If, as Wittgenstein says, Moore's propositions are not known, then they are not epistemological, i.e., not justified or true. — Sam26

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?

Knowing how is knowledge as a skill, we're talking about knowledge as beliefs and so was Wittgenstein. To act, we have to believe that we have hands, and this belief is reflected in our actions. This is even before knowledge as a skill. Hinges are before any knowledge.

Yes, that is what I am disagreeing with.

I do agree with your rejection of 's attempt to limit the applicability of these ideas.

Not at all. And I don't try, I do...

"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?

Pretty much.

Pretty much. — Banno

Couldn't I know that P without ever communicating about it to anyone?

Sure.

Let me explain it one more time why hinges aren’t propositionally true.

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).

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. — Sam26

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.

However, as mentioned above re noesis, the existence of God and of God as "truth itself" would seem to undermine Wittgenstein's conclusions in a rather radical manner. — Count Timothy von Icarus

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.

I don't want this thread to become an argument about the existence of God, and whether belief in God is a hinge. If you want to consider whether belief in God is a hinge, please do it in another thread. That said, I will partially answer the question about whether belief in God could be considered a hinge in the Wittgensteinian tradition.

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. — 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.

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.

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.

Wittgenstein is simply deluded about the nature of truth, knowledge, and justification. — Count Timothy von Icarus

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.

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. — 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.

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? — Sam26

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/

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 — 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:

“[t]he world is inseparable from the subject, but from a subject who is nothing but a project of the world; and the subject is inseparable from the world, but from a world that it itself projects”

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? — Joshs

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

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’. — Joshs

I'm looking for both.

Good questions.

.

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?
— Joshs

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. — 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.

65. Here we come up against the great question that lies behind all these considerations.—For someone might object against me:
"You take the easy way out! You talk about all sorts of language­ games, but have nowhere said what the essence of a language-game, and hence of language, is: what is common to all these activities, and what makes them into language or parts of language. So you let yourself off the very part of the investigation that once gave you yourself most headache, the part about the general form of propositions and of language."
And this is true.—Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all,— but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all "language". (P.I.)

Meh. Moyal-Sharrock tries something like this, taking "belief" to mean "trust" alone. The trouble is that this is not how it is more widely understood. Hence things such as

Anglophone philosophers of mind generally use the term “belief” to refer to the attitude we have, roughly, whenever we take something to be the case or regard it as true. — Belief

and

Most contemporary philosophers characterize belief as a “propositional attitude”.

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.

Does Wittgenstein demonstrate things like... — 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.

Not unlike Kripkenstein. — Banno

I disagree that Kripke does violence to Witt. I don't see why you would say that.

Where is the demonstration? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Demonstration? Were is the "demonstration" that this text is in English? Where is the "demonstration" that this is a hand?

I disagree that Kripke does violence to Witt. — frank

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.

:up: