Abstract
Hinge epistemology is a family of views that offers a novel approach to avoiding skeptical conclusions about the possibility of a posteriori justification of our empirical beliefs. They claim that at the basis of our empirical beliefs lie certain commitments whose rational status is not determined by our evidence. These are called hinge commitments. Prominent hinge epistemologists have claimed that hinge commitments are either rational or arational but yet not beliefs. I argue that such views are subject to decisive objections. I then offer what I consider to be the best version of hinge epistemology. On this view, hinge commitments are best understood as arational beliefs that contingently inform our worldview. I call this view the Arational Beliefs View.
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Notes
Following common practice, when there is no indication to the contrary, the term ‘rational belief’ is interchangeable with the term ‘justified belief’.
In this paper, I am assuming that hinge propositions are only those propositions that (i) we presuppose when holding any of our empirical beliefs, (ii) do not seem to be supported by empirical evidence, and (iii) play a fundamental role in informing our worldview at its basis (more on this last feature in Sect. 4). So, for me, propositions like ‘I have two hands’ do not count as hinge propositions. It might be helpful for the reader to think about Crispin Wright’s notion of a cornerstone proposition as an initial guide to what counts as a hinge proposition in this paper (Wright, 2004).
There have been some attempts to argue that hinge commitments are instances of contingent a priori knowledge. For a defense of this view see Cohen (2010) and DeRose (2018). For a critical review of this view, see Worsnip (2019). For the purposes of this paper, however, I will take for granted the intuitive assumption that the justification for the hinge commitments underlying our ordinary empirical beliefs is empirical.
This argument presupposes conservativism about the structure of empirical justification, that is, that an ordinary empirical belief is justified only if, absent defeaters, one has an appropriate experience (with the belief’s propositional content) and one has a warrant to believe the relevant hinge proposition we presuppose when holding ordinary empirical beliefs. For a full defense of conservativism see Wright (1985), (2002), and (2004).
Two influential approaches that can be read as doing this are dogmatism and coherentism. For different versions of dogmatism see Feldman and Conee (2004), Markosian (2014) and Pryor (2000) and (2004). For different criticisms of these views see Cohen (2002), White (2006) and Worsnip (2019). For a development of coherentism see Bonjour (1985). For criticisms see Bonjour (1999). For a new defense of the view that the agent’s evidence can support hinge commitments—understood as the totality of their evidence—see Neta (2019).
As I will note shortly, some NRG proponents may also deny (b), depending on their view.
Hinge epistemology is a family of views that feeds, in different degrees, from Wittgenstein’s thoughts in On Certainty (Wittgenstein, 1969). The view I develop here does not aim to be an exegetical analysis of Wittgenstein’s thoughts, rather it is inspired by and consistent with some claims he makes about hinge commitments.
I am not alone in holding a version of the general NRG position that hinge commitments are arational beliefs. Philosophers who might have held the view include Hume, as Peter Strawson (1987, p. 11) has argued. Strawson himself might hold the view (Strawson, 1987, p. 25) as well, and arguably, Yuval Avnur (2012, 2017). However, no one has (1) defended this type of NRG view against competing hinge epistemology views (e.g., Coliva’s, Wright’s or Pritchard’s), nor (2) has anyone argued explicitly for the claim that hinge commitments really are beliefs. By showing that my view is the best way of solving our puzzle, I will have done these two things.
However, one might wonder whether in the flashing signpost scenario we really have evidence against the hinge proposition that there is an external worldc. After all, the thought goes, if we live in a simulation, that means that there is an external world, where a mind-independent object—some machine—is causing the experiences we are having (e.g. Chalmers (2005)). However, notice that this interpretation of the hinge proposition that there is an external world is alien to the way we normally conceive of the external world that is well-captured by ‘there is an external world’c. ‘There is an external world’c plausibly depicts that when we think that there is an external world, we take it that ordinary objects (trees, cars, animals, etc.) are mind-independent and they themselves cause our experiences. So, the flashing signpost scenario is evidence against the hinge commitment we actually hold—i.e., ‘there is an external world’c.
Of course, generally agents can do both things together. For Coliva, however, ‘assumption’ is a technical term that she uses to refer to an attitude that is in most respects like beliefs. Therefore, with her use of ‘assumption’ agents cannot both assume that not-P and believe that P. More on this bellow (Sect. 2.1.1.3).
Coliva’s view about justification of ordinary empirical beliefs includes such a clause. So, she might extend this to hinge commitments as well.
Wright does not categorically deny that the attitude we have towards hinge commitments are beliefs. He concedes that we might believe hinge commitments. However, because he accepts that we do not have adequate evidence for them, those beliefs would be irrational. So, according to Wright the appropriate attitude towards hinge commitments is one of trust and not belief (Wright, 2014, p. 226).
Wright concedes that we cannot be entitled to believe hinge propositions because beliefs are the kind of mental states that can only be warranted by evidential considerations. So, he proposes that in these cases we are entitled to trust that a hinge proposition is true.
In particular, he worries that there is no good story about whether we have entitlements to trust hinge propositions about the existence of substances.
Wright explicitly limits the scope of this entitlement to the domain of rational action. However, broadening its scope to include not only decisions about what to do but also about what to believe is not only natural—everything that holds good for the entitlement of rational action holds good for an entitlement of epistemic rationality—but it makes the entitlement of rational deliberation stronger. By ‘stronger’ I mean that the standard criticism against Wright’s other entitlements that they are not epistemic but pragmatic does not obviously apply to his entitlement of rational deliberation.
See Wright (2014).
A different criticism of the instrumental approach to epistemic rationality has been defended by Thomas Kelly (2003). Kelly’s main criticism is based on the implausibility of the claim that humans in general have in all circumstances the epistemic goals of acquiring true beliefs and avoiding the acquisition of false beliefs.
Luca Moretti (2020) has argued that even if we accept the strategy of thinking about epistemic rationality in instrumentalist terms, Wright’s view cannot elicit instrumental epistemic entitlements for hinge commitments as Wright has argued.
One might want to give a stronger reading of what ‘responsiveness to rational considerations’ means, and include not only that agents ought to revise their beliefs in response to evidence but that they ought to form beliefs in response to evidence. However, Grace Helton (2018, pp. 7–8) has argued that thinking about beliefs as constituted by a norm that says that “necessarily, subjects ought to form their beliefs in response to good evidence” might lead to the consequence that humans have very few beliefs or no beliefs whatsoever, which is absurd. I am adopting the weaker reading of ‘responsiveness to rational considerations’ to avoid this consequence.
One might claim that the flashing signpost scenario does not show that hinge commitments are responsive to evidential considerations, but rather that hinge commitments can change their hinge status over time; it is only after a hinge commitment has lost its hinge status that it can be subject to rational evaluation (for a development of this thought see Pritchard (2014, pp. 202–203). However, this thought (together with the claim that hinge commitments are not beliefs) commits us to the claim that a subject can go from having one mental state (a hinge commitment) to having a different one (a belief) without also undergoing any behavioral or psychological changes on their part regarding the mental state in question. That strikes me as implausible.
I think that this claim should not be too controversial because hinge epistemologists tend to follow many of the views that Wittgenstein had about hinges. One of them is that hinges give us a worldview (see OC 92–95, and 162).
Of course, in a scenario like the flashing signpost another hinge commitment will inform our empirical beliefs and we will have a different understanding of what counts as evidence. But still, we will hold a hinge commitment that will inform our worldview at a fundamental level.
Hazlett (2016, pp. 338–340), arguably, has made similar remarks. He draws attention to some passages in On Certainty where Wittgenstein offers a metaphor about a riverbank and the water that runs through it to understand the distinction between hinges and empirical beliefs. The riverbank seems more permanent (like the hinges) while the water that runs through it changes (like our empirical beliefs). Hazlett notes that in (1969, § 97) Wittgenstein says “that there is not a sharp distinction between the “channels” through which the water flows and the “fluid” itself”. Hazlett thinks that this supports the claim that ‘[s]ome of our doxastic attitudes [our beliefs in hinge propositions] are analogous to stable deposits of sand in the riverbank, more solid and resistant to erosion than the water itself, but still capable of being washed away.”.
In the next section, I will expand on how I think our hinge commitments inform our worldview.
Of course, there can be belief-like mental states that are not beliefs. Aliefs are a good example of this (Gendler 2008). Beliefs and aliefs not only differ in that aliefs seem to be resistant to evidential considerations; the content of beliefs and aliefs is different (one is propositional whereas the other one might not be), beliefs seem to involve acceptance whereas aliefs do not, etc. My point here is that if two mental states seem to share most features of beliefs, given my arguments above, a mere difference in the way they respond to evidence cannot decide whether they are different mental states.
For other problems with Pritchard’s claim that hinge commitments are not beliefs see Ranalli (2020).
This is my preferred way of explaining why our hinge commitments are more important than other beliefs for our worldview. However, the plausibility of the view and its consequences does not depend on this explanation.
My view only entails that hinge commitments are necessary conditions for our epistemic practices to take place. It does not entail that hinge commitments can improve the epistemic quality of the rest of our beliefs or, in other words, that hinge commitments can guide our beliefs to aptness. For a defense of a similar claim see Sosa (2021), and Gómez-Alonso (2021).
As I mentioned before, Wright (2004) is committed to this claim. Wittgenstein can be interpreted as also making this claim (1969, § 337).
Pritchard thinks that closure principles should be understood as ranging only over beliefs and so he thinks that his view is consistent with closure principles—since hinge commitments are not beliefs and so closure does not apply to them (2016, p. 4). However, it should be easy to notice that if the way to properly understand closure principles is as not applying to hinge commitments, Pritchard’s view is not consistent with common understandings of the principle which do not entail such a restriction. According to him, where P is an ordinary empirical belief, and Q is a hinge commitment, even if we know that P entails Q, we cannot be justified in believing Q. Hence, Pritchard’s view, like mine, is a revisionist project of the common philosophical understanding of closure principles and, like me, he rejects the universality of closure principles.
For a comprehensive defense of this restricted reading of closure principles see Avnur (2012).
De Rose’s worry is directed at closure principle of knowledge where knowledge is closed under knowledge entailment, but for our purposes that does not matter.
When Coliva deals with this objection, mutatis mutandis, she makes a similar point, (2015, pp. 136–139).
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Acknowledgements
This paper benefitted from conversations and comments from many people at different stages of its existence. Many thanks to Dominik Berger, Chris Blake-Turner, Amy Flowerree, Jamilah Karah, Matthew Kotzen, Joanna Lawson, Carla Merino-Rajme, Francesco Nappo, Ram Neta, Kristi Olson, Sylvie Ramirez, Scott Sehon, Sarah Stroud, Matthew Stuart, Lauren Traum, Alex Worsnip, the audiences at Work In Progress workshops and the Dissertation Research Seminar at UNC-Chapel Hill, as well as two kind and helpful anonymous referees from this journal.
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Barranco Lopez, A. Hinge commitments as arational beliefs. Synthese 201, 109 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04090-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-023-04090-w