The Indispensability of Knowledge
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The Indispensability of Knowledge Michael Williams 1 Received: 8 August 2019 / Accepted: 16 October 2019/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Nuno Venturinha holds that the contextualist epistemology adumbrated in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty–the most powerful response to philosophical skepticism yet developed– falls short of providing a complete answer to Cartesian radical skepticism about knowledge of the external world. I argue that Venturinha underestimates the range and complexity of Wittgenstein’s epistemological. He does so because he reads Wittgenstein along the lines of so-called ‘hinge epistemology’. Hinge epistemology indeed fails as a diagnosis of skepticism. But it also fails as a reading of Wittgenstein. A more adequate understanding of Wittgenstein suggests that Venturhinha’s pessimistic conclusion can be avoided. Keywords Skewpticism . WIttgenstein . Hinges . Certainty . Knowledge
1 Introduction Nuno Venturinha holds that the most powerful response to philosophical skepticism can be found in the contextualist epistemology adumbrated in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. However, he argues that not even Wittgensteinian contextualism provides the complete answer to Cartesian radical skepticism that we would like to have. Whatever Wittgenstein may have thought, his anti-skeptical reflections leave us with a residual skeptical anxiety that can be allayed only by our going beyond epistemological reflection on factual knowledge to engage our sense of ourselves as moral beings. I think that Venturinha underestimates the range and complexity of Wittgenstein’s epistemological ideas. This is because he reads Wittgenstein along the lines of so-called ‘hinge epistemology’. In my view, hinge epistemology fails both as a reading of Wittgenstein and as a diagnosis of skepticism. Obviously, in these brief remarks I cannot fully explain or defend such controversial claims. But I shall point to what I take to be decisive reasons for thinking that hinge epistemologists have badly misread
* Michael Williams [email protected]
1
Department of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Philosophia
Wittgenstein. I shall then turn to some early passages from On Certainty, which introduce themes that find no place in hinge epistemology. As we shall see, they offer hints as to how Venturinha’s pessimistic conclusion can be avoided.
2 Giving in to the Skeptic Hinge epistemology is inspired by one of Wittgenstein’s striking metaphors: the hinges that must stay put if the door (of inquiry) is to turn (1974: § 343). On this reading, Wittgenstein’s master thought is that epistemic evaluation takes place against a background of deeply sedimented, often unspoken (and in one version ineffable) certainties: propositions that “lie apart from the route travelled by enquiry” (1974: § 88). This is not just a matter of our not having the time or resources to investigate everything. Rather, such ‘hinge’ commitments shape our understanding of what it is to ask for or give reasons: as commitments that make epistemic evaluatio
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