Venturinha and Epistemic Vertigo
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Venturinha and Epistemic Vertigo Duncan Pritchard 1,2 Received: 5 August 2019 / Accepted: 16 October 2019/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract This paper critically explores Nuno Venturinha’s (2018) discussion of the Wittgensteinian notion of epistemic vertigo in the context of the radical sceptical problematic, at least as that notion has been recently articulated by Duncan Pritchard (e.g., 2016). Keywords Epistemology . Epistemic vertigo . Hinge epistemology . Scepticism .
Wittgenstein . Venturinha
1 Introductory Remarks Venturinha (2018) has written an ambitious and wide-ranging book developing his contextualist epistemology. Since there is a great deal of philosophical overlap between Venturinha’s views and my own, not least in terms of the kind of broadly Wittgensteinian approach to philosophical questions that we both endorse, my goal here is to target one key thread in this book, which is Venturinha’s appeal to the notion of epistemic vertigo. This is an idea that I have developed in a number of recent works, and which I take to be a central element of the Wittgensteinian epistemology that I defend.1 As we will see, although Venturinha endorses my account of epistemic vertigo, it also seems clear from his wider remarks that he has a different understanding of it. Accordingly, by focusing on this notion we are able to highlight ways in which our understanding of the skeptical problematic diverges. At the very least, this gives me the opportunity to press Venturinha further on one key element of his epistemological position.
1 For the main statement of my Wittgensteinian treatment of radical skepticism, including the notion of epistemic vertigo, see Pritchard (2016: passim). For more on my treatment of the notion of epistemic vertigo itself, see Pritchard (2019, forthcoming-a).
* Duncan Pritchard [email protected]
1
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
2
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Philosophia
2 Epistemic Vertigo and Wittgensteinian Epistemology In Wittgenstein’s final notebooks, published as On Certainty (Wittgenstein 1969), one can discern, albeit in impressionistic form, a distinctive approach to certain fundamental epistemological issues. This is his so-called hinge epistemology. In outline, hinge epistemology appeals to the idea that there is a set of basic arational commitments that are core to all rational evaluation: the hinge commitments. These are everyday (‘Moorean’) claims that we are all optimally certain of (though we rarely, if ever, explicitly reflect upon them). They are essentially arational because these commitments must be in place in order for rational evaluation to even be possible (this explains the use of the ‘hinge’ metaphor). Our hinge commitments, even while fundamental to our rational practices, are thus not in the market for knowledge. Since hinge commitments cannot themselves be rationally evaluated, and yet are required for all rational evaluation to occur, it f
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