Reclaiming the ground: a feminist-anthropological reading of hinges

Abstract I develop a feminist-anthropological interpretation of hinges as practically grounded. Drawing on Anscombe, Crary, Diamond, Midgley and Murdoch, this interpretation represents a contribution to hinge epistemology that is both influenced by, and builds on, the Wittgensteinian feminist ethics which emerges in their work. Focussing on the debate surrounding the epistemic status of hinges, I depict hinges as neither groundless nor epistemically justified, but as practically justified or grounded. I defend an understanding of this groundedness which can be heard as a response to the sceptical challenge that both acknowledges the difficulty of reality underlying this challenge and resists unbounded relativism, by inviting the sceptic to reclaim his relationship to the very ground on which he stands.