It is generally assumed that hinge-commitments are deprived of an epistemically normative structure, and yet, that although groundless, the acceptance of Wittgensteinian certainties is still rational. The problem comes from the intellectualist view of hinge-approvals which many recent proposals advance—one that falls short of the necessities and impossibilities pertaining to what would be the right description of how it is like to approve of hinges. I will raise the Newman-inspired worry as how to cash the abstract acceptance of principles of enquiry into real assent, as well as the question about how to extend normativity all the way back to foundations. It is my aim here to argue that ethical normativity is the only kind of normativity capable to ground the rationality of hinges. In defence of this, I will draw some consequences from Ernest Sosa’s claim that hinges about the external world are logically related to the cogito.
In this paper, I argue that the meaning of Wittgenstein's remarks on suicide should be elucidated against the background of the transcendental picture that permeates Wittgenstein's early writings. This picture is, in its essentials, Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the Will. It is part of my purpose here to argue that the question of suicide such as Wittgenstein raises it, far from being a side issue, is internally related to problems concerning the ethical integration of Will and world, and the meaning of the world. As it will be seen, Wittgenstein manages to present a highly original view on the fundamental character of ethics that combines asceticism with an affirmative attitude to the world. Suicide would undermine ethics. As such, it stands for a nihilistic worldview.
While the Academic sceptics followed the plausible as a criterion of truth and guided their practice by a doxastic norm, so thinking that agential performances are actions for which the agent assumes responsibility, the Pyrrhonists did not accept rational belief-management, dispensing with judgment in empirical matters. In this sense, the Pyrrhonian Sceptic described himself as not acting in any robust sense of the notion, or as 'acting' out of subpersonal and social mechanisms. The important point is that the Pyrrhonian advocacy of a minimal conception of 'belief' was motivated by ethical concerns: avoiding any sort of commitment, he attempted to preserve his peace of mind. In this article, I argue for a Cartesian model of rational guidance that, in line with some current versions of an agential virtue epistemology, does involve judgment and risk, and thus which is true both to our rational constitution and to our finite and fallible nature. Insofar as epistemic humility is a virtue of rational agents that recognise the limits of their judgments, Pyrrhonian scepticism, and a fortiori any variety of naturalism, is unable to accommodate this virtue. This means that, in contrast to the Cartesian model, the Pyrrhonist does not provide a satisfactory answer to the problem of cognitive disintegration. The Pyrrhonist thus becomes a social rebel, one that violates the norm of serious personal assent that enables the flourishing of a collaborative and social species which depends on agents that, however fallible, are accountable for their actions and judgments.
Sosa, general assumptions, and the skeptical trojan horseArtigos / Articles SoSa, general aSSumptionS, and the Skeptical trojan horSe
Los objetivos de este artículo son: (i) Mostrar cómo la pretensión de las estrategias escépticas empleadas por Descartes en Meditación Primera es tanto socavar los cimientos de la epistemología subyacente a la metafísica aristotélica como permitir la adquisición de una perspectiva racional que excluya opiniones y prejuicios, es decir, cómo dichos procedimientos son esenciales para desplazar la certeza del ámbito de los sentidos al del entendimiento. (ii) Absolver a Descartes del cargo de atentado contra el sentido común, cargo improcedente si tenemos en cuenta que, de acuerdo con el filósofo, las condiciones de verdad que regulan nuestras declaraciones cognitivas ordinarias difieren de las que regulan el conocimiento reflexivo. La distinción cartesiana entre creencias y opiniones impide la dicotomía humeana entre compulsiones naturales y normas epistémicas. (iii) Reubicar el argumento del sueño, subrayando el hecho de que su objeto son creencias perceptivas nucleares análogas a las "proposiciones-gozne" de Wittgenstein (algo que implica una concepción jerárquica del lenguaje ordinario irreconciliable con presupuestos y estrategias pirrónicas), acentuando la pertenencia de los sueños al dominio de la imaginación, y constatando que, por ello, se trata de un escenario escéptico incapaz de afectar a las apariencias intelectuales. (iv) Subrayar el papel desempeñado por el argumento del sueño en el proyecto de una concepción no intelectual de la experiencia, esto es, en el proyecto de disociar al Meditador de su yo empírico y de diseñar las condiciones de la autopresentación del cogito. El cogito es una excepción del representacionalismo cartesiano, en la medida en que uno no puede dudar que duda sin dudar. En este sentido, el cogito marca el punto exacto donde resulta imposible disociarnos de nuestros pensamientos, donde el escepticismo llega definitivamente a un fin. Las perspectivas epistemológicas de Ernest Sosa y de Robert Fogelin, radicalmente diferentes entre sí, resultan esenciales para arrojar luz sobre aspectos desatendidos del proyecto cartesiano.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.