The paper reviews the grounds for relativist interpretations of Wittgenstein's later thought, especially in On Certainty . It distinguishes between factual and virtual forms of epistemic relativism and argues that, on closer inspection, Wittgenstein's notes don't support any form of relativism – let it be factual or virtual. In passing, it considers also so-called "naturalist" readings of On Certainty , which may lend support to a relativist interpretation of Wittgenstein's ideas, finds them wanting, and recommends to interpret his positive proposal (...) in On Certainty as a form of "internal rationalism.". (shrink)

Roth's analysis of the Rationalitätstreit (i.e., the debate(s) about rationality) stands as one of the major works on how the debate affects a wide range of issues in the philosophy of science and the social sciences. His principal thesis is that the debate may be seen as a series of Quine-type "translation manuals," exhibiting characteristics of paradigms (following Kuhn 1970) that can be treated as testable scientific theories by adequate empirical tests. The author argues that Roth's notion of empirically testing (...) translation manuals is not possible given his criteria. He suggests a clearer definition of "methods" and develops a case whereby translation manuals can be adequately tested within an inductive model-but with rather severe restrictions. Implications are indicated. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to motivate and defend a recognizable version of N. L. Wilson's "Principle of Charity" Doing so will involve: (1) distinguishing it fromthe significantly different versions of the Principle familiar through the work of Quine and Davidson; (2) showing that it is compatible with, among other things, both semantic externalism and "simulation" accounts of interpretation; and (3) explaining how it follows from plausible constraints relating to the connection between interpretation and self-interpretation. Finally, it will be (...) argued that Charity represents a type of "minimal individualism" that is closely tied to first person authority, and that endorsing Charity in our interpretations of others reflects a commitment to capturing, from the third-person starting point, their first-personal point of view. (shrink)

I argue that some cases of delusions show the inadequacy of those theories of interpretation that rely on a necessary rationality constraint on belief ascription. In particular I challenge the view that irrational beliefs can be ascribed only against a general background of rationality. Subjects affected by delusions seem to be genuine believers and their behaviour can be successfully explained in intentional terms, but they do not meet those criteria that according to Davidson (1985a) need to be met for the (...) background of rationality to be in place. (shrink)

A traditional objection to coherentism is that there may be incompatible though equally coherent sets of beliefs. The purpose of the paper is to assess this objection. It is argued that the better a belief "p" coheres with the system of a person, the less likely it is that the negation of the belief coheres equally well with someone else's system, or even that there is someone else who believes the negation of "p". The arguments are based on two plausible (...) assumptions about coherence, and some more controversial assumptions concerning meaning and interpretation. (shrink)

This volume examines the phenomenon of the migration of philosophical texts and traditions into other cultures, identifies places where it may have succeeded, but also where it has not, and discusses what is presupposed in introducing a text or a tradition into another intellectual culture. -- Book Jacket.

Constructivist analyses of risk regulation are typically agnostic about what should count as robust or reliable knowledge. Indeed, constructivists usually portray competing accounts of risk as if they were always equally contingent or engaged with different and incommensurable issues and problem definitions. This article argues that assumptions about the equal reliability of competing accounts of risk deserve to be, and sometimes can be, examined empirically. A constructivist approach grounded in epistemological realism is outlined and applied empirically to a particular comparative (...) U.S./u.k. case study of pesticide regulation. The article argues that while the scope for interpretative flexibility when addressing risk issues is clearly extensive, it is not unconstrained. By scrutinizing the structure and coherence of particular risk assessments and policy decisions by reference to both empirical evidence and commonly held robust standards of interpretation, the article argues that the U.K. evaluation was not only less precautionary than its U.S. equivalent, but it was also less well constructed and therefore less reliable. Several social and institutional characteristics of U.S. and U.K. policy making are highlighted that appear variously to facilitate or inhibit the production of reliable knowledge and the making of prudent policy decisions. (shrink)

Winch’s ‘Understanding a Primitive Society’ addressed the question of how to interpret apparently irrational alien beliefs and practices. Criticizing Evans-Pritchard’s study of Zande witchcraft, Winch argued that across cultures there are divergent conceptions of what is rational and real and that, where they diverge, it is mistaken to apply ‘our’ standards and conceptions to ‘their’ beliefs. Winch’s position is here re-examined in the light of the current debate about whether the Hawaiians thought Captain Cook was divine. Sahlins holds that they (...) did, asserting that different cultures have different rationalities. Obeyesekere disagrees, holding that these views are just further evidence of European myth-making about the natives’ savage mentality, and that ‘practical rationality’ is common to all cultures. In conclusion it is argued that Sahlins’s ‘Maussian’ interpretative strategy is preferable to Obeyesekere’s ‘Davidsonian’ approach, that Sahlins cannot sustain his Winchean claim about rationality and that denying it is a precondition for understanding a practice central to all cultures: that of trying to get the world right. (shrink)

Although social scientists have been devoted to discovering specific realities of social life, many theorists devoted to critical judgment have turned to philosophy in search of universal grounds of truth and reality. They have, however, worried about the problem of relativism. Although Wittgenstein has often been characterized as a relativist, Cora Diamond, inspired by G. E. M Anscombe, argues that his work, despite internal tensions, provides rational grounds for external criticism of social practices. Her argument and her critique of the (...) work of Peter Winch and Ilham Dilman are, however, neither adequately supported by Wittgenstein’s texts nor sufficiently developed on their own terms. (shrink)

Em Science and Partial Truth (da Costa and French 2003) argumentamos que inconsistências no raciocínio científico podem ser acomodadas pela combinação de estruturas parciais e quase-verdade, junto com uma noção de ‘crença representacional’. Neste artigo, examino se isso pode ser estendido aos raciocínios e crenças de outras culturas, focando em particular nas crenças de feitiçaria dos Azande. Argumento que tais crenças são similares às crenças teóricas da ciência ocidental, mas que o modo mais apropriado de representar esta última — e (...) portanto também a primeira — é através de estruturas parciais e quase-verdade. Dessa maneira, espero encontrar um caminho plausível entre as abordagens ‘imperialista’ e ‘relativista’. DOI: 10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n1p77. (shrink)

Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Volume 51, Issue 6, Page 574-599, December 2021. In “Different Cultures, Different Rationalities” Stephen Lukes weighs in on the controversies concerning the killing of Captain Cook by Hawaiians and what it says about the role of rationality assumptions in translation. While at first seeming to adopt a Davidsonian anti-relativist position concerning the enabling role of assumptions of common rationality in interpretation, Lukes rejects Davidson’s view, and opts instead for a “totalizing” strategy inspired by Mauss. Here (...) I explore rationales for Lukes’ position and endeavor to reconcile Lukes’, Davidson’s, and Mauss’s positions by developing a case for a limited interpretive requirement of shared rationality. (shrink)

This book is a synthesis of more than three decades of research into the concept of time and its semiotic nature. If traditional philosophy – and philosophy of time should be no exception – in the shadow of advancing biology can be said to have reached an impasse, one important reason for this, in harmony with Wittgenstein’s vision, appears to have been its lack of appropriate tools for explicating language. The present theory of time proceeds, accordingly, from the exploration of (...) temporal expressions in language as an evolutionary fact. It derives in a hypothetical, coherent feedback process of hierarchically ordered distinctions the semantics of time from its biologically dictated perceptual and cognitive-pragmatic origins. The corresponding abductive-regulative model is anchored in the assumption of biological rhythmization as the very foundation of perception and mental/physical action. Understood to originate in space and spatial perspective, time reveals itself as an instrument for temporal perspective on motion (events and situations) in a process of analysis, i.e., discontinuation of chaos made divisible and continuous by the rhythmical screen. Whereas traditional philosophy of time paid attention almost exclusively to the temporal category of tense, the biopragmatic model sees strong evidence in the perspectival nature of time for ascribing the decisive, and probably universal, role in temporal analysis to the linguistic category of aspect. Aspect may, according to the present findings, be assumed to partake already of change-of-state and cause-effect analysis without which man’s adaptation to new situations – and precondition for survival – would be inconceivable. The proposed model of space/time cognition, inspired by Hegelian dialectics, Heidegger-Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle and Peircean logic, makes Kantian a priori superfluous and liberates time from its enigmatic appearance. For the first time in temporal studies it thus appears possible to derive hypothetically linguistic expressions of time all the way from pretemporal, homogeneous continuity effected by biological rhythmization, via pretemporal metonymic (Gestalt), chunk-wise partitioning – as a general precondition for the perception and, based on primary metaphorization, the cognition of things, space and motion – to temporal analysis/discontinuation proper, primarily by aspectual perspective, and the subsequent synthesized, heterogeneous continuity of temporally ordered events. The conception of time, so disastrous for modern temporal logic, i.e., as moving object assigned extension, divisible continuity (‛linearity’) and direction, can be shown to have emerged as a result of secondary metaphorization. (shrink)

A growing number of philosophers and linguists have argued that many, if not most, terms in our language should be understood as semantically context sensitive. In opposition to this trend, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore defend a view they call "Semantic Minimalism", which holds that there are virtually no semantically context sensitive expressions in English once you get past the standard list of indexicals and demonstratives such as "I", "you", "this", and "that". While minimalism strikes many as obviously false, it (...) will be argued here that the view is more plausible than commonly assumed if one accepts the 'normative' conception of the relation between meaning and use characteristic of the literature on semantic externalism. That said, it is not clear that Cappelen and Lepore always conceive of their minimal semantic contents in this more normative fashion, and once this framework is place, a version of 'moderate contextualism' that they do not consider comes into view. (shrink)

Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.

The present thesis surveys different philosophical approaches to the nature of delusions: specifically, their ontology. However, since none of the various theories of the nature of delusions succeeds, I argue that there must be something problematic about the form of the analyses commonly offered. My general conclusion is that one cannot characterize delusions without taking away what it is distinctive about them.