In this age of debate it is not news that what constitutes 'truth' is often at issue in environmental debates. But what is often missed is an insight that the speakers of Middle English understood a millennium ago: that truth comes from trust, which, is the central theoretical position of this paper. Our point is that truth depends essentially on social relations – relations that involve power and knowledge, to be sure, but also identity. Thus, challenges to what constitutes the (...) 'truth' are equally challenges to identities and the social networks of trust in which that truth is embedded. We therefore attempt to move beyond Foucaultian discursive theory by reintroducing the subject as both the product and producer of discourse. For Foucault, the subject is reduced to the discursive relations of power/ knowledge. In his effort to free us from the Cartesian cogito and the modernist absolutisms that eventually followed, Foucault lapses into a kind of postmodern functionalism. We argue that we should not speak of power/ knowledge, as Foucault suggested, but of power/ knowledge /identity, recovering the actors and concrete social relations that produce discourse, and are not only produced by it. We then argue that these social relations become constituted in particular moments of phenomenological challenge – discursive moments that confront the existing social relations of knowledge and their dialogue of trust and truth. We illustrate the implications of a threat to the social relations of environmental knowledge through an analysis of one such moment of phenomenological challenge: a dispute over whether or not the power plant in the community where we used to live, Ames, Iowa, is producing dioxin. (shrink)

The use of multiple means of determination to “triangulate” on the existence and character of a common phenomenon, object, or result has had a long tradition in science but has seldom been a matter of primary focus. As with many traditions, it is traceable to Aristotle, who valued having multiple explanations of a phenomenon, and it may also be involved in his distinction between special objects of sense and common sensibles. It is implicit though not emphasized in the distinction between (...) primary and secondary qualities from Galileo onward. It is arguably one of several conceptions involved in Whewell’s method of the “consilience of inductions” (Laudan 1971) and is to be found in several places in Peirce. (From M. Brewer and B. Collins, eds., (1981); Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences (a festschrift for Donald T. Campbell), San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 123–162.). (shrink)

Combines phenomenology with the "enactivist" approach to consciousness theory and recent emotion research to explore the way self-motivated action plans shape selective attention, exploration, and ultimately the mind's interpretation of reality - in philosophy, psychology, cultural awareness, and our personal lives.

"Analyzes the value of using case-based methodologies to address contemporary social justice issues in philosophy"--.

In this work, we will approach some essential questions about the collective imaginary and their relations with reality and truth. We should face this subject in a conceptual framework, followed by the corresponding factual analysis of demonstrable behavioral realities. We will adopt not only the methodology, but mostly the tenets and propositions of the analytic philosophy, which certainly will be apparent throughout the study, and may be identified by the features described by Perez : -/- Rabossi (1975) defends the idea (...) that analytic philosophy can be identified by considering certain family resemblances. He suggests the following family traits: a positive attitude toward scientific knowledge; a cautious attitude toward metaphysics; a conception of philosophy as a conceptual task, which takes conceptual analysis as a method; a close relationship between language and philosophy; a concern with seeking argumentative answers to philosophical problems; search for conceptual clarity Perez, Diana Ines, "Analytic Philosophy in Latin America”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ). These core concepts involve cultural, social, religious, scientific, philosophic, moral, and political contents, belonging to the individual and collective existence of each one of us. The present work grounds itself on analytical reflection. We will speculate the most comprehensive and profound way we can and express the results of our thoughts. Notwithstanding the multidisciplinary nature of the subject and the methodological openness for accepting contributions from any field of science, this work belongs to the aim of psychology and ontology or, in other terms, social and ontological psychology. The main scope of this paper is to observe how some essential evolutionary attributes of humankind, like creativity, imagination, and association, can become a hazardous sickness, sheltered in the misty shadows of the intelligence. (shrink)

Diese Arbeit wird wesentliche Fragen über das kollektive Imaginär und seine Beziehungen zur Realität und Wahrheit ansprechen. Zunächst sollten wir dieses Thema in einem konzeptionellen Rahmen ansprechen, gefolgt von der entsprechenden Tatsachenanalyse demonstrierbarer Verhaltensrealitäten. Wir werden nicht nur die Methodik, sondern vor allem die Prinzipien und Sätze der analytischen Philosophie annehmen. Die vorliegende Arbeit beruht analytischer Reflexion. Wir werden so umfassend und tief wie möglich spekulieren und die Ergebnisse unserer Gedanken ausdrücken. Trotz des multidisziplinären Charakters des Themas und der methodischen (...) Offenheit für die Annahme. Beiträge aus jedem Bereich der Wissenschaft, diese Arbeit gehört zu Psychologie und Ontologie oder, mit anderen Worten, soziale und ontologische Psychologie. Die freie Methodik, die solche Reflexionen leitet, umfasst und betrachtet alles, was sich der Kohärenz mit der philosophischen und psychologischen Epistemologie nähert. Diese Methodik verfolgt keine Beweise, sondern sucht nach der Wechselbeziehung zwischen bestehenden Beweisen jeglicher Art und Größe, die eine kohärente Bedeutung zu den realen Dingen ableiten. Der Hauptbereich dieses Titels besteht darin, zu beobachten, wie einige der wesentlichen evolutionären Attribute der Menschheit, wie Kreativität, Fantasie und Assoziation, zu einer gefährlichen Krankheit werden können, die in den Nebelschatten der Intelligenz versteckt ist. (shrink)

I. Science, myth, magic: three components of knowledge, in other words three types of activity in man who, in interaction with his surrounding environment seeks to accomodate himself to the constraints which this environment imposes on him while at the same time seeing to his own immediate or far-reaching needs.

O ceticismo é por vezes descartado como uma doutrina absurda e merecedora do seu lugar distante na antiguidade. Nada poderia ser menos correto. O ceticismo continua extremamente relevante para o pensamento filosófico e científico de hoje, servindo como um lembrete de que a sabedoria não é barata nem segura. Nesse texto, o meu objetivo principal é reproduzir o raciocínio das discussões clássicas sobre o ceticismo, mas de uma maneira coloquial e contemporânea. Após seguir as linhas de pensamento de Sexto Empírico, (...) René Descartes, e David Hume, eu vou extrair e identificar claramente as teses centrais que marcam as suas ideias. A minha intenção, porém, não é a de sugerir que as suas teses são auto-evidentes, ou incontestáveis, ou até hoje ainda incontestadas. Muito pelo contrário. A minha intenção é produzir um aperitivo ao debate e um convite a discussão. (shrink)

When stripped to the bare bone, there are only 11 foundational paradigms in social sciences. These foundational paradigms are like flashlights that can be utilized to shed light on different aspects of human society, but each of them can only shed light on a limited area of human society. Different schools in social science result from different but often incomplete combinations of these foundational paradigms. To adequately understand human society and its history, we need to deploy all 11 foundational paradigms, (...) although more limited combinations of them may be adequate for understanding more specific social facts. (shrink)

This paper provides an externalist account of talk and thought that clearly distinguishes the two. It is argued that linguistic meanings and concepts track different phenomena and have different explanatory roles. The distinction, understood along the lines proposed, brings theoretical gains in a cluster of related areas. It provides an account of meaning change which accommodates the phenomenon of contested meanings and the possibility of substantive disagreement across theoretical divides, and it explains the nature and value of conceptual engineering in (...) a way that addresses recent prominent concerns. (shrink)

In this Introduction, we aim to introduce the reader to the basic topic of this book. As part of this, we explain why we are using two different expressions (‘conceptual engineering’ and ‘conceptual ethics’) to describe the topics in the book. We then turn to some of the central foundational issues that arise for conceptual engineering and conceptual ethics, and finally we outline various views one might have about their role in philosophy and inquiry more generally.

Whether collective agency is a coherent concept depends on the theory of agency that we choose to adopt. We argue that the enactive theory of agency developed by Barandiaran, Di Paolo and Rohde (2009) provides a principled way of grounding agency in biological organisms. However the importance of biological embodiment for the enactive approach might lead one to be skeptical as to whether artificial systems or collectives of individuals could instantiate genuine agency. To explore this issue we contrast the concept (...) of collective agency with multi-agent systems and multi-system agents, and argue that genuinely collective agents instantiate agency at both the collective level and at the level of the component parts. Developing the enactive model, we propose understanding agency – both at the level of the individual and of the collective – as spectra that are constituted by dimensions that vary across time. Finally, we consider whether collectives that are not merely metaphorically ‘agents’ but rather are genuinely agentive also instantiate subjectivity at the collective level. We propose that investigations using the perceptual crossing paradigm suggest that a shared lived perspective can indeed emerge but this should not be conflated with a collective first-person perspective, for which material integration in a living body may be required. (shrink)

"Let a Kantian view of empirical truth be any view according to which the truth of empirical claim depends on the truth of non-empirical claims, because subjects (consciously or not) constitute the empirical when applying the non-empirical to experience. Historically the most important such view is Immanuel Kant’s. It is not the only. Rudolf Carnap, Thomas Kuhn, and Donald Davidson held such views. Conversely, Willard van Orman Quine’s view was contrastingly instructive. My aim is to briefly sort all this out (...) in search of lessons about the nature of empirical truth generally. Keywords: anthropocentric; ethnocentric; idiocentric; Kant; Immanuel; logocentric; truth. ". (shrink)

The role that need plays in dealing with problems of distributive justice is examined in a series of vignette studies. Among other things, it becomes clear that impartial observers make gradual assessments of justice that depend on the extent to which the observed individuals are endowed with a good. If it is known how high their need for that good is, the assessments are made relative to this reference point. In addition, impartial decision-makers make hypothetical distribution decisions that take into (...) account need, productivity, and accountability. The need of individuals is partially compensated even if they have contributed less to the available amount than they themselves require. However, the willingness to do so decreases if they are accountable for needing more than others or for having contributed less than others. Lastly, both impartial observers and impartial decision-makers distinguish between different types of needs, the fulfillment of which is given different levels of importance. (shrink)

Robert Merton's essays on theories of the middle range and his essays on functional explanation and the structural approach are among the most influential in the history of sociology. But their import is a puzzle. He explicitly allied himself with some of the most extreme scientistic formalists and contributed to and endorsed the Columbia model of theory construction. But Merton never responded to criticisms by Ernest Nagel of his arguments or acknowledged the rivalry between Lazarsfeld and Herbert Simon, rarely cited (...) the philosophical and methodological literature, and responded to critics with ambiguous concessions, leaving the Mertonian legacy profoundly ambiguous. Key Words: Robert Merton • Paul Lazarsfeld • theory construction • middle range theory • causal modeling • Émile Durkheim. (shrink)

Deconstructing Martial Arts analyses familiar issues and debates that arise in scholarly, practitioner and popular cultural discussions and treatments of martial arts and argues that martial arts are dynamic and variable constructs whose meanings and values regularly shift, mutate and transform, depending on the context. It argues that deconstructing martial arts is an invaluable approach to both the scholarly study of martial arts in culture and society and also to wider understandings of what and why martial arts are. Placing martial (...) arts in relation to core questions and concerns of media and cultural studies around identity, value, orientalism, and embodiment, Deconstructing Martial Arts introduces and elaborates deconstruction as a rewarding method of cultural studies. (shrink)

Although most of us know that human beings cannot and should not be replaced by computers, we have great difficulties saying why this is so. This paradox is largely the result of institutionalizing several fundamental misconceptions as to the nature of both trustworthy objective and moral knowledge. Unless we transcend this paradox, we run the increasing risks of becoming very good at counting without being able to say what is worth counting and why. The degree to which this is occurring (...) is the degree to which the computer revolution is already over — and the degree to which we human beings have lost. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to argue for a conception of critical social science based on the model of constitutive rules. The author argues that this model is pragmatically superior to those models that employ notions like "illusion" and " ideology," as it does not demand a specification of the "real (but hidden) interests" of social actors. Key Words: constitutive rules • critical theory • ideology • recommendations • social facts.

Recently, a number of epistemologists (notably Feldman [2007], [2009] and White [2005], [2013]) have argued for the rational uniqueness thesis, the principle that any set of evidence permits only one rationally acceptable attitude toward a given proposition. In contrast, this paper argues for extreme rational permissivism, the view that two agents with the same evidence may sometimes arrive at contradictory beliefs rationally. This paper identifies different versions of uniqueness and permissivism that vary in strength and range, argues that evidential peers (...) with different interests need not rationally endorse all the same hypotheses, argues that evidential peers who weigh the theoretic virtues differently can sometimes rationally endorse contradictory conclusions, and finally defends the permissivist appeal to standards against objections in the works of Feldman and White. (shrink)

University of North Carolina at Greensboro Most approaches to the philosophy of the natural and social sciences are basedon completed scientific investigations. However, there are many importantcases in science in which testing is incomplete. These cases are termed suspendedtrials and are particularly significant in biomedical and allied health fields. Initially,the authors' interest in suspended trials was piqued by a controversialmethod for assisting autistic children known as facilitated communication. Thisarticle examines facilitated communication and other examples of suspendedtrials from the perspective of (...) an economics of science and game theory. Themodel is consistent with recent evolutionary approaches to the philosophy ofthe natural and social sciences and with recent contributions to an economicunderstanding of science. Key Words: clinical trials • innovative therapies • economics of science • suspended trials • facilitated communication • economics of clinical research. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to outline Dorothy Emmet’s (1904-2000) account of perception in The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking (published in 1945). Emmet’s account of perception is part of a wider attempt to rehabilitate metaphysics in the face of logical positivism and verificationism (of the kind espoused most famously by A. J. Ayer). It is thus part of an attempt to stem the tide of anti-metaphysical thought that had become widespread in British philosophy by the middle of the twentieth (...) century. In pursuit of that aim, Emmet draws on the work of figures like A. N. Whitehead and Henri Bergson, rather than more mainstream analytic thinkers like Bertrand Russell or G. E. Moore, for inspiration. Indeed, Emmet’s ideas stand in contrast to the prevailing tides of British philosophy during her lifetime. This makes Emmet a figure of considerable historical interest; she does not fit neatly into the traditional narrative of the continental-analytic divide, proposed a way forward for metaphysics in one of its greatest times of crisis, and pre-empted certain movements in more contemporary philosophy of perception. By espousing her unique account of perception and drawing out its connections to her wider philosophy, I hope to put Emmet ‘on the map’, so to speak, of twentieth century British thought. (shrink)

This essay focuses on Husserl’s conception of the natural attitude, which, I argue, is one of his most important contributions to contemporary phenomenology. I offer a critical exploration of this concept’s productive explanatory potential for feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and disability studies. In the process, I draw attention to the rich, multi-faceted, and ever-changing social world that can be brought to life through this particular phenomenological concept. One of the most striking features of the natural attitude, as (...) Husserl describes it, is that it is not natural at all, but rather, is a developmental phenomenon that is acquired through, and profoundly influenced by, specific socio-cultural practices. To de-naturalize the natural attitude, then, is to recognize that the natural attitude is not fixed or innate but relative to a particular time period and culture, and therefore always capable of being changed. (shrink)

This paper addresses the relationship between epistemic difference and hermeneutical injustice, starting from an example discussed by Townsend and Townsend: the case of the Kichwa Indigenous People of Sarayaku v. Ecuador before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. My thesis is that translation is inevitably at work in communicative exchanges involving epistemic difference, and that considering the problem of translation allows us to refine our understanding of epistemic injustice and mobilise further resources to respond to it. In a first step, (...) I will discuss McGlynn’s critique of Townsend and Townsend’s approach, and in particular the notion of discursive injustice elaborated by Kukla. Drawing on the notion of symbolic institution as theorised by the Belgian phenomenologist Marc Richir, I will show how translation is at work in this case, seeking to pinpoint the hermeneutical injustice at play. In a second step, I will reflect on the different paradigms of translation and argue for a broad, processual and layered conception of it. Building on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of translatability of languages, I will introduce the notion of epistemic translatability as that which allows translational strategies to be devised across epistemic difference in order to counter hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

This article is concerned with one of the notable but forgotten research strands that developed out of French nineteenth-century positivism, a strand that turned attention to the study of scientific discovery and was actively pursued by French epistemologists around the turn of the nineteenth century. I first sketch the context in which this research program emerged. I show that the program was a natural offshoot of French neopositivism; the latter was a current of twentieth-century thought that, even if implicitly, challenged (...) the positivism of first-generation positivists such as Comte. I then survey what French epistemologists—including Ernest Naville, Élie Rabier, Pierre Duhem, Édouard Le Roy, Abel Rey, André Lalande, Théodule-Armand Ribot, Edmond Goblot, and Jacques Picard, among others—had to say about the logic, psychology, and sociology of discovery. My story demonstrates the inaccuracy of existing historical accounts of the philosophical study of scientific discovery. (shrink)

According to Thagard, the behavior of practitioners of a field may also be used for demarcation between science and pseudoscience due to its social dimension in addition to the epistemic one. I defended the tendency of pseudoscientists to commit fallacies, and the number of fallacies they commit can be a secondary tool for demarcation problem and this tool is consistent with Thagardian approach. In this paper, I selected the astrology as the case and I revealed nine types of logical fallacies (...) frequently committed by astrologers while introducing their field and/or defending their claims against the scientific inquiries and refutation efforts. I also argued that recognizing these fallacies may help the audience to demarcate between the scientific and the pseudoscientific arguments. (shrink)

This paper examines and analyzes five definitions of ‘existential risk.’ It tentatively adopts a pluralistic approach according to which the definition that scholars employ should depend upon the particular context of use. More specifically, the notion that existential risks are ‘risks of human extinction or civilizational collapse’ is best when communicating with the public, whereas equating existential risks with a ‘significant loss of expected value’ may be the most effective definition for establishing existential risk studies as a legitimate field of (...) scientific and philosophical inquiry. In making these arguments, the present paper hopes to provide a modicum of clarity to foundational issues relating to the central concept of arguably the most important discussion of our times. (shrink)

In recent years a number of writers have defended and attacked various features of structural, or neo-realist theories of international politics. Few, however, have quarrelled with one of the most foundational features of neorealist theory: its assumptions about the nature of science and scientific theories. In this essay I assess the views of science underlying much neorealist theory, especially as they are articulated in the work of Kenneth Waltz. I argue not only that neorealist theories rest on assumptions about science (...) and theory that have been questioned by postpositivist philosophers and historians of science, but also that the failure to consider the work of these writers yields theories of international politics that are deficient in several respects: they are weak theories in the sense that they cannot illuminate crucial features of international politics, they presuppose and sustain a narrow view of power and power relations, they reify practices and relations in the international arena and they offer little promise of producing the sort of Copernican Revolution for which Waltz called (or, more modestly, even a minimally satisfactory theory of international politics). In light of these shortcomings, I sketch an alternative approach to the study of international affairs, one that has been termed prototype studies. I contend that such an approach provides scholars with a rigorous way of studying international politics, without being a theoretical science. (shrink)

In The Crisis of Global Capitalism, George Soros claims that the international financial economy is inherently unstable, and that while economists have failed to recognize this because of their commitment to static equilibrium theory, politicians have failed to stabilize the global economy because of their commitment to an unquestioned faith in the complete efficiency of laissez faire. While Soros is right to argue that market participants’ expectations about the future can cause instability, he is wrong to maintain that this has (...) gone unrecognized by economists, and his notion that we live in a world of economic laissez faire is equally mistaken. Indeed, his own analysis of the Asian financial crisis points to the “moral hazard” created by expectations of government intervention, rather than to laissez faire, as the culprit. (shrink)

O texto expressa uma investigação filosófica sobre a pandemia provocada pelo coronavírus. Primeiramente, realizamos a caracterização e a contextualização da crise tecnocientífica. Em seguida, verificamos que muitos dos problemas teóricos problemas enfrentados pelos pesquisadores que lidam com questões associadas à pandemia já foram identificados e abordados por diferentes filósofos da ciência, demonstrando que a filosofia também pode ajudar na compreensão adequada da pandemia. Depois disso, o texto apresenta uma reflexão sobre a pandemia a partir da filosofia da tecnologia, demonstrando as (...) valiosas contribuições que essa área pode oferecer para a resolução dos problemas complexos das mais variadas naturezas. Em síntese, trata-se de um ensaio filosófico em defesa da ciência e da tecnologia. (shrink)

We examine the criticisms and subsequent changes that arise in the course of peer review. Fifty-two scholars who had recently published in Administrative Science Quarterly were surveyed regarding their peer review experience and how their article changed from initial journal submission to eventual publication. Papers that challenged theoretical perspectives faced distinctively high levels of criticism and change, particularly with attention to methodology, while those that offered a new perspective or that extended or combined established perspectives were less criticized and changed. (...) The number of challenge-oriented publications was small as well, suggesting that either few such submissions survive the review process or few are submitted in the first place. Overall, peer review appears open to expansion of the variety of theoretical argument but does little to aid in the winnowing out of established perspectives. (shrink)

Human and non-human animals are social beings, both have social interactions. The ability to anticipate behavior of others is a fundamental requirement of social interactions. However, there are several ways of how agents can succeed in this. Two modes of anticipation, namely mindreading and behavior-reading, shape the animal mindreading debate. As a matter of fact, no position has yet convincingly ruled out the other. This paper suggests a strategy of how to argue for a mentalistic interpretation as opposed to a (...) behavioral interpretation. The first step suggests considering a pluralistic approach in order to allow for shortcomings such as not having a natural language. Second, a critical examination of the principle called Morgan’s Canon will show that this principle cannot be used as a final argument to rule out mentalistic approaches. Finally, the author argues that the setting of current experiments is responsible for the indistinguishability of mindreading versus behavior-reading and she suggests alternative experimental designs. (shrink)

Proceeding from the debate opened by Beck, Giddens and Lash’s Reflexive Modernization, this paper seeks to clear the way for a more consistent and coherent concept of reflexivity in relation to the cultural-symbolic foundations of society. Seeing that Lash in his contribution to the debate inadvertently raises a key problem, i.e., the broad cognitive problem, the paper develops a critique of his hermeneutic culturalism. It focuses on the disparity between the position explicitly put forward in the debate with Beck and (...) Giddens and the cognitive one which more or less implicitly comes into play throughout his relevant essays. The disparity shows up already in his treatment of the problem of mediation, but it comes graphically to a head in his appropriation of Bourdieu. To lend the analysis some profile and depth, the argument is supported by elements of a socio-cognitive theory which has been gaining visibility in both social theory and the philosophy of social science. While the paper is critical of Lash, its overall aim is to strengthen his contribution to the debate. (shrink)

Edward Shils presented his book Tradition (1981) as the first extensive study of the subject. This article casts light on Shils' multifaceted understanding of tradition, comprising pragmatic, Burkean, veridical, and evolutionist perspectives. His typology of traditions is noted, and his view of institutional bearers of tradition described. In assessing Shils' theory, however, we find that it overreaches, collapsing differences that exist between traditions, transmissions, and the traditional.

This article explores the ethical implications of recent discussions that naturalize the relationship between race, the body and sport within the frame of genetic science. Many suggestions of a racially distributed genetic basis for athletic ability and performance are strategically posited as a resounding critique of the `politically correct' meta-narratives of established sociological and anthropological forms of explanation that emphasize the social and cultural construction of race. I argue that this use of genetic science in order to describe and explain (...) common-sense impressions of racial physiology and sporting ability is founded on erroneous premises of objectivity and disinterest, and inflates the analytical efficacy of scientific truth claims. I suggest that assertions of a value-free science of racial athletic ability reify race as inherited permanent biological characteristics that produce social hierarchies and are more characteristic of a longer history of `racial science'. (shrink)

This paper considers a central objection to evolutionary epistemology. The objection is that biological and epistemic development are not analogous, since while biological variation is blind, epistemic variation is not. The generation of hypotheses, unlike the generation of genotypes, is not random. We argue that this objection is misguided and show how the central analogy of evolutionary epistemology can be preserved. The core of our reply is that much epistemic variation is indeed directed by heuristics, but these heuristics are analogous (...) to biological preadaptations which account for the evolution of complex organs. We also argue that many of these heuristics or epistemic preadaptations are not innate but were themselves generatedby a process of blind variation and selective retention. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the structure of contemporary sociological knowledge in terms of a theory of scientific discourse. The concept of 'discourse' is introduced as a theoretical refinement of the concept of 'paradigm' and is applied to the classes of knowledge claims of the natural and social sciences. It is concluded that general modes of scientific discourse are definable in terms of their vertical differentiation from everyday discourse, while particular modes of sociological discourse are additionally definable in terms (...) of their horizontal differentiation. A classification is then proposed which identifies three modes of sociological discourse: natural, technical and formal. (shrink)

What is required for one thing to be a reason for another? Must the reason, more precisely, be or involve a principle? In this essay I target the idea that justification via reasons of one's beliefs (e.g., epistemic or moral) requires that the 'justifying reasons' be or involve (substantive and significant) principles. I identify and explore some potential sources of a principles requirement, and conclude that none of them (i.e., the normative function of reasons, the abstract structure of reasons, the (...) universalizability constraint on [moral] reasons, and even the pragmatic considerations that attenuate 'real-world' reason-giving) mandate that reasons be principles. I then explore implications of this conclusion, and note especially the resultant and paradoxical permissibility of justifying reasons that manage to be lawlike (a sine qua non for justifying reasons) even while consisting of highly-detailed and situation-specific proposition sets, e.g., novel-length narratives. (shrink)

This article considers question‐begging's opposite fallacy. Instead of relying on my beliefs for my premises when I should be using my adversary's beliefs, I rely on my adversary's beliefs when I should rely on my own. Just as question‐begging emerges from egocentrism, its opposite emerges from other‐centrism. Stepping into the other person's shoes is an effective strategy for understanding him. But you must return to your own shoes when forming your beliefs. Evidence is agent centered. Other‐centric reasoning is most striking (...) when both parties partake simultaneously. We are then treated to the spectacle of each side using the other's premises to establish its conclusion. These remarkable debates arise regularly when there is open disagreement about whether a right‐conferring relationship has ended. Those who contend the relationship is abrogated will be tempted to stand on the rights persistently credited to them by their adversary. (shrink)

Ockham's razor is popularly phrased as a prohibition against multiplying entities beyond necessity. This prohibition should extend to the receptacle for these entities. To state my thesis more positively and precisely, both qualitative and quantitative parsimony apply to space, time, and possibility. All other things equal, we ought to prefer a hypothesis that postulates less space. Smaller is better. Admittedly, scientists are ambivalent about economizing on the void. They praise simplicity. Yet astronomers have a history of helping themselves to as (...) much empty space as they wish—staggering common sense with the vastness of the universe. This largesse is abetted by an aesthetic bias for sublime hypotheses. Whereas abductions based on beauty converge with parsimony, abductions based on the sublime diverge from parsimony. Awe stifles our inner accountant. Both types of abduction are popular. Both are dubious because we lack independent assurance that the universe is beautiful or sublime. The analogy between space and time supports an extension of parsimony to time. Uniformitarian geologists regarded time as a free resource. However, geologists and cosmologists must justify their postulation of an immense past. Possibility follows suit. Contrary to David Lewis, possible worlds should be minimized. Parsimony about possibilities provides a rationale for parsimony about absences. Absences are possibilities that are not actual. So proliferation of absences entails proliferation of possibilities. We should admit only those absences which do explanatory work. (shrink)

This article uses a reading of John Wesley's Primitive Physic, or An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases (1747) to resist the common rejection—often as "quackery"—of Wesley's treatments for common maladies. We engage Wesley not because he was right but because his approach offers useful moments of pause in light of contemporary medical epistemology. Wesley's recommendations were primarily oriented towards the categories of personal responsibility and capability, but he also sought to empower individuals—especially the poor—with the knowledge to (...) safely and affordably treat maladies of their own. We leverage Primitive Physic to rethink contemporary medical knowledge production, especially as sanctioned by randomized clinical trials and legitimate views of experience and contemporary institutions such as the AMA. Ultimately, we suggest that the medical humanities has a key role to play in mining the discarded and dismissed for what they can tell scholars about medical knowledge. (shrink)

This article challenges the neo-Darwinist physicalist position assumed by currently prevalent naturalizing accounts of consciousness. It suggests instead an evolutionary understanding of cognitive emergence and an acceptance of mental capacity as a phenomenon in its own right, differing qualitatively from, although not independent of, the physical and material world. I argue that if we accept that consciousness is an adaptation enabling survival through immediate individual intuition of the world, we may accept this metaphysics as a given. Methodological focus can then (...) shift to investigating the, as yet untheorized, nature of consciousness itself as capacity/interconnectivity/potential. The article accepts Joseph Margolis's recent advocacy of a pragmatist approach that is "natural but not naturalizable" , that is, an anti-reductionist as opposed to an eliminativist position, but it seeks to develop this position further and to give it new direction. (shrink)

Drawing on observations from on‐ and offline fieldwork among transhumanists and artificial superintelligence/singularity‐focused groups, this article will explore an anthropology of anxiety around the hoped for, or feared, posthuman future. It will lay out some of the varieties of existential hope and existential despair found in these discussions about predicted events such as the “end of the world” and place them within an anthropological theoretical framework. Two examples will be considered. First, the optimism observed at a transhumanist event will be (...) examined to emphasize the positive affective aspects of certain apocalypse scenarios, especially those with an implicit eschatological direction. Second, an online location where examples of existential despair can be noted will be explored further to demonstrate the kinds of negative responses to certain superintelligence/singularity ideas. These examples of existential hope and despair will demonstrate the intrinsic role of anxiety in ideas about a future artificial intelligence apocalypse. (shrink)

Ian Hacking’s Representing and Intervening is often credited as being one of the first works to focus on the role of experimentation in philosophy of science, catalyzing a movement which is sometimes called the “philosophy of experiment” or “new experimentalism”. In the 1980s, a number of other movements and scholars also began focusing on the role of experimentation and instruments in science. Philosophical study of experimentation has thus seemed to be an invention of the 1980s whose central figure is Hacking. (...) This article aims to assess this historical claim, made by Hacking himself as well as others. It does so first by highlighting how a broader perspective on the history of philosophy reveals this invention narrative to be incorrect, since experimentation was a topic of interest for earlier philosophers. Secondly, the article evaluates a revision of this historical claim also made by some philosophers of experiment: the rediscovery narrative, which frames Hacking and others as having rediscovered the work of these earlier authors. This second narratives faces problems as well. Therefore we develop a third narrative which we call the contextualist narrative. Rather than considering experimentation in an essentialist manner as a fixed research object that is either present or not in the work of specific authors, experimentation should be addressed through a narrative that asks in what way it becomes a philosophical problem for certain authors and for what purpose. Such contextualization enables a repositioning of Hacking’s philosophy of experiment in relation to the specific debates in which he intervened, such as the realism-antirealism debate, the Science Wars and the debate on incommensurability. (shrink)

The classic approach to science is dominated by the belief that science is a form of cognitive activity that focuses on constructing theories to describe and explain the phenomena and processes found in the world. Due to the fulfilment of the criteria of intersubjective communicability and controllability, theories are considered to be objective products of research activity that do not bear social responsibility for their applications. In this paper, the issue of social responsibility of science is addressed both from the (...) classic perspective and from the non-classic viewpoint represented by laboratory sciences, i.e. those sciences that are predominantly concerned with creating phenomena rather than discovering them. It is argued that whereas in the former case the problem of social responsibility of science does not provoke serious controversy, in the latter case such controversies do exist and, furthermore, they are justified. (shrink)