This is slightly different but related. The rules of chess do not describe the truths of reality in the same way that "water freezes at 32 degrees F" does. Instead, they constitute the very framework within which true and false (correct and incorrect) can be assessed — Sam26

Wittgenstein seems to suggest that the intelligibility of ‘water boils at 100 C.’ depends on such a bedrock of hinge propositions ( a ‘whole way of seeing nature’).

291. We know that the earth is round. We have definitively ascertained that it is round. We shall stick to this opinion, unless our whole way of seeing nature changes. "How do you know that?" - I believe it.
292. Further experiments cannot give the lie to our earlier ones, at most they may change our whole way of looking at things.
293. Similarly with the sentence "water boils at 100 C. (On Certainty).

OC 291 is just Witt reiterating that some truths about the world are just part of the framework or foundation of understanding. They're not questioned or doubted. I just believe it, i.e., I believe it's true without justification.

OC 292 - Our knowledge is part of an enormous system and the value of our beliefs or knowledge takes place in the broader system of beliefs and practices.

OC 293 - Again, some basic beliefs must remain fixed for practicality and if they didn't, we wouldn't be able to act effectively in the world.

One can look at these basic beliefs as foundations for action, both in linguistics and epistemology. This is why I think Witt is just giving us a foundation for our beliefs to stand on, but it's not a traditional foundational view.

↪JoshsOC 291 is just Witt reiterating that some truths about the world are just part of the framework or foundation of understanding. They're not questioned or doubted. I just believe it, i.e., I believe it's true without justification. — Sam26

But they not just undoubted foundations. They are systems of significations which act to qualitatively organize facts in a certain way, with a certain sense. These foundations can be turned on their head, and then the facts become organized in a completely differently way, revealing a completely different sense of meaning, as when paradigms shift. Turning the foundation on its head isn’t doubting that foundation or making it false. It’s changing the rules of intelligibility. It’s not just that I beleive it’s true. I believe what is true according to a certain arrangement. I doubt particulars organized within a system of sense. The system of sense does not itself change by being doubted, but by ‘changing the subject’. Similarly, with the duck-rabbit drawing, I can’t doubt whether what I am seeing is a duck rather than a rabbit. When what I see appears for me as duck I am simply certain of it. I don’t switch from seeing the duck to seeing the rabbit by doubting the duck. I do so by seeing under a different aspect.

I believe water boils at 100’degrees the way I believe what I am seeing appears to me as a duck. For the drawing to no longer appear to me as a duck, the whole system of component parts will have to undergo a re-organization. For water no longer boiling at 100 degrees to make sense will imply a total re-organization of the underlying paradigm.

Well that's my interpretation of OC.

100℃ counts as the temperature at which water boils at sea level. That's not an observation about how the world is, but a way of setting up a language game that talks about temperature. One cannot be mistaken about water boiling at 100℃ or about ice melting at 0℃; 100℃ is the temperature at which water boils and 0℃ is the temperature at which ice melts. These are examples of hinge propositions.

To doubt that water boils at 100℃ is not to doubt some observation, but to fail to understand what 100℃ is.

And again, it is a mistake to think that these propositions are not true. If they were not true, we could not use them to make observations or deductions.

You didn't direct this at me, but I wanted to respond.

Yes, they're examples of hinges. However, certain hinges (basic beliefs) provide the framework for the language games of epistemology to work. There is no mistake here about truth, it just depends on the language game being used. It appears that you're lumping all language games about truth into a single mix. Moreover, hinge propositions are not normal propositions, if they were he wouldn't have singled them out. So, in what sense are they true? You seem to ignore the examples I gave that point out how they can be said to be true, and the ways they cannot be said to be true. Maybe you can clarify.

it just depends on the language game being used. — Sam26

Trouble is that language games are not discrete.

It is true that the bishop never changes from the colour square it starts on; this is a consequence of the hinge propositions that set the game up. If these hinges were not true, then we could reach no such conclusion about the bishop.

If it appears that I lump all language games about truth into a single mix, that is becasue the games around knowledge and the games around truth are not unrelated. One can only have justified true beliefs if there are truths.

And if hinge propositions are not normal propositions, they are not abnormal, either. There is nothing deviant or undesirable in their use. Rather than being distinct from epistemology, hinges are foundational.

If it appears that I lump all language games about truth into a single mix, that is becasue the games around knowledge and the games around truth are not unrelated. One can only have justified true beliefs if there are truths. — Banno

Where we seem to disagree is on the idea that "One can only have justified true beliefs if there are truths." Obviously this is true, but this doesn't address my issue.

Sorry, I edited this.

So what is the point of disagreement? I'm really not sure, apart from my not being keen on "pre-linguistic beliefs" nor on your separation of truth from epistemology.

Who knows? We have to disagree about something. :grin:

And again, it is a mistake to think that these propositions are not true. If they were not true, we could not use them to make observations or deductions. — Banno

I like the rest of what you said, but could you clarify the above? Sam26 pointed out in an earlier post that the sense of ‘ know’ and ‘true’ are not the same for hinge propositions as for particular facts within the games that they set up. Do you agree with this, and if so, how would you characterize the distinction between the sense of ‘true’ with regard to a way of setting up a language game and an observation within that language game? For instance, I would argue that observations are true or false, but language games are true or unintelligible. Unlike an observation within a language game, the language game itself cannot be true as opposed to false. It makes no sense to declare a language game false, only unintelligible.

It's a simple and fairly direct point. If a proposition is to function as an assumption in an argument it must have a truth value. So if hinge propositions are to "ground" our deductions, they must have a truth value.

Here is a hand. Therefore there are hands. f(a)⊢∃(x)(fx).

So "here is a hand" must be true.

I don't know what to make of "the sense of ‘ know’ and ‘true’ are not the same for hinge propositions as for particular facts within the games that they set up". I don't see that we need say there is a different sort of "true" for hinge than for other propositions. And if Wittgenstein is right then we cannot properly be said to know hinge propositions, since they cannot be doubted; and if that is so, then what is one to make of saying we know hinge propositions in a way that is different to other propositions?

So I do not see that there is a "distinction between the sense of ‘true’ with regard to a way of setting up a language game and an observation within that language game".

And language games are played or not. I don't know what to make of saying that they 'are true or unintelligible'. If a language game were unintelligible, what grounds could there be for claiming it was a language game at all? (Davidson, again).

So I'm not sure how to respond to your post.

These foundations can be turned on their head, and then the facts become organized in a completely differently way, revealing a completely different sense of meaning, as when paradigms shift. Turning the foundation on its head isn’t doubting that foundation or making it false. — Joshs

Turning the foundation on its head requires doubting it. Only by doubting it, will we seek a better way. We will never "change our whole way of looking at things", unless we first doubt our current way of looking at things.

So for example, Witt says "water boils at 100 C". But @Banno qualifies this with "at sea level". The need for such a qualification gives reason to doubt the original way of looking at things, "water boils at 100 C". The skeptic might then propose the hypothesis that the boiling of water is a feature of environmental pressure rather than a feature of the internal temperature of the water, and experiments could be carried out accordingly. If the experiments confirm what is proposed, this could lead to us changing our way of looking at things, that foundation would be overturned. But this cannot occur without doubt, so doubt is an essential feature of shifting paradigms (ways of looking at things).

Turning the foundation on its head requires doubting it. Only by doubting it, will we seek a better way. We will never "change our whole way of looking at things", unless we first doubt our current way of looking at things — Metaphysician Undercover

Would you say that deciding to change the rules of chess in order to make a more interesting game is an example of ‘doubting’ the current foundation of chess?

. If a proposition is to function as an assumption in an argument it must have a truth value. So if hinge propositions are to "ground" our deductions, they must have a truth value — Banno

It seems that you and I read Witt in alignment with different communities of interpretation. The group I identify with believes that all uses of conceptual meaning produce senses of meaning. No word concept can have only one sense of meaning associated with it. If I say that something is true, it always must be asked in what sense , what context of use, within what language game I mean to use this word. This goes for the concept of ‘truth value’. To state that a truth value is a property of propositions that function as assumptions in an argument is to lay out the terms of a language games. Certain bedrock assumptions
must be in place in order for this game of true-false to be intelligible, and such assumptions are not themselves amenable to ascertainment of truth value.

if Wittgenstein is right then we cannot properly be said to know hinge propositions, since they cannot be doubted; and if that is so, then what is one to make of saying we know hinge propositions in a way that is different to other propositions? — Banno

We can be said to know a hinge proposition as being intelligible to us, as opposed to knowing something as in being able to prove it through some empirical or logical procedure. I ‘know’ this is my hand says that the proposition ‘this is my hand ‘ makes sense to me in a particular way, within a particular language game. I have learned how to see that world a certain way. That way can’t be ‘false or true’ since it is simply how things appear to me, how a convention was handed down to me.

So, what would a logical argument look like in favor of my interpretation of Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions?

P1: All knowledge in the traditional epistemological sense requires justification, truth, and belief.
P2: Hinge propositions, do not require (or cannot undergo) justification since they are bedrock.
C1: Therefore, hinge propositions do not fit into the traditional knowledge model (from P1 and P2).
P3: If something does not fit into the model of knowledge where it must be justified to be known, then based on JTB, it is not "known."
C2: Hence, hinge propositions are not known in the epistemological sense (from C1 and P3).
P4: If something is not known epistemologically, it does not meet the criteria of being justified or true in the traditional sense.

I think your conclusions work fine. A lot of philosophy would take issue with P1 and P4 (is P4 supposed to be a conclusion rather?).

Wittgenstein stays within his narrow analytic context (since he never much ventured beyond it), but the idea that:

A. Knowledge is belief.
B. That truth (particularly in a "traditional sense") requires justification.

Are both historically hotly contested issues. For the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions for instance, knowledge cannot be belief. If it was, this would lead to all the problems of representationalism and towards universal skepticism (of the ancient sort). Knowledge is, for them, rather the co-identity of the intellect and the intelligible that is known.

Or, in the mutable realm, we could consider how "acquiring carnal knowledge" of another man's wife was considered a sin that had nothing to do with belief.

Then, more broadly, and more popularly in the modern context, truth is something like "the adequacy of intellect to being." But such adequacy, while it might itself be known through justification, is not defined in terms of justification and does not require it as some sort of "prerequisite."

And then if "justification" is meant to be something like: "moving from premises to consequents" in speech, propositional thought, writing, or formal logic, there will be further disagreement. Just for one example:

...neither are all things unutterable nor all utterable; neither all unknowable nor all knowable. But the knowable belongs to one order, and the utterable to another; just as it is one thing to speak and another thing to know.

Saint John of Damascus - An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Now John of Damascus is a saint for both Catholics and the Orthodox, but you'll see ideas like this (and going further) embraced a lot more in eastern thought, and it leads to a much different view of justification. Whereas the cataclysmic Wars of Religion that rocked Latin Christendom elevated a very specific sort of rigorous, legalistic, and above all written/deductive form of "justification" as the norm.

Sounds about right to me.

Again, as in our previous exchange, you take a tone of disagreeing with me while saying things with which I agree.

Presenting an argument is a language game. If a proposition is to function as an assumption in an argument it must have a truth value. And " it always must be asked in what sense, what context of use, within what language game I mean to use this word"; and this is the case "If I say that something is true", or for any other use to which I might put language. And "To state that a truth value is a property of propositions that function as assumptions in an argument is to lay out the terms of a language game.

But"

...such assumptions are not themselves amenable to ascertainment of truth value. — Joshs

Well, no. We do assign truth value to some propositions, but we also work out the truth value of other propositions. Not all assumptions must be hinges.

But apart from that, we seem to be agreeing.

A. Knowledge is belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Wittgenstein certainly did not equate knowledge and belief. He consistently takes knowledge to be both believed and true, and spends much effort in working through what else is needed.

B. That truth (particularly in a "traditional sense") requires justification. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Truth does not require justification. A proposition may be either true or not true, regardless of its being justified, known or believed.

So it seems to me you are off target.

Wittgenstein certainly did not equate knowledge and belief. He consistently takes knowledge to be both believed and true, and spends much effort in working through what else is needed.

Of course knowledge must be true. A true belief is a belief though. The contested position would be that knowledge is merely (justified) true belief.

If knowledge is just belief, and one can never "step outside belief" to compare belief with the subjects of belief, then all knowledge is uncertain. This problem (and related infinite regresses of representations) are why correspondence definitions of truth had a nadir from late antiquity to the early modern period, and why folks like Hegel still vigorously object to them.

Truth does not require justification. A proposition may be either true or not true, regardless of its being justified, known or believed.

Right, that's what I said would be most controversial in Sam's premises.

Of course knowledge must be true. A true belief is a belief though. The contested position would be that knowledge is merely (justified) true belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You implied - stated - that Wittgenstein, and analytic approaches generally, equate belief and knowledge. That is not so.

Hegel doesn't object to much at all anymore. He has had others do that for him, what with being dead and all. Whether they represent his views or not is moot.

You still seem to be off target.

Two questions:

1. Where in the grammar of ordinary language do we find the idea that knowledge is justified true belief?

2. Where do we find Wittgenstein claiming that knowledge is justified true belief?

C1 is an intermediate conclusion and C4 in the final conclusion. Of course, there are different theories of knowledge, but since Witt is generally dealing with JTB that's how I formulated the argument. Any argument that's formed like this is based on a particular interpretation, so it can always be challenged.

You implied - stated - that Wittgenstein, and analytic approaches generally, equate belief and knowledge. That is not so.

They do. "Justified true belief," was and is an extremely common definition of knowledge in analytic philosophy. Do you deny this?

2. Where do we find Wittgenstein claiming that knowledge is justified true belief?

The idea that it's absurd to say one "knows" that one has a toothache suggests that "knowing" is about justification. The idea that one can (indeed, just be able to) doubt anything one "knows" also makes it pretty clear that "knowledge" here is something like belief.

When he is talking about how it is nonsense to discuss whether a rod does or doesn't have length, or asking "are there physical objects," the key idea seems to be that knowledge involves both belief and verification. I don't think Sam is wrong on this interpretation (as noted, I do think many—on solid grounds—might reject Wittgenstein's premises.)

1. Where in the grammar of ordinary language do we find the idea that knowledge is justified true belief?

I don't know if we do. It probably varies by time and epoch as well. When someone says: "I know what it is like to lose a parent," they aren't talking about affirming the proposition that one of their parents has died, for instance. And "to know someone well," doesn't seem to be just to have a lot of true beliefs about someone. We might have many true beliefs about someone we have never met and claim not to know them.

What?

I'm pointing out that

A. Knowledge is belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

is not a presumption of analytic philosophy. They are not equivalent. Knowledge is (sometimes) taken as that subclass of beliefs that are true, and that have some other feature often summarised as "justified".

But, see https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/4982 This is not a majority view.

All this by way of pointing out that simplistic talk of analytic approaches will not cut it.

Hence,

1. Where in the grammar of ordinary language do we find the idea that knowledge is justified true belief? — Fooloso4

...is spot on. "I know that this is my hand" is quite clear and correct English. If we are to look to use instead of meaning, then "justified true belief" might give way to a more nuanced account. So the charitable approach to "On Certainty" is that Wittgenstein is chastising those philosophers who would take the JTB account seriously, pointing out that it is just another example of doing philosophy badly.

Sorry, @Sam26.

2. Where do we find Wittgenstein claiming that knowledge is justified true belief? — Fooloso4

See my last. I rather think that he can be read as showing that JTB is too narrow. But On Certainty is unfinished, so we simply do not have his conclusions. Just my conjecture.

They are not equivalent.

I never suggested they were. I think what is "off the mark" is your reading comprehension. The premise that prior traditions rejected was that knowledge is a type of belief at all.

Nothing in that posts suggests "analytic philosophy tends to assume that all belief is knowledge." That is clearly false and a silly thing to suggest.

I never suggested they were. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good. But you did say "

A. Knowledge is belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's pretty clearly an equation. The problem was more your expression than my comprehension.

And:

Wittgenstein stays within his narrow analytic context (since he never much ventured beyond it), but the idea that:

A. Knowledge is belief.
B. That truth (particularly in a "traditional sense") requires justification.

Are both historically hotly contested issues. — Count Timothy von Icarus

suggests that Wittgenstein had the contestable view that knowledge is the very same as belief. Again, you said as much. And again, he did not.

But if that is now not what you meant, we might move on. So now we can deal with

knowledge cannot be belief. — Count Timothy von Icarus

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?

Am I reading you too literally, again?