof, and mistake to make sense at all.
The same tension frames NDE reports. A patient describes vivid perceptions while clinically near death—voices, instruments, exchanges among staff—and later offers a detailed account that seems to match the room and the timeline. The narrative arrives with conviction, sometimes with life-altering force and moral seriousness. But conviction alone does not settle what we are entitled to say we know, nor does it show how such reports fit the language-games of evidence. Our task is to sort conviction from warranted belief, and warranted belief from truth, without ignoring the human weight of these experiences or the public criteria by which claims are assessed.
In Chapter 2 I set out a four-condition account of knowledge that I will use here, call it JTB+U. Knowledge requires the truth of the proposition, the believer’s commitment to it, publicly assessable justification, and a further condition: conceptual understanding. Without that competence, words misfire, and what looks like a belief becomes a misuse of grammar rather than a contentful claim. With JTB+U in view, we can approach testimony with standards that respect ordinary practice while guarding against lucky alignment. In what follows, I treat justification as practice-indexed: reasons count within our language-games, the ordinary practices that supply public criteria for correct use (see Glossary: “Language-games”).
1. Truth — accords with how things are in reality; reality makes it true, not our confidence.
2. Belief — the subject takes the claim to be true, not merely recites the sentence or entertains it as a hypothesis.
3. Public Justification — the belief is supported by reasons others can in principle inspect, check, and contest; the support is not private.
4. Conceptual Understanding — the subject competently grasps the concepts at issue and can use the relevant terms correctly within the practice. Mastery shows in application: recognizing what counts as a correct move, spotting misuse, and explaining the ordinary tests. This is not a matter of private introspection but of publicly trainable rule-following within our language-games (see Glossary: “Rule-following,” “Language-games”).
The tripartite model reaches back to Plato’s Theaetetus and has endured because it captures something right about knowledge: true belief is not yet knowledge unless it is properly grounded. At the same time, lived inquiry is messier than tidy definitions suggest. “Justification” can become an empty placeholder if we detach it from the practices that supply criteria, error-signals, and standards of success. That detachment is what the “+U” is designed to prevent.
JTB, then, is a helpful starting point, not a final resting place. We sharpen it by situating reasons in use—within specific language-games—by marking the public criteria that govern correct application, and by acknowledging the hinge background that makes justificatory moves possible at all. With JTB+U in view, we can now state how justification works in practice and why that shift dissolves much of the apparent puzzle about luck and knowledge.
Enter Wittgenstein. He shifts meaning from inner pictures to use and relocates philosophical grip in our public, rule-governed activities. In On Certainty, he brings into view hinge propositions: arational certainties that are not hypotheses to test or theses to prove, but the conditions that let testing and proving count as such. We do not justify them; they stand fast for us, and because they do, reasons can be weighed. This vantage also clarifies the grammar of “know,” separating the epistemic use—answerable to criteria—from the convictional use that simply voices assurance. Set within this frame, JTB gains depth; adding conceptual understanding makes it a tool situated inside the practices it is meant to illuminate.
In the notes collected as On Certainty, Wittgenstein traces the limits of doubt and shows why a wholesale challenge to the background ends the very language-game of giving and asking for reasons. Some certainties lie in the river-bed, shifting slowly if at all; some are cultural-historical or personal-practical; still others are embodied and prelinguistic, displayed in how we move through a familiar room without inner consultation. These layers of bedrock make inquiry possible. They are not theses to defend; they are what allows defense and criticism to be recognizable practices. Acknowledging this bedrock does not canonize it; it clarifies the conditions under which revision has sense.
Before drawing a method from these insights, a brief orienting note about testimony’s place in the framework is in order.
Testimony is both a primary route to justification and, at a higher level, a proving ground for method. Because it is social, it depends on public criteria: access to the facts, competence in the relevant domain, sincerity, independence of sources, convergence over time, and resilience under attempted disconfirmation. Throughout this chapter, I will treat testimony, logic (inductive & deductive), sensory experience, linguistic training, and pure logic as principal routes rather than an exhaustive catalog. The ordering is fixed for clarity, not to signal rank. Testimonial claims will serve as a running case, precisely because they are rich, contested, and guided by public standards while remaining open to defeat by further evidence.
With JTB+U in view, and with hinges and testimony on the table, the task now is to lay out a method for evaluating knowledge claims in practice. The aim is modest and disciplined: identify the route, check the grammar of the claim, scan for hinge background, apply route-specific criteria, and screen for defeaters. Along the way, we will distinguish the epistemic use of “I know,” which is answerable to criteria, from the convictional use that merely voices assurance.
I certainly wouldn't propose that Wittgenstein would agree with everything I'm proposing. I'm merely extending what I think follows from Wittgenstein.
Edited 8/24/2025
I have always been skeptical of Gettier problems, even back when I subscribed to the classical Justified True Belief (JTB) model of knowledge. To me, those examples never quite landed as genuine counterexamples; they seemed more like confusions in how we apply the concept of justification. In the standard Gettier case, like the one where Smith believes "Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" based on misleading evidence about Jones, the belief ends up true by accident via Brown. It's true, believed, and apparently justified—but it doesn't feel like knowledge. Critics say this breaks JTB, demanding fixes like no-false-lemmas or tracking conditions. But I saw it differently: Smith isn't truly justified; he's just thinking he is, relying on premises that don't hold up under scrutiny.
This intuition fits seamlessly into my JTB+U framework, which extends JTB with a Wittgensteinian twist. Knowledge still requires truth (the proposition matches reality), belief (genuine conviction, not mere recitation), and justification (supported by publicly assessable reasons via paths like testimony or logic). But we add Conceptual Understanding (+U): competent grasp of the key terms, demonstrated through correct use in the relevant language-game. Without this, claims misfire as grammatical errors, not valid epistemic moves.
In Gettier scenarios, +U reveals the flaw: the subject misapplies "justification," treating lucky or false-based reasons as a competent warrant. Smith's inference conflates private seeming (convictional assurance) with public criteria—his reasons are defeasible and hinge on a mismatch with reality. Hinge propositions, those arational certainties from Wittgenstein's On Certainty that "stand fast" (like "Evidence should track truth without coincidence"), ground genuine justification. Gettier cases dissolve therapeutically: they're not failures of JTB but calls to clarify usage in practice. We don't need to redefine knowledge; we need to see that "thinking one is justified" isn't the same as being justified in the shared stream of life.
This approach honors Wittgenstein's insight that philosophical puzzles often stem from misusing language. It keeps evaluation pragmatic: warrant emerges from public reasons and competent grasp, respecting conviction's human weight without equating it to knowledge. In the end, Gettier cases, rooted in misunderstandings of justification, underscore the value of JTB+U: knowledge as a practice in our forms of life, where genuine warrant leaves no space for luck.
While I believe JTB+U offers a fresh way forward in epistemology, blending classical JTB with Wittgenstein's later ideas on hinges and language-games, I hesitate to call it entirely new; philosophy builds on what came before, after all. It's more an extension or refinement, with some original touches like the layered hinges and the Gödel parallel, but grounded firmly in existing traditions. If it sparks clearer thinking, that's enough for me.
I begin where our practices begin. Before I argue for anything, I stand on what already stands fast: there is a shared world, words keep their uses from one moment to the next, memory and instruments ordinarily work, and other people are real partners in inquiry. I do not prove these each time I make a claim; I rely on them so that giving and asking for reasons can even get started. I call these fixed points hinges. They are not conclusions; they are the bedrock on which conclusions are drawn.
This starting floor matters because the old problems of regress and circularity never go away. If every reason needed a further reason, I would never begin; if I tried to justify the starting floor with the very tools it enables, I would move in a circle. Hinges stop both temptations. They are not secret premises and not dogmas; they are the background of our forms of life. They can shift when our ways of checking change, but within a given practice, they are the background that lets reasons count.
With that in view, I can say what I mean by knowing. To know is to accept something as true, to be able to give reasons that others can check, and to understand the claim well enough to use it correctly and to see where it does not apply. The public side is essential: justification is not a private feeling; it is an earned standing inside shared procedures. In my view, JTB is further strengthened by grounding it in this background, rather than weakened by its dependence on what stands fast.
The word “know” itself does two jobs, and conflating them generates confusion. Sometimes “I know” functions as an expression of conviction, as in “I know this is my hand.” No one expects evidence there; it points to the floor we act from. At other times, “I know” signals epistemic standing, where doubt makes sense and a route of checking is available, as in “I know the train leaves at 6:18,” backed by a timetable and ordinary procedures. My model keeps these uses apart: the first marks hinge-level certainty, the second belongs to justification.
Public justification runs along five familiar routes, none sovereign on its own: testimony, logic in both inductive and deductive reasoning, sensory experience, linguistic training, and pure logic understood as formal structure only, for example “X or not X.” Different questions call for different mixes, but the rule of thumb is simple: give the kind of reason a competent other could in principle verify from where they stand.
To keep the routes honest, I rely on three guardrails. First, No-False-Grounds: do not build on a mistake, so check the provenance of what you take for granted in the case at hand. Second, practice safety: use methods that fit the practice, so chemistry is not settled by a poll and character is not read off a voltmeter. Third, defeater screening: actively look for counter-evidence and better explanations that would undercut the claim. These do not replace reasons; they discipline how reasons are gathered, weighed, and held.
Understanding the “U” in JTB+U is not an ornament. It shows in competent use: the ability to extend a concept to new instances, to draw the inferences that go with it, and to recognize its limits without special prompting. Someone who repeats a medical note yet cannot tell a pulse from an oxygen reading does not, in the relevant sense, know. Understanding ties reasons to the grammar of the claim within the practice.
Taken together, the picture is spare. Hinges give us a place to stand, so regress and circularity do not paralyze inquiry. Within that space, knowledge is true belief with reasons others can check, further strengthened by grounding it in what stands fast. The five routes say what counts as a reason here, the three guardrails keep the routes from drifting, and the two uses of “know” keep our language clear. The aim is not a clever definition; it is a workable method for telling knowledge from its near-neighbors in ordinary cases and in the cases that matter most.
I start by fixing the background, and the chess analogy helps: you do not prove the board, pieces, or rules before you move; you stand on them so that a move can be a move at all. Inquiry works the same way. I rely on a shared world, on words keeping their uses from moment to moment, on memory and instruments ordinarily working, on other minds as partners in checking. These are fixed-point hinges. They are not conclusions we reach; they are what let giving and asking for reasons get started.
This starting floor matters because the old problems of regress and circularity never go away. If every reason needed a further reason, I would never begin; if I tried to justify the starting floor with the very tools it enables, I would move in a circle. Hinges stop both temptations. They are not secret premises and not dogmas; they are the background of our forms of life. They can shift when our ways of checking change, but within a given practice, they are the background that lets reasons count.
The analogy also marks the limits of doubt. In chess you doubt a move, not the existence of the board mid-game; in inquiry you doubt a reading, an inference, a report, not the bare possibility of language working while you are using it to doubt. Skepticism belongs inside the game, where there are procedures for checking. That is the sense in which hinges preempt the regress: they do not win an argument by force; they make argument possible.
Hinges are not chosen by whim and not certified by theory. We inherit them in our training and reveal them in what we count as a check. Over time, whole practices can change, new instruments, new techniques, new standards, and with them, some hinges may move. But the movement is slow and public, like learning a variant of the game rather than making a special move. Day to day, the hinges stand fast so that reasons can be given, tested, and corrected.
With this in view, the next step is straightforward: when I say “know,” I mean a true belief, backed by reasons a competent other could in principle check, held with enough understanding to use the claim correctly and see where it does not apply. The hinge background does not replace those reasons; it frames them. In my view, JTB is further strengthened by grounding it in what stands fast.