Stroll also stresses the idea that scepticism is self-defeating.
Wittgenstein’s foundationalism, even
in its absolutist form, thus differs from those of the tradition in being
striated. These two features—the world and the community—thus stand fast in
different ways, that is, in having somewhat different presuppositional
relationships to the language game. Taken together they are what philosophers
have called the external world. Both aspects exhibit a kind of objectivity—an intruding
presence—that impinges upon human beings and to which in diverse ways they must
conform. Neither aspect is open to obsessive doubt or to revision. Wittgenstein’s
“solution” to the problem of the existence of the external world is that no
sensible question can be raised with respect to either of these aspects. Their
existence is presupposed in any formulation of the problem. Therefore to
question their existence, as the sceptic presumably wishes to do, is
self-defeating. In even trying to formulate its challenge scepticism initiates the
process of its own destruction. (Stroll 1994: 181)
One reason for this is the role that language plays in
articulating any sceptical doubt:
But even the form the sceptic’s
challenge takes—the linguistic format to which it must conform so that another
can understand it—presupposes the existence of the community and its linguistic
practices. The sceptic’s doubts are thus self-defeating. (ibid: 180)
So the anti-sceptical argument floats at least partly free of the exact
nature of the hinges. Scepticism is defeated via a claim of being self-stultifying
rather than the specific nature of the hinges. It is not, for example, that
their non-propositionality is used to block closure or directly to deny the
sense of what scepticism proposes.
So what is the role of hinges? One hint comes from an earlier
summary of the link between hinges and scepticism. Their role in characterising
Wittgenstein’s foundationalism is what they contribute to defeating scepticism.
Wittgenstein, as a foundationalist,
also asserts that nothing could be more certain than that which stands fast for
us, but in On Certainty his discussion makes no reference to the regress
difficulty. Given his form of foundationalism the regress problem does not
arise. It arises for traditionalists because they assume that the question, How
do you know that that which stands fast for us is certain? is always
applicable. And they assume that because they think that the foundation and
what rests on it belong to the same category. But for Wittgenstein’s form of
foundationalism the question is not applicable and, in fact, embodies a
category mistake. One cannot sensibly ask of that which is certain whether it
is known (or not known) or true (or false); for what is meant by certitude is
not susceptible to such ascriptions. The sceptical question thus need not be
answered. (ibid: 148)
Stroll proposes that Wittgenstein is a foundationalist albeit of a
novel kind because the foundation for knowledge is not itself known. In other
words, he offers an account which aims clearly to separate knowledge and
certainty.
As we have seen throughout this work,
he rejects the idea that what is foundational is susceptible to proof, the
adducing of evidence, truth or falsity, justification or non-justification. Whatever
is so susceptible belongs to the language game and thus to a different
category of human activity from das Fundament. Wittgenstein’s genius
consisted in constructing an account of human knowledge whose foundations,
whose supporting presuppositions, were in no ways like knowledge. Knowledge
belongs to the language game, and certitude does not. The base and the mansion
resting on it are completely different. This is what Wittgenstein means when he
says that knowledge and certainty belong to different categories. (ibid:
145)
The picture is complicated by the fact that On Certainty
contains two views of hinges.
As I have indicated in earlier
chapters, there are two different accounts of F [das Fundament] in On
Certainty. One of these—the earlier—is propositional in character. It
clearly derives from Wittgenstein’s response to Moore, who thinks of certainty
in propositional terms. As I stated earlier, when Wittgenstein speaks of hinge propositions
as immune to justification, proof, and so on, we are dealing with the
earlier account. The second account is completely different. It begins to
develop gradually as the text was being written and comes to dominate it as it
closes. On this view, there are several candidates for F, and all of them are
non-intellectual. Among these are acting, being trained in communal
practices, instinct, and so on. (ibid: 146)
The transition from the one to the other is hinted at by the fact
that even on the former view, where hinges are called ‘hinge propositions’, their actual nature is qualified.
[W]hat Wittgenstein is calling hinge
propositions are not ordinary propositions at all. Such concepts as being
true or false, known or not known, justified or unjustified do not apply to
them, and these are usually taken to be the defining features of propositions.
(ibid:146)
This picture is more like Moyal-Sharrock’s. Such hinges are
technically non-propositional despite looking conceptually articulated, the
sorts of items that it would seem understandable for Moore to claim might
be known. The connection between the first and second view of hinges stems from
the origins of the hinges even of the quasi-propositional picture.
These propositions are not the
products of intellection, reflection, trial and error, or experimentation;
rather, they are aborbed by each of us in the course of our daily lives. The
notion of absorption is intertwined with Wittgenstein’s denial that
ratiocination is the ground that supports the epistemic structure. This notion
plays a major role in his account of the community. We acquire communal practices,
such as being a native speaker, by absorption rather than by explicit learning.
As Wittgenstein puts it elsewhere, we inherit our picture of the world. This
is another way of saying that we absorb the foundations that make the language game
possible. (ibid: 155)
Stroll suggests, however, that even this half way house encourages
a misreading of the nature of the certainty on which our epistemic practices
rest.
Why did Wittgenstein eventually
discard the propositional account in favor of one that is not propositional? I
believe the answer is that he recognized that if one thinks of certitude in
propositional terms—as Descartes and Moore did—the tendency to think of such
propositions as being known would be irresistible. And this is the
inference he wished to resist. (ibid: 155)
Hence the move to construe certainty as something primitive,
instinctual, animal, practical rather than theoretical or perceptual, and
inherited. Thus On Certainty contains both an initial
quasi-propositional view of hinges – albeit one where they are not known or
justified and hence not really propositions – and also a more radical animal
and practical certainty.
His first reaction consisted in
asserting that what he was calling hinge propositions are not propositions in
any traditional sense of that term and, in particular, that they are not mental
– a “kind of seeing, as it were.” Neither are they straightforwardly empirical—though
they look as if they are. Even the idea that they are “grammatical rules” was
seen to over-intellectualize the point he was trying to make. Instead he began
to conceive of certainty as a mode of acting. The idea that acting lies at the
bottom of the language game (instead of any system of propositions) is a new
and radical conception of certainty. Certainty stems from one’s immersion in a
human community in which rote training and the inculcation of habits create the
substratum upon which the language game rests. This non-propositional
conception of certitude thus sharply separates Wittgenstein from the tradition.
(ibid: 155)
[T]his second account of certainty
takes many different forms depending upon the particular contrast Wittgenstein
wishes to highlight. There are three such main forms: (1) that certainty is
something primitive, instinctual, or animal, (2) that it is acting, and (3)
that it derives from rote training in communal practices. In all of these the
major contrast with his former view is that what stands fast is the product of reasoning
or intellection. Insofar as propositions or even pseudo-propositions or grammatical
rules are conceived of as the products of rational activity, the new view
stands in opposition to any such account…
These three strands—instinct, acting, and training—are different.
If they were to be analyzed further, which Wittgenstein, of course, never had
time to do, they might well turn out (as I believe) to be in tension with one
another. But I think that Wittgenstein meant them to be part of a single
complex idea that he wishes to contrast with the propositional account. It is
thus possible to find an interpretation that welds them into a single
(admittedly complex) conception of that which stands fast. On this
interpretation, what Wittgenstein takes to be foundational is a picture of the
world we all inherit as members of a human community. We have been trained from
birth in ways of acting that are nonreflective to accept a picture of the world
that is ruthlessly realistic: that there is an earth, persons on it, objects in
our environment, and so forth… This picture is manifested in action. When we
open a door our lives show that we are certain. Certainty is thus not a matter
of reflection about the door but a way of acting with respect to it. All
animals, including humans, inherit their picture of the world, and like other
animals much of our inheritance derives from early training – “something must
be taught us as a foundation” (OC 449). (ibid: 157-8)
Stroll’s account of the second view of hinges is thus akin to
Malcolm’s ‘Wittgenstein: The relation of language to instinctive behaviour’
(Malcolm 1982). Malcolm plays up some key paragraphs from On Certainty.
If the shopkeeper wanted to
investigate each of his apples without any reason, in order to play safe, why
doesn’t he have to investigate the investigation? And can one speak here of
belief (I mean belief as in religious belief, not conjecture)? Here all
psychological terms merely lead us away from the main thing (OC 459)
In order to have ‘absolute certainty’ must not the shopkeeper try to determine
not only that these things are apples, but also that what he is doing is trying
to find out whether they are apples, and in addition that he is really counting
them? And if the shopkeeper doesn’t do this, is this because he ‘believes’, or ‘knows’,
or is ‘certain’, or is ‘convinced’, or ‘assumes’, or ‘has no doubt’, that these
are apples and that he is counting them? No. All psychological terms, says
Wittgenstein, lead us away from ‘the main thing’ (die Hauptsache). (Malcolm
1982: 19)
Am I not getting closer and closer to
saying that in the end logic cannot be described? You must look at the practice
of language, then you will see it (OC 501).
Logic cannot be described! I take this to mean that it is not appropriate for
Wittgenstein to say either that he ‘knows’, or ‘believes’, or is ‘certain’, or
is ‘convinced’, or ‘assumes’, or ‘does not doubt’, that his name is L. W., or
that this is called a ‘hand’, or that the law of induction is true. None of
these terms are correct. What does it mean to say: ‘You must look at the
practice of language, then you will see it’? What do you see? Well, you see the
unhesitating behaviour with which a person signs his name at the end of a
letter or gives his name to a bank clerk; or uses the word ‘hand’ in
statements; or makes inductive inferences; or does calculations; and so on. What
you see is this unhesitating way of acting. This is the ‘logic’ of language
that cannot be described with psychological words. It is too ‘primitive’, too ‘instinctive’,
for that. It is behaviour that is like the squirrel’s gathering nuts or the cat’s
watching a mouse hole. This is why Wittgenstein says it is something animal (OC
359). (ibid: 19-20)
Stroll characterises the animal and instinctual nature of
certainty as standing in contrast to any view of hinge propositions, pseudo-propositions
or grammatical rules as the products of rational activity. Certainty stands
outside rational activity, the space of concepts or reasons. As Malcolm says,
it is like the squirrel’s gathering nuts or the cat’s watching a mouse hole.
The key virtue of this account is that it is clear how certainty can
be non-propositional and non-conceptual. It is shared with creatures who lack
language and conceptual abilities. At the same time, as Anscombe stresses,
animal behaviour can have a kind of unity and purposiveness. In fact, contra
Wittgenstein and Malcolm’s comments, psychological concepts do find their
application in a cat stalking a mouse.
But despite that qualification, the main problem is that it lies
too far from the epistemic practices it is supposed to ground. Stroll himself
says:
We have been trained from birth in
ways of acting that are nonreflective to accept a picture of the world that
is ruthlessly realistic: that there is an earth, persons on it, objects in
our environment, and so forth… This picture is manifested in action. When we
open a door our lives show that we are certain. Certainty is thus not a matter
of reflection about the door but a way of acting with respect to it. All
animals, including humans, inherit their picture of the world... (ibid: 157-8
italics added)
There is here a mismatch between the merely animal and accepting a
picture of the world, moreover one that is realistic. The latter
requires the conceptual abilities that the former rules out. So Stroll’s own
account is inconsistent. He links acceptance of the picture with action. One
manifests acceptance through activity. But while acting as though
one has a picture of the world might characterise merely animal behaviour, it
is not sufficient for rational agents, who are also able to form conceptually
articulated judgements about the world. They actually do have a conception of the
world. Further, some hinges, such as the famous ‘here is a hand’, seem to be direct
codifications of aspects of conceptual mastery (cf McGinn and, to an extent, Coliva). Hence the attempt to
distinguish the animal from the conceptual seems misguided. Others, such as
that the world has existed for a long time, seem clearly to be beyond mere
animal possibilities of expression or manifestation.
Stroll’s account – and Malcolm’s too – stands in need of a key bit
of augmentation. While certainty might be more a matter of action than
perception and such action might have something in common with purposive animal
action, still what is the connection between rational animal activity and the
possession of concepts? And in so far as certainty for such agents can be
conceptually articulated, into what chunks does it divide and what is our
attitude to them?
My hunch is that, whether or not Stroll is right that Wittgenstein
moved from a quasi-propositional to a non-propositional animal view of
certainty, such a move is a misstep. I think we can retain some key
features of his (Wittgenstein’s on Stroll’s reading) picture without embracing
that move. So hinges are held without specific arguments for them but as part
of a conceptually structured inherited world picture. One aspect of them so
holding is the certainty of action in accord with them. That is, there are
behavioural manifestations of holding a hinge. But the behavioural
manifestations of rational agents are expressions of tacit conceptual mastery, not brutely extra-conceptual animal
certainty. And because they are held as a kind of tacit background for enquiry,
we would usually have no idea what an attempt to state first person knowledge
of them was meant to be doing (cf Conant).
The main violence this view does to Wittgenstein’s text is to play down the distinction between knowledge and certainty. Knowledge is certain, too (cf McDowell and Travis). But not all elements that are known form part of the foreground of epistemic practices. In other words, Wittgenstein overplayed the idea knowledge is a game of explicitly asking for and offering reasons. (Nor is doubt symmetric with all knowledge.) The capacity to acquire knowledge may require sensitivity to reasons (such as defeaters) but sometimes we get knowledge almost for free ie. for the cost of entry into the game at all.
References
Coliva A. (2010) Moore and Wittgenstein. Scepticism, Certainty and Common Sense (London/Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan)
Conant, J. 1998, ‘Wittgenstein on meaning and use’, Philosophical Investigations 21, 222–50.
Malcolm, N. (1982) ‘Wittgenstein: The relation of language to instinctive behaviour’ Philosophical Investigations, 5: 3-22
McDowell, J. (1995b) ‘Knowledge and the Internal’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 55, 877–93. Reprinted in Meaning, Knowledge and Reality, 395–413.
McGinn, M. (1989) Sense and Certainty. A Dissolution of Scepticism, Oxford, Blackwell.
Moyal-Sharrock D. (2004) Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty (London/ Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillian).
Stroll, A. (1994) Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty, New York, Oxford University Press.
Travis, C. (2005) ‘A sense of occasion’
