Annalisa Coliva

“Tell me," Wittgenstein once asked a friend, "why do people always say, it was natural for man to assume that the sun went round the earth rather than that the earth was rotating?" His friend replied, "Well, obviously because it just looks as though the Sun is going round the Earth." Wittgenstein replied, "Well, what would it have looked like if it had looked as though the Earth was rotating?” What would it have looked like if we looked at all sciences from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein’s philosophy? Wittgenstein is undoubtedly one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. His complex body of work has been analysed by numerous scholars, from mathematicians and physicists, to philosophers, linguists, and beyond. This volume brings together some of his central perspectives as applied to the modern sciences and studies the influence they may have on the thought processes underlying science and on the world view it engenders. The contributions stem from leading scholars in philosophy, mathematics, physics, economics, psychology and human sciences; all of them have written in an accessible style that demands little specialist knowledge, whilst clearly portraying and discussing the deep issues at hand.

This book offers the first systematic extension of hinge epistemology—originally developed as an account of perceptual justification and as a response to Cartesian and Humean skepticism—into the domains of social and applied epistemology. It advances a novel hinge-theoretic framework that distinguishes between de jure and de facto hinges, a distinction that allows for a nuanced analysis of a broad range of issues in social epistemology. The framework is applied to central debates on common knowledge, genealogical challenges, deep disagreement, and the nature of testimonial justification and trust, including pressing questions surrounding trust in artificial intelligence. It further engages with debates on testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, as well as conceptual engineering, with particular focus on the contested and socially significant concept “woman.” Beyond these social applications, the book explores the implications of hinge epistemology for understanding psychiatric delusions and the epistemic structure of conspiracy theories, shedding light on how basic commitments shape and constrain our cognitive and social lives. By extending hinge epistemology into these diverse contexts, the book demonstrates its power as a unifying framework for addressing both traditional epistemological concerns and contemporary challenges at the intersection of knowledge, society, and practice.

Just as skepticism about our knowledge of the external world is thought to engender a kind of despair, skepticism about our philosophical knowledge, if true, engenders a despair of a similar kind. We remain optimistic. Despair, we urge, needn’t get the best of us. Philosophical knowledge is attainable. Progress is possible. But we aren’t overly optimistic either. Philosophical skepticism has its place. In this chapter, we show how philosophical knowledge and philosophical progress is possible in light of widespread disagreement in philosophy.

In this chapter an intermediate position between Jim Pryor’s liberal conception of the architecture of empirical warrants and Crispin Wright’s conservative view is presented. The main tenets of such a view, called ‘moderatism’, are presented and its consequences with respect to failure of warrant transmission explored. It is then claimed that moderatism allows one to countenance a second kind of transmission failure, different from Wright’s original variety of it. The bearing of such a view on the issue of the cogency of Moore’s proof and on the Principle of Closure for warrant is investigated. Finally, moderatism, developed along ‘internal rationalist’ lines, is brought to bear on the issue of Humean scepticism, and it is claimed that it represents a better solution to it than Wright’s appeal to the notion of entitlement.

This introductory chapter serves three primary functions. First, it offers a compact account of L. Susan Stebbing’s life and philosophical contributions. Second, it contextualizes her absence from several influential narratives in the history of analytic tradition, examining how and why she has been overlooked. Third, it provides a guide to the volume’s structure and central themes. In doing so, the chapter aims to introduce Stebbing’s work to new readers and to reposition her as a foundational yet long-neglected figure, whose contributions—spanning logic, language, metaphysics, critical thinking, ethics, and the philosophy of science—remain deeply relevant both to the historical study of early analytic philosophy and to contemporary philosophy

The primary objective of this paper is to tentatively investigate how a family-resemblance approach to concepts might be applied to the related notions of knowledge and understanding, with the aim of deflating or redressing ongoing debates surrounding each. Given that the concept of family-resemblance is frequently misinterpreted, and there is a prevailing tendency to revert to more conventional methods of conceptual analysis, the paper offers a comprehensive overview of the notion. To lay the groundwork, it traces the origins of family-resemblance to Goethe's morphological method, illustrating the approach with an example from botany. It then presents a family-resemblance account of the concept of knowledge and understanding.

The chapter takes issue with Professor Maddy's reply (2018) to my commentary (Coliva in International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 8:198–207, 2018) on her account of Moore's[aut]Moore, G.E. proof in What Philosophers do. SkepticismSkepticism and the Practice of Philosophy (2017). In particular, I argue that transcendental idealism was the target of Moore's proof, rather than skepticism; that he did not dismiss Cartesian skepticismCartesian skepticism as illegitimate or even nonsensical; yet thought that since knowledge of the premises of his proof, such as “Here is one hand”, and “Here is another”, does not depend on being able to prove that one is not dreaming, contra Cartesian skepticism, he did have knowledge of them. Moore's defence of the good standing of his proof was thus based on embracing a proto-externalist account of knowledge, according to which knowledge (K) does not entail knowing how one knows, in the specific sense of being able to prove that one knows (KK).

Anil Gupta’s Conscious Experience. A Logical Inquiry is an opus magnum. Its breadth and depth are unique in the extant philosophical literature on the nature and role of perception, the rationality of empirical reasoning, the nature of disagreement, empiricism, and the realist/anti-realist debate in the philosophy of science. There is also much to learn from it regarding key philosophical figures such as Russell and Sellars. Equally commendable are the style and clarity of the book. Here I will focus on two interconnected themes on which Gupta and I are in disagreement. Namely, the nature and role of experience in the hypothetical given, and the role of empirical dialectic and proofs.

This chapter consists of five exchanges between Annalisa Coliva, Anil Gupta, and Crispin Wright. These philosophers debate a wide range of issues including (i) whether perceptual judgments presuppose general hinge propositions (e.g., “External objects are, by and large, as they appear to be”); (ii) whether the justification of perceptual judgments requires that the hinge propositions be justified; (iii) whether the idea of hinge proposition helps address skeptical arguments; and (iv) which skeptical arguments deserve a constructive response and which deserve to be dismissed as fallacious.

Relativism, an ancient philosophical doctrine, is once again a topic of heated debate. In this book, Maria Baghramian and Annalisa Coliva present the recent arguments for and against various forms of relativism. The first two chapters introduce the conceptual and historical contours of relativism. These are followed by critical investigations of relativism about truth, conceptual relativism, epistemic relativism, and moral relativism. The concluding chapter asks whether it is possible to make sense of relativism as a philosophical thesis. The book introduces readers to the main types of relativism and the arguments in their favor. It also goes beyond the expository material to engage in more detailed critical responses to the key positions and authors under discussion. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading, and a glossary, Relativism is essential reading for students of philosophy as well as those in related disciplines where relativism is studied, such as anthropology, sociology, and politics.

This paper looks at the so-called “genealogical challenge”, encapsulated in the “you just believe that because …” (YJBTB) schema, through the lens of hinge epistemology. It is claimed that hinges are typically believed just because one has been brought up to believe them (§1). Yet, due to their extreme variability, it is not always the case that hinges are not rationally held, while fitting into the YJBTB schema. In particular, they are rationally held when either different (de facto empirical) hinges are taken for granted merely because of one’s position in history, or else when (de jure) hinges, constitutive of epistemic rationality, are plugged into the YJBTB schema. By contrast, they are not rationally held when different hinges are taken for granted while aware of the fact that one’s reasons for them are either question-begging or no stronger than the ones in favor of incompatible ones (§ §3–4). These would all be cases of “deep disagreement” – that is, disagreement that depends on different and incompatible hinges, which prevent parties from utilizing a common epistemic method or practice to rationally resolve the disagreement. Finally, we look at the possible extension of this framework to what may be regarded as religious and moral hinges. It is claimed that, depending on the hinge in question, these disagreements may (or may not) be “deep” (§5). Hence, looking at the genealogical challenge through the lens of hinge epistemology helps elucidate its nature, its epistemic significance and its scope.

Annalisa Coliva draws attention to Waismann’s acute attention to fine-grained linguistic distinctions in the use of English epistemic vocabulary. Coliva notes that although Waismann often misses out on directing these observations to an overarching philosophical analysis, he does come close to Wittgenstein’s groundbreaking views regarding a phrase like “I know” when used in relation to hinges and avowals. The sketchiness of Waismann’s remarks notwithstanding, the two papers achieve to raise momentous philosophical points. He analyses knowing in certain cases as a limiting case of believing, which for Coliva could have dramatic consequences for knowledge-first epistemologies.

The paper addresses the issue of what epistemic anti-realism could possibly be in the context of “hinge epistemology.” According to this new epistemological trend, justification depends on evidence together with general background assumptions—for example, that there is an external world, that our sense organs are mostly reliable, that we are not the victims of persistent and lucid dreams, and so on. The paper then addresses two issues. First, whether these assumptions are arbitrary, as relativists would claim. Second, how we should conceive of their metaphysical status. It responds negatively to the first question and puts forward an anti-realist conception of hinges to respond to the latter. Central to the proposal is that the kind of truth that can be predicated of hinges is of a minimalist kind. The paper also explores the compatibility of minimalism about hinges’ truth and alethic pluralism.

This paper starts from the Equal Validity Paradox, a paradoxical argument connected to the so-called phenomenon of faultless disagreement. It is argued that there are at least six strategies for solving the paradox. After presenting the first five strategies and their main problems, the paper focuses on the sixth strategy which rejects the assumption that every proposition cannot be both true and false. Dialetheism is the natural candidate for developing strategy six. After presenting strategy six in detail, we formulate a normative problem for the dialetheist and offer a tentative solution to it. We then elaborate further considerations connecting strategy six to pluralism about truth and logic. Even if strategy six is a hard path to take, its scrutiny highlights some important points on truth, logic and the norms for acceptance and rejection.

Trust is central to epistemology, particularly in accounts of testimony, where it describes the relationship between a hearer and a speaker (or trustor and trustee), enabling the acquisition of information. The speaker's trustworthiness—marked by sincerity and knowledge—is essential for testimony to transmit knowledge or justified belief. However, trust's nature and role remain conceptually elusive, as the current debate highlights. This paper addresses the foundational question of what trust entails, rather than the conditions under which one is trustworthy. Specifically, we examine Wittgenstein's On Certainty to propose a characterization of trust in its most fundamental form, termed “hinge trust.” Hinge trust is a stance preceding the ability to form justified beliefs, directed not only at people but also at perceptual faculties, objects, and the environment. It underpins our epistemic practices, particularly in acquiring epistemic hinges essential for reasoning and inquiry.Building on this, we advocate a “trust‐first” framework, analogous to the “knowledge‐first” approach in epistemology. Trust is conceptualized as a primitive stance, distinct from “reliance +” a reactive attitude, or goodwill or commitment. These elements, while significant, are not constitutive of trust. Additionally, we explore the interplay between trust and distrust, arguing that trust is both conceptually and axiologically prior to distrust. Finally, we address the role of trust in testimony and hinge epistemology, demonstrating its foundational significance.

In this paper, we argue that epistemic accounts of transparency of the sort put forward by Alex Byrne (2018) and Jordi Fernández (2013) cannot offer a sufficient explanation of the first-personal knowledge we have of our own mental states. We argue against the plausibility of their strategy by noticing that these accounts either (i) fail to present an epistemic account; (ii) assume the very knowledge they are designed to explain (i.e. knowledge of one’s first-order mental states); or, (iii) endorse a dubious inferentialist story of how we move from being in a given first-order mental state to its knowledgeable self-ascription (§1-2). Finally, we close by highlighting the difficulties involved in presenting these accounts as explanatory for states other than belief (§3) and move to suggest a pluralist approach to the study of self-knowledge (§4).

Skepticism is one of the perennial problems of philosophy: from antiquity, to the early modern period of Descartes and Hume, and right through to the present day. It remains a fundamental and widely studied topic and, as Annalisa Coliva and Duncan Pritchard show in this book, it presents us with a paradox with important ramifications not only for epistemology but also for many other core areas of philosophy. In this book they provide a thorough grounding in contemporary debates about skepticism, exploring the following key topics: the core skeptical arguments, with a particular focus on Cartesian and Humean radical skepticism. the epistemic principles that are held to underlie skeptical arguments, such as the closure and underdetermination principles. the content externalism of Putnam, Davidson and Chalmers, and how it might help us respond to radical skepticism. the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction and how it relates to the skeptical problematic. contextualism in epistemology and its anti-skeptical import. the various interpretations of a Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology. the viability of epistemological disjunctivism, including whether it can be combined with hinge epistemology as part of a dual response to radical skepticism. liberal and conservative responses to the Humean skeptical paradox. Both authors are themselves prominent figures who work on skepticism, and so one novelty of the book is that it provides an insight into their own contrasting responses to this philosophical difficulty. With the addition of annotated further reading and a glossary this is an ideal starting point for anyone studying the philosophy of skepticism, along with students of epistemology, metaphysics and contemporary analytic philosophy.

The paper explores how Wittgenstein and Waismann interpreted Goethe’s ideas from The Metamorphosis of Plants. These ideas laid the foundation for Wittgenstein’s concept of “family resemblance”, which Waismann also embraced in The Principles of Linguistic Philosophy. However, the paper argues that Wittgenstein’s and Waismann’s metaphilosophical implications evolved differently in their later works. Notably, it is Waismann, rather than Wittgenstein, who took these ideas to their extreme, concluding in How I See Philosophy that all forms of philosophical theorizing should be rejected. By contrast, Wittgenstein rejected only the kind of theorizing in philosophy which aims at offering monistic and reductionist explanations of key philosophical concepts.

In this paper, we look at what Miranda Fricker (2007) calls “hermeneutical injustice” as it arises in the medical context. By drawing on the history of hysteria, I argue that the concept of hysteria has been held in place by power structures affected by negative prejudice against women. In this sense, the concept of hysteria fits the central conditions of the concept of hermeneutical injustice as characterized by Fricker. Yet, reflection on the case of hysteria also signals the need for widening the understanding of hermeneutical injustice. I thus propose to ameliorate the concept of hermeneutical injustice and show how, once thus ameliorated, it can be used as a powerful tool to advocate for the amelioration of the concept of woman. I then return to the concept of hysteria and argue that it is still in use in everyday contexts, where it embodies identity prejudice against women and constitutes a particularly pernicious form of put-down that perpetrates various forms of epistemic injustice. I conclude that also in that kind of context the concept of hysteria should be abandoned. Like with other loaded concepts, the only admissible uses of that concept would then be in contexts of reclaiming or re-appropriation.

Drawing on previous work, I argue that a family resemblance account of the concept woman has several beneficial consequences. Namely, it promotes hermeneutical justice, and, in time, it may serve to change the prototypes and stereotypes people tend unreflectively to associate with woman. I claim that only at that point will full hermeneutical justice be achieved. To this end, I propose a reconceptualization of the notion of hermeneutical injustice, first presented by Fricker (2007). First, I present the family resemblance account of woman. Accordingly, that concept isn’t identified by a set of necessary and (jointly) sufficient conditions, but, roughly, by different criteria. Second, I show how concepts, prototypes and stereotypes relate to one another and how they may contribute to hermeneutical injustice. Finally, I show how the proposed account of woman may in time foster a change in the associated prototype and stereotypes, which will ameliorate societies by doing more justice to the lived experience of trans women – that is, by promoting full hermeneutical justice.

According to a prominent strand of thought in analytic philosophy of mind, certain judgments of the form “a is F” are such that, although one can be mistaken about what property it is that a has, one cannot be mistaken that it is a that has the relevant property. Judgments of this kind are said to be immune to error through misidentification (IEM). This article has two main aims. On the one hand, it responds to a need for a systematization of the debate about immunity to error through misidentification, which consists of multiple contributions in epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics that have accumulated throughout the last 80 years – since the publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Blue Book – and which no one – to the best of our knowledge – has drawn together in an exhaustive and accessible way. On the other hand, the article will take a stand on matters concerning the nature, scope, explanation, and significance of immunity to error through misidentification.