The Wittgensteinian Theory of Deep Disagreement

The Wittgensteinian Theory of Deep Disagreement Chris Ranalli VU Amsterdam [email protected] 1. Introduction What I will call the Wittgensteinian account of deep disagreement says that deep disagreements are disagreements over hinge propositions.1 In this paper, I want to explore how the Wittgensteinian account of deep disagreement fairs with respect to what I will call the epistemic problem of deep disagreement. The epistemic problem is whether deep disagreements, even if subject to practical resolution, are nevertheless not subject to rational resolution. I will understand the possibility of a rational resolution to a disagreement as the possibility of the disagreeing parties taking the attitudes (belief, disbelief, suspension) that they epistemically ought to take, in light of their disagreement (cf. Feldman 2005). Thus, I will be presuming that epistemic rationality and prudential rationality can come apart. What I will be calling the pessimist about the epistemology of deep disagreement is someone who maintains that such disagreements are rationally irresolvable in this sense, while the optimist denies this. Here’s what I will argue. The Wittgenstein account supports pessimism about deep disagreement on many ways of developing the theory of hinge propositions, but not on all of them. In this paper, I want to explain how the Wittgensteinian view can be used to provide support for pessimism, but my aim is to also push back on this and to argue that, even if the Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreement were true, this needn’t make us pessimists. Here’s the structure of this paper. In section 1, I provide the theoretical background for assessing the Wittgensteinian theory. First, I need to clarify what our subject matter is: what Some authors use ‘framework proposition’ as well. Sometimes, I’ll use ‘hinge commitment’ instead of ‘hinge proposition’, because it’s a matter of philosophical controversy whether the hinges are really propositions. 1 1 sorts of disagreements or apparent disagreements are we talking about when we talk about deep disagreement? Second, I want to contrast the Wittgensteinian view with a very similar, albeit distinct theory of deep disagreement that I call the Fundamental Epistemic Principle theory. Third, I want to explain why the Wittgensteinian theory at least provides a prima facie case for pessimism about deep disagreement, and thus why the theory is worth taking seriously. In the remaining parts of the paper, I explore how the different ways of developing the theory of hinge propositions can have a serious impact on whether the Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreement adequately supports pessimism. In section two, I argue that the nonfactualist theory of hinge propositions provides adequate support for pessimism about deep disagreement. In section three, I argue that the non-belief theory of hinge propositions provides adequate support for pessimism about deep disagreement. In section four, I argue that the inferential contextualist theory of hinge propositions provides adequate support for pessimism about deep disagreement. Finally, in section five, I argue that the entitlement theory of hinge propositions doesn’t adequately support pessimism about deep disagreement, thereby opening a window for the Wittgensteinian to be an optimist. One final caveat is necessary here: it might be that there is some way of developing the theory of hinge propositions, such that it accommodates optimism about deep disagreement. What I will be arguing is that many—though not all—of the ways in which the theory of hinge propositions have been developed in the literature do not make any room for optimism about deep disagreement. Of course, this leaves it entirely open that a theory of hinges propositions might be developed which can accommodate optimism about deep disagreement. Thus, I’m not arguing for the strong modal thesis that the Wittgensteinian theory necessarily entails pessimism; rather, I’m arguing for the weaker thesis that many ways of developing the theory entail pessimism. 2. Deep Disagreements What sorts of disagreements would we count as deep disagreements? One might think that deep disagreements are just disagreements that are epistemically rationally irresolvable (cf. Pritchard 2011). While this might be true, it puts the cart before the horse: it’s a serious question whether pessimism about deep disagreement is true, and if we just uncritically analyze deep disagreement as nothing more than disagreements which are rationally irresolvable, we prevent any serious inquiry into whether such disagreements might be rationally resolved. In any case, it’s not so clear that just any rationally irresolvable disagreement is deep. Consider cases of disagreement over taste. It’s intuitively plausible that judgements about taste aren’t subject to any epistemic norms, so that when you judge ‘that’s tasty’ and someone else judges that ‘that’s not tasty’, neither of you are making any epistemic mistake: for intuitively neither of you are epistemically doing what you shouldn’t be doing. In this way, your disagreement—if it is genuine 2 disagreement—is not epistemically rationally resolvable. But it’s hard to see why a disagreement over whether, say, the sandwich is tasty is a deep disagreement. Secondly, paradigm cases of deep disagreement display a certain core phenomenon. This is the ripple-effect phenomenon, whereby one disagreement is proxy for many other potential disagreements. To see this, consider the following cases: YOUNG EARTH CREATIONIST: Henry is an Evangelical young Earth creationist, who accepts that the Earth is no more than 6,000 years old. Henry is also a literalist about the Bible, and rejects the theory of evolution and contemporary cosmology. Henry’s neighbour Richard is a proponent of so-called “New Atheism”, and rejects the religious and young Earth creationist views of his neighbor Henry (cf. Hazlett 2014: 11; Lynch 2010: 264; Pritchard 2009, forthcoming). NEW WORLD ORDER CONSPIRACY: Alex is a ‘new world order conspiracy theorist’ (NWO), who maintains that there is a global conspiratorial network composed of highly intelligent, wealthy, and powerful Satanists. This group is responsible for every major political change; many high-profile deaths; they are behind every major terrorist attack; every major economic recession; and even several catastrophic natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina. Many people who discuss such topics with Alex seem to firmly disagree with him, saying that such views are false and unreasonable. Carrie, an expert researcher on conspiracy theories, avowedly denies Alex’s conspiratorial claims. CLIMATE CHANGE DENIALIST: David is popular media climate-change denialist who regards the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change to be a global conspiracy with a politically nefarious aim at its root. Ashley, a highly respected climate scientist, defends the evidentially grounded claims of contemporary climate science, and rejects the denialist claims made by David. These cases seem to be deep disagreements. Intuitively at least, Henry and Richard will not only disagree over the age of the Earth, but also the reliability of the fossil record. And they’re likely to disagree over the intellectual authority of geologists and biochemists, among others. Likewise, in the NWO conspiracy case, Alex and Carrie are likely to disagree over not just whether there is an NWO organization, but whether you can trust the official reports about major political events and natural disasters; whether a politician merely became ill and passed away, or was rather murdered; whether FEMA was understaffed and underfunded, or had nefarious aims and acted on such aims; and so on. Now, it’s important to recognize that some cases of apparent disagreement over similar or even the same topics won’t be deep disagreements. To see this, consider some cases of climate-change denial, where the person’s reasons for their rejection of anthropogenic climate change are connected to their personal economic and political aims (e.g., their current disbelief in government intervention in the economy, or the goal of maximizing the profits of the petroleum industry). This might be a genuine disagreement if the person in the end fools 3 themselves into believing that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax, but it wouldn’t clearly be a case of deep disagreement. After all, this person might generally accept the epistemic authority of scientific institutions, the scientific testimony of scientists, the reliability of paradigmatic scientific methods, and so on, but nevertheless be making a massive intellectual oversight in this particular case. If such a case is possible, then not every case of disagreement over whether there is global anthropogenic climate change will be a deep disagreement. However, what our three cases above illustrate is that where there is a conflict in world-view, it is much more plausible to see the apparent disagreement as deep (cf. Hazlett 2014: 13). How should we understand this talk of a ‘conflict of world-view’? Consider the climate change denialism case. This disagreement tends not to just be over the existence of climatechange, but over what counts as good evidence for the existence of climate-change. The climate-change denialists oppose mainstream scientific evidence and distrust epistemic authorities on climate science. The ripple-effect here is that the single disagreement over the existence of global climate change stands in interesting logical relations to many other potential disagreements. For instance, cases where the disagreement over global anthropogenic climatechange looks like a deep disagreement are cases where they are denialists because of their antecedent commitment to a fundamentalist ideology or a conspiratorial ideology.2 For example, the conspiracy theorist might think that anthropogenic climate-change is part of a global conspiracy to pull world resources together for a manufactured problem. If you disagree with them over the existence of anthropogenic climate-change, and you cite any of the numerous scientific studies on anthropogenic climate-change as support for your belief, they are liable to doubt the epistemic authority of the scientists and the institutions which foster such research as merely part of the global conspiracy. As such, they’ll disagree with you about whether any anthropogenic climate-change studies are even trustworthy.3 In the most extreme cases, they’ll distrust the natural sciences more generally as part of the global conspiracy.4 2 This excludes cases of manufactured doubt, where there is some other, non-ideological interest in spreading misinformation about anthropogenic climate-change, such as purely policy-based reasons (e.g., deregulation of industry). Although, in practice, these reasons can and do overlap (a case in point are certain fundamentalist political groups, which lobby for deregulation of industry and anti-environmental causes, but where their primary doubt in anthropogenic climate-change is grounded in views about God’s plan for humanity). 3 For example, van der Linden (2013) argues that belief in one conspiracy theory tends to co-occur with belief in multiple conspiracy theories, and that conspiracy theorists generally tend to mistrust scientists and the institutions which foster scientific research. See van der Linden (2013). “What a Hoax”. Scientific American Mind. 24(4): 41 43. doi:10.1038/scientificamericanmind0913-40. For conspiracy theories which integrate anthropogenic climatechange as part of what Barkun (2003) calls a ‘superconspiracy theory’, see Barkun, Michael (2003). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press. A notable conspiracy theorist here is David Icke, who thinks that anthropogenic climate-change is part of a secret global government conspiracy (involving extra-terrestrials) aimed at geoengineering and human population control for nefarious reasons. For David Icke’s views, see his website at: https://www.davidicke.com/article/418249/globalwarming-scam-david-icke. 4 4 Conflicts of world-view, however, are not plausibly only conflicts in different epistemic commitments, such as differences in what you would count as a fundamental epistemic principle. For example, we tend to think that the Buddhist and the Christian have very different, contrary world-views. They differ with respect to their stance on the nature of reality, freedom, the self, morality, and so on, which isn’t plausibly explained only by appeal to differences in what they count as fundamental epistemic principles. They disagree over much more that. In particular, the Buddhist will deny that God exists, while the Christian will affirm it. The Buddhist will deny that there is a self, that you, strictly speaking, even exist, while the Christian will affirm it. The Buddhist will maintain that, strictly speaking, you aren’t obligated to do anything, whereas the Christian presumably thinks that you’re obligated to do what God commands. The Christian believes in salvation; the Buddhist denies it. We could increase the list, but the point here is that what seems to make their disagreements deep is not simply that they disagree over fundamental epistemic principles or that their disagreements are somehow grounded in their commitment to contrary fundamental epistemic principles. Intuitively, their disagreements are deep precisely because they differ wildly with respect to various ontological theses that lack any clear epistemic character (more on this §2). Now, we can explain the ripple-effect of deep disagreement more precisely as follows. Contrast a deep disagreement with an ordinary non-deep disagreement, such as a case where we disagree about the total cost of dinner. In such a case, it’s unlikely that our disagreement commits us to systematic disagreement over other propositions in the same or similar domains (e.g. propositions about arithmetical sums; propositions about dinners; propositions about restaurants; and so on). One of us probably made a mistake, even if the mistake isn’t obvious to either us. Deep disagreements are different. If we deeply disagree about p, we are plausibly committed to disagreeing over a host of other propositions in the same or similar domains. Still, it’s not clear that ‘proxy disagreements’, where are single disagreement is proxy for many disagreements, is sufficient for it being a deep disagreement, even if the two tend to co-occur. However, the opposite is plausibly true: single deep disagreements commit the participants to many non-deep disagreements. This is part of the epistemological significance of deep disagreement. For example, let ‘Q’ name the proposition that there is an external physical world. By many standards, disagreement over the existence of the external world can be a deep disagreement. Now consider the following disagreement: (1) S1 believes that Q (2) S2 believes that ¬Q 5 Now suppose S1 believes that the coffee cup in front of them is filled (P), and S1 also believes (even if it’s only implicit) that P implies Q: that the coffee cup’s being filled implies that there is an external physical world (e.g., that something physical is in front of them). Whatever else is true, if S1 and S2 disagree about Q, such that S1 believes Q and S2 believes ¬Q, then S2 is committed to rejecting P as well, given the implication from P to Q and their belief that ¬Q. That is, S2 is committed to believing ¬P, since P implies Q and since they reject Q. Otherwise, S2 is committed to rejecting the conditional. Whether S2 is irrational by not rejecting P is a further issue, since it might be the case that S2 doesn’t know (or lacks reasons to believe) that ¬Q implies ¬P. Perhaps if S2 has good reasons to believe this, but fails to believe it, then S2 is being irrational in failing to believe ¬P and continuing to believe, along with S1, that P. What still stands, however, is that S2 is committed to endorsing ¬P, if we think that ¬Q implies ¬P, on pain of having inconsistent beliefs. What this kind of consistency case brings out is the view that deep disagreements commit their participants to disagreements that are not deep. After all, the disagreement over P, whether or not the coffee cup is filled, is not deep. But given plausible linking propositions, one’s deep disagreement over Q (e.g., there are physical things; there is an external, physical world) commits them to disagreeing over P, among many others. And unlike other cases of inconsistent sets of belief, at least one epistemological problem that deep disagreement brings out is that deep disagreement necessitates systematic non-deep disagreement. In this fashion, deep disagreements have implications about what it is rational for the disputants to believe, given their deep disagreement and the logical relationship between the contents of those beliefs and the contents of their other beliefs, or else systematically constrains what beliefs they rationally could form. Plausibly, what the disputants are committed to accepting or rejecting, given their deep disagreement, constrains the rationality of their attitudes in those domains. The prediction is that deep disagreements have such commitments, while ordinary disagreements lack them. 2. Motivating the Wittgensteinian Theory In this section, I’ll contrast the Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreement with what seems to be a different theory of the nature of deep disagreement, what I’ll call the fundamental epistemic principle theory. My goal is not to argue for the Wittgensteinian theory as such, but rather only to motivate the Wittgensteinian theory over the fundamental epistemic principle theory. The aim is therefore to explain why we should take the Wittgensteinian theory seriously. 6 One way of explaining why there are apparent case of disagreement which display the ripple-effect is that the disputants are committed to different hinge propositions. What are hinge propositions? While the nature of hinge propositions is a matter of philosophical controversy (some of which will be exposed in §§3-4), there is some fairly clear criteria for what their ‘jobprofile’ is supposed to be. For example, consider Wittgenstein’s case of a blind man asking him whether or not he has hands (OC §125)5. Wittgenstein’s thought is that if one is presented with a reason to doubt that they have hands, it would be problematic for you to trust your vision in such a case (that you see your hands right now, for example), since that proposition would in such a situation be no more or less certain than the proposition that you have hands. And if your having hands is something for which you are most certain, Wittgenstein’s thought is that there couldn’t be some other proposition you could appeal to here in order to circumvent the doubt, since it would be either at least as certain as the target proposition—and thus would do no better than the proposition that you see your hands—or else it would be less certain than the target proposition, in which case it wouldn’t help at all. In this fashion, Wittgenstein tried to motivate the idea that there are some propositions which are “exempt from doubt”, because of their function in our epistemic practices of enabling some propositions to be grounds for doubt or grounds for belief more generally. As a very general and rough characterization, the hinge commitments are the ones for which we are “forced to rest content with” as “assumptions” within our inquiries. The hinge commitments mark the point at which “giving grounds […] comes to an end” (OC §204). The hinge commitments thus seem to enable the practice of giving reasons for belief and doubt, because these commitments “stand fast for us”, and are the “inherited background from which we distinguish true and false”. As Wittgenstein puts it: the questions that we raise and our doubts depend upon the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted. But it isn’t that the situation is like this: We just can’t investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put (OC §§341–3). In this way, the hinge commitments have a special epistemic status: these commitments stand back from the rest of our beliefs as those that are undoubted and certain—“beyond being justified or unjustified”, as he says (OC §359)—without which the practice of offering grounds Here’s Wittgenstein’s case: “If a blind man were to ask me ‘Have you got two hands?’ I should not make sure by looking. If I were to have any doubt of it, then I don’t know why I should trust my eyes. For why shouldn’t I test my eyes by looking to find out whether I see my two hands? What is to be tested by what?” (OC §125). Later on, he adds: “My having two hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything that I could produce in evidence for it. That is why I am not in a position to take the sight of my hand as evidence for it” (OC §250). 5 7 for doubts or grounds for belief would be impossible (cf. OC §372, §360, §359).6, 7 What Wittgenstein has in mind here are propositions like there are physical objects (OC §35), there is a past (OC §84), and the Earth existed in the past (OC §183). Now that we have a rough-and-ready grip on what hinge commitments are, let’s apply them to a deep disagreement case. For example, the global conspiracy theorist David Icke apparently accepts that we live in a Matrix-like simulation which is controlled by evil interdimensional beings, whose primary aim is to deceive us for their own personal ends. These beings plant lots of nefarious ‘agents’ in the simulation to systematically deceive the public. This includes major political, religious, and scientific institutions. The appearance of a distant past on Earth, the reliability of our natural sciences, and so forth, would all be mere appearances according to someone like David Icke. Plausibly, the hypothesis of a nefarious Matrix-like simulation (HNM) functions the way a hinge proposition functions for us: for it explains why the fact that scientists collectively claim that human beings have been a major driver of global climate-change would count as an epistemic reason, on David Icke’s picture at least, to believe not that we have been major drivers of climate change, but that we haven’t been—for there is no such natural Earth environment for us to collectively damage, on his picture. The ripple-effect is plausibly explained here by HNM having the status of a hinge proposition for David Icke. For intuitively many of the ordinary propositions you believe imply that HNM is false. For example, you think that the Moon is Earth’s only planetary moon, but Icke’s HNM implies that that’s false (in his The Moon is Not What You Think he says that the Moon is “a very ancient space ship”; in another lecture, Moon Control, he says that the Moon is the “Moon Matrix”, which is a “broadcast frequency coming from the Moon, which has hacked into the human body computer […] and created a sub-reality in the wider virtual-reality”. In the same lecture, he describes the Moon as an 6 cf. Wright 2004a, pg. 189, and Pritchard (2012), pp. 522-530. Compare this with Wright’s statement that the “overarching idea is, roughly that empirical practice—having a ‘life’—presupposes unearned certainties, propositions “exempt from doubt” (Wright 2004b: 38). Wright (2004b) also calls hinges “standing certainties” for any context. See Wright (2004b), pg. 49. Perhaps an excellent description from Wittgenstein of the epistemic role of hinge propositions within our world-views can be found in this passage: In general I take as true what is found in text-books, of geography for example. Why? I say: All these facts have been confirmed a hundred times over. But how do I know that? What is my evidence for it? I have a world-picture. Is it true or false? Above all it is the substratum of all my enquiring and asserting. The propositions describing it are not all equally subject to testing (OC §162). Note that I do not offer this as a definition of what a hinge commitment or proposition is. This is a controversial philosophical and interpretative question. Instead, I offer this as a rough—though perhaps canonical—characterization of what hinge commitments are. So, the discussion in the text acts as a kind of placeholder that can be filled out or revised as one gets more information on the properties of hinge commitments. For extended discussions of the nature of hinge commitments, see Coliva (2010), Chapter 4, esp. §§1-4, and Wright (2004), §§3-4, and Pritchard (2015). See Schönbaumsfeld (2016) for the difficulties in understanding what hinge commitments might be. 7 8 “interdimensional portal”). Thus, you and David Icke not only disagree over whether HNM is true, but, by extension, whether any of your ordinary claims about reality are true and why they are true as well. An apparent rival to the Wittgensteinian theory is the fundamental epistemic principle theory of deep disagreement. According to this theory, deep disagreements are disagreements over fundamental epistemic principles. For example, Lynch (2010) says that a disagreement is deep when they concern ‘basic’ or fundamental epistemic principles, whereby such principles are ‘basic’ only if they “can be justified only by means of epistemically circular arguments”, and the disagreeing parties affirm distinct fundamental epistemic principles (Lynch 2010: 265). Compare this account with Jønch-Clausen and Kappel (2015), who say that such disagreements concern “which basic epistemic norms and principles are truth conducive in a given domain” (JønchClausen and Kappel 2015: 372. Cf. Kappel 2012, who explicitly makes the more general claim that deep disagreements are cases where we disagree over “how best to acquire evidence or justification within the domain we disagree about”, such that there is no “dispute-independent way” of settling this. See Kappel 2012, pp. 7-8). A similar view can also be found in Goldman’s (2010). On this theory, a deep disagreement can be understood as a conflict between ‘epistemic systems’, which are the “sets of norms, standards, or principles for forming beliefs and other doxastic states” (Goldman 2010: 187). Since not every disagreement over a norm, standard, or principle will mark a deep disagreement, the conflict must be at the level of ‘fundamental’ epistemic principles. Goldman introduces them by way of example, and offers no further description of them other than simply those epistemic principles which aren’t derivable from any other principles (see Goldman 2010: 200. Cf. Boghossian 2006 for a similar idea). Now we might wonder whether the fundamental epistemic principle theory is a genuine rival to the Wittgensteinian theory. The Wittgensteinian theory says that deep disagreements are disagreements over hinge propositions or commitments (or “framework propositions”; see Fogelin 2005: 8-14). The view is expressed in the work of Fogelin (1985, 2005), Hazlett (2014), and Williams (2007). For a representative expression, consider Fogelin’s (2005) remarks from “The Logic of Deep Disagreements”: deep disagreements are generated by conflicts between framework propositions… They remain recalcitrant to adjudication because the sources of the disagreement—the framework propositions—are allowed to lie in the background, working at a distance… The way to put the debate on a rational basis is [to] surface these background propositions and then discuss them directly (Fogelin 2005: 8). Now, I think that the Wittgensteinian theory and the fundamental epistemic principle theory are different because, prima facie at least, the fundamental epistemic principle theory looks far more conservative than the Wittgensteinian view. To see this, consider the following: 9 (EW) there is an external physical world. (SP) Sense-perception is a reliable basis for belief formation; one is, prima facie, justified in trusting one’s sensory perception. Now imagine two disagreements. In the first case, A and B disagree over EW, but in the second case, they disagree over SP. Now, the fundamental epistemic principle view will clearly count the second case as a deep disagreement, since SP is plausibly a fundamental epistemic principle, but it’s not so clear what they can say about the first case. After all, A and B might jointly accept SP and disagree over EW. For they might both think that trusting your sensory perception is the best way for getting true beliefs about ordinary reality, but they simply disagree over the fundamental metaphysical structure of ordinary reality (think, for example, of the early modern empiricist philosophers, like Berkeley, whose metaphysics differed radically from those like Locke or Reid). Of course, since they’ll accept different arguments—and thereby different premises and reasons to hold those premises—they’ll have different epistemic commitments as well, but it’s not clear that, necessarily, those differences must be differences in fundamental epistemic principles that they hold. Their fundamental epistemic principles might very well be the same. Thus, the basic complaint from the proponent of the Wittgensteinian theory against the fundamental epistemic principle theory is that their theory is too conservative, for it’ll only count disagreements over fundamental epistemic principles as deep, but this seems to discount clear cases of deep metaphysical and ethical disagreement (where religious and value disagreements might fall within the scope of this, such as certain disagreements over the existence of God, and certain sorts of disagreements over what’s valuable). However, the Wittgensteinian theory can plausibly count both sorts of disagreements as a deep. For the property of being a hinge proposition is a status that a proposition can have, and there’s no in principle reason why metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical propositions cannot be hinge propositions. Indeed, Wittgenstein himself used ‘there are physical objects’ as a case in point. Prima facie, then, the Wittgensteinian theory isn’t as limited as the fundamental epistemic principle theory is on this score. Moreover, the fundamental epistemic principle theory seems to run into a dilemma. Consider the categorical ethical claim that R non-consensual harm of persons is wrong. This kind of view is counted as a ‘fundamental’ ethical principle by many ethicists and ordinary people (cf. Fogelin 2005 discussion of deep disagreement. If you don’t think it’s properly fundamental, you can replace it with something like ‘never treat humanity as a means only’; or pick your favorite). Recall that one criterion from Lynch (2010) for thinking that an epistemic principle is fundamental is that the very best epistemic support you could get for it would be epistemically circular. Now, it seems like there can be deep disagreements over R but that’s not yet reason to 10 think that R has only epistemically circular reasons in favor of accepting it. For example, it might be that it’s morally intuitive; or it might be that God commands it. If that’s right, then R is not fundamental by the proponents of fundamental epistemic principle theory’s criteria. And if we believe different fundamental epistemic principles, then of course our reasons will beg-thequestion against the other person, and in that sense will be dialectically ineffective. But this is strictly optional: we might both think that moral intuition is the most basic way for finding out moral truths, and yet disagree over whether moral intuition supports R. If you say that those epistemic principles, such as if p is morally intuitive, believe p; or, if God commands p, believe p, are what’s really fundamental, then you have to say that there aren’t any deep moral disagreements after all, since those are epistemic rather than moral principles. The same argument can be made, mutatis mutandis, for certain metaphysical claims. A reply to this argument nearly jumps off the page. Why not just reformulate the fundamental epistemic principle theory so that it’s not only about epistemic principles, but normative principles more generally? The problem then is accounting for the fundamentality of these principles. We might think that it’s simply any normative principle N not entailed or presupposed by any other normative principles we accept. But this will be trivially true if N is a conditional imperative, such as ‘in C, don’t V!’ (for example: when your evidence doesn’t support p, don’t believe p), as such conditional norms aren’t strictly entailed by anything. Even if we thought there was a categorical imperative, like ‘don’t V!’ (for example: don’t believe propositions that are not supported by your evidence), it wouldn’t even logically follow ‘don’t V!’. Formally, there are no truth-preserving relationships between imperatives of any kind. On such a picture, every conditional imperative would thereby be fundamental on the theory—as they are basic in the sense of not being entailed by any other principles—which is too permissive. And we can imagine some plausible normative cases for N, such as ‘in any circumstance, don’t treat persons as a means only’. However, there is an easy way around this. The proponent of the fundamental normative principle theory can simply replace the relevant logical relations with psychological ones, such as that N is fundamental if and only if N is not derivable from any other norm: if you cannot successfully engage in any type of good reasoning which has the target principle as a conclusion. For example, while ‘don’t V!’ doesn’t entail ‘in C, don’t V!’, it seems as if an instance of the latter is derivable from the former: without qualification, ‘don’t V!’ speaks of any scenario, and commands ‘don’t V!’, and thus it speaks of the scenario in which C. So, the fundamentality worry for normative principles lapses here. However, a similar problem arises for metaphysical views. Even if the proponent of the fundamental normative principle theory tried to incorporate metaphysical principles the same way they incorporated normative principles, namely, by the schema that the principle F is fundamental if and only if, necessarily, F is not derivable from any other principle, we would still 11 run into worries with purely categorical metaphysical views which aren’t principles. For example, imagine A accepts that there’s no external world, that persons are nonphysical, that there is a God, that there are moral properties, that there is freedom of the will, that there are selves, that God loves humanity, and so on, while B denies all of this. This is a disagreement over many existential propositions. Intuitively, this manifests a conflict in world-view, and thus marks a deep disagreement. How can the proponent of the fundamental normative principle theory explain this? On the face of it, they can’t. If we only restrict our attention to the list of metaphysical existential propositions that A affirms but B denies, it looks as if it adds up to a deep disagreement. Yet it’s hard to see what resources the fundamental normative principle theory has to explain this. Now, A might wonder why B denies that that are moral properties, and B might refer to their belief that God doesn’t exist; likewise, B might wonder why A believes that there are moral properties, and A might refer to their belief that God exists, and various beliefs about the properties of God. This pattern could continue for each metaphysical belief, surveying their web-of-belief, whereby each belief stands in some logical-epistemic relationship to some other member of the web. The proponent of the fundamental normative principle theory could say that what makes their disagreement deep is simply that they’ll accept different epistemic principles, like ‘that God exist and has property P is a reason to believe that there are moral properties’. But it seems entirely ad hoc here to say that this is the difference which makes the disagreement deep rather than shallow. Why not say that what makes the disagreement deep here is simply that there’s just so many general, metaphysical existential propositions that A affirms which B denies, and that such beliefs inform not only how they reason, but how they act? Of course, how those propositions are related to the rest of their beliefs is relevant to determining whether their disagreement is deep. This is not something which the Wittgensteinian denies. That is, the logicalepistemic role that those propositions have in the person’s web-of-belief is relevant to determining whether their disagreement over whether, say, God exists is a deep disagreement. At this juncture, the main difference between the Wittgensteinian theory and the fundamental normative principle theory would be a difference in explanatory emphasis. The proponent of the fundamental normative principle theory would say that the disagreement over whether God exists here is derivatively a deep disagreement because A and B are committed to disagreeing over fundamental normative-epistemic principles, while the Wittgensteinian would say that the disagreement over whether God exists here is not derivatively but directly a deep disagreement, because the target proposition is a hinge proposition for A’s web-of-belief but not for B’s. In this way, there might be only a subtle difference in what the proponents of each theory take to be explanatorily important. 12 3. The Wittgensteinian Master Argument We can summarize the basic case for pessimism about deep disagreement on the basis of the Wittgensteinian theory as follows: (P1) Deep disagreements are disagreements over hinge propositions. (P2) Disagreements over hinge propositions are rationally irresolvable. Therefore, (C) Deep disagreements are rationally irresolvable. The first premise is simply an expression of the Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreement. We should understand P1 as saying that direct deep disagreements are disagreements over hinge propositions. Indirect deep disagreements, however, are in the first instance disagreements which commit the disagreeing parties to directly disagreeing over a hinge proposition. Such a case arises when, for instance, our reasons for holding our respective views commit us to directly disagreeing over a hinge proposition. Since my main question is with whether the Wittgensteinian theory adequately support deep disagreement pessimism, I will bracket whether P1 is true. The second premise says that disagreements over hinge propositions are rationally irresolvable. As I said in §2, this is prima facie plausible because hinge propositions are supposed to be what makes reason-giving possible, and thus it’s hard to see how they could also be within the spaces of reasons. However, there is a tension here with the intuitively plausible claim that many historical and contemporary philosophers have argued for hinge propositions that they believed. The external world realist, like Moore, argued that there is an external physical world. Likewise, certain sorts of idealists, like Berkeley, denied this. In short, they disagreed with each other. The same can be said of other minds and the uniformity of nature, among others. If we take this at face-value, then it looks like epistemic reasons can be given for these sorts of views, and thus disagreements over these views are in principle rationally resolvable. What, then, might adequately support P2? Consider non-epistemicism about hinge commitments, the thesis that “rational support for our hinge commitments are impossible” (Pritchard 2015: 71, cf. Pritchard 2011: 531). On this theory of hinges, they aren’t in the space of epistemic reasons: they aren’t in the market for being evidentially believed, epistemically rationally believed, or propositionally known. If non- 13 epistemicism is true, I think it would provide a very powerful case for P2 of the Wittgensteinian argument. We can express the sub-argument for P2, then, as follows: Non-epistemicism: For any hinge commitment H, it’s not the case that there is any epistemically rational attitude that one rationally ought to take to H. Rational Resolution: For any disagreement D, an epistemically rational resolution to D over x is the pair of attitudes the participants of D rationally ought to take to x. Therefore, Pessimism: For any disagreement D over a hinge commitment H, it’s not the case that there is an epistemically rational resolution to D. Call this the “non-epistemicism argument”. The argument is certainly valid. First, nonepistemicism says that there is simply no possible epistemically rational attitude you epistemically ought to take to a hinge commitment H. Second, the rational resolution premise says that any epistemically rational resolution for any disagreement consists in the disagreeing parties taking the attitudes they epistemically ought to take to the relevant contents, in light of their disagreement. So, for example, consider that the Earth has existed in the far distant past. Suppose you and I disagree over whether this is true. If non-epistemicism is true, then since the object of our disagreement is a hinge content, it follows that neither of us is taking an epistemically rational attitude to that content. Whether you believe, and I disbelieve, or you believe, and I suspend, among the other possible combinations of attitudes we might take, it follows that none of them would be epistemically rational. The next question we should ask, then, is whether the premises of the nonepistemicism argument are true, or adequately supported. The rational resolution premise is, I think, highly plausible. For what else would an epistemically rational resolution to a disagreement be if not the disputants taking the epistemically rational attitudes that they epistemically ought to take to the content for which they disagree? One might think that a rational resolution for a disagreement is a resolution reached by paradigmatic rational means, such as by way of our appreciation of the arguments for or against the view. While I suspect this accurately reflects what we ordinary mean by ‘rationally resolving’ a disagreement, I think it is too narrow a conception of what it is to rationally resolve a disagreement. For it is a dialogical conception of rational resolution, where for any disagreement D, an epistemically rational resolution to D over x is the pair of attitudes the participants of D ought take to x in virtue of their appreciation of the arguments which bear on whether x. Now I think that the dialogical conception of rational resolution relies on two controversial ideas: the tendency to think that 14 rationally resolving a disagreement requires forming the right attitude to x in light of one’s arguments for or against x; and the tendency to think that one needs to display what one’s arguments are for or against x before we would count you as rationally responding to the disagreement. But this jettisons the very plausible idea that not everything we rationally believe is based on arguments, and that there are epistemic norms which require us to take certain attitudes, given certain conditions, even if those conditions never mention arguments. For example, in Christensen’s (2007) restaurant case, where two people disagree over the cost of dinner, even if neither of them offered any argument for why they believe what they believe, there is intuitively some truth about what attitude they epistemically ought to take in light of their disagreement. What about the non-epistemicism premise: why should we accept that premise? Wittgenstein himself seemed to think that non-epistemicism is true. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein said of the hinges that: “I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified.” (OC 359). In section 1, I explained why you might think that there is a prima facie tension between the hinges and rationally resolving disagreement over them. For the hinges are precisely the sorts of things which make it possible for certain states of affairs, propositions, or beliefs to be evidence or reasons for other attitudes. In short, they make the space of epistemic reasons possible. And if that is right, it’s hard to see how they could also be part of the space of epistemic reasons. The non-epistemicist, however, goes beyond this prima facie case and provides a principled reason for why the hinges are outside the space of epistemic reasons. To see this, we need to consider two different ways of developing non-epistemicism. 3.1. Non-factualism The first way is non-factualism, the thesis that the hinges aren’t truth-apt, and thus not really propositions at all. Rather, the hinges are non-factual rules. If non-factualism is true, I think it would adequately support the non-epistemicism premise, and thus the non-epistemic argument would be sound. The argument is straightforward. First, the object of belief, disbelief, and suspension are propositions: that is, truth-apt contents. Second, non-factual rules are, by their nature, not truthapt. Therefore, non-factual rules are not objects of belief, disbelief, or suspension. Ipso facto, then, they are not objects of justified belief, disbelief, or suspension. 15 A second argument appeals more generally to epistemic norms. First, it’s plausible that only cognitive attitudes, attitudes capable of being true or false, are subject to epistemic norms. Second, no attitude we take to a non-factual rule could be a cognitive attitude simply because the object of the attitude is neither true nor false. Hence, it follows that non-factual rules are not subject to any epistemic norms. Thus, if non-factualism were true of hinges, then it looks like non-epistemicism would be true of them as well. Pessimism would be right around the corner. Wittgenstein himself seemed to accept non-factualism. He said that: OC 494 “I cannot doubt this proposition without giving up all judgement.” But what sort of proposition is that?...It is certainly no empirical proposition. It does not belong to psychology. It has rather the character of a rule.” OC 204 “Giving grounds ... comes to an end;—but the end is not certain propositions’ striking us immediately as true, i.e. it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game.” In the first passage, he says that the hinge ‘proposition’ has the “character of a rule”. Likewise, in the second passage, he describes the epistemic practice of giving grounds for what you believe or doubt. His suggestion is that this practice ‘comes to end’: intuitively, you wouldn’t be able to keep offering new grounds for your belief or doubt without circularity or entering a regress . But Wittgenstein doesn’t thereby go the foundationalist route here and argue that there are some propositions which are immediately justified and which are the justifactory source of anything else you justifiably believe or doubt. Rather, there is some action which is optimally certain, and the suggestion seems to be that this action is non-cognitive, and thus not amenable to truth or falsity. In his Facts and Certainty, Crispin Wright develops non-factualism as follows: if a (putative) proposition is not amenable to evidence or justification, that is reason to think that it’s not factual after all (see Wright 1985: 457). So, for example, if we can’t find a way to justify ‘2+2=4’, on Wright’s view that would be a sufficient reason to think that it’s not truth-apt. He argues for the following factuality equivalence: Factuality Equivalence: F(⏀) if and only if ◇JB(⏀) That is, a content is true (or false) if and only if it is logically possible to justifiably believe that it is true (or false). It should be clear that the right-to-left conditional is plausible: ◇JB(⏀) → F(⏀). After all, if you can justifiably believe ⏀, then ⏀ is truth-apt. How else could it be an object of belief—much less justified belief—if it weren’t truth-apt? The left-to-right conditional, however, is less plausible: F(⏀) → ◇JB(⏀). While the principle plausibly retains the idea that 16 some propositions might be false and yet justifiably believed—that is, it plausibly dispenses with infallibilism about justification—it also abandons the idea that some propositions might be true, and yet never justifiably believed—that is, it implausibly dispenses with unknowable truths or unjustifiable truths. Another, more recent development of non-factualism, due to Moyal-Sharrock (2016, 2004), takes it that the hinges are non-factual rules and that our attitude to them are “animal certainties”: The nonpropositional nature of basic certainties is one with their being ways of “acting” and to their being “animal.” Whether a hinge certainty starts out as instinctive or natural (e.g., our certainty of having a body) or is second-nature, i.e., the result of conditioning (e.g., our certainty that “This ☝ is (what we call) a table”), it is best described as a reflex action. […] The hinge certainty verbalised as “I have a body” is a disposition of a living creature which manifests itself in her acting in the certainty of having a body (Moyal-Sharrock 2016: 105). My main worry with the non-factualist theory of hinges in this context is that the proponent of the Wittgensteinian argument shoots themselves in the foot. For the proponent of the Wittgensteinian argument wants to show that the Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreement leads to pessimism: the thesis that deep disagreements are rationally irresolvable. But if non-factualism is true, it’s not so clear that you could disagree over the hinges—for they aren’t truth-apt—and thus, on the Wittgensteinian theory, you couldn’t have any deep disagreement. The token phenomenon would be rationally irresolvable at the cost of being metaphysically impossible. Now the non-factualism might reply as follows: “there can be disagreements in nonpropositional attitude, and so we can easily preserve disagreement over hinges and thus deep disagreement”. For example, this might look like the following: NWO Conspiracy Disagreement Alex: pro! NWO conspiracy theory. Carrie: con! NWO conspiracy theory. There are two points I want to make in connection with this way of understanding the NWO Conspiracy disagreement case. First, Alex seems in some way to accept that the NWO conspiracy theory is true, while Carrie seems in some way to deny that it is true. The Nonfactualist, then, has to give a revisionary account of this: they have to say that Alex doesn’t really accept that the NWO conspiracy theory is true, and that Carrie doesn’t really deny that it’s true because she accepts in some way that it is false. Rather, neither of them are making any mistake 17 here, and thus their disagreement is, at best, faultless: for neither of them are making any alethic mistake. Call this the revisionary problem. Secondly, the non-propositional pro-/con- attitudes to the non-factual contents don’t seem to accurately capture Alex’s attitude to the NWO conspiracy theory. For it needn’t be true that Alex is pro-the existence of the NWO conspiracy theory: for perhaps he strongly wishes that he had never learned of it. Likewise, perhaps Carrie is not con-the existence of the NWO conspiracy theory: for perhaps she makes her living off her criticisms of the theory, and derives a lot of personal happiness exploring why the theory is, on her view at least, false. But if we they aren’t pro-/con- the existence of the theory, how else could we adequately capture their nonpropositional attitudes to the NWO conspiracy theory in a way which accurately captures their psychology? That is, it’s hard to see how using only the resources available to the non-factualist, we could recover anything which resembled what we take to be the disagreement between Alex and Carrie over the NWO conspiracy theory, among others. Call this the obscurity problem. How might the non-factualist respond to the revisionary problem? There are two responses on offer. First, they might accept that the disputants really would need to radically revise their conception of their psychological relation to NWO conspiracy theory and their disagreement with each other. For Alex doesn’t really believe the NWO conspiracy, and Carrie doesn’t really disbelieve it either. Moreover, as much as they might think they are arguing for the truth of their positions, they couldn’t really be arguing for such positions any more than you can argue for the truth of ‘shut the door’. The non-factualist could simply bite the bullet here. However, they might also reject that it’s revisionary: for they could say that the nonfactuality of what they in some sense ‘accept’ makes sense of why their disagreement is persistent and, of course, not subject to evidence and epistemic reasons. While this might be true on one level of analysis, it’s a total failure at the level of their personal psychology. For intuitively Carrie believes that she has good reason to reject the NWO conspiracy theory, and Alex believes that he has good reason to accept the NWO conspiracy theory. But if nonfactualism is true, both of them are necessarily mistaken here: neither of those higher-order beliefs could be true. How might the non-factualist respond to the obscurity problem? Naturally, they might explore other kinds of non-propositional attitudes which do a better job of recovering the mechanics of a doxastic disagreement than if they only took pro-/con- attitudes to the NWO conspiracy theory. One proposal, from Moyal-Sharrock (2016, 2004) is to think of one’s attitudes to the hinges, understood as fundamental non-factual rules, as “animal certainties”. She says that: 18 Wittgenstein is describing what it is like to be basically certain; to have an attitude of basic certainty—and the answer is that it is like a way of acting or know-how or reflex action (like grabbing a towel from the towel rack without thinking). Here, “I have a body” is the expression of a nonpropositional attitude; a way of acting in the certainty of having a body, acting embodied (Moyal-Sharrock 2016: 104). So, perhaps we can model the NWO conspiracy case as follows: NWO Conspiracy Disagreement 2 Alex: animal certain for NWO conspiracy theory. Carrie: not animal certain for NWO conspiracy theory. Now we should wonder whether NWO Conspiracy Disagreement 2 is a genuine disagreement. I think it is fairly clear that it isn’t: for it is plausible that having some animal certainties, and someone lacking them or having some other animal certainties—that is, having different unreflective ways of acting—need not be a disagreement, but just a difference. Consider, for example, the difference between you reaching for the falling glass, while your friend notices the falling glass but doesn’t reach for it. Is that a disagreement? Certainty not. Rather, it’s a difference in how you all acted. That is, you had different non-cognitive reactions. Why think of the NWO Conspiracy Disagreement 2 case any differently? A second problem here is that it’s hard to see how disagreement in animal certainties would generalize to paradigm cases of disagreement over hinge commitments. Consider the disagreement between the external world realist and the idealist. It’s not clear how the realist or the idealist would differ with respect to their animal certainties here. What would it be for the idealist to no longer express animal certainties with respect to the existence of the external world? Surely they act the same as the idealist, modulo their belief-reports and certain philosophical assertions. But surely that difference is not what the non-factualist has in mind. And if there’s no good answer here, then non-factualism seems to have the unintuitive consequence that the external world realist and the idealist don’t disagree after all, if we accept that sharing animal certainties is sufficient for agreement, just as not sharing them would be, on this view, sufficient for disagreement. Even if we understood animal certainties as simply ability knowledge, or knowing-how, intuitively it still wouldn’t be a disagreement either. That Alex has some sort of know-how in connection with the NWO conspiracy theory but Carrie lacks this know-how doesn’t even remotely look like a disagreement, just a difference. For example, that A knows how to ride a bike, but doesn’t know how to drive a car, and that B doesn’t know how to ride a bike, but knows how to drive a car, is not a disagreement between A and B, but a difference in A and B’s 19 abilities. So, analysing animal certainties in terms of ability knowledge wouldn’t do the nonfactualist any good here. 3.2. Non-belief Theory In his recent (2015, forthcoming) work, Duncan Pritchard develops a novel non-epistemic theory of hinge propositions according to which they are propositions, but not believable propositions. Call this the non-belief theory of hinge propositions (cf. Ranalli 2017). As with the non-factual theory, this too would provide a route to non-epistemicism. After all, if believing, or any doxastic state, like creedal judgments, are not the sorts of attitudes you could take to hinge propositions, then how could you justifiably believe or take some creedal attitude to a hinge proposition? Intuitively, you couldn’t. Why does Pritchard accept the non-belief theory of hinge propositions? His (2016) argument goes as follows: Normative-profile of Belief: Beliefs (or any doxastic attitudes) are, in their nature, responsive to epistemic reasons. Non-epistemicism: Our attitudes to hinge propositions are, in their nature, unresponsive to epistemic reasons. Therefore, Non-belief Theory: Our attitudes to hinge propositions are not beliefs (and are thereby non-doxastic). The normative profile of belief premise is highly plausible. Beliefs do seem to be necessarily subject to epistemic rationality norms, and the premise doesn’t say that beliefs are only propositional attitudes subject to certain kinds of epistemic norms. So, it doesn’t give a normative-profile theory of belief, but rather says that it’s a necessary condition on belief. Moreover, it doesn’t say that beliefs are, by their nature, rational. Rather it says that it’s in their nature to be subject to epistemic rationality norms. Together with the second premise, the nonbelief theory clearly follows. Thus, the argument is valid. But the lacuna in the argument is the second premise, which expresses non-epistemicism about hinge propositions. And since the non-epistemicism argument is the main argument we have been exploring for pessimism about deep disagreement, we need to ask why Pritchard supports non-epistemicism. Here is my reconstruction of Pritchard’s (2011) argument for non-epistemicism: 20 (P1) All rational doubts are grounded in reasons. (P2) In order for reason R to count as a rational ground for S’s doubt in the proposition p, it must be more certain for S that R than p. ———— (C1) So, those propositions which are most certain cannot be rationally doubted. (From P1, P2) (P3) All rational beliefs are grounded in reasons. (P4) In order for reason R to count as a rational ground for S’s belief in the proposition p, it must be more certain for S that R than p. ———— (C2) So, those propositions which are most certain cannot be rationally believed. (From P3, P4) (P5) But all belief-systems must include propositions which are held to be optimally certain. Therefore, Non-epistemicism: One’s belief-system requires the existence of propositions— hinge propositions—which one’s commitment to, while optimally certain, is immune to rational doubt or rational support. (From C1, C2, P5), Pritchard (2011). Premises P2 and P4 are controversial. Consider cases of undercutting defeat. Sometimes, I get a reason to doubt that some source of my belief that P is well-founded or reliable, and thus reason to withhold believing that P. But that doesn’t mean that my reason for doubting that the source of my belief that P is more certain for me than P is itself. For example, it might be that my senses are something I trust very often, and right now I believe that the wall is red on the basis of my visual perception. Now my friend Jan tells me that, actually, there are some red lights shining on the wall which make the wall look red even though it’s white. In this case, I might be less certain that a red right is shining on the wall which makes it look red than I am that the wall is red, but Jan’s testimony still undermines my belief that the wall is red. Intuitively, I should be less confident than I was prior to his testimony. So, P2 needn’t be true. Likewise, P4 is problematic for similar reasons. Intuitively, my reason for believing one thing—say, that I have hands right now—might be slightly more certain for me than I am in my reason for believing it: say, that I see that I have hands. 21 For I might be far more confident in the fact that I have hands than that I see that I do right now.8 Indeed, the chicken-sexer case illustrates this idea nicely. The chicken sexers are normally certain, for any chick they see, that it’s male (or female), but they are less certain of why this believes this, that is, of what their reason is for so believing. Still, we don’t hesitate to say that they know that the chick is male (or female). So, I don’t think this argument is convincing. In any case, I think that the non-belief theory itself problematizes the idea of disagreement over hinge propositions. Consider first the intuitively plausible doxastic theory of disagreement, according to which disagreement consists in inconsistent doxastic attitudes. Paradigmatically, this is the case when you believe that p and you are knowingly confronted by somebody else who believes that ¬p. And the doxastic theory doesn’t say that only inconsistency in belief are necessary for disagreement, but rather inconsistency in any doxastic attitude. For example, if my credence in p is .9, while your credence in ¬p is .8, the theory rightly predicts that we disagree. If the doxastic theory of disagreement is true, it would follow straightforwardly from the non-belief theory that you cannot disagree over hinge propositions. Now, you might think that this isn’t right, because Pritchard’s theory is explicitly about belief: that we cannot believe hinge propositions or their negations. But notice that the first premise of the argument for the non-belief theory, the normative-profile of belief premise, applies just as much to any doxastic attitude as it does to belief. Take, for example, credence and suspension of judgment. Why think that belief is, by its very nature, subject to epistemic norms but that creedal states and suspension of judgment are not? Surely whether you epistemically ought to be confident to some degree that p is subject to epistemic norms; and surely whether you epistemically ought to suspend judgment either way about whether p is also subject to epistemic norms.9 So, the normative profile of belief premise can easily be modified to accommodate doxastic attitudes more generally. In his (forthcoming), however, Pritchard maintains that the doxastic theory of disagreement is false (see Pritchard forthcoming: 2). On his view: Rather than belief being what is necessary for a bona fide disagreement, what’s required is rather a genuine conviction on each side (i.e., a conviction that p that excludes agnosticism about the truth of p) 8 Compare with Pritchard (2016): “just as one cannot make sense of a rational basis for doubt of a hinge commitment, for the very same reason one cannot make sense of a rational basis for belief of a hinge commitment either. They provide, rather, the framework relative to which a rational evaluation, whether positive or negative, takes place. Such commitments are thus essentially arational” (Pritchard 2016: 10). 9 The claim I am making here is conditional: if you think that belief is subject to epistemic norms, then by parity of reasoning, you ought to think that any doxastic attitude, like credence and suspension of judgment, are also subject to epistemic norms. So, this leaves it entirely open that someone could accept this claim whilst consistently denying that belief is essentially subject to epistemic norms, or to deny that there are any epistemic norms. 22 On Pritchard’s view, then, there can be cases where you are convinced that p and your friend is convinced that not-p, such that neither of you believe the corresponding propositions, and you nevertheless disagree. Although Pritchard argues that there are no rationally grounded propositional attitudes to hinge propositions, I think the case is much worse than this. For I think that his view entails that you are irrational once you reflect on your commitment to hinge propositions. On his picture, you can simultaneously realize that you are convinced that, say, the Earth existed in the distant past, whilst also recognizing that you cannot believe this. So, this looks like a straightforwardly Moore-paradoxical commitment: 1. The Earth existed millions of years ago, but I don’t believe it. Indeed, a Moore-paradoxical commitment is straightforwardly implied by the non-belief theory and Pritchard’s view that you lack any epistemically rational basis for the hinge propositions, namely that: 2. The Earth existed millions of years ago, but I have no rational basis for this. Likewise, the same problem arises for conviction: 3. I’m convinced that the Earth existed millions of years ago, but I have no rational basis for this. (3) looks like a confession of irrationality, rather than an expression of the agent’s arationality. The pattern here is this. The non-belief theory says that (a) you cannot believe hinge propositions, because belief is, by its very nature, responsive to epistemic reasons, and that no cognitive attitude to a hinge proposition is responsive to epistemic reasons. Nevertheless, (b) you are committed to the truth of the hinge propositions, such that you can recognize this commitment and be convinced in the truth of the hinge proposition. Thus, it looks like the nonbelief theory implies that, for any hinge proposition HP, you are committed to ‘HP but I don’t have any rational basis for HP’, which is intuitively irrational. That is, while we can say that your truth-committed attitude to the hinge proposition is not irrational but merely arational, nevertheless your commitment to that combination is irrational. There is a tension between the first-order and the higher-order attitudes, such that it intuitively looks epistemically irrational. 23 What I’m proposing is that if you are convinced that that the Earth existed millions of years ago, while I’m convinced that it hasn’t, then, given the non-belief theory, we ought to be able to recognize that we lack any rational basis one way or the other, and thus shouldn’t be convinced as we are. To see this point more clearly, consider the following scenario: NON-BELIEVERS: Jill has recently read Pritchard’s new book and papers on the nature of hinge commitments, and has become an ardent believer in the non-belief theory of hinge propositions. Jane has also recently read Pritchard’s recent book and papers on the nature of hinge commitments, and has also become an ardent believer in the nonbelief theory of hinge propositions. However, Jill and Jane were raised in very different communities. Jill was raised within a young Earth creationist commune, while Jane was raised in a scientific community. Jill and Jane later meet at university and become friends. Now, Jill is thoroughly convinced that the Earth was created by a God, but Jane is thoroughly convinced that it wasn’t. Since they both recognize that they have no rational basis either way, they are happy to say to each other, respectively: ‘The Earth was/was not created by God, but I have no rational basis for this’. Intuitively, the non-believers case suggests that Jill and Jane ought to give up their convictions, given their higher-order attitudes, namely, their beliefs that they lack any rational grounds for being convinced as they are. Thus far, I’ve argued that if the non-epistemicism argument is sound, then we have a good case for pessimism about deep disagreement. However, I’ve also argued one major defense of non-epistemicism, the non-factual theory, supports non-epistemicism at the cost of losing the possibility of disagreement. Additionally, the theory took on controversial commitment. I then turned to the non-belief theory, and argued that even if the theory permitted the possibility of deep disagreement, it looks like they would either be not rationally resolvable or else, in certain types of cases, rationally resolvable 4. Epistemic Theories of Hinge Propositions 4.1. Inferential Contextualism Inferential contexualism is the thesis that (i) there are hinge propositions and (ii) hinges propositions are what Williams (1991, 2007) calls “methodological necessities” of a “context of inquiry”. For example, consider the case of geology—a context of inquiry—whereby the geologist is using radio-carbon dating to determine the age of some stones. A methodological necessity of this inquiry, and perhaps geology more generally, is that stones exists, that stones have existed for millions of years, and that radio-carbon dating is a reliable method for determining the age of stones. According to Williams: Methodological necessities are standing presuppositions such that questioning them would lead one to question the competence of the form of inquiry they enable. In this way, they determine the disciplinary meta-context for such practices as historical research (Williams 2007, 102-3). 24 Now, it’s important to note that Williams thinks that methodological necessities are not merely presuppositions of a context of inquiry. Rather, they are amenable to evidence as well. The point is rather that, within a context of inquiry, the methodologically necessities in fact go undoubted (cf. Wittgenstein OC §341-3). Moreover, they are also amenable to revision. There is limit to this revision, however. The limit is that too much revision generates a change in subject, and with it, a change in the context of inquiry. On this point, Williams says that: […] radical questioning can involve a change of subject. This is especially relevant to skeptical questioning. Raising general doubts about the usability of documentary and other historical evidence would not be not an especially rigorous approach to historical research, any more than entertaining skeptical doubts about the reality of the external world would be an exceptionally careful way of conducting experiments in physics. Rather, to bring up such issues changes the subject from history, or physics, to (a certain kind of) epistemology (which, as we are discovering, has disciplinary presuppositions of its own) (Williams 2007, 103). So, for example, in the case of physics, if we question the reliability of physical methods generally, we change the context of inquiry from one of physics to something else. This is especially clear in the case of disagreement between a conspiracy theorist and a cosmological, for instance. Imagine the two engaged in a dispute about whether the big bang best explains the origins and model of the universe. The thought is that, if the conspiracy theorist doubts cosmological methods and the intellectual authority of cosmologists and the scientific institutions which foster their research, the conspiracy theorist has changed the subject from cosmology to something else. The point is even starker if the conspiracy theorist generally doubts the reliability of natural scientific methods. In short, the context of inquiry will be changed. Now let’s apply this idea to the case of deep disagreement. Consider the proposition that the Earth existed in the distant past (ED) and its epistemic counterpart, that we have good reasons to believe this (ED*). Whether or not ED has the status of being a hinge proposition is determined by the context of inquiry. As such, ED’s status as a hinge proposition is susceptible to context-shiftiness depending on the context of inquiry. For example, in the geological context, ED earns the status as a hinge proposition. However, in certain conspiratorial and philosophical contexts, ED might lose the status as a hinge proposition. For example, a presentist might deny ED, while an ordinary thinker is liable to accept ED. Moreover, a skeptic about the past is liable to deny ED*, even though most ordinary people are liable to accept ED*. In these cases of philosophical disagreement, ED and ED* have lost their hinge proposition status, a status they might have in geology and archaeology. In these cases, then, disagreement over ED and ED* qua hinge propositions is impossible. For it’s merely a philosophical disagreement, rather than a disagreement over hinge propositions as such. 25 Generalizing from this case of philosophical disagreement, then, it looks as if disagreement over hinges is impossible. The general line of thought here is that, in a context in which ED or ED* have the status of being hinge propositions, questioning, doubting, or disputing them would change the context: we would shift the status of ED or ED* from hinge to non-hinge. Therefore, insofar as ED or ED* have the epistemic status of being hinge propositions, we cannot disagree over ED or ED*, bringing reasons to bear for or against them. Doing so would change the subject (the context of inquiry) so that what we are disputing are no longer hinge propositions. Indeed, Williams himself seems to anticipate this consequence. He says that: “[…] introducing sceptical doubts about whether the Earth really existed a hundred years (or five minutes ago) does not lead to a more careful way doing history: it changes the subject, from history to epistemology (Williams 1991,122). Adding later that: “In particular contexts of inquiry, certain propositions stand fast as a matter of methodological necessity” (ibid 124). What I am suggesting here is that ED and ED* might have the status of being hinge propositions in geological and historical contexts, but if the geologists or historians where to reject ED or ED*, following what Williams said, they would change the context from geology or history to philosophy. And in the philosophical context, the thought is that neither of those propositions have the epistemic status of being hinge propositions. That’s precisely why philosophers can genuinely disagree over them. The consequence of the inferential contextualist view of hinge propositions, then, is that disagreement over them results in context-shifts, such that while disputants can genuinely engage in disagreement over propositions such as ED or ED*, doing so downgrades their epistemic status from hinge to non-hinge propositions. Thus, disagreement over them whilst they retain their epistemic status of being hinge propositions is impossible. So, it’s hard to see how inferential contextualism avoids the consequence that genuine disagreement over hinges propositions as such are impossible. 4.2. Entitlement Theory Suppose we think that you can’t justifiably believe a hinge proposition on the basis of any evidence. According to entitlement theorists such as Crispin Wright, it can nevertheless be epistemically rational for you to take some cognitive attitude to them anyway. For Wright, hinge propositions are defined at least in part by their relation to what he calls “cognitive projects”. A cognitive project is essentially a question-procedure pair: a question 26 and a procedure for answering that question. A hinge proposition is what Wright calls a general “authenticity condition” of the procedure being a legitimate way of finding out the answer to the question. For example, consider the following diagram below which illustrates the relationship between hinge propositions and inquiry: In this diagram, you have a question and a procedure for answering it. This defines your cognitive project. And every cognitive project has an authenticity condition for your select procedure to be a way of finding out the answer to your question such that it leads to you to know the answer or justifiably believe it. It’s important to note that not every authenticity condition of a cognitive project is a hinge proposition. For the hinge propositions are authenticity conditions that are “common to a large sweep of cognitive projects of a given kind” (Wright 2014: 216).10 For example, if you’re interested in the question of whether there are any other minds, you might start by asking whether your best friend has a mind as proxy for that more general question. And suppose you get what you take to be very strong evidence that they do, on the basis of their behavior and by analogy with your own. Wright’s idea is that your procedure for answering this question presupposes, as an authenticity-condition on the success of your procedure (understood here as knowledge or justification producing), that there are other minds. And since such an authenticitycondition is plausibly common to many cognitive projects, it’s a hinge proposition. Now, suppose you doubted that there are other minds. Wright thinks that doubting this proposition, a hinge proposition, should systematically lead you to doubt many other non-hinge 10 Here’s Wright explicitly: “Wittgenstein’s metaphor of questions and enquiry as pivoting on ‘hinges’ raises the question, how to characterize the range of the propositions he seems to have had in mind—the ‘hinge propositions’—and their role: how exactly does enquiry ‘turn’ on them? The examples in On Certainty are a mixed bag, but we can approach the kind of thing Wittgenstein seems to be gesturing at by focusing, first, on the notion of an authenticity-condition” (Wright 2014: 214). 27 propositions: Such a doubt will be a doubt which ought—rationally—to ramify into a more general doubt of some sort: a doubt about any investigation that uses some relevant apparatus or relies upon on a certain kind of evidence, or a doubt about the good standing of all previous investigations of a certain kind, or about the very subject matter of a large class of investigations, or about the propriety of their methods (Wright 2014: 216). Wright’s epistemology of hinge propositions flows from what he thinks their role is in the justificational architecture of belief. For example, consider that there is an external, physical world. Suppose you believe that the nearby park which you can clearly see has some trees in it. Wright’s view is that your evidence here is broadly perceptual and abductive. None of your evidence, however, guarantees that there are trees there, or that there is even a park there. In this case, you have some aggregate evidence E (your perceptual experience and your abductive, explanatory considerations) a belief that P (there are trees in the park here), a type of epistemic justification, and an authenticity-condition A (there is an external physical world). Now we need to introduce two characters who build a theory of the structure of justification around cases like this. The conservative holds that E justifies you in believing that P only if you already have justification to believe11 that A, while the liberal holds that E can justify you in believing that P as long as you lack reasons to doubt that A. You don’t, in addition, need to be justified in believing that A before E can justify you in believing that P. (cf. Wright 2014: 217-218). One might think that conservatism about the structure of justification entails skepticism. For example, in our external world case, conservatism implies that you justifiably believe that P on the basis of E only if you antecedently justifiably believe that A (there is an external, physical world). We could easily conjoin that with A*: that you aren’t a brain-in-a-vat in which it seems to you that there is an ordinary physical world external to your perceptions and beliefs). But how could you justifiably believe that A* is false independently of your justification E to believe that P and similar propositions? Here’s Wright on this point: That’s a problem with those authenticity-conditions into which an independent investigation at least presents itself as a possibility. But it is not the full extent of the problem. The difficulty with the ‘heavyweights’, or cornerstones—the big, general hinges of the ilk […] is that the very possibility of independent investigation is itself shrouded in sceptical doubt […] What cognitive project can I undertake in order to engage the question whether there is an external material world save one which assigns to my apparent perceptual experience the very evidential significance for which the existence of an external material world is an authenticity-condition? But, then, if, as conservatism may seem to require, I need to investigate that condition independently, I am stuck. What cognitive projects can I undertake in order to engage the question whether nature exhibits a wealth of natural law save ones which assign to my experience of natural regularities the very evidential significance 11 As we’ll see, Wright’s type of conservativism about the structure of justification holds that you can’t justifiably believe A (general authenticity-conditions—the hinge propositions), but you can justifiably trust A. It is of course open to one to be a conservative about the structure of justification without accepting Wright’s specific form of it. 28 for which the existence of natural law is an authenticity-condition? But, then, if, as may seem to require, I need to investigate that condition independently, I am stuck (Wright 2014: 221). However, Wright doesn’t think that this entails that you lack any epistemic justification or reasons which favor that there is an external world: we can be “entitled to accept” that there is an external world, even if we lack evidence for it (Wright 2004: 53). So, Wright’s thought is that conservatism doesn’t entail skepticism because there is a type of epistemic justification, epistemic entitlement, which you have by default, as an epistemic right, independently of your evidence and any sort of cognitive achievement. Entitlement for p is thus a non-evidential reason to ‘accept’ that p. Wright says that: To be entitled to accept a proposition has no connection whatever with the likelihood of its truth. We are entitled to proceed on the basis of certain beliefs merely because there is no extant reason to disbelieve them and because, unless we make some such commitments, we cannot proceed at all (Wright 2004: 53. cf. Hazlett 2014: 6). So, an entitlement for p doesn’t count at all towards the truth of p. Now one might think that this makes it strange to combine entitlement with belief. Why should you believe that p if you are only entitled to p, since having such an entitlement bears no connection whatever to the truth of p? Believing is an attitude to truths, and it’s difficult to see why one should believe that p is true once one recognizes that they are only entitled to p—something which doesn’t count at all towards the truth of p. Wright recognizes this issue, and thus doesn’t think that the attitude that entitlement is linked to is belief, but rather ‘trust’ or ‘trusting acceptance’: Of course it is often, perhaps normally, irrational to confidently assume or take the truth of propositions on trust. But the basic insight behind the entitlement project— Wittgenstein’s insight, I believe—is that all reflective enquiry, and all reflective cognitive accomplishment, is essentially situated in trusting acceptances, some general, others specific to the particular context of enquiry, for which we lack evidence. This is not a shortcoming, a lapse which, though unavoidable, is nevertheless regrettable. It is in the nature of rational reflective inquiry that this should be so. [...] The accumulation of evidential reason to believe is possible only within the framework set by trusting acceptances” (Wright 2014: 242).12 12 Compare this with this quotation: The attitude to the local hinges and cornerstones has to be one of non-provisional confidence if belief in the products is to be rationalized in turn. At the same time, it needs to be a rational attitude to take for reasons other than our possession of evidential support for the effectiveness of the methods concerned. This was the train of thought that led me to propose that any useful form of entitlement had to license rational trust” (Wright 2014: 226). Many philosophers have criticized Wright’s entitlement theory on the grounds that entitlement at best gives one prudential reason to truth that p, rather than a genuinely epistemic reason to trust that p. For this criticism, see Jenkins (2007) and Pederson (2009). For another defense of the entitlement theory, see Hazlett (2006). 29 If our attitudes to hinge propositions are not beliefs, but rather trust or trusting acceptance, we should ask whether or not trust is robust enough to be a disagreeing-attitude. For example, suppose A trusts that there is no global NWO conspiracy that is responsible for most major social, political, and natural disasters, while B, being an NWO conspiracy theorist, trusts that there is. Now, in virtue of their attitudes to inconsistent contents, are they disagreeing? It’s not so clear that they are. On the one hand, the pair: A trust that ¬p. B trust that p. Looks like a disagreement. It seems rationally non-cotenable—intuitively, you can’t rationally trust that p and trust that ¬p at the same time—and at least one person seems to be at fault: for if one of them is right, this precludes the other from being right. But it’s not clear that this is a genuine disagreement until we understand what propositional trust is here. Compare with: A hopes that ¬p. B hopes that p. In the same way as with propositional trust, at least one of them is at fault here: for this is guaranteed by the fact that their attitudes are directed at inconsistent propositions. Moreover, we might think that hoping that p and hoping that ¬p is rationally non-cotenable: there is something odd about hoping both that, say, Real Madrid will win the match and that they’ll lose the match. Yet, despite these facts, it’s not clear that our second case is a disagreement. Imagine, for example, that you hope that Real Madrid will lose the match, while your friend hopes that they won’t. It might be that you believe that they will win, however, since their track-record is impeccable, while your friend believes the same. In lieu of this, it would certainly be odd to say that your differences in what you hope for constitutes a disagreement. This case is extended to the NWO conspiracy case as follows. It might be that A trusts that there is no NWO conspiracy, while B trusts that there is, and yet they are both inclined to believe that there is. Perhaps A was raised in a family which is active in conspiracy politics, and has the right sort of psychological dispositions which make global conspiracies seem initially attractive. A of course trusts that there is no such conspiracy (perhaps they’ve reasoned that trusting that there is no such conspiracy will make them more likely to get true beliefs about the world and be better inquirers more generally. Or perhaps they think that everyone has the epistemic right to take such a commitment for granted). But they are, like B, nevertheless inclined to believe that there is. This sort of case should be intelligible on Wright’s picture of entitlement as rational trust. Wright himself maintains that entitlement to trust that p doesn’t entail entitlement to believe that p. Ipso facto, you shouldn’t believe that p if you’re only entitled to trust that p, for then you 30 would be believing without any evidence or anything which indicates that p is true. So, cases where you trust that p whilst disbelieving p should be possible. Otherwise, Wright would need to say that such a case is impossible or else irrational, which would speak against the entitlement theory. If we suppose that the entitlement theory doesn’t excluded genuine disagreement over hinge propositions, are such disagreements rationally resolvable? Note that entitlement to trust is non-optional. If you’re entitled to trust that a hinge proposition H is true, it doesn’t seem like it’s optional for you to choose not to be entitled to trust H is true: entitlement is stable and involuntarily, and in any case not the result of any cognitive achievement. Now imagine that while you trust that H and you meet someone who you know distrusts that H. Suppose this is a disagreement. Wright’s entitlement theory seems to entail that you are entitled to trust that H, while the other person is not entitled to distrust that H. However, they are also entitled to trust what you trust, namely, that H. For entitlements are unearned: you don’t have to do anything in order to get the epistemic right to trust the hinge propositions. You get them for free (cf. Wright 2004). Hence, it seems to follow that, if trusting that H and distrusting that H is a disagreement, then rational resolution for the disagreement over H is de facto possible because it’s already settled: rationally both of you are entitled to trust H. Hence, what you both epistemically ought to do is trust the proposition for which you are both entitled, namely, H. Let’s return to the question of whether the Wittgensteinian theory of deep disagreement provides adequate support for pessimism about such disagreements. It seems as if Wright’s entitlement theory makes room for the possibility of rationally resolving disagreement over hinge propositions and thus, on the Wittgensteinian theory at least, deep disagreement. For while neither of us epistemically ought to believe the target propositions, if you distrust that the Earth has been around for millions of years, as a result of your belief in the conspiracy that it’s a virtual artefact of extra-terrestrials, while I trust that it has been, Wright’s view seems to imply that we both epistemically ought to only trust that that the Earth has been around for millions of years. For we are both already epistemically entitled to such trust anyway. 5. Conclusion In this paper, I consider the epistemic problem of deep disagreement—‘are epistemically rational resolutions to deep disagreements possible?’—in light of the Wittgensteinian account of deep disagreement, that such disagreements are disagreements over hinge commitments. I argued that on many ways of developing the theory of hinge commitments, the Wittgensteinian account would adequately support pessimism (§§3-4.1). However, I argued that strictly speaking the Wittgensteinian account can be consistently combined with optimism about deep disagreement (§4.2). 31 I also contrasted the Wittgensteinian theory with a seemingly different theory, the fundamental epistemic principle theory (§2). I argued that prima facie these theories are distinct, and that, at the very least, they differ with respect to what it is the explanatorily important criteria for deep disagreement. Finally, while the Wittgensteinian theory alone doesn’t adequately support deep disagreement pessimism, that many ways of developing it do seem to support it ought to make us look more critically at the theory. For one might think that pessimism about deep disagreement is an intolerable consequence—that surely such disagreements can be rationally resolved. 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