Rewolucje naukowe według Sadego a dzisiejsza epistemologia

W. Sady’s book Struktura rewolucji relatywistycznej i kwantowej w fizyce [The Structure of the Relativist and Quantum Revolutions in Physics] is discussed. In his analysis of the history of physics of XIX and early XX centuries the Author argues, contrary to Kuhn, that grand discoveries result as conclusions from certain assumptions and suitably selected pieces of background knowledge. I point to major Sady’s inspirations — Wittgenstein, Wiśniewski and Fleck — and the kinship of his account to hinge epistemology and my sandwich theory of knowledge. His view on the social nature of knowledge and the role of mathematics is commented upon. In conclusion I suggest that the tension between Sady’s antirealism and traditional truth requirement for knowledge can be resolved by a suitable modification of Ajdukiewicz’s radical conventionalism.

Prejudice in Testimonial Justification: A Hinge Account

Although research on epistemic injustice has focused on the effects of prejudice in epistemic exchanges, the account of prejudice that emerges in Fricker's (2007) view is not completely clear. In particular, I claim that the epistemic role of prejudice in the structure of testimonial justification is still in need of a satisfactory explanation. What special epistemic power does prejudice exercise that prevents the speaker's words from constituting evidence for the hearer's belief? By clarifying this point, it will be possible to address two more general issues concerning the nature of prejudice: its resistance to counterevidence and the steps involved in overcoming prejudice. I propose a hinge account of prejudice, based on the recent perspective of hinge epistemology, to help clarify these aspects. According to the hinge account, prejudices share a fundamental feature with hinges: they work as norms of evidential significance, and as such, they determine what can and cannot count as evidence for belief.

Ver-como y epistemología hinge

This paper aims to stablishes the sense in which propositions included under the perceptual use of ‘seeing-as’, developed by Wittgenstein in the Second Part of Philosophical Investigations, are justifiable from an epistemic point of view. To do this, first, it will be clarified the internal link between ‘visual experience’ and ‘interpretation’ for the type of mentioned cases. Second, it will be shown how the ‘seeing-as’ respects the rule-following paradox’s solution, as long as it does not presuppose any intermediary or need anyone to account for what is perceived, highlighting the notions of ‘practice’, ‘familiarity’ and ‘context’ common both in the aforementioned solution and in the ‘seeing-as’ cases. Third, the general distinction between certainties or ‘hinges’ and ‘epistemic propositions’ presented by Wittgenstein in On Certainty will be applied to cases of aspect perception as a possible field of application of the so called Hinge Epistemology, showing how, in specific cases, the perceptual certainties that shape our way of life and that are groundless, can be recontextualized and merit reasonable justification.Keywords: Wittgenstein, aspect perception, seeing-as, hinges, certainty, justification.

Lectures on Religious Belief and the epistemology of disagreements

The influence of Wittgenstein’s work in the study of deep disagreements has been dominated by On Certainty. Since the metaphor of ‘hinges’ plays a central role in the scholarship of On Certainty, a Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreements is assumed to be based on hinge epistemology. This means that a disagreement would be deep because it concerns parties with conflicting hinges. When we shift our attention to a different part of Wittgenstein’s oeuvre, however, another picture of deep disagreements emerges. This article proposes a new Wittgensteinian approach to disagreements through the analysis of the Lectures on Religious Belief. Some of the disagreements that Wittgenstein and his pupils discuss in these lectures are deep, but not because they are grounded in different hinges, but because they are disagreements about pictures. This article is an extension of a paper presented at the 41st International Wittgenstein Symposium. It was published in the proceedings of the symposium with the title: “Pictures in Wittgenstein’s Treatment of Disagreements in the so-called Lectures on Religious Belief” (Lavorerio, 2018b). I would like to thank the audience at that presentation for their comments, as well as Dejan Makovec, Martin Kusch and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on previous drafts of this paper.

On Wittgenstein Hinge Epistemology: Coliva’s Framework Reading

The goal of this paper is to present the main arguments of Annalisa Coliva’s hinge epistemology. There are several readings of Wittgenstein’s metaphor of ‘hinges’. In this paper I will explore one of them (the framework reading developed by Annalisa Coliva) and present its main arguments. I will start by contextualizing the debate of hinge epistemology within Wittgenstein’s reflections on On Certainty. From there I will present Coliva’s arguments and her defence of the framework reading. This paper is supposed to be an introductory part of a wider discussion I will develop in my PhD thesis. I will try to argue that one should follow Coliva’s reading and understand Wittgenstein’s remarks about hinges as remarks about their role as normative rules.