Wittgenstein’s latest work, On Certainty, has not only been read as the dissolution of Cartesian skepticism but as a proposal of a new skepticism. This “new” skepticism has been understood by R. Fogelin (1976 [2002], 1981, 1994) as close to Sextus Empiricus’s Pyrrhonism. Therefore, he called it Neopyrrhonism. To Fogelin, both authors share the epistemological strategythat assumes that basic beliefs of common sense do not require any type of justification but cannotbe doubted either. My proposal is to review this epistemological interpretation of the notion of Neopyrrhonism in light of the metaphilosophical aspects developed by both authors. These aspects highlight the non-theoretical and therapeutic way of understanding philosophy, as well as the persuasive-argumentative abilities they share. Thus, I suggest conceiving of Neopyrrhonism as metaphilosophy rather than as one kind of philosophy focused on the problem of knowledge orjustification.
This article examines Wittgenstein’s philosophical reflection on philosophy: its method, its scope, and its relationship with other knowledge as central elements of the philosophical proposal the author developed in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Therefore, my proposal is to rehearse a metaphilosophical reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks about philosophy in TLP focusing, on the one hand, on his reflections on philosophy as an activity and not as a theory; on the other hand, on his categorical differentiation established between philosophical elucidations and scientific explanations. This proposal differs from the readings that interpret it is through the construction of a theory of meaning -or logical doctrine- that one can distinguish philosophical nonsense and see the world correctly. It also differs from Tractatus’s non-theoretical or quietist readings which understand philosophical elucidations as exclusively negative or critical nonsense. My aim is to highlight a positive aspect of philosophical elucidations that I will call performative. From my metaphilosophical reading, not only does the activity of clarification work as a critical sieve that separates what makes sense from what does not –with no theory; but it also makes a modification -a transformation- in the one who establishes it. These performative aspects imply emphasizing that there is a change in the way we see the world but also in the way we ‘see’ language, meaning, logic, science, philosophy, life, etc. Thus, the refusal to elaborate a theory or to offer scientific explanations does not turn the philosophical elucidations in TLP into a mode of self-destructive attack on all kinds of philosophy. On the contrary, these elucidations are part of the defense of a particular way of practicing it.
Las discusiones recientes sobre las fuentes antiguas del escepticismo han proporcionado nuevos elementos para evaluar el alcance de la propuesta pirrónica y poder diferenciarla de las manifestaciones escépticas modernas. Esto, a su vez, ha permitido explorar la posibilidad de plantear afinidades entre las ideas que Sexto Empírico expuso en sus Hipotiposis Pirrónicas y las ideas que Wittgenstein presentó en Sobre la certeza. Mi propósito es evaluar el alcance de estas afinidades a partir del lugar que ambos autores otorgan a la problemática del desacuerdo.
La filosofía de S. Cavell emprende una revisión del pasado filosófico a través del análisis del escepticismo moderno. Esta revisión no intenta dar una respuesta al desafío, sino entender las motivaciones que hacen que el escéptico niegue con sus dudas nuestras confianza ordinaria en el mundo y en los otros. Para el autor norteamericano lo que el desafío escéptico revela es que se establece una diferenciación entre cómo opera nuestro concepto de conocimiento en relación con el problema del mundo externo y cómo opera el concepto de auto-conocimiento en relación con el problema de las otras mentes. Desde mi perspectiva, esta diferencia establece a su vez, modos diferentes de comprender la naturaleza de los desacuerdos. Los desacuerdos en moral han sido generalmente evaluados bajo el ideal de las virtudes epistémicas que funcionan para el concepto de conocimiento. Cavell revisa críticamente este ideal e interpreta a los desacuerdos no como fallas epistémicas a superar, sino como desacuerdos en los que los participantes deben hacerse responsables de lo que dicen sin que necesariamente se busque un acuerdo definitivo. Esto implica, desde mi lectura, una modificación en el modo en el que interpretamos nuestro concepto de racionalidad.
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