My introduction to philosophy was a verbatim summary of Descartes' meditations, minus the part about God making everything okay. My friend Allen and I stayed up all night dicussing philosophy, as we would often do in coming years. I was almost entirely ignorant. He mopped the floor with me as he explained why I couldn't trust even my firmest knowledge. I endeavored to prove him wrong.
Four years later, never having proved Allen (Descartes) wrong, I was a philosophy major at Loyola. When I started my philosophy course, called "Skepticism, Knowledge, and Certitude," I was the #1 defender of Descartes and his skeptical ideas. We studied G. E. Moore, who attempted to move past skepticism, and epistemological idealism, by saying "Here is a hand (raising one of his hands). Here is another hand (raising the other). There are at least two objects external objects in the world. Therefore, an external world exists." Needless to say, I was unconvinced. Then we began to read On Certainty by Ludwig Wittgenstein.
One of the first things pointed out be Wittgenstein was that a Cartesian subject--a solipsistic entity that has imagined all human contact and other perceptions--could not possibly even articulate his ideas or philosophy, for he must doubt even his words. Furthermore, a private language is impossible, since words must be learned through observing their use in a community. A Cartesian subject would have no use for language, and therefore would never have conceived of it.
The most important point that Wittgenstein makes is that there is a certain frame of reference or foundation that all human beings must accept in order to engage in debate, or research, or in survival. These unquestionable items constitute the very locus from where all knowledge is analyzed. These certainties are displayed in action, not in language, and constitute a separate category, for they cannot properly be called knowledge. A belief or hypothesis becomes knowledge once it is tested, but can we test the very means or foundation of testing? Of course not; to test something like our own existence is ludicrous. We don’t know that there is an external world, but it is a certitude that is demonstrated when we do anything. Thus, Wittgenstein draws a distinction between knowledge, and certainty. Certainty is born out in action; it is accepted regardless of examination.
What the skeptics do, essentially, is bring these certainties into the realm of propositions, creating what Wittgenstein calls "hinge propositions," because all knowledge hinges on such propositions. These propositions, such as "Here is a hand (raising my hand).", rest on nothing, and cannot be supported by anything more basic than them--they constitute the base of all thinking. I shouldn’t even have to say I have a hand—it is just accepted. It is the world-view we have all inherited. Wittgenstein's certainties constitute a new foundationalism.
So finally I had reached the end of the road. Descartes’ entire project (as well as the Hellenistic skeptics’) is merely a category mistake, a failure to identify “Wittgensteinian certitude” the true foundation of what we call “knowledge”. I wrote Allen a letter—the jack-ass.
Very well constructed response Alex....but Sextus would agree and would say that language (i.e. propositional knowledge) is about appearances.
ReplyDeleteConsider this quote:
"Teaching is not done by evidence; for evidence is of what is shown to us; what is shown is apparent; what is apparent, insofar as it is apparent can be grasped by everyone; and what can be grasped by everyone in common is non-teachable. Nothing therefore is teachable by evidence. Nothing is taught by argument either. For an argument either signifies something or signifies nothing. It it signifies nothing it will not be capable of teaching anything. If it signifies something, it signifies something by nature or convention. It does not signify by nature because not everyone understands everyone else when they hear them--e.g. Greeks foriegners and foriegners Greeks. Suppose then that it signifies by convention: clearly if you have apprehended the things to which the words are assigned, then when you grasp the things you are not being taught by the words something which you did not know--rather you are recollecting and reviving what you already knew. But if you need to leanr the things which you do not already know and if you have not got the knowledge of the things to which the words are assigned, then you will not grasp anything. Hence the method of learning cannot subsist."
or
"Words signify by convention and not by nature (for then everyone Greeks and foreigners alike would understand everything signified by our phrases; and besides it is up to us to show and signify what is signified with whatever words we want to-and by different words at any time..."
Also I suggest reading the section of Outlines on the nature of definitions.
As for Witt's certitude, this is why Sextus follows Pyrrho and asserts that phenomena always dominates, wherever it appears.
A Pyrrhonian doesn't have knowledge but in action appeals to appearance as the criterion for action (what Witt calls certitude). Sextus similarly says that "when we question whether the underlying object is such as it appears, we grant the fact that it appears, and our doubt does not concern the appearance itself but the account given of that appearance -- and that is a different thing from questioning the appearance itself... And even if we do actually argue against the appearances, we do not propound such arguments with the intention of abolishing appearances, but by way of pointing out the rashness of the Dogmatists..." Sextus suggests that by rejecting a criterion of truth, i.e. knowledge with a "standard of action" then they will be able to simply live rather than theorize about living, striving for some truth that would make what is already possible possible. We all already live without knowing how to live. This is the Pyrrhonian "Practical Criterion." As he writes:
Adhering, then, to appearances we live in accordance with the normal rules of life, undogmatically... And it would seem that this regulation of life is fourfold, and that one part of it lies in the guidance of Nature (physis), another in the constraint of passions (pathe), another in the tradition of laws and customs (nomoi), another in the instruction of the arts (techne). Nature's guidance is that by which we are naturally capable of sensation and thought; constraint of the passions is that whereby hunger drives us to food and thirst to drink; tradition of customs and laws, that wherby we regard piety in the conduct of life as good, but impiety as evil; instruction of the arts, that whereby we are not inactive in such arts as we adopt. "
It seems that the Pyrronians, and Wittgenstein alike grasped that the foundation of what we call knowledge is entirely arbitrary. The main difference then would be that the Pyrronian takes that as a reason to reject altogether this notion of knowledge, whereas Wittgenstein recognizes all knowledge as a "language-game" that follows sets of rules, such as the law of non-contradiction and so forth. This helps me to understand why logical positivists (heavily influenced by Wittgenstein) think of science as a set of constructs, rather that an accurate depiction of reality.
ReplyDeleteBut if the Pyrronians reject knowledge on the basis that its foundation is arbitrary, then why do they believe in science? Why pursue Truth if you can't attain it? Isn't their system of skepticism, in some sense, beleived to be 'true' and thereby considered knowledge, as it is a true, justified, belief?