If joint attention theory is correct, “hinge propositions” are simply those that must be formed when working with another in a common ground. The very act of and ability to coordinate attention forms these “hinge propositions” where a world exists, others have minds, etc.

Yeah, to some extent the hinge is just the stuff we agree on, but there is an extra step such that the hinge is the stuff about which we cannot sensibly disagree...

So another candidate is Searle's status functions - those things that count as something. You can't doubt that those pieces of paper count as cash without ceasing to play the game of using cash, or doubt that the bishop stays on her own colour without doubting that you are playing chess.

Yeah, to some extent the hinge is just the stuff we agree on, but there is an extra step such that the hinge is the stuff about which we cannot sensibly disagree... — Banno

I think this is a good point. There is something more to 'hinges' than just 'the presuppositions we agree to adopt'. And it has to do with whether disagreement could be meaningful within the terms of our game. But I think beyond that, 'hinges' have been over-theorised in comparison to their importance in the broader line of inquiry in 'On Certainty'.

At 108:

If we are thinking within our system, then it is certain that no one has ever been on the moon.

Much had to change within the system for it to be certain that someone has been on the moon. This includes having landed on the moon and our being aware of it. It the moon missions had been kept secret we might know that the science had changed enough that it might be possible but there would still be good grounds to doubt that anyone has ever been on the moon.

It is not either the fact or the system of grounds underlying the fact.

Much had to change within the system for it to be certain that someone has been on the moon. This includes having landed on the moon and our being aware of it. If the moon missions had been kept secret we might know that the science had changed enough that it might be possible but there would still be good grounds to doubt that anyone has ever been on the moon

It is not either the fact or the system of grounds underlying the fact — Fooloso4

Only the system of grounds provides the relative certainty that Wittgenstein is talking about throughout the book. You’re making the same error as Moore, when he looks at his hand, articulates the proposition ‘this is my hand’, and declares this to be a certainty, beyond all doubt. He believes the facts are so strong in his example
that they speak for themselves. You and Moore are confusing an empirical fact with a holistic structure, a system of convictions underlying that fact. Youre conflating a testable proposition with a rule of testing. This system is not a disconnected collection of separate facts, but a unified gestalt i. which each conviction depend on the others for its sense

98…the same proposition may get treated at one time as something to test by experience, at another as a rule of testing.

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.

105. All testing, all confirmation and disconfirmation of a hypothesis takes place already within a system.

It's not a good idea to consider hinges to be "outside our epistemological framework", any more than it would be a good idea for a hydrologist not to consider the riverbed. They are rather the foundation on which an "epistemological framework" rests. — Banno

I assume this is directed toward me, so I'll respond. We know that much of what Witt was saying was directed at Moore's propositions in his papers Proof of an External World and A Defense of Common Sense, so we're referring to specific propositions that Moore says he knows. Moore believes he has a justification for claiming to know "This is a hand (as he raises it to the audience)." Witt resists this notion, although he starts OC with, "If you do know [my emphasis] that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest (OC 1)." It seems clear to me that when Witt refers to hinge propositions or Moorean propositions he's saying that you don't know what you think you know, viz., Moore's use of the concept know doesn't apply because these statements don't fall within the domain of JTB. We don't normally justify these basic beliefs or Moorean statements. There are of course exceptions to this general rule (generally we don't justify them) and Witt points these out.

If you're reading my statements in an absolute sense, I would agree they are not always outside our epistemological framework, but Witt is saying that they generally are not within our epistemological framework (which is what I'm claiming), i.e., requiring a justification. So, I agree, that these Moorean propositions are the foundation on which our epistemological framework rests, but that doesn't mean they are part of epistemology, they support epistemology. I think OC 1 is key to interpreting the thrust of my point because Witt is saying "If you do know..." then your conclusion follows, i.e., Moore's point is epistemological, but Witt doesn't agree.

I'll just make these points for now.

It is not one or the other, either the fact "alone" of landing on the moon "or" the system underlying the fact. We would remain doubtful if we were not made aware of the fact and we would remain doubtful if it could not be justified within the system

As to Moore, it is not his certainty that is at issue, but whether this is an adequate response to the skeptic. Unless someone has a prior commitment to some philosophical position that puts it into doubt, the response to Moore saying "this is my hand" would be to be as certain of it as he is. My dog does not require a system underlying the fact that this is my hand:

359. But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified; as it were, as something animal.

That this is a hand is in no need of justification. No need for a system of convictions underlying that fact.

475. I want to regard man here as an animal; as a primitive being to which one grants instinct but not ratiocination. As a creature in a primitive state. Any logic good enough for a primitive means of
communication needs no apology from us. Language did not emerge from some kind of
ratiocination [Raisonnement].

467. I am sitting with a philosopher in the garden; he says again and again "I know that that's a
tree", pointing to a tree that is near us. Someone else arrives and hears this, and I tell him: "This
fellow isn't insane. We are only doing philosophy."

It is not one or the other, either the fact "alone" of landing on the moon "or" the system underlying the fact. We would remain doubtful if we were not made aware of the fact and we would remain doubtful if it could not be justified within the system — Fooloso4

Wittgenstein’s saying that there are kinds of facts which are fluid, which can change their truth value.
A language game within which such facts makes sense is not fluid. It is certain in a way that such individual empirical facts can never be. No facts with the system can cause us to become doubtful of the system itself. ‘No one has ever been to the moon’ is not a fact ‘alone’ , it is the expression of a system of belief.

As to Moore, it is not his certainty that is at issue, but whether this is an adequate response to the skeptic. Unless someone has a prior commitment to some philosophical position that puts it into doubt, the response to Moore saying "this is my hand" would be to be as certain of it as he is. My dog does not require a system underlying the fact that this is my hand:

359. But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified; as it were, as something animal.

That this is a hand is in no need of justification. No need for a system of convictions underlying that fact. — Fooloso4

Moore thinks this sureness is the result of a huge bank of empirical evidence, but Wittgenstein entertains the idea that it’s something else altogether, sometimes described in terms of context and culture, but in §359 of On Certainty described as “something animal.”

Elsewhere, however, Wittgenstein rejects the idea that Moorean propositions are in some way innate to humans as animals. Instead, he repeatedly returns to the idea that these propositions are held fast by the games and activities they are used for—that they are in some way contingently certain, but certain all the same. Wittgenstein writes:

“I have arrived at the rock bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.”(OC §248)

I agree it is not Moore’s certainty that is at issue. It is his treatment of his certainty as an empirical fact rather than as a tacit commitment to a set of practices that hold together facts.

@Banno
Why do we need to read Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" to get back to conclusions which Kant already implied with his ideas of "synthetic a priori truths"?

Empirical facts are fluid, they can change their truth value. — Joshs

How does this relate to the fact of our having been on the moon or having hands?

It is his treatment of his certainty as an empirical fact rather than as a tacit commitment to a set of practices that hold together facts. — Joshs

His having a hand is a commitment to a set of practices? The fact is, he either has a hand or he does not. This may be "fluid" in so far as his hand might be cut off, and then the fact is he doesn't have a hand any longer.

There are practice which involve having or using our hands, but this is not a commitment to a set of practices. The practices follow the fact that we have and use hands. Without hands the set of practices would no longer exist.

↪Sam26 Banno
Why do we need to read Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" to get back to conclusions which Kant already implied with his ideas of "synthetic a priori truths"? — schopenhauer1

We don’t. We need to read On Certainty to reach conclusions that move beyond Kant’s thinking. Synthetic a priori truths begin by splitting off the world in itself from the activity of the subject and then piece them together again.

His having a hand is a commitment to a set of practices? The fact is, he either has a hand or he does not. This may be "fluid" in so far as his hand might be cut off, and then the fact is he doesn't have a hand any longer.

There are practice which involve having or using our hands, but this is not a commitment to a set of practices. The practices follow the fact that we have and use hands. Without hands the set of practices would no longer exist. — Fooloso4

Practices aren’t what we do with factual objects which precede our actions on them. Practices precede and make intelligible the meaning of a those objects.

We don’t. We need to read On Certainty to reach conclusions that move beyond Kant’s thinking. Synthetic a priori truths begin by splitting off the world in itself from the activity of the subject and then piece them together again. — Joshs

@Banno
I think the "world in itself" didn't even concern Witt, nor did Kant really discuss much about it other than what it is not (the phenomenal). And it was the phenomenal Kant could discuss at length the various ways it is shaped by the cognitive apparatus. In fact, the "in itself' can be be almost aligned with Witt's famous "silence" on metaphysics, ethics, etc. So again, I just see this as stumbling upon what was already thoroughly discussed. He must have known he was mirroring this notion, no?

I don't mind the rehashing of old arguments, and even permuting them into language, but to not draw the parallels seems unnecessarily ahistorical.

Why do we need to read Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" to get back to conclusions which Kant already implied with his ideas of "synthetic a priori truths"? — schopenhauer1

I'm not sure what conclusions you're referring to. What do you think the conclusions of OC are?

I'm not sure what conclusions you're referring to. What do you think the conclusions of OC are? — Sam26

That there is a necessary background that underlies epistemic practices.

Yes but explain what you think Witt is saying and how it connects with Kant, and then I'll respond. I'm not sure we're on the same page.

Yes but explain what you think Witt is saying and how it connects with Kant, and then I'll respond. I'm not sure we're on the same page. — Sam26

:roll:

You are familiar with Kant's idea of synthetic a priori, no? The notion like "every event has a cause", he believes is "a priori" (outside experience), yet its very condition are necessary for which the possibility of knowing things in the world exist.

Witt's hinge propositions function the same.. They too are necessary conditions and outside experience.. Their examples might be different, but their functional roles are about the same. They both propose preconditions that are cognitive frameworks for knowledge and experience to take place.

Witt's hinge propositions function the same.. They too are necessary conditions and outside experience.. Their examples might be different, but their functional roles are about the same. They both propose preconditions that are cognitive frameworks for knowledge and experience to take place. — schopenhauer1

I don't see Witt as saying hinges are like Kant's a priori statements, i.e., outside experience. Just the opposite, they are the experiences or beliefs that provide a foundation for epistemology. Think of them like the rules of chess, the board, and the pieces, without which there would be no chess game. There may be some overlap with Kant, but it's not what drives Witt's thinking. Witt's thinking in OC is just much different.

I don't see Witt as saying hinges are like Kant's a priori statements, i.e., outside experience. — Sam26

Well, he isn’t saying it’s like Kant, and that’s the problem as it is…

As for outside experience, I simply mean functions for which propositional truth can even take place. Kant thought they were simply necessary, modern theories would say they’re necessary but constructed from experience. Either way, the similarity is enough to draw the parallels, I.e necessary conditions. You can try to weasel out of it by saying “outside experience” was not mentioned so it’s fundamentally different, but I see that as being overly focused on that term to make a gulf rather than splitting hairs on a vague term that functions similarly.

assume this is directed toward me, so I'll respond. We know that much of what Witt was saying was directed at Moore's propositions in his papers Proof of an External World and A Defense of Common Sense, so we're referring to specific propositions that Moore says he knows. Moore believes he has a justification for claiming to know "This is a hand (as he raises it to the audience)." Witt resists this notion, although he starts OC with, "If you do know [my emphasis] that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest (OC 1)." It seems clear to me that when Witt refers to hinge propositions or Moorean propositions he's saying that you don't know what you think you know, viz., Moore's use of the concept know doesn't apply because these statements don't fall within the domain of JTB. We don't normally justify these basic beliefs or Moorean statements. There are of course exceptions to this general rule (generally we don't justify them) and Witt points these out. — Sam26

I like to provide a brief defense of Moore's Proof of an External World. I don't claim Moore would agree of my defense, but let's just say I use Moore's position as a spring board to explore what I find as limitations to Wittgenstein approach to Ordinary Language. Let's begin where Moore ends his paper with the following:

“I can know things, which I cannot prove; and among things which I certainly did know, even if (as I think) I could not prove them, were the premisses of my two proofs. I should say, therefore, that those, if any, who are dissatisfied with these proofs merely on the ground that I did not know their premisses, have no good reason for their dissatisfaction."

Throughout the paper, Moore painstaking clarifies what it means by ideas such as "internal to our minds", “external to our minds’ and ‘to be met with in space”. After showing how all these ideas make coherent sense he goes on to provide the proof of "the existence of external things.” Moore thinks he has satisfied the conditions to be a rigorous proof. One of those condition being that a premiss which was something he knows to be the case and not something which only believe to be so. The premiss he cites is "I certainly did at the moment know that which I expressed by the combination of certain gestures with saying the words ‘There is one hand and here is another’. I knew that there was one hand in the place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my first utterance of ‘here’ and that there was another in the different place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my second utterance of ‘here’. How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case!”

Moore provides an excellent example where he demonstrates how this is a reasonable example of a proof. He gives the example of someone who is tasked in finding three misprints in a particular book. This individual could be incline to doubt whether three misprints are in the book, but the one giving the task could prove that there is by simply pointing to each one, 'There's one misprint here, another here, and another here.' Interestedly, Moore concludes, "Of course, A would not have proved, by doing this, that there were at least three misprints on the page in question, unless it was certain that there was a misprint in each of the places to which he pointed. But to say that he might prove it in this way, is to say that it might be certain that there was. And if such a thing as that could ever be certain, then assuredly it was certain just now that there was one hand in one of the two places I indicated and another in the other.”

It seems Moore is suggesting that he is not absolutely certain, in some philosophical sense, that "this is one hand and here is another" but nonetheless he knows this to be the case. Does this example need to fall in the domain of "Justified True Belief" to count as knowledge? I believe Moore is showing that we ought to revise this notion of what knowledge should be, what should count as knowledge. Philosophy sometimes can play a normative role, as well as a descriptive role.

Sure, Wittgenstein can look to see how the word "knowledge" functions in our forms of life. But sometimes concepts "evolve". I am sure the notion of "knowledge" has change from the Greeks, to the Medieval period, and to our Modern period. I would think if he explored the use of "to know" during these periods that they may be somewhat different. And did he not say in "The Blue and Brown Books",

"Philosophers very often talk about investigating, analyzing, the meaning of words. But let's not forget that a word hasn't got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it."

Well, maybe we can view Moore as trying to "evolve" the notion of knowledge. But like all things competing for our attention, may lose out to more appealing notions.

I assume this is directed toward me, so I'll respond. — Sam26

Well, not only you, and not in response to any particular post. I was just setting out a few thoughts regarding the direction of this thread. There's a slide from "here is a hand" not being known right down to a conclusion that hinges are non-propositional and preverbal. But I don't agree that if you get on one end of the slide, you must get off at the other.

Another general comment I might make is that the presumption that some sentences are certain, presumably in virtue of their meaning, is problematic. It's not so much that a sentence is certain, as that it can be treated as certain for the purposes of a given language game. We need to look past meaning to the use to which such sentences are put.

So "Here is a hand" is not so much certain as it stands, but might be treated as certain, for some purpose.

Witt's hinge propositions function the same ( as Kant).. They too are necessary conditions and outside experience. Their examples might be different, but their functional roles are about the same. They both propose preconditions that are cognitive frameworks for knowledge and experience to take place — schopenhauer1

For Witt they are not just cognitive but affective and valuative. Most importantly, for Kant innate categories make possible normative experiences but they themselves are non-normative and non-natural, whereas for Witt they are both normative and natural in that they consist of practices in the world. Witt’s practice-based concept of use unifies categories and experience via the same norm-generating processes, whereas Kant maintains a split between what is normative and non-normative, what is rational and irrational, what is categorical and what is not.

Are Wittgenstein’s notions of a language game, form of life and hinge proposition indebted to Kant’s categories? Of course, but one can say the same of the philosophies of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Heidegger Nietzsche and most other philosophers who have come since Kant. As has been said, in a certain respect we are all Kantians now. But it is one thing to show the indebtedness of modern philosophies to Kant, and quite another to claim that thinkers like Wittgenstein have reached “conclusions which Kant already implied with his ideas of "synthetic a priori truths"”.

Rather than getting hung up on statements like "here is a hand", I think it would have been more effective to follow the example of Zen Master Lin-chi and hold out his hand so the skeptic could see it and then smack him.

This was his method of dealing with those:

... clinging to words, clinging to phrases ...

Rather than getting hung up on statements like "here is a hand", I think it would have been more effective to follow the example of Zen Master Lin-chi and hold out his hand so the skeptic could see it and then smack him — Fooloso4

The tough love school of enlightenment :clap:

@Banno
I maintain they affectively function the same. There are things "beyond doubt". But as you said with "normative", Kant would place the necessity at the level of cognition (the container), and Wittgenstein at beliefs (the content). Kant is thinking beyond the confines of language, but necessities for which experience itself takes place. Again, why Wittgenstein seems to feel trivial. Why does saying commonsense things like, "Some things we must simply take for granted to move forward in a conversation", add anything to our knowledge?

This goes back to my claims earlier that if I say something as a politician like "Family is good", and that is taken as profound policy, something has gone wrong.

I get that Witt's later stuff is basically "Meaning comes from practice within a language community", but why cannot there be a robust debate as to whether philosophy of language come prior or after formal epistemology? Why does it have to subsume it, as many 20th century thinkers seemed to want (first with focus on formal language and logic, and then with ordinary language analysis). Meaning is use, yes yes.. But then whence meaning? Whence use?

...why cannot there be a robust debate as to whether philosophy of language come prior or after formal epistemology? — schopenhauer1

You can't see the obvious here? You want a debate without words? See .

Well, he isn’t saying it’s like Kant, and that’s the problem as it is… — schopenhauer1

Or perhaps you are reading Kant into Wittgenstein. I agree here with @Sam26; hinges are not just the now quite problematic notion of synthetic a priori, nor are there clear conclusions in On Certainty. I think you have missed quite a bit of what is going on here.

Thank you for that. You have taken the thread back to the context, which was sorely needed.

One way of seeing the discussion is that Moore and Wittgenstein differ as to how they would use "know". Wittgenstein would have us use "know" only in situations where there is an explicit justification that can be given, in the form of a proposition, for the belief in question. Moore is happy for us to know things that are not justified in this fashion - "here is a hand" being a case in point.

It is worth pointing out at this juncture that in English there are usually considered to be two differing sorts of knowledge, explicit and tacit, or knowing that and knowing how. Both Moore and Wittgenstein conclude that explicit knowledge as grounded in tacit knowledge, Moore leaning on the fact that he knows how to hold up his hand, Wittgenstein leaning on a somewhat convolute argument that has had some misleading consequences. So there are folk hereabouts who take hinges to be non-propositional and not truth-apt, apparently not noticing that this renders them inconsequential.

One justifies that one knows how to ride a bike by getting on the bike and riding it. One justifies that one understands "here is a hand" by waving one's hand about. They agree that the "meanings" of words are seen in what we do with them, not in an explication.

You can't see the obvious here? You want a debate without words? — Banno

Yeah I get it, you know the critiques I will say probably, that he is likened unto a "prophet", in this case a "Zen master", and whatnot. And what he says is "silence", like those Zen masters.

There are two major critiques here:
1) One can reasonably talk about the conditions for knowledge and experience and things prior to language, using language to describe them (Kant may represent this approach.. one done by many philosophers)
2) Witt's notion: at some point language games cannot exist without certain "hinge" beliefs. Yet we can explore where hinge beliefs originate to some degree, even using empirical methods (developmental psychology and such).

nor are there clear conclusions in On Certainty. I think you have missed quite a bit of what is going on here. — Banno

This is important because OC is not a finished work so we don't know what the editing process would have looked like, i.e., what passages would have been left in or left out. Although, certain ideas seem to have some staying power. For example, the idea that Moorean propositions are not normally justified, i.e., justification does have an endpoint. It ends with very basic beliefs. The problem is that what's basic in one context is not in another. One has to look carefully at the specific language games and contexts. In one context "Here is one hand," is outside epistemological systems, and in another, it's within the system. One needs to ask if it makes sense to doubt the proposition. That tells us a lot.

I'm mostly trying to take Witt's ideas and run with them. I'm not always agreeing with Witt or trying to stay within the confines of his thought process. I think it's fun to see where a particular line of thought goes. People who try to tell me that this or that passage says this as opposed to that are not paying attention. The thread is indeed called An Analysis of OC, but my analysis does sometimes go beyond Witt and will indeed stretch his ideas. I will at times debate this or that interpretation, but I'm not going to debate forever these differences, it distracts from the overall goal, which is to give a particular twist to OC, right or wrong. Many of my ideas coincide with what other philosophers have concluded so it's not that I'm so far out in left field that the ideas don't have some validity.

So, if I don't engage, mostly it's about not getting sidetracked or because I don't have the time to answer every question. Don't take it personally. As you've noticed I don't devote all my time to this, I post here and there.

Finally, I've devoted a lot of time to OC. I've read it more times than I can count. So, I do have fairly good background knowledge of Witt's thinking. There are only about 4 or five people in this forum who have as much or more knowledge of this text than I do.