For God, Truth and Other Enigmas (ed.) M. Szatkowski, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, forthcoming).

WITTGENSTEIN ON FAITH AND REASON:

THE INFLUENCE OF NEWMAN

DUNCAN PRITCHARD
University of Edinburgh

ABSTRACT. A different way of thinking about Wittgenstein’s On Certainty is offered, a

reading on which G. E. Moore’s response to idealism and radical scepticism is not the main
stimulus for this work, and thus on which a resolution to the problem of radical scepticism is
not its ultimate concern. Instead, it is suggested that we treat John Henry Newman’s writings
on faith and reason as providing the intellectual spur for this text, such that On Certainty
ultimately becomes concerned with radical scepticism (and also epistemic relativism) only as a
way of working through the implications of Newman’s ideas. This exegetical approach to On
Certainty leads to a distinctive quasi-fideistic conception of the epistemology of religious belief.

“The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing.”

Wittgenstein, On Certainty [OC], §166

“None of us can think or act without the acceptance of truths,

not intuitive, not demonstrated, yet sovereign.”
John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent [EAGE], 150

0. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Wittgenstein’s final notebooks, published as On Certainty [Wittgenstein 1969, ‘OC’], are concerned
with the epistemic themes of certainty and doubt. On the standard reading of OC, the stimulus for
these notebooks was G. E. Moore’s remarks on idealism and radical scepticism, which
Wittgenstein discussed with his former pupil Norman Malcolm during his visit to Malcolm at
Cornel in 1949. This, at any rate, is what we are told in the preface to OC by the editors of this
 2

text, G. E. M. Anscombe and Georg von Wright (Anscombe also prepared the translation, with
Denis Paul).
This is certainly a very plausible exegetical line to take on this work. OC is composed of
four notebooks. Of these, the first notebook!which takes us up to §65 of OC!is clearly
concerned with Moore’s famous ‘Proof of an External World’ (Moore 1939) where he attempts a
refutation of idealism. In contrast, the remaining three notebooks return continually to the kind of
everyday ‘Moorean’ certainties which Moore discusses in ‘A Defence of Common Sense’ (Moore
1925).1 On the face of it, then, there is no reason to doubt the standard reading!OC is primarily
about Moore, and hence is therefore primarily concerned with idealism and the radical sceptical
problem and its resolution.
There is, however, another potential way of thinking about what is going on in these
notebooks. For there is an alternative reading of OC on which the underlying stimulus for these
remarks is not Moore’s writings on idealism and certainty but rather John Henry Newman and the
particular conception of the structure of reasons that he sets out in his An Essay in Aid of a
Grammar of Assent (Newman 1979 [1870], ‘EAGE’). On this reading, Wittgenstein’s interest in
Moore arises out of an interest in Newman. For while both Moore and Newman are interested in
everyday certainties, Newman offers a way of thinking about such certainties that runs counter to
Moore and which also piqued Wittgenstein’s interest. What Wittgenstein is working towards in
OC is thus not ultimately a resolution of radical scepticism. He is instead using Moore and the
problem of radical scepticism as a way of making sense of the conception of the structure of
reasons that Newman expounds, a conception which seems in ever danger of collapsing into either
radical scepticism or epistemic relativism.
Before I go on, I should register three caveats. The first is that I won’t be offering a full
defence of this alternative reading of OC here. I’m not convinced that such a full defence can be
even in principle offered. Remember that these are unedited final notebooks containing
fragmentary remarks, so it’s far from clear that we should even expect a unified reading. But even
if an overarching reading of OC could be defended, it would require far more than the evidence I
marshal here.
The second caveat is that my exegetical claim is at best quite modest anyway. That is, on the
alternative reading of OC that I will be exploring, Wittgenstein is still concerned with Moore and
thus with the problem of radical scepticism. It is just that this concern is a means to a further
philosophical end rather than being an end in itself.
The third caveat is that I’m less interested in the historical details of ‘who said what when
and why’ than in the philosophical light such a non-standard reading could cast on the text. That
 3

is, even if the alternative reading I propose overestimates the influence of Newman on
Wittgenstein, I would still contend that viewing OC through the lens of Newman’s remarks on the
structure of reason is a useful intellectual exercise. For one thing, as we will see, it helps us to see
how we can engage the discussion in OC of the nature of reasons with central questions in the
epistemology of religious belief.
With these three caveats in mind, the reader should thus treat my proposal as less a
definitive interpretation of OC, and more of an attempt at a useful and imaginative!which is not
to say completely untethered, from an exegetical point of view!response to the text.

1. WITTGENSTEIN ON THE STRUCTURE OF REASONS

Let us begin by delineating the main idea that Wittgenstein sets-out in OC, which is concerned
with the nature of the structure of reasons. Wittgenstein urges us upon us a radically different
conception of the nature of rational evaluation to that which is usually put forward in
epistemology, and he uses Moore as a foil against which to articulate this conception.
Moore (1925; 1939) responded to the sceptical challenge!and to idealism!by
enumerating some of the many things that he took himself to be most certain of, and thus to
know. Indeed, these Moorean certainties were meant to be such that if Moore knows anything, then
he knows these propositions. The most famous Moorean certainty is, of course, the claim that he
has two hands (Moore 1939).
Such Moorean certainties are meant to play a kind of foundational epistemic role, in the
sense that in virtue of being optimally certain they can be employed as the epistemic basis from
which Moore can extract more controversial, and less certain, claims. As Moore (1939) points out,
if one does know that one has two hands, then it surely follows, contra idealism, that one can know
that there is an external world (hands being, after all, physical items which occupy such an external
world). Even Wittgenstein would grant Moore this conditional claim, since as he notes in the very
opening line of On Certainty:

If you do know that here is one hand, we’ll grant you all the rest. (OC, §1)

That the structure of reasons should be thought of along foundational lines, and that basic
certainties have a key role to play in this regard, is of course nothing new. Typically, though, the
items which served the foundational role!beliefs typically, though not exclusively!tended to be
philosophical in nature, in that it took a certain kind of philosophical project!such as the
 4

Cartesian project of pure inquiry!to uncover them. What is distinctive about Moore’s proposal,
in contrast, is that he wanted to treat what he regarded as perfectly ‘everyday’ certainties!i.e., the
kinds of claims which folk in normal circumstances are most certain of, such as that one has two
hands, that the earth has existed for many years before one was born, and so on!as being able to
perform this foundational role.2
Despite the superficial appeal of Moore’s proposal, Wittgenstein argues in On Certainty that
there is something profoundly problematic about it. Moore’s idea is that the certainties he cites can
play this foundational epistemic role because, due their optimal certainty, they possess a kind of
epistemic groundedness that less certain propositions lack. Wittgenstein contends, in contrast, that
it is in the very nature of these Moorean certainties, in virtue of the fact that they are optimally
certain, that they cannot be coherently thought of as rationally grounded. That is, Wittgenstein
contends that that which we are most certain of must be by its very nature rationally groundless.
Consider the Moorean certainty that (for most people, and in normal circumstances), one
has two hands. Wittgenstein writes:

My having two hands is, in normal circumstances, as certain as anything that I could produce in
evidence for it.
That is why I am not in a position to take the sight of my hand as evidence for it. (OC,
§250)

That is, Wittgenstein is suggesting that to conceive of this proposition as rationally grounded is to
suppose that the rational grounds in question are more certain than the proposition itself, which of
course is ex hypothesi impossible since it is held to be optimally certain. Wittgenstein brings this
point into sharp relief by highlighting how odd it would be for one to treat one’s conviction that
one has two hands as being grounded in one’s sight of one’s hand. Consider this passage:

If a blind man were to ask me “Have you got two hands?” I should not make sure by looking. If I
were to have any doubt of it, then I don’t know why I should trust my eyes. For why shouldn’t I
test my eyes by looking to find out whether I see my two hands? What is to be tested by what? (OC,
§125)

In normal circumstances, one doesn’t need to check by looking that one has two hands, and
indeed to check by looking would make no sense anyway. If one doubts that one has two hands,
then one ought not to believe what one’s eyesight tells one, since this is no more certain than that
one has two hands, which is in doubt.
A quite striking claim is emerging here. For not only are these Moorean certainties
necessarily groundless, but it also seems they are by that same token immune to rational doubt.
For any rational basis for doubting the Moorean certainty would be necessarily less certain than
the optimally certain Moorean certainty, and hence one would have more reason to doubt the
 5

grounds offered for doubting the Moorean certainty than to doubt the Moorean certainty itself. At
the very least, what Wittgenstein seems to be suggesting in this passage is that there could be no
rational basis which would mandate doubt of a Moorean certainty, since one rational response to
the presentation of this ground for doubt could simply be to doubt the ground itself. That claim
falls short of the stronger thesis that rational doubt of a Moorean certainty is impossible, but it is
even so a dramatic claim to make.
It soon becomes clear, however, that Wittgenstein wants to defend the stronger thesis in
this regard. That is, that not only are Moorean certainties necessarily groundless, but also that
rational doubt of a Moorean certainty is simply impossible (i.e., as opposed to being merely
rationally unmandated). Wittgenstein claims that the very idea of a rational evaluation, whether
positive or negative, presupposes a backdrop of Moorean certainties which are themselves exempt
from rational evaluation. To attempt to rationally evaluate a Moorean certainty is thus an attempt
to do something impossible. In particular, Wittgenstein repeatedly urges that the very idea of
rationally doubting a Moorean certainty is incoherent. Such a doubt, he writes, would “drag
everything with it and plunge it into chaos.” (OC, §613) Doubt of a Moorean certainty is deemed
akin to doubting everything, but Wittgenstein cautions that:

If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of
doubting itself presupposes certainty. (OC, §115)

And elsewhere, “A doubt that doubted everything would not be a doubt” (OC, §450; cf. OC,
§§370; 490; 613).3
The picture that emerges is thus one on which all rational evaluation is essentially local, in
that it takes place relative to fundamental commitments which are themselves immune to rational
evaluation, but which need to be in place in order for a rational evaluation to occur. In a
memorable passage, Wittgenstein refers to these fundamental commitments!the Moorean
certainties!as the ‘hinges’ on which rational evaluations turn:

[...] the questions that we raise and our doubts depend upon the fact that some propositions are
exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.
That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are
in deed not doubted.
But it isn’t that the situation is like this: We just can’t investigate everything, and for that
reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must
stay put. (OC, §§341-3)4

Wittgenstein is thus offering a radical new conception of the structure of reasons. In particular, he
is arguing that both the sceptical project of offering a wholesale negative rational evaluation of our
beliefs and the traditional anti-sceptical (e.g., Moorean) project of offering a wholesale positive
 6

rational evaluation of our beliefs are simply incoherent. This is because the very idea of a
wholesale rational evaluation is itself incoherent, for it is in the very nature of rational evaluations
that they take place relative to hinge commitments which are both groundless and indubitable.
Moreover, notice that Wittgenstein is quite emphatic that it is an inherent, and thus non-
negotiable, feature of rational evaluation that it be local in this way. In particular, Wittgenstein isn’t
merely making the point that our everyday epistemic practices usually involve local rational
evaluations. This latter claim has been made by other philosophers!J. L. Austin (1961), for
example!but by itself it doesn’t gain one much purchase on the radical sceptical problem. After
all, as a number of commentators have pointed out!most notably Barry Stroud (1984)!the
sceptic isn’t claiming that their wholesale doubts are ones that would naturally arise in day-to-day
life. Rather, the sceptical thought is that if one steps back from everyday life and employs
quotidian epistemic principles in a thorough-going way, while setting aside the practical limitations
of everyday contexts, then one is led to sceptical doubts. It is precisely in this sense that radical
scepticism is held to ‘fall out’ of our ordinary epistemic practices even while involving doubts that
simply do not arise in quotidian situations.
Wittgenstein’s radical new conception of the structure of reasons, if tenable, blocks even
this route to radical scepticism, since it excludes even the possibility that the radical sceptic’s
wholesale rational evaluations could constitute a ‘purified’ version of our everyday local rational
evaluations. On the Wittgensteinian picture, the wholesale rational evaluations at the heart of
radical scepticism could not be our normal rational evaluations in their purified form, since the
very idea of a wholesale rational evaluation is itself incoherent. There is thus an important
difference of kind, and not merely degree, when it comes to our everyday practices of rational
evaluation and the type of rational evaluation attempted by the radical sceptic (or, for that matter,
that attempted by the traditional anti-sceptic, like Moore).5
If this new conception of the structure of reasons could be made defensible, then it would
clearly have far-reaching ramifications for epistemology. The difficulty, however, is knowing how
to turn Wittgenstein’s sketchy remarks on this topic into a concrete proposal. In particular, part of
the challenge here is to develop this proposal in such a way that it doesn’t end up looking like a
form of radical scepticism in disguise. After all, to be told that all rational support takes place
relative to a backdrop of ungroundable certainties does sound an awful lot like radical scepticism.
Indeed, it invites the thought that the ‘rational support’ in question, being inherently local in this
way, is not really bona fide rational support at all, in virtue of being ultimately groundless.
Wittgenstein was certainly alert to this worry, writing that the “difficulty is to realise the
groundlessness of our believing.” (OC, §166) On his view the regress of reasons comes to an end,
 7

but it does not come to end with further reasons of a special foundational sort as we were
expecting. Instead, when we reach bedrock we discover only a rationally groundless “animal”
commitment (OC, §359), a kind of “primitive” trust (OC, §475). For Wittgenstein, understanding
that this is so is meant to be the antidote to radical scepticism, and yet it must surely be admitted
that, superficially at least, it looks very much like a version of radical scepticism.
Wittgenstein is also clearly struggling in OC with a related problem that is posed by his
account of the structure of reasons, which is the threat of epistemic relativism. If all rational
evaluation is essentially local, such that it takes place relative to hinge commitments which may
vary from person to person (or, say, culture to culture, etc.,), then this prompts the natural
question of whether a kind of epistemic incommensurability is possible. That is, could it be that two
rational subjects could meet who have very different sets of hinge commitments, and where there
is thus in principle no rational means by which they could resolve their epistemic differences?6

2. NEWMAN ON FAITH AND REASON

As noted above, on the standard reading of OC this account of the structure of reasons is inspired
by Moore’s remarks on idealism and radical scepticism and therefore devoted to the solution of
these problems (especially the latter). That Wittgenstein is interested in Moorean certainties and
the problems of idealism and radical scepticism is beyond dispute. But let us now instead view
Wittgenstein’s account of the structure of reasons as being explicitly inspired by Newman, and
therefore ultimately devoted to making sense of his account of faith and belief. How does this
alter our treatment of the text?
We should begin by noting the similarities between the account of the structure of reasons
offered by Wittgenstein in OC and that previously expounded by Newman in EAGE. In the latter,
Newman opposes the influential Lockean conception of our basis for religious belief. Locke
famously argued in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that “reason must be our last judge
and guide in everything.” (Locke 1979 [1689], IV, xix, p. 14) Accordingly, he maintained that
religious beliefs should be put before the tribunal of reason just like any other. In particular, he
argued that strength of belief should be a function of the strength of epistemic support such a
belief enjoys, such that beyond a high enough level of strength this support can license certainty.
In this Locke was opposing those religious believers he called the “enthusiasts”, who believe what
they do

[…] because it is a revelation, and have no other reason for its being a revelation but because they
 8

are fully persuaded, without any other reason, that it is true, they believe it to be a revelation only
because they strongly believe it to be a revelation; which is a very unsafe ground to proceed on,
either in our tenets or actions. (Locke 1979 [1689], IV, xix, p. 11)

While Locke is concerned only to demarcate rational religious belief from irrational
religious belief, the standards he applies are apt to result in a general scepticism about the
rationality of religious belief, particularly once one notes that (absent an a priori basis for religious
belief anyway), religious belief is often grounded in reasons which can at least on the face of it
appear little better than the enthusiasts’ religious belief. Does the religious believer possess any
solid independent basis for holding her beliefs (i.e., a basis which doesn’t already presuppose the
general truth of her religious worldview)? If not, then it is hard to see how these beliefs would pass
the Lockean test.
In contrast to this Lockean view about rational belief, Newman argues that many of the
propositions about which we are most certain do not enjoy anything like the kind of epistemic
support that Locke imagines. The list of propositions he cites in this regard is very interesting:

We are sure beyond all hazard of a mistake that our own self is not the only being existing; that
there is an external world; that it is a system with parts and a whole, a universe carried on by laws;
and that the future is affected by the past. We accept and hold with an unqualified assent, that the
earth, considered as a phenomenon, is a globe; that all its regions see the sun by turns; that there
are vast tracts on it of land and water; that there are really existing cities on definite sites, which go
by the names of London, Paris, Florence, and Madrid. We are sure that Paris or London, unless
suddenly swallowed by an earthquake or burned to the ground, is today just what it was yesterday,
when we left it. We laugh to scorn the idea that we had no parents though we have no memory of
our birth; that we shall never depart this life, though we can have no experience of the future.
(EAGE, 149)7

Note that these propositions are all empirical certainties of the general Moorean kind that we saw
Wittgenstein was concerned with. Indeed, the example that everyone has parents is explicitly
considered by Wittgenstein in this regard on several occasions in OC (§§211, 239, 282, 335).
Newman’s point is that in all these cases we lack any epistemic basis which is commensurate with
the level of certainty involved; a fortiori, we lack the kind of epistemic basis which Locke would
demand for reasonable belief.
Indeed, suppose we applied the test that we applied to religious beliefs above and asked
whether one has an independent basis for beliefs such as these!i.e., a basis which does not
already presuppose that one’s general conception of the world is correct. Would these beliefs pass
this test? Surely not. And yet all these beliefs seem eminently reasonable. In fact, they seem to be
paradigm cases of what counts as ordinary reasonable belief.
We can thus discern the beginnings of what contemporary epistemologists of religious
belief refer to as a parity argument, which is essentially the demand that religious belief be held to no
more demanding an epistemic standard than we would apply to non-religious belief.8 In order for
 9

the claim that religious belief is lacking in epistemic status to gain a purchase, it needs to be shown
that this challenge is specific to this domain. For if the alleged epistemic defect in religious belief
were shown to be found in non-religious belief, then this would not be grounds for scepticism
about the epistemology of religious belief, specifically, but rather grounds for a general
epistemological scepticism.
Lockean epistemology effectively raises the bar for rational religious belief by requiring a
rational basis which is commensurate with the level of conviction involved. This is presented as
part of a general view about rational belief and conviction, and hence on the face of it does not fall
foul of a parity argument. But if we grant that Newman is right that normal rational belief can
involve complete conviction even while lacking a corresponding rational status, then it follows that
a double-standard is being applied to religious belief in this regard after all. For why should
religious belief be subject to epistemic censure when cases of rational non-religious conviction
which exhibit the very same epistemic properties are treated as paradigmatically rational? Put
another way, if the Lockean line were consistently applied, then it would be in danger of
undermining the epistemic legitimacy of everyday beliefs as well as religious beliefs. There is
therefore no principled route from the Lockean conception of reasonable belief to a scepticism
which is specifically focussed on religious belief.
Newman’s way of defending religious belief thus involves showing how the epistemic
standing of ordinary belief is very different from how we might suppose it to be, such that it is
ultimately not fundamentally different from religious belief. On the Lockean picture of rational
belief, one’s conviction in a particular proposition ought to be no stronger than the rational
support one has in favour of it. And yet this picture of rational belief is manifestly (argues
Newman) in conflict with our ordinary conception of rational belief, on which paradigmatically
rational beliefs which are regarded as optimally certain possess very little rational support (and
certainly nothing by way of independent rational support).
In terms of Newman’s own terminology, it is what he calls ‘simple assent’, which is the
kind of conviction we have in these everyday truths, that lies at the heart of our system of rational
beliefs, in contrast to the reason-based certainty that Locke thought should be playing this role.
Moreover, like Wittgenstein, Newman held that such simple assent is already presupposed in our
practices of offering reasons for and against particular propositions. As Wolfgang Kienzler puts
the point, according to Newman:

[B]efore we acquire the capacity to doubt, we already have a set of very firm beliefs that we did not
gain by way of reflection but through our upbringing or just through everyday life. (Kienzler 2006,
128)

This should remind us of Wittgenstein’s claim that our hinge commitments are not explicitly
 10

taught to us, but rather comprise that which we ‘swallow down’ (OC, §143) along with everything
else we are explicitly taught. Furthermore, just like Wittgenstein, Newman likens the simple assent
that we have to these everyday empirical truths to the kind of basic certainties at issue in an a priori
domain like mathematics (in particular, geometry).9
The commonalities between Newman’s approach to rational belief and Wittgenstein’s
approach to this subject in OC is no accident. There is a lot of historical evidence to suggest that
Wittgenstein read Newman’s work very carefully and was inspired by it.10 With this evidence in
mind, it is plausible to suppose that the basic idea behind the localised conception of rational
support put forward by Wittgenstein in OC, such that our practices of giving reasons always
presuppose arational hinge commitments which are not themselves subject to rational evaluation,
arises out of Newman’s work. Where Moore’s work connects with Newman’s ideas is in his focus
on everyday certainties. Wittgenstein’s critique of Moore is, however, a Newman-inspired critique:
while these Moorean certainties do play a foundational role in our rational practices, this is
precisely not because they have a special positive rational status. Indeed, the point is rather that
their foundational role entails that they cannot be the kind of commitment which is rationally
grounded.11

3. REAPPRAISING WITTGENSTEIN’S ON CERTAINTY

Supposing we accept that the primary inspiration for OC!for the main argument of OC at any
rate, regarding the essential locality of reasons!comes from Newman. Where does this leave us
with respect to our thinking about this text? I think there are two points which deserve particular
emphasis on this score.
The first is that this reading casts Wittgenstein’s remarks on radical scepticism and
epistemic relativism in OC in a completely new light. Recognising that radical scepticism is
essentially incoherent, in that it trades on a conception of the structure of reasons which is simply
false, is key to understanding why allowing that our most fundamental beliefs are groundless, as
Newman proposes, doesn’t simply collapse into radical scepticism. It is key, that is, to overcoming
the difficulty associated with “realising the groundlessness of believing.” (OC, §166) The rejection
of radical scepticism is thus a stepping-stone towards making sense of why Newman’s proposal is
not merely radical scepticism in disguise.
We are also now in a better position to understand Wittgenstein’s concern about epistemic
relativism, which surfaces at regular intervals in OC. As noted above, the worry in play here is that
 11

if it is possible to have different local systems of rational evaluation, each with their own
distinctive hinge commitments, then a kind of epistemic incommensurability is threatened, such
that there could, even in principle, be no rational process through which disagreements are
resolved. Notice, however, that it does not follow from the idea that there cannot be universal
rational evaluations by itself that epistemic incommensurability is a live possibility. In order to get
that further claim one has to add to the idea that there cannot be universal rational evaluations that
there can be widespread divergence in subjects’ hinge commitments.12
Once we remember that Wittgenstein was explicitly thinking of the contrast between
religious and non-religious belief, however, then the link between the rejection of universal
rational evaluations and epistemic incommensurability becomes much clearer. For if one’s hinge
commitments can include religious commitments, then doesn’t that entail that the system of
rational evaluation employed by the religious believer is fundamentally different from the system
of rational evaluation employed by the non-religious believer? And once that much is conceded,
the threat of epistemic incommensurability, and thus epistemic relativism, becomes very real
indeed.
Here is Wittgenstein exploring the problem posed by epistemic relativism in this regard in
one of his final notebook entries:

Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then
each man declares the other a fool and a heretic.
I said I would ‘combat’, the other man,!but wouldn’t give him reasons? Certainly; but how
far do they go? At the end of reasons comes persuasion. (Think of what happens when missionaries
convert natives). (OC, §§611-12)

Here we have the essentials of the issues that concern us. That there is no such thing as a fully
rational evaluation, such that all rational evaluation presupposes arational hinge commitments, is
consistent with these hinge commitments being sufficiently common ground for all concerned to
ensure that epistemic incommensurability in practice never arises. This is clearly not how
Wittgenstein is understanding this claim about the locality of rational evaluation, however, for he
is imagining two systems of rational evaluation!i.e., which have very different hinge
commitments, or ‘principles’!confronting one another and discovering that rational engagement
only goes so far. And what specific context does Wittgenstein have in mind when he considers this
issue? Why, the religious context (in this case where the missionaries try to convert the natives).13
The transition from hinge commitments through to epistemic incommensurability and epistemic
relativism is thus clear once we view OC through the lens of Newman, and thus treat Wittgenstein
as developing these ideas with a specific view to applying them to religious belief in the way that
Newman does.14
 12

The second point which arises from this reading of OC is that it suggests that Wittgenstein
had a conception of the epistemology of religious belief which is very different to that usually
attributed to him. According to the standard reading of Wittgenstein in this regard!which tends
to focus on his remarks as they appear in Wittgenstein (1966)!he is endorsing a straightforward
fideism. That is, Wittgenstein wishes to emphasise that the life of the religious believer is a
different ‘form of life’ when compared to the life of the non-religious believer, with one upshot of
this being that we are making some sort of fundamental error in evaluating the religious
commitments of the faithful along the very same epistemic lines that we would apply to non-
religious belief.15
If Wittgenstein’s aim in OC is to unpack Newman’s ideas concerning the rationality of
religious belief, however, then this would suggest that Wittgenstein’s account of the epistemology
of religious belief should be thought of very differently. Although it would share with fideism the
idea that the most fundamental religious beliefs of the faithful are to be regarded as essentially
groundless, this would not be in contrast to ordinary non-religious belief. Indeed, the point would
be that a subject’s most fundamental beliefs, whether religious or non-religious, are to be regarded
as essentially groundless. Moreover, this point about the ultimately groundlessness of fundamental
religious belief is not meant to imply that religious beliefs are in general groundless. Instead, the
idea would be that non-fundamental religious beliefs are locally grounded in much the same way as
non-fundamental non-religious beliefs are.16

4. CONCLUDING REMARKS

I hope the foregoing suffices to motivate the thought that viewing OC via Newman’s views about
the rationality of religious belief is at least a useful intellectual exercise. I want to close with two
tentative conclusions.
The first is that we should explicitly distinguish between the general idea of the locality of
reasons that appears in OC, and which I’ve suggested is inspired by EAGE, and the specific
application of that idea to the rationality of religious belief. Insofar as EAGE is the inspiration for
this line of argument that appears in OC, then inevitably the two ideas will be run together. But
they are clearly separable, at least in principle. Perhaps our hinge commitments are such that there
cannot in practice be widespread divergence in such commitments across people and cultures? If
this were so, then epistemic relativism would not be a consequence of this idea. But this would
also likely mean that the application of this idea to religious belief is not as straightforward as it
 13

might at first seem, since allowing hinge commitments to be religious in nature does seems to
license the potential for a widespread divergence in hinge commitments, and thus generates
epistemic incommensurability.
My second tentative conclusion is that we should revisit Newman’s work, and in particular
EAGE. OC is widely regarded as a classic text of twentieth century philosophy. If I am right,
however, that this text was inspired by EAGE, then this is itself a good reason to reintroduce the
latter work back into the philosophical canon.17
 14

REFERENCES

Alston, W. P. (1982). ‘Religious Experience and Religious Belief’, Noûs 16, 3-12.
!! (1986). ‘Is Religious Belief Rational?’, The Life of Religion, (ed.) S. M. Harrison & R. C.
Taylor, 1-15, Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America.
!! (1991). Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, Cornell, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
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 17

NOTES
1 See Williams (2004) for further discussion of the suggestion that the first notebook is primarily concerned with

Moore (1939), whereas the other three notebooks are more concerned with Moore (1925).
2 The foregoing gloss on Moore’s general line with the sceptic, while broadly accurate, nonetheless misses out a

number of subtleties regarding Moore’s position, particularly with regard to his ‘Proof of an External World’ (Moore
1939). For a more detailed discussion of Moore’s contributions to epistemology, see Baldwin (1990, ch. 9). For a
recent survey of contemporary work on Moore’s proof, see Carter (2012).
3 There are obvious affinities here with the anti-sceptical use of the principle of charity made by Davidson (1984

[1977]; 1986 [1983]). For a recent overview of Davidson’s approach to radical scepticism, see Pritchard (2013). See
also Pritchard (forthcomingb, part two), where I explicitly compare Davidson’s anti-scepticism with Wittgenstein’s. Note
that on my reading of OC the impossibility of sceptical doubt is not itself meant to carry any anti-sceptical weight; it is
rather an observation which motivates a very different conception of the structure of reasons, one on which the
sceptical problem is simply incoherent. Here I depart from, for example, Strawson (1985). For more on this point, see
Pritchard (forthcomingb, part two).
4 Although the “hinge” metaphor is the dominant symbolism in the book, it is accompanied by various other

metaphors, such as the following: that these propositions constitute the “scaffolding” of our thoughts (OC, §211); that
they form the “foundations of our language-games” (OC, §§401-3); and also that they represent the implicit “world-
picture” from within which we inquire, the “inherited background against which [we] distinguish between true and
false” (OC, §§94-5).
5 I further discuss this aspect of Wittgenstein’s thinking, in the context of the very different treatments of radical

scepticism offered by Austin (1961) and Stroud (1984), in Pritchard (2011b, §1; forthcomingb, part two; forthcomingc). For
a general survey of contemporary treatments of radical scepticism, see Pritchard (2002).
6 There is a wealth of literature on OC, which I cannot usefully attempt to summarize here. For some of the key

works, see McGinn (1989), Williams (1991), Stroll (1994), Wright (2003; 2004a; 2004b; 2004c), Moyal-Sharrock (2004),
and Coliva (2010). For my own discussions of OC, see Pritchard (2001; 2005a, passim; 2005b; 2010; 2012c; forthcominga;
forthcomingb, part two; forthcomingc). For some helpful overviews of the epistemological literature on OC, see Pritchard
(2005b; 2011b; forthcomingd) and McGinn (2008; 2010).
7 A further example that Newman discusses at length is our conviction that Great Britain is an island (EAGE, 234ff).
8 See especially Alston (1982; 1986; cf. Alston 1991). Such a parity argument is a central component in reformed

epistemology. See, for example, Plantinga (1980; 1981; 1983; 2000) and Wolterstorff (1991; 1995; 1996). For further
discussion of reformed epistemology and the role that parity arguments play within it, see Pritchard (2003).
9 See, for example, EAGE (234).
10 Although a number of commentators note Newman’s influence on Wittgenstein in his later work!such as Kenny

(1990; 1992) and Barrett (1997)!for a thorough account of how their thinking is related, along with a comprehensive
discussion of the historical evidence to back up this claim, see Kienzler (2006). In particular, Kienzler (2006) offers a
compelling case for treating Wittgenstein’s reference to ‘Newman’ in OC (§1) as referring to John Henry Newman
(and not to a different ‘Newman’ entirely, such as the scholar Max Newman, a contemporary of Wittgenstein’s at
Cambridge).
11 Given the obvious similarities between Newman’s work in EAGE and Wittgenstein’s OC, one question we might

ask is why there is so little literature which draws a connection between these two thinkers (especially if one restricts
oneself to mainstream contemporary philosophy)? I think that at least part of the answer to this question relates to the
fact that Newman went from being one of the most important intellectual figures of his day to being hardly discussed
at all by philosophers by the middle of the twentieth century. See Kerr (2000) for a detailed discussion of the radical
decline in Newman’s influence on philosophy during this period.
12 I explore this point in more detail in Pritchard (2010). See also Pritchard (2009). For more on the issue of epistemic

relativism as it arises in OC, see Williams (2007) and Coliva (2010).

13 One might be tempted to counter this reading of this passage by pointing out that in the preceding remarks

Wittgenstein is comparing scientific beliefs (in particular, a physicist’s beliefs) with the contrary beliefs of the natives.
This might be thought to suggest that there is no particularly religious dimension to the disagreement in play. I think
this would be a mistake, however, for it presupposes a conception of religious commitment such that it is a detachable
part of the one’s wider commitments. This is clearly something which both Newman and Wittgenstein reject. In the
former case, this is brought out most clearly by considering Newman’s response to Hume’s treatment of the
epistemology of miracles (Hume 1975 [1748], first Enquiry, §X). Very roughly, Hume claimed that given the nature of
miracles qua extraordinary events (and given also some further claims, such as certain facts about human psychology),
it follows that it would be more rational to doubt the testimonial evidence offered for miracles than it would be to
accept that a miracle had occurred on this testimonial basis. While accepting the general principles in play in Hume’s
argument, Newman nonetheless contends that in a particular case it can be rational to accept the existence of a miracle
on a testimonial basis. For what matters is the specific way in which this commitment to the occurrence of a miracle
fits within the religious worldview of the agent, with its attendant hinge commitments. Indeed, Newman goes so far as
to suggest that one’s commitment to the occurrence of the miracle could be a matter of simple assent, in which case
 18

one is not to think of the testimony as providing a rational basis for the belief in a miracle at all. To this extent
Newman’s stance is potentially logically compatible with Hume’s, in that Hume was targeting beliefs in miracles which
are epistemically grounded in testimony!i.e., and not simply the causal product of testimony!whereas for Newman
it seems the beliefs in question need not be grounded in this way at all. See EAGE (243 & ff.). For a recent overview
of the literature regarding Hume’s stance on miracles, see Pritchard & Richmond (2012).
14 A further point to bear in mind here is that a key motif of Newman’s writings is the extent to which his own deeply

held religious convictions have changed over time (Newman famously left the Church of England for Roman
Catholicism). This conversion is described in great detail in Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Newman 1994
[1864/65]), and Wittgenstein is known to have been very familiar with this work. That Newman was a renowned
apostate informs his thinking in EAGE too, in that in reinforces his claim that one’s most fundamental commitments
can change over time. This is another plausible reason why Wittgenstein, following Newman, treats the hinge
commitment idea as being essentially wedded to epistemic incommensurability and thus epistemic relativism.
15 For two key discussions of Wittgensteinian fideism of this kind, see Nielson (1967) and Philips (1976).
16 Elsewhere I have described this way of thinking about Wittgenstein’s epistemology of religious belief as

Wittgensteinian quasi-fideism. See Pritchard (2011a). As I argue, in order for such a view to be tenable one needs to ally it
to a particular way of thinking about hinge commitments which enables one to evade the problems posed for this
notion by closure-style principles. Indeed, I argue that this is a general point about Wittgenstein’s epistemology (i.e.,
independently of whether this epistemology is applied to religious belief). See Pritchard (2012b; forthcominga;
forthcomingb, part two).
17 I first became intrigued by the influence that Newman had on Wittgenstein in OC during the writing of my PhD

thesis at the University of St. Andrews (1996-2000), and I touch on this issue briefly in that work, and also in Pritchard
(2000; 2003). Subsequently, this became a side-project of mine, though it has featured in a number of talks I’ve given
over the years, including at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow in 2010 and 2012, and at public lectures at the
Universities of Cologne and Oxford in 2013. Reading Wolfgang Kienzler’s excellent piece on Newman and
Wittgenstein!see Kienzler (2006)!a few years ago was a tremendous spur for this project, in that it provided
additional background support for my alternative reading of OC. Finally, I am grateful to various people for helpful
discussions of this topic over the years, including Robert Audi, David Bird, Michael Brady, Peter Fosl, Bob Plant, and
Rowan Williams.