Abstract
Hinge epistemology comprises an exciting non-evidentialist approach to thinking about the structure of epistemic justification. Hinge epistemology takes inspiration from Wittgenstein’s enigmatic third masterpiece On Certainty (1969) (henceforth OC), especially the metaphor that “some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like the hinges on which those turn” (§341). Hinge epistemology has primarily been developed with the aim of dissolving the problem of radical skepticism. However, recent work has extended the field to application in the epistemology of perception, logic, and testimony (Coliva 2015), the epistemology of deep disagreement (Pritchard 2021; Ranalli 2018; Johnson 2022), epistemic injustice and bias (Boncampagni 2019), feminist epistemology (Ashton 2019), political epistemology (Ranalli 2022), conspiracy theory (Smith 2022) moral epistemology (Johnson 2019), and philosophy of religion (Pritchard 2012, 2022; Boncampagni 2022; Vinten 2022; Smith 2021).
The goal of this paper is to propose a novel version of hinge epistemology. I begin by providing a set of taxonomical questions and use them to distinguish between some prominent versions of hinge epistemology, due to Annalisa Coliva, Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, Duncan Pritchard, and Crispin Wright. The taxonomical questions I set out provide logical space for an alternative to the views countenanced. The main distinguishing feature of my proposed form of hinge epistemology is how it combines relativism about hinges with a radical non-epistemic account of how hinge commitments support ordinary epistemic practices. In brief, the idea is that it is part of the ‘logic’ of certainty that for any epistemic agent, she must hold some intellectual commitment(s) to a maximal degree of subjective certainty, and that for this very reason, those commitments must be rationally unsupported for that individual. Just which commitments are held to a maximal degree of subjective certainty is a matter of the role they play in the individual’s overall belief system, rather than an intrinsic feature of certain propositions or a matter of the domain of inquiry to which they belong. I also consider some of the main objections to hinge epistemology—the demarcation problem (Ohlhorst 2022), the ‘problem’ of relativism (see Piedrahita 2021 for discussion), and the epistemic leaching problem (McGlynn 2017)—and I argue that the radical relativist view is at least as well equipped as competitors to handle these objections. Finally, I highlight some applications of the radical relativist view in the epistemology of deep disagreement and epistemic injustice.
How to attend
This is a read-ahead seminar. The meetings have a hybrid format. We meet in person in GM 652 and digitally on Zoom (Zoom login required).
The meeting link, along with a copy of the paper to be discussed, will be made available in advance via the mailing list.