| PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 1992 |
( This essay is a response to Okshevsky. )
UNDOUBTED TRUTH
David Charles McCarty
Indiana University
Dr. Okshevsky’s main claim is that Professor Siegel has misidentified rationality in belief and action. By Okshevsky’s lights, Siegel has conflated its real nature with that of criticalness, our readiness to offer justificatory arguments for our beliefs. The arguments in question are of the traditional sorts beloved by normative epistemologists. Okshevsky’s support for his claim comes from a position attributed to Wittgenstein: that there are rational judgments which are not justifiable O(‘,a) la traditional epistemology. Okshevsky argues for the position by presenting sample judgments, such as E: “The earth has existed long before my birth,” and giving reasons for two conclusions: first, that these judgments are rational and, second, that they are neither dubitable nor corrigible and, hence, not open to Siegel’s critical inquiry. However, there is, according to Okshevsky, an inquiry to which E-like judgments are open, a study of rationality under the aegis of “praxeology.” Okshevsky’s arguments for his two conclusions rely upon premises he thinks to find in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty and other writings.
For brevity’s sake, I will respond in a fashion more summary than I would normally prefer. First, whether Okshevsky’s arguments are valid or not, his entire project is self-refuting and, therefore, nugatory. Second, none of his arguments attain even minimum standards of cogency. They are, in fact, versions of historical arguments rightly rejected long ago. Third, the premises and positions he adopts are mistakenly attributed to Wittgenstein. The impression that Wittgenstein ever made such claims may have been created by a questionable reediting of the original text. Fourth, the author’s premises, whether Wittgenstein held them or not, are palpably false. In truth, I find the premises incredible. Fifth, lest one suppose that I am in Professor Siegel’s employ, I announce that my disagreements with Siegel could not be more profound. It is my contention that no honest victory can be won by philosophy in education while we march under the banner of Siegel’s epistemology. But Professor Siegel is not my present concern, so I’ll say what I can to back up the first four of these remarks.
I There are two reasons for thinking Okshevsky’s project self-refuting. First, its goal is logically incoherent; it could not possibly be attained. Second, the standpoint he claims, praxeology, is — aside from matters of terminology — functionally indistinguishable from the one he rejects, “panepistemology.” As to the first point, the author holds that E-like judgments lie outside the reach of critical argumentation. He wrote, “[I]mportantly…the ‘truth’ or validity of E is not the consequent [sic] of some inference arrived at on the grounds of evidence.”1 It is not a judgment “for which relevant epistemic criteria of appraisal and truth are possible and in order.”2 It is “not open to…epistemic justification.”3 But, at the same time, Okshevsky gives critical argument after critical argument on behalf of E’s indubitability, on behalf of such claims as “the validity or `truth’ of the judgment that the earth existed long before my birth [E] can be said to be anchored in the very method of inquiry.”4 If you argue that the validity of E is anchored in inquiry, then you must think that E is valid and that there is an argument for that validity — the very one you are giving. And, in so far as the argument could succeed in persuading, it is justificatory. The specific arguments Okshevsky serves up would make good chapter titles in a survey of normative epistemology. He has transcendental arguments of the kind Strawson adapted from Kant, arguments from self-reference that so delighted Ayer and paradigm case arguments from ordinary language philosophy. (As I said, these arguments are of dubious cogency, a fact long recognized in the epistemology literature.) These are just the arguments often used to conduct one kind of epistemological inquiry into the status of E, just the arguments which afford abstract epistemology and critical thinking a subject matter and just the arguments which would, if valid, lend support to a conviction that the holding of E is rationally grounded.
Concerning the second point: the author’s praxeology looks functionally indistinguishable from the panepistemology he criticizes. To start with, Siegel’s critical perspective is one from which epistemic arguments can be assessed. But so, I suppose, is praxeology; it is a perspective from which arguments like the author’s can be assessed. Next, panepistemology relies upon a proprietary theory of meaning, one in terms of truth conditions and imaginable situations. Praxeology has its own theory of meaning, one couched in terms of conditions of action and imaginable language-games. In epistemology, our dealings are bound by relatively a priori principles of action and of inference. But, in praxeology, we are at no loss for general guidelines; as the author indicates, there is “the prior givenness of some set of methodological judgments and rule-governed procedures.”5 Praxeology, like panepistemology, is an intellectual vantage-point from which to survey all language-games by peering through a noetic device, the lenses of which are built by the same rhetorical, logical and epistemic lore as “panepistemology.” If you object that praxeology may take praxis as an object, I remind you that traditional epistemology has long included studies of action theory, Aristotelian phronesis, pragmatistic meaning and Rylean “knowing how.” If you object that I seem to be ignoring the content of the author’s picture in favor of its overall function, I remind you that he has, by announcing that meaning is use, already endorsed a wholly functionalist approach to meaning.
II I cannot here take up the quality of each of the author’s arguments. I must, however, address one issue of cogency. Presumably, the central argument of the piece is that concerning E’s role in the “language-game of history.” My hesitation is this: were that argument valid, then the author’s own praxeological perspective must fail to exist. [In honor of Descartes’ cogito, I dub this matter the `incognito.’ Rather than proving his own existence, Okshevsky tries to rule it out!] Here’s the rub: if we allow E to lie outside the ambit of historical inquiry and also allow that historical dubitability requires historical inquiry, then we may grant, along with the author, that, relative to the “game of history”, E is indubitable. This is a restricted conclusion and not the general one — “that E cannot be an empirical or any other kind of epistemic claim”6 — that the author truly requires. He needs to show that E is indubitable in general, that it lies outside the reach of any coherent critical inquiry. Recall that E-like propositions were to represent “a form of rational judgment…not open to coherent doubt, falsification and epistemic justification.”7 That means not open to any coherent doubt, not just the historian’s.
According to the author, for E to be generally indubitable, there can be no other inquiry game taking E as proper object. But wait a minute! The author’s own perspective inquires critically into E and allows that E is, in principle, dubitable.8 By definition, praxeology can take any proposition as a subject of inquiry, just as epistemology does. Moreover, if what the author says about meaning is right — that every meaning occurs within a language-game — then his own perspective must exist within some game, the game required for his own words to make sense. Altogether then, if Okshevsky’s argument is to be intelligible, his own writing must be part of a game inquiring into the status of E. At the same time, if his argument is to be valid, then that very game cannot exist.
III Wittgenstein on the indubitability of E. The German expressions for judgment — “Urteil” — and for sentence — “Satz” were certainly not used interchangeably by Wittgenstein. Unfortunately, Okshevsky seems to use unexplicated notions of judgment and proposition interchangeably in ascribing views to Wittgenstein. More importantly, it is likely that Wittgenstein’s word “Satz” — conventionally translated as “proposition” — does not mean “proposition” in the way that critical thinkers commonly mean it. “Satz” may mean no more than “sentence.” Finally — and crucially here — Wittgenstein twice (at OC 190 and 203)9 referred explicitly to E as “Hypothese” or “hypothesis” and allowed it evidential support. He wrote “everything we treat as evidence points to the earth having existed long before my birth.”
If we treat “propositions” as logicians often do, as meanings believable or dubitable by any number of possible individuals, then E expresses a contingent proposition which is dubitable and corrigible. Wittgenstein himself imagined the sorts of situation in which one would say that E is doubted. At OC 92, we find, “One can, however, ask: Can someone have a valid reason for believing that the earth has only existed a short time, say, since his own birth? — Suppose that had always been told to him, — would he have good reason to doubt it?” Further, Wittgenstein showed no reluctance to entertain circumstances under which it would make perfect sense to investigate whether or not this is my hand. (Cf. OC 355, 372, 460, 461.) In 372, we find “Only in certain cases is an investigation into `Is that really a hand?’ (or `my hand’) possible.” Wittgenstein allowed that — in these cases — it is possible. The cases are bizarre but Wittgenstein also warned us, at OC 452, that there are no rules to disqualify strange imaginings as intrinsically improper or unreasonable. Lastly, Wittgenstein seems content with the idea that E constitutes respectable knowledge. There are no scare quotes in this passage: “I know, not just that the earth existed long before my birth but also that it is a large body, that this has been established,…This body of knowledge has been handed down to me and I have no grounds for doubting it…”[OC 288]
I fear that, in conveying another impression of Wittgenstein to you, the author may have misrepresented Wittgenstein’s thought. His four long citations from On Certainty (pp. 6, 9, 11, 12) are not continuous quotations but constructions, by elision, from disparate remarks with different concerns and, at times, distinct grammatical subjects. That on page 6 comes from four distinct passages; that on page 11 is fabricated from the materials of three remarks, two of which lie 152 paragraphs apart. An author who treats Wittgenstein’s own words as independent of context can hardly argue that “[t]he meaning here of a proposition consists of its use within such contexts.”
IV On the truth of the author’s premises. There seems an obvious absurdity in holding that “the earth has existed long before my birth” is “constitutive of the doing of historical inquiry”. It appears that, if X is necessary for practice P and if X entails Y, then Y is necessary for P as well. Now, the truth of E is supposed necessary for the very constitution of history. And the truth of E entails that I was born. So, if E is constitutive for history, so is my birth. How historically important I must be! Imagine Thucydides awaiting news of my birth so he could found history as a subject!
Something has gone awry. But what? In part, it comes from focusing attention upon a presence, that of proposition E, and thereby overlooking one of Wittgenstein’s principal concerns: that the metaphysics of meaning be one not of presence or occurrence but of absence or omission. A little language-game may clarify matters. Imagine that I am facing my opponent, about to play chess. Consider the sentence F: “My opponent is not a mind reader.” F is a grammatically normal sentence; if uttered, it would be true. I can imagine it being doubted or even falsified. I can explain why I think F true, though not in a way to suit a philosophical skeptic. F is not an explicit assumption upon which I — or any other chess player in my position — would explicitly rely. What would I do if I suddenly thought I couldn’t rely on it? Would I “blank out my mind” while playing so it couldn’t be read by my opponent? Nor is F a rule of chess. F is true, but — as a rule — how would I break it? I never walk with a sumo wrestler tucked under my arm. Does this mean that “Don’t carry sumo wrestlers while you walk” is a rule of walking?
But F certainly bears some crucial relation to chess, to the very way in which we play. But this relation is not a matter of what F says, its propositional content. As entertained by me, F is about my current game and my current opponent. If I found F false, then I wouldn’t play with my particular opponent. That situation would be curious, but it need not have ramifications for all possible chess playing. Nor does F’s import lie in what I do with F; if I’m playing normally, I don’t do anything with F. It never comes into my head. What does, however, have global import for “chess as we know it” is what I omit to do with F. I “assume” F only in the sense that a check on F can be freely omitted. Were F not freely omitted, the business of chessplaying — not to mention other business — would be notably reshaped. We might first have to vet possible chess opponents — not to mention conversation partners — according to their psychic powers. A world in which I cannot freely overlook F is not logically impossible; it’s unpredictably altered. I would not know how to prepare for a chess game there.
Obviously, I mean to compare the presumptive role of E with that of F. Three points are worth noting. First, F’s status fails to prove that contemporary chess theory, in its concentration upon explicit moves rather than implicit assumptions, is faulty. There is no call for a praxeological theory of chess, one in which the omission of F goes unomitted. Second, it is important to the integrity of the game that condition F go unchecked by me in the sense that it go without question. But it does not follow that F is either absolutely or relatively uncheckable. F is not undoubtable truth, just undoubted truth. Finally, we see why Wittgenstein might have viewed the assertion “I know that the earth has existed long before my birth” with dismay. To draw the comparison, imagine that I were to announce — without prelude during game preparation — that “I know my opponent is not a mind reader.” By this, I announce my personal ken of a fact; I seem to say, “I have checked on F,” so F is worth checking and ought not be freely omitted. Yet, for me to proceed as usual, it is important that this consideration be freely omitted. Apart from my knowledge claim, I make ordinary preparations for play. My assertion says “I refuse F’s omission” yet my actions omit it. They show nothing untoward, nothing but undoubted truth.
1 Walter Okshevsky, “Wittgenstein on Agency and Ability: Consequences for Rationality and Criticalness,” in Philosophy of Education 1992, ed. H.A. Alexander (Champaign, Illinois: Philosophy of Education Society, 1993).2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 “OC” followed by a number refers to paragraphs from Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty, eds. G. Anscombe and G. von Wright (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), xiv, 180. (Translations from the German are by the author.)