scholarly journals Why Wittgenstein Doesn’t Refute Skepticism

Discurso ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel Albieri Krempel
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Strong Version ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Truth Value

In On Certainty, Wittgenstein formulates several criticisms against skepticism about our knowledge of the external world. My goal is to show that Wittgenstein does not here offer a convincing answer to the skeptical problem. First, I will present a strong version of the problem, understanding it as a paradoxical argument. In the second part, I will introduce and raise problems for two pragmatic responses against skepticism that appear in On Certainty. Finally, I will present some of Wittgenstein’s logical criticisms against skepticism, which may initially be considered strong, because they seem to refute some skeptical assumptions. They concern Wittgenstein’s ideas that it is logically impossible to doubt and to be mistaken about Moorean propositions, and that these propositions don’t have a truth-value. But even these, I intend to show, do not really challenge skepticism, for they are not well grounded.

On What Does Rationality Hinge?

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 246-257
Author(s):  
Yuval Avnur
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Specific Material ◽  
Main Components

The two main components of Coliva’s view are Moderatism and Extended Rationality. According to Moderatism, a belief about specific material objects is perceptually justified iff, absent defeaters, one has the appropriate course of experience and it is assumed that there is an external world. I grant Moderatism and instead focus on Extended Rationality, according to which it is epistemically rational to believe evidentially warranted propositions and to accept those unwarrantable assumptions that make the acquisition of perceptual warrants possible and are therefore constitutive of ordinary evidential warrants. I suggest that, even though Extended Rationality might be true, it cannot do the work that Coliva wants it to do. Although my objections do not show that it is false, they can serve to clarify what sorts of problem a theory of justification or rationality could possibly address. This provides an alternative to Coliva’s view of the skeptical problem and the question, on what does rationality hinge?

Die Gewissheit der Orientierung

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-71
Author(s):  
Werner Stegmaier
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Language Game ◽  
External World ◽  
Language Games ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Closing The Gap ◽  
New Interpretation

AbstractIn his treatises A Defence of Common Sense (1925), Proof of an External World (1939), and Certainty (1941), G.E. Moore wanted to put an end to the modern doubts about the certainty of reality and the ‘external world’ by pointing to the undeniable plausibilities of ‘empirical propositions,’ such as ‘I know that this is my hand’ or ‘I know that the earth had existed before my body was born.’ Wittgenstein, who was intensely grappling with Moore’s proofs during the last one and a half years before his expected death, still questioned these proofs and countered them with his concept of language games – including a different logic of the ‘connection with reality.’ Philosophically, he thereby left many loose ends in all places and admittedly a ‘gap’ between them, which he was no longer able to close. But he prepared for closing the gap by means of his concept of orientation, which he had initiated in his Philosophical Investigations without defining it in this term. In a new interpretation of On Certainty from the perspective of the Philosophy of Orientation, this paper tries to show how the attention to the phenomenon of orientation and the language game in which it is expressed can close this gap and thus carry on Wittgenstein's late philosophy to a certain point.

scholarly journals The Indeterminacy of Translation: Fifty Years Later

Disputatio ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (32) ◽  
pp. 385-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. White
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Rule Following ◽  
Stimulus Meaning ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Epistemological Skepticism

Abstract The paper considers the Quinean heritage of the argument for the indeterminacy of translation. Beyond analyzing Quine’s notion of stimulus meaning, the paper discusses two Kripkean argument’s against the Quinean claim that dispositions can provide the basis for an account of meaning: the Normativity Argument and the Finiteness Argument. An analogy between Kripke’s arguments and Hume’s argument for epistemological skepticism about the external world will be drawn. The paper shows that the answer to Kripke’s rule-following skepticism is analogous to the answer to Humean skepticism: our use of concepts is more basic than, and presupposed by, the statement of the skeptical problem itself.

scholarly journals Contemporary Approaches to the Problem of Cartesian Skepticism. Open Lecture: Does the External World Exist? Part I. Solving or Dissolving the Skeptical Problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-194
Author(s):  
Igor E. Pris
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism ◽  
Traditional Epistemology ◽  
Epistemological Disjunctivism ◽  
Hinge Epistemology ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
Successful Approach ◽  
Frame Work ◽  
Hinge Proposition

We consider some newcontemporary approaches to solving or dissolving the problem of skepticism regarding the existence of the external world, in particular, disjunctivism, Duncan Pritchard’s biscopic approach and Timothy Williamson’s knowledge first approach. We argue that resolving the skepticalproblem within the framework of epistemological disjunctivism is problematic because it does not take into account the Wittgenstein's notion of a hinge proposition. In fact, a successful approach to the skepticalproblem requires a revision of the metaphysical premises of traditional epistemology, namely the adoption of a non-metaphysical Wittgenstein’s realism. The recently proposed by D. Pritchard within the frame-work of his “biscopic” approach dissolving of the skeptical problem asa pseudo-problem just combines Wittgenstein’s hinge epistemology and epistemological disjunctivism.

Knowledge without “Experience”

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Michael Williams
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
Cartesian Skepticism ◽  
The World

Genia Schönbaumsfeld argues that Cartesian skepticism is an illusion induced by the “Cartesian Picture” of perceptual knowledge, in which knowledge of the “external world” depends on an inference from how things subjectively seem to one to how they actually are. To show its incoherence, she draws on the work of John McDowell, which she sees as elaborating a central theme from Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. I argue that Cartesian skepticism is not an illusion, as Schönbaumsfeld understands ‘illusion’, and that McDowell’s account of perceptual knowledge is both untenable and incompatible with Wittgenstein’s ideas about knowledge. Schönbaumsfeld thinks that, to understand how perception can engender knowledge of the world, we need a non-Cartesian account of perceptual reasons. Wittgenstein offers a much more radical break with the Cartesian Picture: an account of knowledge without ‘experience’.

External-World Skepticism in Classical India: The Case of Vasubandhu

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 147-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Mills
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Final Conclusion ◽  
Indian Tradition ◽  
Skeptical Problem ◽  
External World Skepticism

The Indian Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu (c. 400 ce) has seldom been considered in conjunction with the problem of external-world skepticism despite the fact that his text, Twenty Verses, presents arguments from ignorance based on dreams. In this article, an epistemological phenomenalist interpretation of Vasubandhu is supported in opposition to a metaphysical idealist interpretation. On either interpretation, Vasubandhu gives an invitation to the problem of external-world skepticism, although his final conclusion is closer to skepticism on the epistemological phenomenalist interpretation. The article ends with reflections on what light Vasubandhu might shed on the issue of whether skepticism is a natural problem in epistemology as well as why, despite Vasubandhu, the skeptical problem was not a central issue in the later Indian tradition.

Thomas Reid's View of Memorial Conception

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-226
Author(s):  
Marina Folescu
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Good Grasp

Thomas Reid believed that the human mind is well equipped, from infancy, to acquire knowledge of the external world, with all its objects, persons and events. There are three main faculties that are involved in the acquisition of knowledge: (original) perception, memory, and imagination. It is thought that we cannot understand how exactly perception works, unless we have a good grasp on Reid's notion of perceptual conception (i.e., of the conception employed in perception). The present paper argues that the same is true of memory, and it offers an answer to the question: what type of conception does it employ?

Acerca del supuesto fundamentalismo de Wittgenstein en Sobre la certez

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Ariso Salgado
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
On Certainty ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Basic Beliefs

RESUMENAl analizar si Ludwig Wittgenstein mantiene una posición fundamentalista en Sobre la certeza, suele discutirse si la citada obra se adapta al modelo de fundamentalismo propuesto por Avrum Stroll. Tras exponer las líneas básicas de dicho modelo, en esta nota se mantiene que Sobre la certeza no se adapta al modelo de Stroll debido al importante papel que Wittgenstein concede al contextualismo. Además, se añade que Wittgenstein no puede ser calificado de fundamentalista porque no reconoce ninguna propiedad que, sin tener en cuenta la diversidad de casos particulares, permita justificar de forma conjunta todas nuestras creencias básicas.PALABRAS CLAVEWITTGENSTEIN, FUNDAMENTALISMO, CONTEXTUALISMO, CERTEZAABSTRACTDid Wittgenstein hold a foundationalist position in On Certainty? When this question is tackled, it is often discussed, whether On Certainty fits in the foundationalist model devised by Avrum Stroll. After expounding the main lines of this model, I hold that On Certainty does not fit in Stroll’s model, because of the important role Wittgenstein attaches to contextualism. Furthermore, I add that Wittgenstein cannot be seen as a foundationalist –or a coherentist–, because he does not admit any feature in virtue of which the whole of our basic beliefs are justified without considering circumstances at all.KEYWORDSWITTGENSTEIN, CERTAINTY, FOUNDATIONALISM, CONTEXTUALISM

PECULIARITIES OF MANIFESTATION OF MEANING DISSONANCE

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 25-28
Author(s):  
Abakumova I.V. ◽  
Grishina A.V. ◽  
Godunov M.V.
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
External World ◽  
Personal Meaning ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Common Mean ◽  
Personal Meanings ◽  
Modern Psychology ◽  
Meaning Systems ◽  
The Subject

Modern psychology considers meaning regulation, as an integral mechanism of personal development. A system of personal meanings develops in the processes of under-standing reality. Due to their polymodality personal meanings cannot be good or bad, but they are not the same. When confronted with unknown situations, the unevenness of the emerging personal meanings can lead to match or mismatch with the existing system of mean-ings. Coincidence, as agreement with a new fact, means meaning consonance. Mismatch, as a mismatch between new and existing information, means meaning disso-nance, as a kind of cognitive dissonance. An analysis of modern psychological literature shows that there are two main plans for the action of meaning dissonances: the dissonance of individual meanings in the implementation of real interactions and the dissonance of common mean-ings during the translation of interpersonal meaning formations. It is proposed to consider that meaning ac-quires a personal coloring due to the processes of both consonance and dissonance positioning of meaning con-structs in the meaning sphere of the subject. The revealed dichotomy of the meaning formation processes shows the possibility of manifestation of meanings bipolarity, which is revealed in the process of transition from the internal to the external world and in collisions with oth-er meaning systems. Then it can be assumed that the ef-fect of meaning dissonance manifests itself in two ways: firstly, in terms of real interactions as a discord of indi-vidual meanings, and secondly, in terms of translation of interpersonal meaning constructs as a dissonance of common meanings. In the course of such an external for-mation, meaning becomes already a personal meaning in the consciousness of a particular person.

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