Beyond All Reasonable Doubt: New Scepticism and Hinge Epistemology

This dissertation arises from the recognition of the significance of the sceptical challenge within contemporary epistemology, and offers a critical assessment of a recently developed framework known as hinge epistemology, which advances a distinctive anti-sceptical response. Inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, this philosophical project does not offer a direct refutation of the sceptical conclusion; rather, it adopts an indirect strategy, that might initially appear concessive towards scepticism. This study reconstructs the positions of the main proponents of hinge epistemology (Annalisa Coliva, Danièle Moyal-Sharrock and Duncan Pritchard) in order to assess both the anti-sceptical effectiveness of this framework and its capacity to provide an insightful account of our epistemic life. To this end, the dissertation initially focuses on authors whose positions have been regarded as favourable, or at least concessive, towards scepticism – thinkers that Michael Williams, in Unnatural Doubts: Epistemological Realism and the Basis of Scepticism (1991), defines as New Sceptics. By selecting Peter Unger, Barry Stroud, Thomas Nagel and Peter Frederick Strawson as points of comparison for assessing the anti-sceptical robustness of hinge epistemology, this study situates the emergence of this epistemological project within a broader reconstruction of the preceding philosophical debate. In doing so, it investigates whether hinge epistemology is capable of engaging effectively with the positions of the New Sceptics. At the same time, this analysis enables a critical reconsideration of the very notion of New Scepticism, highlighting the difficulty of coherently grouping these authors within a unified epistemological movement endowed with a strong theoretical commonality. The following part of the dissertation centres on On Certainty, examining the main characteristics of the text, it sources, and its central themes. In this connection, particular attention is devoted to the so-called framework reading of the text, which underpins the positions of the major proponents of hinge epistemology. According to this interpretation, in On Certainty Wittgenstein identifies a host of propositions playing a distinctive role within our epistemic practices – hinge propositions – which constitute the framework or background enabling our epistemic life, while remain themselves immune to epistemic evaluation. On this basis, Wittgenstein’s core insights concerning knowledge and related epistemic notions are reconstructed, bringing to light the inherently interconnected character of our linguistic and epistemic practices. The subsequent chapters examine the notions of hinge certainty and sceptical doubt, both as articulated by Wittgenstein in On Certainty and as interpreted by the main proponents of hinge epistemology. More specifically, Moyal-Sharrock’s non-propositional and enacted view of hinge certainty, Coliva’s interpretation of hinges as assumptions, and Pritchard’s non-belief, commitment-based account of hinges are discussed and brought into comparison. Additionally, the leading anti-sceptical proposals developed within the hinge epistemology framework are presented. Moyal-Sharrock understands scepticism as a category mistake, insofar as sceptical doubts are directed at hinges, that are exempt from epistemic evaluation. Coliva endorses a moderate view of the structure of perceptual warrants and advances her extended rationality view in response to the sceptical challenge, construing scepticism as a form of conceptual disagreement. Finally, Pritchard formulates a biscopic anti-sceptical strategy, combining hinge epistemology with epistemological disjunctivism, in order to address the sceptical challenge in its entirety. According to his account, this challenge is generated by two distinct epistemic principles: closure and underdetermination. The concluding chapter assesses the capacity of the hinge epistemology framework to engage with the positions of the New Sceptics. First, Unger’s Cartesian scepticism, grounded in semantic considerations, is considered with particular attention to the notion of certainty. Second, the possibility of a wholesale evaluation of our epistemic practices, as discussed in Stroud and Nagel’s reflections on scepticism, is analysed in light of hinge epistemology’s conception of the epistemic domain. Third, Strawson’s naturalist interpretation of Wittgenstein’s position is be discussed, in order to determine both its effectiveness against scepticism and whether the framework reading of On Certainty provides a more satisfactory alternative. The chapter overviews the main features of the positions of Coliva, Moyal-Sharrock and Pritchard, thereby enabling a broader appreciation of the conception of epistemic life proposed by hinge epistemology.