Against (Neo-Wittgensteinian) Entitlements

Annalisa Coliva

doi:10.1093/oso/9780198713524.003.0012

Abstract

Crispin Wright takes his entitlement strategy to be neo-Wittgensteinian. This chapter argues for two conclusions. First, Wright’s entitlement strategy cannot be neo-Wittgensteinian, properly so-called. Wright explicitly characterizes trust in anti-sceptical hypotheses as epistemically rational. However, properly Wittgensteinian approaches place anti-sceptical hypotheses or so-called hinge propositions (I’m not a brain in a vat, There is an external world, etc.) outside the realm of rational evaluation. Second, Wright-style entitlement is fundamentally flawed because it is unclear what kind of epistemic good it is supposed to be. Since entitlements are non-evidential in nature, they cannot be epistemic goods by virtue of supporting the truth of anti-sceptical hypotheses. They cannot sustain anything worthy of the label “epistemic rationality” either.

Highlights

In this paper I raise some worries against one specific notion of entitlement defended in the last decade mainly by Crispin Wright
That there be a warrant for it which does not stem from the kind of procedure by means of which, in MOORE, one would try to warrant the proposition that there is an external world, i.e. outer observation
Are there any other ways in which we may try to obtain a warrant for “There is an external world”, beside MOORE-like arguments and a priori ones? Wright has argued that a Humean skeptic—namely a skeptic who rehearses the line of argument seen so far—thinks there are not and for this very reason ends up being a skeptic about the existence of an external world

Summary

Introduction

In this paper I raise some worries against one specific notion of entitlement defended in the last decade mainly by Crispin Wright (and, in some ways, by Michael Williams).

Results

Conclusion