By contrast , the language game underlying the statement ‘water boils at 100 degrees’ cannot remain intact if this fact is questioned. — Joshs

You are neglecting the qualification "at sea level". That qualification indicates two essential conditions, temperature and pressure. So, the statement "water boils at 100 degrees" is in fact doubted by the addition of that qualification. However, the language game remains intact, only slightly changed by that doubt. If however, as in my example, it turns out that water boiling is completely a feature of external pressure, and internal temperature was just a ruse, then we'd want to rid ourselves of that language game, as being a faulty representation.

Wiitgenstein uses the word ‘doubt’ to indicate a situation where some particular feature within a language game is put into question, while leaving the game intact. This is why he says that some beliefs must be left certain in order to doubt anything. We can’t doubt the geocentric model by switching to a heliocentric model unless the two models have features that can be incorporated under the same language game. — Joshs

Obviously, I do not accept the common interpretation of how Wittgenstein portrays "doubt". I believe that we can and do doubt foundational rules. And, I also believe that the foundational aspects of the geocentric model were doubted, and this doubt is what allowed it to be replaced by the heliocentric. So I think it is very clear that we do doubt foundational aspects, and completely destroy important conceptual structures, even though vestiges of the old may still remain in our language games ("the sun rises", "the sun sets"). These vestiges become metaphors, so sometimes instead of ridding ourselves of the faulty language game, we allow it to remain in the form of metaphor.

While it's true that many of our convictions are hinges (basic beliefs), I wouldn't use "system of convictions," and Witt never used this wording — Sam26

How exact do you need the wording to be? He said my convictions form a system.

102. Might I not believe that once, without knowing it, perhaps is a state of unconsciousness, I was taken far away from the earth - that other people even know this, but do not mention it to me? But this would not fit into the rest of my convictions at all. Not that I could describe the system of these convictions. Yet my convictions do form a system, a structure.

Good one Josh, I stand corrected.

:up:

That makes sense. I think that, aside from difficulties from outside "Wittgenstein space," though, there is invariably the difficulty that people read the book in very different ways.

suggests that Wittgenstein had the contestable view that knowledge is the very same as belie

I agree, it might suggest this if I had only written the quoted part and not clarified in the next paragraphs. Nowhere though do I suggest that the problem is that "not all beliefs are true and justified," but rather that belief does not imply identity between the intellect and what is known, and does not capture what is meant by many uses of "to know" (e.g. sensing as knowledge, to "know how to ride a bike," or the original example of "carnal knowledge,")

But one must surely believe what one knows? "I know it's raining, but I don't believe it!" is ironic? A play on our expectations?

People speak this way without irony all the time. "So you believe you could have fixed the problem?"

"No, I know I could fix it."

People often get offended when their knowledge is impugned as mere belief/opinion.

Of course one affirms what one knows. So yes, it wouldn't make sense to essentially affirm and deny the same thing. Generally, the distinction involves understanding, a grasp of the thing known, as opposed to merely holding a justified opinion that also happens to be true.

For instance, does one "know Jimmy Carter," if one affirms some justified beliefs about the man but has never met him? Certainly one doesn't "know how to fix a car" or "train a horse," or "know horses" through merely holding justified true opinions about them, and the same goes for "knowing what coffee tastes like." And we might question if one "knows justice" or "what is just" by being able to affirm informed, true opinions about just action.

English is hardly unique in its many senses of the word to know. Attic Greek, for instance, offered up distinctions between sophia, gnosis, techne, episteme, phronesis, and doxa. And no doubt, there is plenty of analytic thought, particularly more recently, that pays particularly close attention to the distinction between "knowing that" and "knowing how" (and even "knowing why").

The question is which sort of knowledge is paradigmatic of knowledge in its fullest sense (or maybe none and we have a sui generis plurality?) In general, justified true belief has, in part because of the particular philosophy of language and rationality in vouge, tended to focus on the justified/informed affirmation of true propositions.

However, it seems fair to question if the horse tamer and the horse researcher, who both read on and spend their lives with horses, might know horses in a way that someone who has simply read some books on them (and so holds justified, true beliefs) does not. I suppose the philosophy of perception/imagination is relevant here too.

A big issue in OC is precisely what comes up when all knowledge is demonstrative knowledge. This problem is an old one. In this case, an infinite regress of (circular) syllogisms would be required.

Anyhow, hinge propositions obviously aren't arbitrary. Why do disparate cultures share so many, e.g. "we have bodies," and "there are corporeal objects?" A shared human "form of life," perhaps. However, that term is quite ambiguous. One might suspect that such propositions are accepted rather because they involve non-demonstrative knowledge.

But then the knowledge is in some sense prior to and constitutive of the language.

"So you believe you could have fixed the problem?"

"No, I know I could fix it." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are you saying that our fixer knows they can, but doesn't believe they can? The point here to work through the various ways in which "I know" is used? it would be prejudicial to supose that any was paradigmatic.

Are you saying that our fixer knows they can, but doesn't believe they can?

Perhaps, depending on how "belief" is defined. If belief is just something like "the affirmation of a proposition," then one would always believe what one knows (although we might say that it is things/principles that are primarily known, not propositions).

This doesn't suggest that knowing is a form of believing though. Whenever one is running, one is also breathing, but running doesn't consist in breathing. Similarly, swimming entails but does not consist in not drowning. In the same way, belief might go along with knowledge without being what knowledge consists in.

The point here to work through the various ways in which "I know" is used? it would be prejudicial to supose that any was paradigmatic.

Sure. It would be equally prejudicial to suppose they are all unrelated as well though. Are they related? I should think so.

There's always more...

I'll continue to work on the book and maybe get back to post some of it sometime.

I've been tweaking my idea of bedrock beliefs as a replacement for Wittgenstein's notion of hinge proposition. Instead of bedrock beliefs which sound too personal and don't convey the shared nature of these beliefs, I've changed the wording to capture both the personal and their shared nature. A name that seems to fit this idea more appropriately is bedrock convictions, which capture their personal and shared nature. Personal in that all of us have these convictions and shared because all of us share these convictions as a necessary part of life and language. For example, as individuals and as part of a community we act with our hands is a conviction that stands as a necessary part of our background. I don't say "I have hands" before acting, I just act. So, our acting is at the bottom of the language game (OC 204).

Bedrock convictions (hinges) are also split into prelinguistic convictions and linguistic convictions. Prelinguistic convictions are shown in simple actions like picking up an object which reflects the conviction that I have hands. Our actions show these convictions apart from language, but they can also be expressed as part of language, however, language comes later. As language forms it will convey another layer to these convictions, viz., linguistic convictions, such as the rules of chess. Prelinguistic convictions are not subject to doubt because the use of the concept of doubt is a linguistic function (it's not necessarily a linguistic function, although the concept is) especially as part of Moore's argument and as part of the skeptic's argument. The prelinguistic props up the linguistic. It would be logically impossible for the latter (linguistic convictions) to exist without the former. This is why the skeptics' doubting is nonsense. We don't start with doubts, we start with subjective and collective certainty that enables the language games of JTB and the language games of doubting.

I'm further arguing that Wittgenstein's hinge propositions are probably a necessary function of Moore's reference to his statements as propositions and not so much that Wittgenstein thinks of them as traditional propositions. This seems obvious given Wittgenstein's reference to Moore's statements as hinges. But there is an important point that Wittgenstein's writing alludes to, viz., that hinges are not true in the traditional epistemological or propositional sense. In other words, they don't carry truth values in the same sense that traditional propositions do where they're open to verification or falsification. Bedrock convictions aren't subject to the justificatory machinery of JTB. They are the frame that stands fast for the machinery of JTB (JTB for me consists of different language games in the Wittgensteinian spirit). So, the truth of bedrock convictions is tied to the language game of conviction rather than justification. Normal propositions (true and false propositions) are subject to justification and doubt, but bedrock convictions are not. I have the conviction that I have hands (shown in my actions), and this conviction expresses another use (another language game) of the concept true that is foundational to our systems of epistemology and doubt. The truth of bedrock convictions is a pragmatic and necessary one. They are structural.

How would I explain Wittgenstein’s hinges to someone who never heard of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty?

Imagine trying to answer some question – like what’s true or what’s real, or whether you’re really sitting in a room typing. You ask yourself, “How do I know this?” or “How do I know that?” You’re like the kid who keeps asking “Why?” to every possible answer but never concluding because you’re in an endless loop of whys. You can’t seem to get anywhere because you can’t prove everything, no one can.

A philosopher named Wittgenstein who wrote about this kind of stuff said that there is a way to avoid this endless loop. His solution was that we accept certain basic beliefs without proof. He called these hinges, like the hinges on a door that allows them to open and shut. Without the hinges, the door falls off; without basic beliefs, language, and our thinking would similarly fail.

So, what are hinges? They’re everyday basic beliefs that we don’t usually question. For example, “The Earth existed 10 minutes ago,” or “I have hands.” These are the kinds of basic beliefs that we accept as true without normally requiring proof. We take them for granted because they’re part of how we live and act in the world. Wittgenstein pointed out that we need these kinds of beliefs to even start to ask questions or to figure things out. For example, before you open a door you don’t start wondering if the door exists, you assume it exists, and that's a hinge. It’s not like it’s magically true; they’re what we rely on to do the things we need to do. They’re like the rules of a game that we agree to accept to play the game. You don’t ask, “Do bishops move diagonally?” – everyone accepts the rule who plays the game that bishops move diagonally.

Another guy named G.E. Moore tried to say, “I know I have hands,” as if it was a matter to be justified or a matter of proof. Wittgenstein disagreed, saying that it wasn’t a matter of proof. He said that these beliefs were so basic that a proof wouldn’t make sense. Such beliefs are where questions begin. They are the foundation that supports what we know and doubt. Without hinges we would be confused, unable to reason or doubt. It would be like having a chess board and pieces but no rules. You couldn’t play the game.

Another guy named G.E. Moore tried to say, “I know I have hands,” as if it was a matter to be justified or a matter of proof. Wittgenstein disagreed, saying that it wasn’t a matter of proof. He said that these beliefs were so basic that a proof wouldn’t make sense — Sam26

Seems to me the latter is what Moore was arguing. He believed ‘I know I have hands’ to be certainly true, but not subject to justification or proof. Wittgenstein argued that the proposition ‘I know I have hands’ is not subject to doubt. It is neither a true nor false belief.

Moore's papers indicate the opposite. As for your last statement, hinges are not true or false in the propositional sense but are accepted as true or false as a matter of conviction or for purposes of utility.

↪Joshs Moore's papers indicate the opposite. — Sam26

Could you supply some quotes in support of your argument? I just read Moore’s ‘A Defense of Common Sense’ and section 4, where he brings up the example of ‘my hand’, seems to depict it as an empirical truth without need of proof.

hinges are not true or false in the propositional sense but are accepted as true or false as a matter of conviction or for purposes of utility — Sam26

I would say that true or false pertains to whether something is or is not the case, an issue of adequation between the representing and the represented. The kind of certainty pertaining to hinge propositions is not that of adequation , of whether something is the case, but of how something is the case.

Moore is claiming to know. In other words, he believes he's justified. He's arguing against the skeptics who are claiming that he doesn't know.

"Here is a hand" is a proposition. It is not justified by some other proposition. It is a hinge proposition, one on which other propositions may turn.

That other propositions are dependent on hinge propositions is a piece of the puzzled that must not be lost. A hinge that is not a hinge proposition cannot fulfil this role.

The difference between hinge propositions and typical propositions has to do with the role they play. Typical propositions are tied to states of affairs and assessed via justification. They’re players in the game, subject to the rules of truth and falsity (OC §243). Hinge propositions are foundational— truth is not a property they possess but a role in epistemological language games. They’re the rules or ground of the game, not subject to its moves (OC §204: “Our acting… lies at the bottom”). The idea of foundational convictions captures this idea.

I've been trying to investigate whether anyone else has made the connection between Wittgenstein's hinges and Godel's unprovable statements. I think hinges provide a unique way of looking at Godel's theorems. They allow the system to work, just as they allow epistemology to work. They're unprovable, but system-sustaining. In other words, these are mathematical hinges. I think this idea of mine is original, as far as I can tell.

341. That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.
342. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted.
343. But it isn't that the situation is like this: We just can't investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put.

Hinge propositions are foundational— truth is not a property they possess but a role in epistemological language games. — Sam26

And yet they are true. If they were not, then the door could not move, the investigation could not take place.

We accept them as true as part of a role. They're not true in the same sense that your typical proposition is. There is a difference between truth as a matter of fact or state of affairs, and truths that have a role that is arational and foundational. It's very much like accepting the rules of chess to play the game. Indeed, bishops move diagonally, but no state of affairs supports this rule. It's just foundational to the game of chess.

Are propositions like:
"There is no such thing as noesis,"
"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 hinge propositions for accepting a "Wittgensteinian epistemology," or does Wittgenstein's thought apply to all epistemology?

If "I possess a nous/intellect" can be considered on par with "I possess hands" then it would strangely seem that Wittgenstein's points simply wouldn't apply to those in the "I have a nous and am thus capable of intellectual apprehension," camp. Or would Wittgenstein's conclusions still hold true for all "systems" (even those that deny that they are systems, or that knowledge primarily involves systems or language) regardless of hinge propositions?

If the latter, how could this claim to universality be justified? If it isn't justified, wouldn't it just be one of many possible hinge propositions?

I hadn't thought of it before, probably because I vigorously disagree with Wittgenstein's presuppositions, but I think it's possible that there is something self-refuting here, even when taken in its own terms. Or if not self-refuting, then at least self-undermining. The conclusions would be "what is true, given certain presuppositions." But then, many people think Wittgenstein's view of knowledge is pretty dismal, resting far from "certainty," (indeed, it wouldn't even be called "knowledge" in much thought) so why wouldn't we just reject those presuppositions and choose to "play a different game?"

The way you can differentiate between hinges and other typical propositions is that doubting them is generally senseless. Wittgenstein's hinges apply to all epistemology and any system of belief. "I possess intellect" could indeed be counted as a hinge, similar to we all possess consciousness.

Yes, perhaps I wasn't very clear there. I meant an "intellect" in the classical sense (nous), as in "being capable of noetic intuition, a simple, non-discursive, reflexively known grasp of truth (i.e. one that is self-justifying because the knower is identical with the intelligible known)."

If this was true, then Wittgenstein's analysis of justification would have to be radically altered. Such a hinge proposition would be the difference between his conclusions re "where justification must end," and something like Aristotle's consideration of the same question in the Posterior Analytics (which comes to quite different conclusions).

Now, many justifications of noetic intuition or "transcendental apriorism" exist, but that is sort of beside the point. It can also be taken as a starting point (and indeed, often is in many strawman presentations of the tradition :rofl: ). But if it is taking as a starting point, the conclusions about truth and knowledge will look quite different.

This seems to me to introduce a sort of self-undermining instability into the epistemic conclusions drawn from the analysis.

Wittgenstein's hinges are foundational convictions that have no justification. This seems much different from the intuition you're referring to. What's an e.g. of a self-justifying truth?

Two different sorts of hinges: the constitutive rules such as "the bishop moves diagonally", that set out how one thing counts as another... and the basic statements such as "here is a hand"... unless "here is a hand" is understood as a constitutive rules, "This counts as a hand..."

My point is trying to clarify different uses of truth in our language. And the difference in the roles of truth in our systems of belief. You are correct that there are different roles or layers of hinges. The rules of chess are hinges (foundational to the game), and "I have hands" is a foundational truth that stands outside of epistemological games. Again, they are arational, but can be used sometimes as typical propositions.

Wittgenstein's hinges are foundational convictions that have no justification

Yes, my point was not that hinge propositions involve noesis (indeed, the concept presumes there is no such thing as noesis). Rather, it was that, for Wittgenstein's analysis to hold up, noesis must be denied as a possibility. It must be the case that we cannot possibly know truth as truth outside the context of discursive justification (or, on some later interpretations, that truth and knowledge are definable exclusively in terms of "systems/rules" of discursive justification).

Otherwise, if there is noesis, then there can be knowledge of truth as truth without discursive justification (which is also not dependent on language). Noetic understanding is justified in that it knows itself as true (and indeed there are arguments that judgement is itself most proper to understanding and not reasoning/ratio, e.g. https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/QDdeVer15.htm, article I). But then beliefs regarded as "hinge propositions" might not be senseless to question, and might be very well "knowable" (given the far less restrictive definition of knowledge this opens up).

Or, perhaps one way to frame the presupposition that is needed would be to say "all justification for judgements lies in discursive reasoning/ratio, not simple understanding," with maybe the added caveat that "all justification makes use of language, and only occurs in this context."

But the existence of noesis itself seems like it could be the subject of a "hinge proposition." Yet if it can be, then Wittgenstein's conclusions themselves would only apply given certain hinge propositions.

Are the hinge propositions that hold up the analysis common to all, or at least most men then? It hardly seems that they can be given transcendent apriorism was the dominant epistemology for about two millennia.

This seems like a problem for folks like Rorty who would like to use Wittgenstein to say things about language and the possibility of metaphysics for all of philosophy.
.

↪Banno My point is trying to clarify different uses of truth in our language. And the difference in the roles of truth in our systems of belief. — Sam26

They are not different uses of "truth". They are different uses to which the proposition is put by the language game. Some propositions stand within the game, others set the game up. Those that set the game up cannot generally be doubted within the game. Hence the game hinges on them.

Propositional truth is dependent on language, i.e., the concept is linguistic. You seem to point to some truths as metaphysical that we access intuitively. Hinge propositions arise in our acts (I'm referring to pre-linguistic hinges). For e.g., my use of my hand shows my belief that I have hands. This is different from what you're saying. Your idea seems completely dependent on minds apart from language, thus the intellect aspect, but I'm not sure.

The propositions that set the game up are not typical. If, as Wittgenstein says, Moore's propositions are not known, then they are not epistemological, i.e., not justified or true. They are only true in that we accept them as true (like any conviction/belief) to support our system of beliefs. The propositions you're referring to are true because they refer to facts or states of affairs. In this sense they are justified, justification ends with hinges.