Against neo-wittgensteinian entitlements

In this paper I raise some worries against one specific notion of entitlement defended in the last decade mainly by Crispin Wright (but also, in some ways, by Michael Williams). As first proposed, entitlements should be novel kinds of warrant, hereto unknown to epistemological reflection and capable of solving the old and most challenging problem of epistemology—that is, scepticism of both a Cartesian and of a Humean fashion. Furthermore, the notion of entitlement here under consideration is taken to be of Wittgensteinian descent—or so it is argued by its supporters. It would therefore usefully lend itself to an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s ideas in On Certainty. In the first part of the paper, I briefly present Wright’s views. In the second, I show why entitlements cannot be appealed to in the course of a fair rendition of Wittgenstein’s ideas. In the third, I show why, irrespective of their alleged Wittgensteinian lineage, entitlements are highly problematic in their own right.