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Guest lecture

Jakub Gomułka: Manipulation or rational argumentation: a radical change of a worldview

Professor Jakub Gomułka from the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Pedagogical University of Kraków is currently visiting the Wittgenstein Archives. Some of you have already met him, but for those who haven't or would like to hear more about one of his main interests in Wittgenstein research, he has kindly agreed to give a guest lecture while here. The guest lecture is organized by WAB in cooperation with the department Wittgenstein research group. - Update: "By popular demand" Jakub's guest lecture will be a hybrid one, so those wishing to attend digitally (it will be live-streamed, but not recorded) should contact the contact person listed on this page for the Zoom link.

Person image of Jakub Gomułka
Photo:
Heinz Wilhelm Krüger

Main content

Abstract

In the paper, I shall discuss the question of the possibility of rational argumentation between two parties who fundamentally disagree. Wittgenstein’s fictitious example of G. E. Moore encountering a king who thinks that the earth came into existence with his birth serves as an example of such a disagreement, but the paper shall shed light on differences in moral views rather than epistemic ones. It seems that the second (and third) Wittgenstein rules out the possibility of any rational debate between people who do not share basic beliefs regarding, for instance, the criteria of decency. Contrary to this view, I shall argue that the so-called ‘hinge epistemology’ developed in On Certainty makes room for extra-systemic argumentation as it differentiates between hinge propositions – basic certainties that regulate our standard ways of reasoning – from criteria of meaning. One result of this distinction is that we are actually able to understand what the rejection of our hinge propositions would mean and hence we can have doubts about them. The basis for such doubts can be tensions raised by our emotional and behavioural reactions, which Wittgenstein calls ‘primitive.’

It is a part of our well-established scientific knowledge that emotions play part in any process of decision making: yet another aspect of the old Cartesian image of human being has been proven wrong by contemporary cognitive sciences. However, the problem is that the outdated image is being replaced with a mechanistic view that leaves no room for freedom and rationality. I shall try to defend a different view that goes beyond mere causal explanation of our behaviour. The key element of that view shall be a concept of emotional narrative.