Hinge Epistemology and Scepticism: Critical Observations on the Extended Rationality View

  • Modesto Gómez-Alonso Universidad de La Laguna, Spain
  • David Pérez Chico Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
Keywords: Constitutivism, Epistemic Justification, Primacy of the Practical, Rationality, Transcendental Deduction

Abstract

In Extended Rationality (2015), Annalisa Coliva provides an important contribution to a family of possible views about epistemic justification which are mainly inspired by Wittgenstein’s notion of hinges. According to Coliva, the extended rationality view fares much better than alternative candidates of the same genus in dealing with the sceptical challenge as it is expressed by the Agrippan trope of arbitrary assumption. On the sceptical view, the fact that Wittgensteinian hinges are neither justified nor warranted would seemingly entail that they are not epistemically rational. It is the aim of this article to assess Coliva’s way of facing up to this challenge, as well as to show that Coliva’s arguments fall short of their target, or so it appears. One might say that, in spite of Coliva’s explicit claims to the contrary, her approach falls prey of a cognitive account of the notion of reason, and that her view is driven by the same illusion driving the sceptic: the uncritical adoption of a passive view of how the human mind is primarily related to the world.

Author Biographies

Modesto Gómez-Alonso, Universidad de La Laguna, Spain

MODESTO GÓMEZ–ALONSO es actualmente Profesor Ayudante Doctor en la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad de La Laguna, España. Doctor en Filosofía [≈ PhD] por la Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca. Sus áreas de investigación incluyen la epistemología de virtudes, el escepticismo radical, la Hinge Epistemology y la metafísica de disposiciones. Entre sus principales publicaciones se cuentan: Frágiles certidumbres. Wittgenstein y Sobre la certeza. Duda y lenguaje (Salamanca: Publicaciones Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 2006); «Cartesian Humility and Pyrrhonian Passivity: The Ethical Significance of Epistemic Agency» (Logos & Episteme 7, 4, 2016: pp. 461–487); «Wittgenstein on the Will and Voluntary Action» (En: Action, Decision–Making and Forms of Life, editado por Jesús Padilla Gálvez. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2016, pp. 77–108); «Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, and the Metaphysics of Suicide» (Revista de Filosofía Aurora 30, 49, 2018: pp. 299–321); «Virtue Perspectivism, Normativity, and the Unity of Knowledge» (Daimon. Revista Internacional de Filosofía 75, 2018: pp. 119–130); «Wittgenstein y el impacto de Sobre la certeza en la epistemología contemporánea» (En: Wittgenstein y el escepticismo. Certeza, paradoja y locura, editado por David Pérez Chico. Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias

David Pérez Chico, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain

DAVID PÉREZ CHICO es actualmente Profesor Contratado Doctor en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Zaragoza. Doctor en Filosofía [≈ PhD] por la Universidad de La Laguna. Sus áreas de investigación incluyen la filosofía del lenguaje cotidiano, el perfeccionismo moral, la filosofía de la mente, el escepticismo y el cine y la filosofía. Entre sus publicaciones se cuentan: «La verdad del escepticismo: Wittgenstein y Cavell sobre la certeza», en Wittgenstein: certeza límite y animalidad, editado por Carla Carmona y Vicente Sanfélix, 2019; «Philosophy without Tears», en Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies 2018; (junto con Vicente Sanfélix) «Metaescepticismo» en Estudios de Filosofía, nº 60, 2019, pp. 187–207; (ed.) Wittgenstein y el escepticismo. Certeza, paradoja y locura (Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2019); (ed.) Cuestiones de la filosofía del lenguaje (Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2018); (ed. Con Juan Vicente Mayoral), Wittgenstein: la superación del escepticismo (Madrid: Plaza y Valdés, 2015). Ha traducido textos de Stanley Cavell, Ernest Sosa, Barry Stroud, John Searle y otros al castellano.

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Published
2019-12-31
How to Cite
[1]
Gómez-Alonso, M. and Pérez Chico, D. 2019. Hinge Epistemology and Scepticism: Critical Observations on the Extended Rationality View. Disputatio. 8, 11 (Dec. 2019), 293-325. DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/10.5281/zenodo.3551611.
Section
Articles and Essays