Hinge epistemology and the prospects for a unified theory of knowledge

Abstract

I defend two theses here. First, I argue that at least many of the commitments that Wittgenstein identifies as “hinge commitments” are plausibly what cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence call “procedural knowledge.” Procedural knowledge can be implemented in cognitive systems in a variety of ways, and these modes of implementation, I argue, predict several properties of Wittgensteinian hinge commitments, including their functional profile, as well as other of their characteristic features. Second, I argue that thinking of hinge commitments as a kind of procedural knowledge allows a unified virtue-theoretic treatment of the generation of knowledge, the transmission of knowledge, and Wittgensteinian “hinge knowledge.” This last thesis is noteworthy, in that Wittgenstein and his defenders have so far failed to offer any unified epistemology of hinge commitments and the knowledge that such commitments are supposed to make possible.