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< | Wittgenstein vs. Evil Demon | >
> | Becoming Unhinged | | | | |
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< | -- By DanLEe - 16 Apr 2021 | >
> | -- By DanLEe - May 19, 2021 | | | | |
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< | The Skeptical Argument
THE SKEPTICAL ARGUMENT | >
> | Introduction | | | | |
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< | P1: If one doesn’t know that she is not a brain in a vat, then one doesn’t know that she has hands. | | | | |
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< | P2: One doesn’t know that she is not a brain in a vat. | >
> | Ludwig Wittgenstein’s On Certainty was his last work, and although decidedly less famous than either his Tractatus or Philosophical Investigations, it offers insights as profound as any that can be found in the remainder of his corpus. On Certainty is essentially a compilation of notes that Wittgenstein wrote as he was dying of cancer, only given definable structure by his friends posthumously. This unfinished quality has yielded a plethora of interpretations of this work. The epistemological ramifications of On Certainty also may provide an alternative way of appreciating the grimness of the modern American cultural and political landscape. | | | | |
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< | C: Therefore, one doesn’t know that she has hands. | >
> | Descartes and the Skeptical Hypothesis | | | | |
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< | Skepticism, as a philosophical concept, has been around since even before Descartes, who put forth its most popular form in Meditations in the seventeenth century. Descartes examines all propositions that he ordinarily believes to be true but are vulnerable to doubt. Ordinarily, he believes in his sensory perceptions, his memories, and his knowledge of mathematical and geometric axioms. But what if an omnipotent evil demon has set itself to deceiving him, and he is in a dream where even his most basic concepts regarding reality may be false? Descartes arrives at the famous conclusion that there is only one undoubtable proposition: cogito ergo sum, or “I think, therefore I am.”
Big whoop. Although I may know that I exist, that doesn’t provide any evidence for the existence of my corporeal body, the veracity of my memories, or the existence of an external world. As Gilbert Harman says, I may be a brain in a vat, plugged into a computer that, through the appropriate electric and chemical signals, is convincing me that I have hands and eyes; cogito ergo sum provides no fuel to escape this skeptical or solipsistic conundrum. | >
> | In order to understand On Certainty, a short detour is necessary to examine the skeptical problem he means to address in On Certainty. The skeptical problem was put forth in its most popular form in Descartes’ Meditations in the seventeenth century, where he postulated that it would be possible that his sensory experiences, logical reasoning, and subjective mind-states could all be completely fabricated and controlled by an “evil demon.” Even simple propositions whose truth we take for granted, like “The Earth existed long before I was born,” or “2 + 2 = 5,” or “I have a body,” could be doubted, as such beliefs could theoretically be the erroneous byproducts of a manipulated mind. The position of the radical, or global, skeptic is that knowledge about an external world is impossible, as no proposition can ever truly be free from doubt (besides perhaps “I think, therefore I am,” but this proposition cannot support the reality of an external world). | | | | |
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< | The Moorean Argument | >
> | Moore's Argument | | | | |
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< | Then, along comes George Edward Moore in the early twentieth century. Moore writes two of the most maddening philosophical treatises of all time: “A Defence of Common Sense,” and Proof of an External World. Both are concerned with adding another proposition to our scant list of sureties: namely, that there is an external world. In the latter, he writes that “here is one hand, here is another.” Therefore, there are two objects in the external world. Therefore, skepticism is defeated. How absurd, he says, would it be to say that one doesn’t know that one’s hands exist.
In these treatises, Moore shifts the above argument from a modus ponens (affirming the antecedent) to a modus tollens (denying the consequent). His argument is this:
THE MOOREAN ARGUMENT
P1: If one doesn’t know that she is not a brain in a vat, then one doesn’t know that she has hands.
- P2
- One knows that she has hands.
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- Therefore, one knows that she is not a brain in a vat.
These two treatises are some of the most oft-cited in philosophical academia. Hundreds, if not thousands, of philosophers have chimed in to laud the argument’s boldness, disparage it brazenness, or simply shake their heads at how annoying it is. There is something obviously compelling about the argument. Common sense decrees that we know of the reality of our hands, which proves the reality of our external world. But at the same time, the argument is irritatingly question-begging; if we actually are in a skeptical scenario, common sense has no weight at all. Most philosophers agree that the argument fails to robustly counter the skeptical hypothesis, although it does have its proponents, like Pritchard and Pryor. | >
> | Descartes’ skeptical hypothesis was the topic of centuries’ worth of metaphysical debate, which rages on today. But in the early twentieth century, G. E. Moore wrote two watershed responses: “A Defence of Common Sense” and Proof of an External World. Moore flips the skeptical hypothesis on its head, arguing “Here is one hand, here Is another.” Ergo, there are two objects in the external world, and we have knowledge of an external world. His argument’s thrust is that it would be absurd, even for a skeptic, for one to claim that she did not know she had hands. Moore wields common sense as a means to defeat the skeptic, and while his argument has a certain charm to it, it is irritatingly question-begging; if an evil demon is controlling Moore, his “common sense” is worthless. | | |
Wittgenstein's Argument | |
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< | But instead of discussing the enormous debate fueled by Moore’s treatises, which form an important bulk of the last century’s epistemological analysis, I’d like to turn to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work On Certainty. On Certainty, unlike Wittgenstein’s more famous Tractatus, lacks definable structure and is a decidedly rough and unpolished work. It is more correct to call it a compilation of notes that Wittgenstein wrote as he was dying from cancer, only given structure by Wittgenstein’s friends posthumously. The work has been interpreted through a variety of frameworks, and its unrefined nature yields itself to diverse forms of analysis. Undoubtedly, the following analysis will fall far short of encapsulating all Wittgenstein meant to say. | >
> | Wittgenstein, writing half a century later, acknowledged in On Certainty both the boldness of Moore’s approach to the skeptical problem, as well as its question-begging, epistemically circular nature. In what possible statement could we possibly be more epistemically secure in than “Here are two hands”? In a brilliant move, Wittgenstein sidesteps the metaphysical issue of whether or not a radically skeptical scenario is possible in favor of discussing the role that propositions such as “Here are two hands” play in our language-games and epistemology. Such statements are hinge propositions or hinge commitments, as they work like hinges on a door; the entire framework of propositions that form our epistemic webs of belief and justification, and our linguistic systems of expression, relies on our accepting them. | | | | |
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< | In On Certainty, Wittgenstein notes both the boldness of Moore’s approach to the skeptical problem, as well as its question-begging, epistemically circular nature. Furthermore, the epistemic strength of the evidence that justifies any given proposition must be greater than that of the proposition that is being proved, and what possible statement could we possibly be more epistemically secure in than “Here are two hands”? | >
> | In order to have a choate conversation with someone, there needs to be some shared epistemological common ground; I couldn’t talk about the weather with someone who doubts the existence of the sky, sun, and Earth. The everyday inquiries that we concern ourselves with would be either unanswerable or utterly incomprehensible, and a true skeptic would be stuck in a kind of cognitive paralysis, unable even to make an argument or convey her thoughts. | | | | |
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< | In a brilliant move, Wittgenstein sidesteps the metaphysical issue of whether or not a radically skeptical scenario is possible in favor of discussing the role that propositions such as “Here are two hands” play in our epistemology. Such statements, in Wittgenstein’s view, work like hinges on a door; the entire framework of propositions that form our epistemic systems of belief and justification, and our linguistic systems of expression, relies on our accepting them. Wittgenstein writes, “If you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words either… If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything.” | >
> | Dwindling Common Ground | | | | |
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< | For Wittgenstein, the radical skeptic of the brain-in-vat or Cartesian variety cannot exist. To doubt the hinge propositions “Here are two hands,” or “There is an external world” would be to cast doubt onto such vast swaths of our knowledge, belief, and reasoning, that any form of philosophical inquiry becomes utterly impossible. The skeptic, to Wittgenstein, is like a student in class who interrupts every sentence his instructor utters, saying, “How do we know this to be true? How do we know that to be true?” The everyday inquiries that we concern ourselves with would be either unanswerable or utterly incomprehensible, and a true skeptic would be stuck in a kind of cognitive paralysis, unable even to make an argument or pose a hypothesis. | >
> | I agree with Wittgenstein in that there can be no true global skeptics. But in American culture and politics, a different and much realer variety of skepticism, levied at the opposing team in our never-ending culture wars, proliferates and deepens every hour. In late 2020, Fox News devoted hours a day to baseless claims of election fraud; the Atlantic wrote that no credible allegations existed. Breitbart claims that face masks are ineffective at protecting against COVID-19; the CDC and the Lancet say the opposite. The National Review writes that direct government aid is on the cusp of causing a labor shortage; the New York Times writes that said aid prevented millions from falling into poverty and food insecurity. This divergence widens and deepens on different social media platforms and across hundreds of issues and cultural flash points. | | | | |
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< | Wittgenstein, to me, offers the best solution to the angst that can be caused by radically skeptical inquiry. He, like Kant, believes that no metaphysical justifications to the reality of our world can be offered, as none can exist. Instead, he posits that there is the world of sense, which all have taken part in since birth, and to doubt this world is to devolve into entirely unintelligible nonsense. | >
> | This is all meant to say that the epistemological common ground shared by the two sides of the divide is shrinking rapidly. We (for now) all agree on some extremely basic hinge propositions: that we have hands, and that the Earth was here long before us, but not too much else. Conversations regarding an election cannot be choate if one side doubts their integrity, and conversations regarding public health cannot make sense if one side doubts institutional expertise. These are not merely a difference of opinion on certain subjects. The polarization of these issues force entire chunks of our epistemological webs of logical belief and justification to be utterly incompatible with one another, causing conversations across the aisle to be as frustrating as those about the weather with a global skeptic. As the sheer volume of data (whether true or false) on the internet continues to expand, and as communities and cohorts on social media and in the world continue to become more insular, the number of propositions that both sides consider axiomatic will dwindle. To Wittgenstein, to whom language, thought, and reality are isomorphic, this is no mere rhetorical divergence; it is the creation of an alternative, incompatible reality. | | | | |
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This draft does a good job of presenting the undergraduate philosophy survey that lies underneath whatever, for our purposes, the essay is about. It can be reduced to 200 words or so, once it is clear what the context is into which it fits. The improvement of the next draft depends on the provision of that context. No doubt there is value for someone learning the law in getting the Wittgenstein, like the Holmes, fully understood. I wrote an article with a student in this class on that subject, once upon a time, long ago. See Zapf & Moglen, Linguistic Indeterminacy and the Rule of Law: On the Perils of Misunderstanding Wittgenstein, 84 Geo. L. Rev. 485 (1996). But lawyers are not troubled with an inability to believe in the existence of the external social world, on which they are prepared to bet. So what they are troubled with, and what new idea you have with which to address their troubles, we can now find out.
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> | There is nothing novel about saying that as a country, we are becoming more divided; it is obvious, and most of us are horribly tired of hearing about it. But Wittgenstein’s insights into hinge commitments give us an understanding of the true severity of the problem at hand. In light of the current climate, discourse and consensus will be more, not less, feasible in the coming years. | | |
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