This paper aims to distinguish Wittgenstein’s concept of ‘form of life’ from other concepts or expressions that have been confused or conflated with it, such as ‘language-game’, ‘certainty’, ‘patterns of life’, ‘ways of living’ and ‘facts of living’. Competing interpretations of Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’ are reviewed, and it is concluded that Wittgenstein intended both a singular and a plural use of the concept; with, where the human is concerned, a single human form of life characterized by innumerable forms of (...) human life. (shrink)

O desenvolvimento do presente texto parte do pressuposto inicial segundo o qual grande parte do Da Certeza é dedicada a expor a distinção entre ‘certeza’ e ‘conhecimento’. Nossas certezas básicas – ou ‘fulcrais’ ou, ainda, ‘dobradiças’ [hinges] – formam a nossa imagem de mundo e sustentam o nosso conhecimento, não sendo elas mesmas, porém, de natureza epistêmica. As deliberações de Wittgenstein levamno a compreender que as nossas certezas básicas compartilham as seguintes características conceituais; elas são todas: não epistêmicas, indubitáveis, não (...) empíricas, gramaticais, não proposicionais, inefáveis, exibidas na ação [enacted] e fundacionais. Estas características necessárias das certezas fulcrais são investigadas com algum detalhe ao longo do texto que se segue. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

One consequence of the later Wittgenstein's influential critique of epistemological foundationalism has been to convince many contemporary philosophers that the ideal of universal and necessary cognitive grounds for moral or political norms is illusory. Recent neo-Wittgensteinian accounts of practical reason attempt to formulate a conception of a post-foundational politics in which a political ethos can be legitimate, rational or just even if its informing practices and cognitive standards lack foundational justification. Against these appropriations of Wittgenstein, I argue that his account (...) challenges foundationalism only by generating epistemological relativism at both the first-order level of belief systems and at the second-order level of the comparative evaluation of first-order belief systems and their non-comparable forms of justification. The result is a polytheism of forms of reason which imperils the methodological ideal of a non-relativistic practice of moral-political criticism. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that hinge propositions are ways of acting that constitute abilities or skills. My starting point is Moyal-Sharrock's account of hinge propositions. However, Moyal-Sharrock's account leaves gaps to be filled, as it does not offer a unified explanation of the origin of our ungrounded grounds. Her account also lacks resources to respond to the issue of demarcation, since it does not provide a criterion for distinguishing ways of acting that can legitimately fulfill the role of ungrounded (...) grounds from those that cannot. Without an answer to this issue, the relativistic threat is serious. I then propose that by narrowing the ways of acting to those that are constitutive of abilities, we can deal with the relativistic threat. I provide an ecological approach to abilities through which I explain why abilities are reality-soaked and therefore why the ways of acting that constitute them are legitimate ungrounded grounds. Based on that approach, I provide an answer to the issue of demarcation that defuses the relativistic threat. (shrink)

n the analytic tradition, the appeal to intuition has been a common philosophical practice that supposedly provides us with epistemic standards. The authoress argues that the high epistemological standards of traditional analytic philosophy cannot be pursued by this method. Perhaps within a naturalistic, reliable frame intuitions can be evoked more coherently. Philosophers can use intuition as scientists do, in hypothesis- construction or data- collection. This is an ironic conclusion: Traditional analytic epistemologists rely on the appeal to intuition, but cannot justify (...) it. Naturalists, on the other hand, are not those who need such a method; yet they can better accommodate it within their view. (shrink)

Ziel der Arbeit ist zu zeigen, dass sich in der theoretischen Philosophie David Humes Ansätze zu einer therapeutischen Methode finden, wie sie von Ludwig Wittgenstein angewandt und beschrieben wurde. Im ersten Teil wird Wittgensteins Konzeption der Philosophie und ihre Anwendung anhand einer genauen Textexegese dargestellt. Der zweite Teil untersucht primär die Humeschen Überlegungen zu Kausalität und Induktion, seine methodologischen Aussagen sowie seine Perzeptionstheorie und argumentiert für die These, dass Hume ebenfalls, wenn auch mit Einschränkungen, Elemente einer therapeutischen Methode und eine (...) entsprechende Konzeption der Philosophie zugeschrieben werden können. (shrink)