True and false apply to statements, and so to things already interpreted. But everythign is always already interpreted, no? So there can be no “outside” a system…
Which is to say that the notion of a system become irrelevant. Davidson’s point in On the very idea…
For many (all?) of the examples mentioned, we can imagine cases in which they might be false; but when we do so we change the game we are playing - we throw the chess piece across the room, or mispronounce the letter.
More formally, truth and falsehood are part of the interpretation, of the model, not of the syntax.
Well, it seems this can’t be left as moot, so here’s my puzzlement.
You say the only reading of the text that makes sense is that “hinge” be restricted to scientific statements; that they are propositions that belong to our scientific investigations; that there “is not textual support or evidence that Wittgenstein uses the term ‘hinge’ to mean anything other than these incontrovertible propositions that belong to scientific investigations”.
I point out that most of the examples given on the day hinges were discussed are not concerned with scientific investigation.
Your response seems to be that these can’t be samples of potential hinges, because they are not concerned with scientific investigation.
A strikingly circular argument: The only examples of hinges are to do with scientific investigation because the examples that are not to do with scientific investigation cannot be potential hinges.
Well, not conflate, but I would rank hinges amongst the things of which we can be certain. You don’t?
I wasn’t able to follow your purpose in the discussion of Wittgenstein’s view of science. Your conclusion seems to be that all statements are scientific.
A contention in the Tractatus was that the meaning of a sentence was found in the picture of the world it set out. A corollary of that was that the true sentences corresponded exactly with the sentences of science. The later Wittgenstein rejected this picture theory, suggesting that instead of looking to meaning we might do well to look to the use of the sentence on some language game or form of life. The admonition became not to think, but to look; to pay attention to the vast variety of “meaningful” expressions, and so the variety of ways in which we use words. Hence the range of examples used on the day in question. A hinge here is a statement held firm in order that the game be played; it’s that I haven’t been to the moon, that I can write a letter and post is with an expectation that it be read by the person to whom it is sent; that the value of twelve twelves does not change, that I can rely (somewhat) on the train timetable, that the red stuff is blood, or that the bishop stays on its own colour.
Indeed, the quote you provide (PI §109, not OC) sets us to supposing that hinges are not part of our scientific explanations, but part of the philosophy that guides our science. That quote appears to undermine the point you seem to be making.
It does not follow that these example are examples of hinges. It could be argued that the statements about hinges stand out apart from what is around it.
My response is to ask: what hangs from them? How does our knowledge of the world change if it turns out that what is believed is wrong.
You go on to say that things of which we cannot be certain are not hinges because they are things of which we cannot be certain.
Why would you think I don’t? I have said more than once that hinges are things we are certain of.
Once again, what is at issue is the investigation not isolated statements.
What is at issue is not the meaning of a sentence but the difference between a scientific investigation and a philosophical investigation.
The distinction between a scientific investigation and a philosophical investigation still hold. This is important for understanding what is meant by belonging to the logic of our scientific investigations.
Are you claiming that hinge proposition need not be an epistemic?
The quote at PI 109 says nothing about hinges. It is about what distinguishes a philosophical investigation such as the Philosophical Investigations from scientific investigations. Contrary to scientific investigations it is without theory or explanation or empirical problems.
Indeed. They are, however, part of the discussion in which hinges are raised. It certainly does not follow that they are not examples of hinges, and a quick check of the literature will show that this is a common enough presumption.
I don’t see how that’s salient…
Yes, indeed; hinges are at least a subset of certainties, and so if we cannot be certain of something, it follows that it cannot be a hinge.
Why is that the issue? But the answer is clear enough in what you quote: the considerations of PI §109 are philosophical, not scientific. One presumes that these are background considerations, the underpinning of the scientific form of life. So we agree that there is a distinction to be made between doing science and doing the conceptual clarification of philosophy. Good.
Indeed. It is about the difference between logic, as discussed over the previous few pages, and scientific investigation; and if hinges are a part of that logic, then they are not scientific considerations, although they may well serve as hinges for such.
And neither is: if it is a hinge it belongs to our scientific investigations, it it does not belong to our scientific investigations it is not a hinge.
If you mean they are not among the things that are investigated then yes.
Okay. Good. According to Wittgenstein our epistemic practices form a systematic whole:
OC 410. Our knowledge forms an enormous system. And only within this system has a particular bit the value we give it
OC 411. If I say “we assume that the earth has existed for many years past” (or something similar), then of course it sounds strange that we should assume such a thing. But in the entire system of our language-games it belongs to the foundations. The assumption, one might say, forms the basis of action, and therefore, naturally, of thought.
Note that they form a system. There are subsystems but they all have their place within this enormous system. What is that system if not science?
I do not think hinges are rules.
We have not come to agreement as to what differentiates a hinge from other propositions.
We have not settled on how hinges differ from other things. If you want to proceed to see how they differ from each other, go ahead but there is still to much that is undecided for me to join you.
That seems to take us back to the role of philosophy as the conceptual police. I don’t think that will stand up. Apart from anything else, I find that most scientists, and artists and everyone else, think that they are perfectly capable of policing themselves. One has to sympathize, if one things that the meaning of a concept is its use.
More to the point, perhaps, given that the later Wittgenstein (and I may be wrong here) seems to think that the difference between a conceptual remark (rules of the game) and an empirical statement (moves within the game), is a question of the use of a form of words in a specific context. What exactly is the difference between “This is red” as an ostensive definition and “This is red” as a piece of information?
I have to say, my impression is that he doesn’t have (or particularly want, perhaps,) a particularly precise definition of science as opposed to non-science. I recall a remark about how hypnotised philosophers can be by physics, which seems to be not wrong, but he doesn’t elaborate - or that’s my impression. Nor does he seem to recognize the ambiguous position of disciplines like sociology, psychology, economics, never mind the arts. The concept of “synthetic a priori” comes to mind as well.
There’s quite an agenda for a taxonomy, or at least for an exploration of relationships in a language-game there. I would add axioms, presuppositions.
Looking at hinges in comparison to their near relations seems to me a good way of coming to understand them.
Or am I missing the point?
I think that’s right. But if it is, it makes all questions whether a given proposition is indubitable or not dependent on context. The only answers that are available are “In this context, yes”, “in that context, no”, “in the other context, maybe”.
So it seems to me that an lot of the discussion here has simply missed (or forgotten) the point.
Well, no, as is explicit. It’s a direct A⊃B ⊢ ~B⊃~A. If it’s a hinge, it is certain, so if it is not certain, it’s not a hinge. That’s not circular.
Sure. We are talking about hinges. Seems we might both agree with Wittgenstein that hinges are not a part of the scientific investigation, although some of them might serve to set it up. That is what your quote is saying: “It was correct that our considerations must not be scientific ones”.
If the theses here is that there is no metaphysics, only grammatical confusion, we might find some agreement.
Of course. The aim of this thread is to sort out what that place might be; and especially if it is one place or many.
So the issue I’d like to address with you is whether the sorts of things you take as hinges for empirical statements all amount to constitutive rules in the way I’ve set out for “Here is a hand”; or whether there are hinges that cannot be so analysed. I hope there are, and that we might proceed to see how it is that they differ.
I’m not convinced that they do it so well - even though they may think they do.
A difference in intent? Choosing the red lollies from the bowl, we might say “this is red” as a justification for choosing this lolly, or we might say “this is red” as an explanation of the use of “red” to a child. One is a move in the game of sorting the lollies, the other is a part of the setting up of the game - lollies like this count as red.
Perhaps. Other parts of the text lead me to think that assumptions - axioms and presuppositions - are not always such clear examples of certainties. The text after OC §342 leads me this way, in rejecting “We just can’t investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption”. It’s not that we might come back later to check if this is a hand, but that “this is a hand” sets up the very game we are playing.
OC §374 We teach a child “that is your hand”, not “that is perhaps (or “probably”) your hand”.
And yes, I agree that such comparisons are a good way to understand hinges and other certainties.
Yes! Consider Anscombe’s shopping list - the list and the receipt are identical, but have very different places in the game. (Are you familiar with that example?)
So to push the Taxonomy question, to my eye we have those certainties that are constitutive of the game, that set it in place; and these can be marked by noting the grammar “…counts as…”.
Searle goes in to this in more detail, and we might follow that line of argument as well.
But for the taxonomy, are there certainties that cannot be put into the form “…counts as…”?
That often comes up in the Blue Book. For instance, this remark on the craving for generality:
(d) Our craving for generality has another main source: our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness.
-Blue Book, page 29 in this version: https://books.wittgensteinproject.org/pdf/english/Blue%20Book.pdf
In On Certainty, the separate method of philosophy is maintained in the context of Wittgenstein’s treatment of Moore’s arguments. An area of agreement between them is the futility of the view of the radical skeptic who doubts what really exists. In the Blue Book,the man with Common Sense is ready at hand:
When we think about the relation of the objects surrounding us to our personal experiences of them, we are sometimes tempted to say that these personal experiences are the material of which reality consists. How this temptation arises will become clearer later on.
When we think in this way we seem to lose our firm hold on the objects surrounding us. And instead we are left with a lot of separate personal experiences of individuals. These personal experiences again seem vague and seem to be in constant flux. Our language seems not to have been made to describe them. We are tempted to think that in order to clear up such matters philosophically our ordinary language is too coarse, that we need a more subtle one.
We seem to have made a discovery, – which I could describe by saying that the ground on which we stood and which appeared to be firm and reliable was found to be boggy and unsafe. – That is, this happens when we philosophize; for as soon as we revert to the standpoint of common sense this general uncertainty disappears.
-Blue Book page 69 in this version: https://books.wittgensteinproject.org/pdf/english/Blue%20Book.pdf
On Certainty tackles the question of when doubt happens or not. The reductions of science and proofs of math are different activities than others. The shape of Moore’s argument does not let us look for that.
This isn’t my area, but my understanding is that a hinge is a background certainty: a presupposition that shapes how we behave and see the world. A hinge helps us navigate reality for example, taking for granted that an external world exists.
So here’s a rough outline of a possible taxonomy. We have stuff about which we are certain, some of which are hinges, and some of which are constitutive rules.
We might ask if the hinges are the very same as the constitutive rules, such that any hinge may be expressed as a “…counts as…” expression. And if not, what other sorts of expressions are also hinges? Further, are there certainties that are not hinges?
And all of this presumes that our certainties are propositional, which was challenged by Moyal-Sharrock’s account. If her account be accepted, then belief-that reduces to belief-in, and our certainties relate to items rather than states of affairs, and are to do with names rather than propositions.
Well, that depends on what a hinge is, and that has been the focus of most of the discussion here so far.
I’d accept a pretty broad use of “hinge”, focusing on the metaphorical something that is held constant while the door does the work. I wouldn’t restrict hinges to only empirical proposals, for example. And I think hinges are the clearest instances of constitutive statements. I’m just not sure how the other metaphors mentioned in the OP fit; how does a river bed or a scaffold differ from a hinge, and so on.
Consider “every human being has parents” (OC §211), offered as an example of a scaffold. Is it that to count as a human being you must have parents? That doesn’t seem quite right. So what sort of statement is this?