the purity of functionalism with mind may clash with a the need for .

This article argues that there is ultimately a very close convergence between prominent conceptions of being in mainstream Anglo‐American philosophy and mainstream postmodern Continental philosophy. One characteristic idea in Anglo‐American or analytic philosophy is that we establish what is meaningful and so what we can say about what is, by making evident the limits of sense or what simply cannot be meant. A characteristic idea in Continental philosophy of being is that being emerges through contrast and interplay with what it (...) is not, with what has no being at all and so is beyond sense. The two traditions consequently conceive being in significantly related ways. As a result, what the Continental tradition gets at with “the meaning of being as such and in general,” and how it gets at it, has much in common with what the Anglo‐American tradition gets at, and how it gets at it, by establishing “what can be meaningfully said.”. (shrink)

This paper defends a key aspect of the Peircean conception of truth—the idea that truth is in some sense epistemically-constrained. It does so by exploring parallels between Peirce’s epistemology of inquiry and that of Wittgenstein in On Certainty. The central argument defends a Peircean claim about truth by appeal to a view shared by Peirce and Wittgenstein about the structure of reasons. This view relies on the idea that certain claims have a special epistemic status, or function as what are (...) popularly called ‘hinge propositions’. (shrink)

Since its inception in the work on fallacies of Charles Hamblin, formal dialectic has been the object of an unparalleled level of optimism concerning the potential of its analytical contribution to fallacy inquiry. This optimism has taken the form of a rapid proliferation of formal dialectical studies of arguments in general and fallacious arguments in particular under the auspices of theorists such as Jim Mackenzie and John Woods and Douglas Walton, to name but a few. Notwithstanding the interest in, and (...) the hopes for, a formal dialectical analysis of the fallacies, such an analysis, I will demonstrate subsequently, leads to much unintelligibility in fallacy inquiry. The context of my argument will be the philosophical views of Hilary Putnam, particularly Putnam's claim that when we theorise in relation to rationality, the unintelligibility of the conception of rationality to emerge from this theoretical process can be traced to the circumscription of rationality within this theoretical process. I charge formal dialectic with effecting a similar circumscription of argumentative rationality, a circumscription that, I will claim, is generative of unintelligibility in formal dialectical analyses of the fallacies. In this case, the context for my claims will be the formal dialectical analyses of Walton and Batten, Rescher, Hamblin, Mackenzie and Hintikka, primarily in relation to the petitio principii fallacy. My conclusion examines a number of the reasons, both historical and conceptual, which have made it seem that it is possible to fully circumscribe the notion of argumentative rationality. (shrink)

In recent and not so recent years, fallacy theory has sustained numerous challenges, challenges which have seen the theory charged with lack of systematicity as well as failure to deliver significant insights into its subject matter. In the following discussion, I argue that these criticisms are subordinate to a more fundamental criticism of fallacy theory, a criticism pertaining to the lack of intelligibility of this theory. The charge of unintelligibility against fallacy theory derives from a similar charge against philosophical theories (...) of truth and rationality developed by Hilary Putnam. I examine how Putnam develops this charge in the case of the conception of rationality pursued by logical positivism. Following that examination, I demonstrate the significance of this charge for how we proceed routinely to analyse one informal fallacy, the fallacy of petitio principii. Specifically, I argue that the significance of this charge lies in its issuance of a rejection of the urge to theorise in fallacy inquiry in general and petitio inquiry in particular. My conclusion takes the form of guidelines for the post-theoretical pursuit of fallacy inquiry. (shrink)

Metaontology – the study of the nature of ontological issues – has flourished in recent years. The focus of this summary will be on some views and arguments that are central to today’s debate. One theme will be that of how seriously to take ontology: whether there is reason to take a skeptical or deflationary attitude toward ontological claims, as theorists like Rudolf Carnap, Hilary Putnam, and Eli Hirsch in different ways have urged. The other theme will be that of (...) the viability of the Fregean and Quinean approaches to ontology that have been and still are central to analytic philosophy. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam's philosophical views have undergone extensive interpretation over many years. One such interpretive work is George Myerson's book Rhetoric, Reason and Society. Myerson's interest in dialogic rationalism leads him to examine the views of many theorists of rationality, philosophers and non-philosophers alike. As a prominent philosopher of rationality, Putnam is at the very center of this examination. Notwithstanding this fact, I contend that Myerson misinterprets the dialectical character of Putnam's philosophy in general and of Putnam's views on rationality in (...) particular. This misinterpretation, I argue, is revealing of an illusion of thought to which Myerson is subject, an illusion that makes it seem that it is possible to theorize intelligibly about rationality from a metaphysical standpoint. This same illusion, I claim, also makes it seem that Myerson's positive views on rationality are intelligible. Employing a close textual analysis of Myerson's book, I argue that neither scenario is the case. (shrink)

In this reply to Professor Hookway’s lecture the comments are focused, first, on the topic of what dichotomies really are, since it is an illuminating way of understanding pragmatism in general and Putnam’s pragmatism in particular. Dichotomies are artifacts that we devise with some useful purpose in mind, but when inflated into absolute dichotomies they become metaphysical bogeys as it is illustrated by the twentieth century distinction between fact and value. Secondly, a brief comment on the so-called “thick” ethical concepts (...) and artifact terms is presented, and finally it is added a word on John L. Austin, whose approach to dichotomies is aligned with pragmatism and Putnam. (shrink)

In the 1960s and 1970s, Hilary Putnam articulated a notion of relativized apriority that was motivated to address the problem of scientific change. This paper examines Putnam’s account in its historical context and in relation to contemporary views. I begin by locating Putnam’s analysis in the historical context of Quine’s rejection of apriority, presenting Putnam as a sympathetic commentator on Quine. Subsequently, I explicate Putnam’s positive account of apriority, focusing on his analysis of the history of physics and geometry. In (...) the remainder of the paper, I explore connections between Putnam’s account of relativized a priori principles and contemporary views. In particular, I situate Putnam’s account in relation to analyses advanced by Michael Friedman, David Stump, and William Wimsatt. From this comparison, I address issues concerning whether a priori scientific principles are appropriately characterized as “constitutive” or “entrenched”. I argue that these two features need to be clearly distinguished, and that only the constitutive function is essential to apriority. By way of conclusion, I explore the relationship between the constitutive function of a priori principles and entrenchment. (shrink)

An identification is made of the core metaphilosophical, philosophical, and intellectual history theses in Richard Rorty's pragmatism. Their rationale is displayed and it is argued that his metaphilosophical theses are very much dependent on certain of his non‐metaphilosophical philosophical theses, most centrally his anti‐representationalism. Questions emerge about the status and justification of these theses. Rorty, in his programmatic pronouncements, resists providing a vindication of them. Seeking to avoid what has been called performative contradictions, he regards it as sufficient to provide (...) the best narrative going of what is to be said here. It is argued that a more straightforward defence can be provided that does not depart from his holism or his historicism with its setting aside of claims of necessity. (shrink)

A hallmark of recent critical social science has been the commitment to methodological and theoretical pluralism. Habermas and others have argued that diverse theoretical and empirical approaches are needed to support informed social criticism. However, an unresolved tension remains in the epistemology of critical social science: the tension between the epistemic advantages of a single comprehensive theoretical framework and those of methodological and theoretical pluralism. By shifting the grounds of the debate in a way suggested by Dewey's pragmatism, the author (...) argues that a thoroughgoing pluralism strengthens, rather than weakens, both the social scientific and political aims of critical social science. Not only does pragmatism offer a plausible interpretation of the epistemic pluralism of the social sciences, but it also provides a way of thinking about their fundamentally practical and political character. With a better normative vocabulary with which to discuss the epistemological issues of such a pluralistic mode of inquiry, the democratic role of critical inquiry and its specifically practical form of verification can be clarified. (shrink)

After stressing how the attempt to provide a plausible account of the connection between language and the world was one of Putnam’s constant preoccupations, this article describes the four stages his thinking about the concepts of truth and reality went through. Particular attention is paid to the kinds of problems that made him abandon each stage to enter the next. The analysis highlights how all the stages but one express a general non-epistemic stance towards truth and reality—the right stance, according (...) to Putnam, in order to develop full-blooded realism. Since the last stage combines a version of direct realism with a pluralist conception of truth, the article proceeds by focusing on Putnam’s alethic pluralism, carefully distinguishing it from alethic deflationism. Finally a suggestion is made as to where Putnam’s alethic pluralism may be placed within the constellation of current pluralist positions about truth. (shrink)

Suppose for a moment, that J.R.R. Tolkien, the famous author of the cult fantasy saga Lord of the Rings, did not publish anything of his writings during his lifetime; suppose that after his death the manuscripts of all his writings are lying on his table. Where, then, is the Middlearth, the glorious land of hobbits, dwarfs, elfs and human heroes, situated? We might be tempted to say that it is within our world, namely inside the pile of the papers on (...) the writer’s table - for it exists solely through the letters written on these papers. However, to say this would be wrong - surely we do not expect that should the heroes of the book walk in a straight line long enough, they would cross the boundaries of the book and appear in Mr. Tolkien’s room. Middlearth is, of course, not within our world - despite existing solely due to certain things which are within it. Now the situation is not substantially different actually, when Middlearth does not exist solely through a single pile of papers, but rather through millions of printed copies of Tolkien’s books and through the minds of millions of their readers. Again, the land exists exclusively through the existence of entities which are parts of our world, but this does not mean that the land itself is a part of our world. The point of this anecdotal excursion is now that this relationship between our world and Middlearth is, in a sense, similar to the relationship between our physical space of things and „the space of reasons“ ; or between „the causal story“ and „the justificatory story“. Like Middlearth, the space of reasons exists exclusively due to us, humans, and our minds, and in this sense we might be tempted to situate it in our world, to see it as a certain, perhaps scattered, compartment of the world of things within which we live; but just as in the case of Middlearth, this might be dangerously misguiding. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze the tension between realism and antirealism at the basis of Kantian constructivism. This tension generates a conflictive account of the source of the validity of social norms. On the one hand, the claim to moral objectivity characteristic of Kantian moral theories makes the validity of norms depend on realist assumptions concerning the existence of shared fundamental interests among all rational human beings. I illustrate this claim through a comparison of the approaches of Rawls, Habermas and (...) Scanlon. On the other hand, however, objections to moral realism motivate many Kantian constructivists to endorse the antirealist claim that reasonable agreement is the source of the validity of social norms. After analyzing the difficulties in the latter strategy, I try to show how a balance between the realist and antirealist elements of Kantian constructivism can be reached by drawing a sharper distinction between the justice and the legitimacy of social norms. (shrink)

Logic is usually thought to concern itself only with features that sentences and arguments possess in virtue of their logical structures or forms. The logical form of a sentence or argument is determined by its syntactic or semantic structure and by the placement of certain expressions called “logical constants.”[1] Thus, for example, the sentences Every boy loves some girl. and Some boy loves every girl. are thought to differ in logical form, even though they share a common syntactic and semantic (...) structure, because they differ in the placement of the logical constants “every” and “some”. By contrast, the sentences Every girl loves some boy. and Every boy loves some girl. are thought to have the same logical form, because “girl” and “boy” are not logical constants. Thus, in order to settle questions about logical form, and ultimately about which arguments are logically valid and which sentences logically true, we must distinguish the “logical constants” of a language from its nonlogical expressions. (shrink)

Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.

Gordon Baker in his last decade published a series of papers (now collected in Baker 2004), which are revolutionary in their proposals for understanding of later Wittgenstein. Taking our lead from the first of those papers, on "perspicuous presentations," we offer new criticisms of 'elucidatory' readers of later Wittgenstein, such as Peter Hacker: we argue that their readings fail to connect with the radically therapeutic intent of the 'perspicuous presentation' concept, as an achievement-term, rather than a kind of 'objective' mapping (...) of a 'conceptual landscape.' Baker's Wittgenstein, far from being a 'language policeman' of the kind that often fails to influence mainstream philosophy, offers an alternative to the latent scientism of Wittgenstein's influential 'elucidatory' readers. (shrink)

This paper contends that some of the recent critical appraisals of universals theories of natural laws, namely, van Fraassen's analysis of Armstrong's probabilistic laws, are largely ineffective since they fail to disclose the incompatibility of universals and any realistic natural law setting. Rather, a more profitable line of criticism is developed that contests the universalists' claim to have resolved the induction problem (i.e., the separation of natural laws from mere accidental regularities), and thereby reveals the universals' philosophically inadequate concept of (...) a physical property. (shrink)

Neo-Fregeanism in the philosophy of mathematics consists of two main parts: the logicist thesis, that mathematics (or at least branches thereof, like arithmetic) all but reduce to logic, and the platonist thesis, that there are abstract, mathematical objects. I will here focus on the ontological thesis, platonism. Neo-Fregeanism has been widely discussed in recent years. Mostly the discussion has focused on issues specific to mathematics. I will here single out for special attention the view on ontology which underlies the neo-Fregeans’ (...) claims about mathematical objects, and discuss this view in a broader setting. (shrink)

Much recent discussion in the philosophy of mathematics has concerned the indispensability argument—an argument which aims to establish the existence of abstract mathematical objects through appealing to the role that mathematics plays in empirical science. The indispensability argument is standardly attributed to W. V. Quine and Hilary Putnam. In this paper, I show that this attribution is mistaken. Quine's argument for the existence of abstract mathematical objects differs from the argument which many philosophers of mathematics ascribe to him. Contrary to (...) appearances, Putnam did not argue for the existence of abstract mathematical objects at all. I close by suggesting that attention to Quine and Putnam's writings reveals some neglected arguments for platonism which may be superior to the indispensability argument. (shrink)

Putnam originally developed his causal theory of meaning in order to support scientific realism and reject the notion of incommensurability. Later he gave up this position and adopted instead what he called ‘internal realism’, but apparently without changing his mind on topics related to his former philosophy of language. The question must arise whether internal realism, which actually is a species of antirealism, is compatible with the causal theory of meaning. In giving an answer I begin with an analysis of (...) the content and metaphysical background of scientific realism. I show that it presupposes metaphysical realism and that Putnam's philosophical conversion is due to his becoming aware of the latter's incoherence. After giving a brief sketch of internal realism I conclude by arguing that within this new theoretical framework the causal theory of meaning loses its force as a weapon against incommensurability. (shrink)

As part of his ongoing critique of metaphysical realism, Hilary Putnam has recently argued that current materialist theories of mind that locate mental phenomena in the brain can make no sense of the proposed identifications of mental states with physical (or physical cum computational) states, or of the supervenience of mental properties with physical properties. The aim of this paper is to undermine Putnam's objections and reassert the intelligibility – and perhaps the plausibility – of some form of mind-body identity (...) and supervenience. (shrink)

Many philosophical issues concern questions of objectivity and subjectivity. Of these questions, there are two kinds. The first considers whether something is objective or subjective; the second what it _means_ for something to be objective or subjective.

The problem of the status of metaphysics -- what it is and what it is for, what use it is - has been with us for millennia, at least since Plato took issue with the Sophists, and continues to the present day. Here I attempt an intervention in this perennial dispute, with the aim of providing some kind of rapprochement between the factions. This intervention is based on how Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) understood metaphysics and the position presented here is (...) thus called `Peircean realism'. The basic idea is that everyone has a metaphysics and has to have one, just to get by in everyday life, and this is no different for scientific inquirers in their professional work. The subject matter of metaphysics is thus presuppositions, whether it is what we rely on to go shopping or to discover the Higgs boson. We rely on these in our activities and expect them to have an effect on outcomes, so when our expectations are frustrated, doubt may be thrown on our presuppositions. We would thus like the ability to inquire into our presuppositions so as not to repeat mistakes, but our instinctive, evolved capacity for reasoning may not be up the job, since it is entwined with what we take for granted. Instead, Peirce develops a science of good reasoning that includes a theory of inquiry, which would allow us to scrutinise our presuppositions, to perform metaphysical inquiry. The starting point for this science of good reasoning is basic principles of combination and organisation, because these are involved in all activity, and these are Peirce's categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. This is also where I start in the exposition of and argument for Peircean realism as a scientific -- that is, truth-directed -- metaphysics that provides the best possible general presuppositions to the natural and human sciences, the special sciences that deal with matters in their particularity; that Peircean realism is a viable metaphysics for those sciences. This exposition and argument comprises the first part of this thesis. In the second part, the case for Peircean realism is further bolstered by turning a critical eye on positions that are deficient from the Peircean point of view, in that they lack one or other category and thus starve the special sciences of the resources they need, or that they try to ignore metaphysics entirely. All this is meant to demonstrate that metaphysics is unavoidable, that we need all three of Peirce's categories for a viable metaphysics for the special sciences, and that Peircean realism is just such a metaphysics. (shrink)

In face of unethical incidents that threaten the world of science, a question of the necessity and a possible shape of intellectual ethics has been raised. The article argues that advantages of virtue epistemology make it more attractive than other models of intellectual ethics. To that purpose, it reviews alternative models for intellectual ethics, analyses and criticises deontological approach and demonstrates the virtues of the virtue approach. As problems with implementation of virtue ethics have been put against that approach, the (...) article addresses the question of how to promote virtue intellectual ethics. It discusses four possible methods of formation in virtues: theoretical, success-oriented, social and based on emulating exemplars. It argues for the role of excellent exemplars whose emulation forms virtues in agent. The conclusions of the article should transform the way we think about intellectual ethics and promote it. (shrink)

This paper examines philosophical debates about concepts of biodiversity, making the case for conceptual pluralism. Taking a pragmatist perspective, I argue that normative concepts of biodiversity and eco-centric concepts of biodiversity can serve different purposes. The former would help stress the values of local communities, which have often been neglected by both early scientific approaches to conservation, and by policy makers prioritizing the political or economic interests of specific groups. The latter would help build local research programs independent of pressures (...) from economic or political actors. I employ a case study on environmental research on walnut forests in Kyrgyzstan in support of my argument. Against tendencies to frame different understandings of biodiversity in terms of geographical areas, I propose an interpretation drawing on the philosophy of ecology. Adherence to environmental pragmatism enables a sufficiently complex picture of developing environmental research in the area, capturing issues about scientific framings and local understandings. (shrink)

Aktivnost integracije i distribucije prožima cjelokupni čovjekov jezik, mišljenje i djelovanje; njegov praktični i teorijski um, uz pomoć malog broja operacija (konjunkcija, negacija, kvantifikacija) koje čine logičke konstante, sabire i razdjeljuje varijabilne elemente jezika, svijeta i mišljenja u beskonačne konačnosti (skupovi, klase, relacije, atributi) u kojima se koreliraju realne stimulacije i virtualne simulacije, čijom se konstrukcijom, rekonstrukcijom i dekonstrukcijom formiraju i transformiraju "dobro uređene formule" jezičko-gramatičkih i mentalno-psiholoških struktura koje se u svijetu saznanja imenuju pojmom svijeta, pojmom jezika, pojmom duha. (...) Svijet pojmova, koji se uzima u kvantificiranoj formi govora / "(x) (Fx) / kao realni ili egzistentni, a u substitutivnoj formi / " { x : Fx}" / kao virtualni ili subzistentni zbog apstraktnosti klasa i relacija, konstruira mrežu multipliciranih logičkih općenitosti, njihovih relacija ili zakonitih sukcesija koje se mogu izraziti, parafrazirati i prevesti iz jedne notacije u drugu salva veritate ed salva congruentia. (shrink)

Deflationism about truth, what is often simply called “deflationism”, is really not so much a theory of truth in the traditional sense, as it is a different, newer sort of approach to the topic. Traditional theories of truth are part of a philosophical debate about the nature of a supposed property of truth. Philosophers offering such theories often make suggestions like the following: truth consists in correspondence to the facts; truth consists in coherence with a set of beliefs or propositions; (...) truth is what is acceptable in the ideal limit of inquiry. According to deflationists, such suggestions are mistaken, and, moreover, they all share a common mistake. The common mistake is to assume that truth has a nature of the kind that philosophers might find out about and develop theories of. The main idea of the deflationary approach is (a) that all that can be significantly said about truth is exhausted by an account of the role of the expression ‘true’ or of the concept of truth in our talk and thought, and (b) that, by contrast with what traditional views assume, this role is neither metaphysically substantive nor explanatory. For example, according to deflationary accounts, to say that ‘snow is white’ is true, or that it is true that snow is white, is in some sense strongly equivalent to saying simply that snow is white, and this, according to the deflationary approach, is all that can be said significantly about the truth of ‘snow is white’. Philosophers looking for some underlying nature of some truth property that is attributed with the use of the expression ‘true’ are bound to be frustrated, the deflationist says, because they are looking for something that isn’t there. Deflationism comprises a variety of different versions, each of which have gone by different names, including at least the following: disquotationalism, minimalism, prosententialism, the redundancy theory, the disappearance theory, the no-truth theory. There has not always been terminological consensus in the literature about how to use these labels: sometimes they have been used interchangeably; sometimes they have been used to mark distinctions between different developments of the same general approach. The actual variety of deflationary views has not always been clear in discussions of this approach, especially in the earlier literature, where important differences are occasionally missed. To help clear this up, we will use ‘deflationism’ to denote the general approach we want to discuss and reserve other names for specific versions of that approach. (shrink)

Georg Kreisel suggested various ways out of the Gödel incompleteness theorems. His remarks on ways out were somewhat parenthetical, and suggestive. He did not develop them in subsequent papers. One aim of this paper is not to develop those remarks, but to show how the basic idea that they express can be used to reason about the Lucas-Penrose-Putnam arguments that human minds are not finitary computational machines. Another aim is to show how one of Putnam’s two anti-functionalist arguments avoids the (...) logical error in the Lucas-Penrose arguments, extends those arguments, but succumbs to an absurdity. A third aim is to provide a categorization of the Lucas-Penrose-Putnam anti-functionalist arguments. (shrink)

It is commonplace to describe the pragmatist conception of truth as incompatible with correspondence theory. This popular description relies on a deflationary reading of Peirce and James’s many apparent endorsements of correspondence. This reading says they regarded it as a mere platitude or truism, not as a substantive piece of philosophical theorizing. There are two main reasons typically offered in support of this platitude narrative – its consonance with Peirce’s original formulation of PT from 1878, and the objections that pragmatists (...) frequently raised against various notions traditionally associated with CT. I argue that neither reason is compelling and that PT and CT are compatible conceptions of truth. (shrink)

In this Special Issue of Journal of Critical Realism on Normativity, Elder-Vass has provided a paper that in part responds to one that Chris Winship and I wrote together, which was presented at the...

Both Kant and James claim to limit the role of knowledge in order to make room for faith. In this paper, we argue that despite some similarities, their attempts to do this come apart. Our main claim is that, although both Kant and James justify our adopting religious beliefs on practical grounds, James believes that we can—and should—subsequently assess such beliefs on the basis of evidence. We offer our own account of this evidence and discuss what this difference means for (...) their accounts of religious belief. (shrink)

The debate between critics of syntactic and semantic approaches to the formalization of scientific theories has been going on for over 50 years. I structure the debate in light of a recent exchange between Hans Halvorson, Clark Glymour, and Bas van Fraassen and argue that the only remaining disagreement concerns the alleged difference in the dependence of syntactic and semantic approaches on languages of predicate logic. This difference turns out to be illusory.

This article investigates the history of the relation between idealism and pragmatism by examining the importance of the French idealist Charles Renouvier for the development of William James's ‘Will to Believe’. By focusing on French idealism, we obtain a broader understanding of the kinds of idealism on offer in the nineteenth century. First, I show that Renouvier's unique methodological idealism led to distinctively pragmatist doctrines and that his theory of certitude and its connection to freedom is worthy of reconsideration. Second, (...) I argue that the technical vocabulary and main structure of the argument from the ‘Will to Believe’ depend upon Renouvier's idealist theory of knowledge and psychology of belief, and that taking account of this line of influence is of crucial importance for establishing the correct interpretation of James's work. (shrink)

Abstract Few theoretical insights have emerged from the extensive literature discussions of petitio principii argument. In particular, the pattern of petitio analysis has largely been one of movement between the two sides of a dichotomy, that of form and content. In this paper, I trace the basis of this dichotomy to a dualist conception of mind and world. I argue for the rejection of the form/content dichotomy on the ground that its dualist presuppositions generate a reductionist analysis of certain concepts (...) which are central to the analysis of petitio argument. I contend, for example, that no syntactic relation can assimilate within its analysis the essentially holistic nature of a notion like justification. In this regard, I expound a form of dialectical criticism which has been frequently employed in the philosophical arguments of Hilary Putnam. Here the focus of analysis is upon the way in which the proponent of a position proceeds to explain or argue for his/her own particular theses. My conclusion points to the use of such dialectic within future analyses of petitio principii. (shrink)

This survey article discusses the pragmatist tradition in twentieth century philosophy of science. Pragmatism, originating with Charles Peirce's writings on the pragmatic maxim in the 1870s, is a background both for scientific realism and, via the views of William James and John Dewey, for the relativist and/or constructivist forms of neopragmatism that have often been seen as challenging the very ideas of scientific rationality and objectivity. The paper shows how the issue of realism arises in pragmatist philosophy of science and (...) how some pragmatists, classical and modern, have attempted to deal with it. Various dimensions of the realism dispute are thus discussed, especially realism as contrasted to instrumentalism and realism as contrasted to relativism/constructivism. It is argued that the pragmatist tradition cannot avoid these tensions but is largely constituted by them. (shrink)

This paper compares and contrasts three views on the issue of 'solipsism' that were much discussed in the first half of the 20th century, namely those of Wittgenstein, Carnap and Reichenbach. While the paper deals mainly with early Wittgenstein, the so-called 'later Wittgenstein ' is seen as arguing that Carnap's Aufbau, and any similar 'solipsist' reinterpretation of the language must start with a notion of experience utterly different from the one we actually have. And this criticism actually coheres with Wittgenstein (...) 's views in the Tractatus. (shrink)

On the normativity objection to Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth, his theory fails to capture the value of truth. In response to this objection, he argues that his minimalist theory of truth is compatible with the value of truth. On his view, the concept of truth is not constitutively normative, but the value of true beliefs can be explained instead by the belief-truth norm that we ought to want our beliefs to be true, and the value of true beliefs expressed (...) in this norm is a moral value. I accept a deflationary theory of truth, according to which truth is too thin a concept to be constituted by any substantial norms. Thus I agree that the concept of truth is not constitutively normative. In this paper, however, I argue that the alleged value of true beliefs can be better explained in terms of epistemic normativity rather than moral normativity. (shrink)

That one person's modus ponens is another's modus tollens is the bane of philosophy because it strips many philosophical arguments of their persuasive force. The problem is that philosophical arguments become mere pantomemes: arguments that are reasonable to resist simply by denying the conclusion. Appeals to proof, intuition, evidence, and truth fail to alleviate the problem. Two broad strategies, however, do help in certain circumstances: an appeal to normal informal standards of what is reasonable (nisowir) and argument by interpretation. The (...) method of explication features prominently in both strategies, and the paper extends this method to apply to nisowir, introducing the concept of canonical explication. The paper illustrates the two strategies with examples of arguments from formal epistemology and suggests that an appeal to nisowir might help to defend against philosophical scepticism by shifting the burden of proof to the sceptic. (shrink)

Recent discussions in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind have defended a theory according to which we live in a virtual world akin to a computer simulation, generated by our brain. It is argued that our brain creates a model world from a variety of stimuli; this model is perceived as if it was external and perception-independent, even though it is neither of the two. The view of the mind, brain, and world, entailed by this theory has some peculiar (...) consequences which have rarely been explored in detail. This paper sets out virtual world theory and relates it to various central philosophical problems, the role of the perceiver and the problem of the existence of the external world ). The second part suggests three interpretations of virtual world theory, two familiar ones and a somewhat less familiar one. The remainder of the paper argues that the irrealist interpretation is the one we should adopt. (shrink)

This chapter intervenes in recent debates in Kant scholarship about the possibility of a general logical alien. Such an alien is a thinker whose laws of thinking violate ours. She is third-personal as she is radically unlike us. Proponents of the constitutive reading of Kant’s conception of general logic accordingly suggest that Kant rules out the possibility of such an alien as unthinkable. I add to this an often-overlooked element in Kant’s thinking: there is reason to think that he grants—and (...) in fact presupposes—the possibility of a transcendental logical alien. Such an alien is a knower whose laws of experience purport to violate ours. She is first-personal as she is radically like us. In other words, she is us, insofar as we are alienated from ourselves and our experience. I go on to draw an analogy between her, a dogmatist, and another transcendental alien, an evil agent. Just as a dogmatist is alienated from her (our) experiential laws, an evil agent is alienated from her (our) moral law. These forms of theoretical and practical self-conceit require self-knowledge in the form of a critique of speculative or practical reason. In bringing this point out, I aim to shift from the question of whether logical laws constitute our thinking to the question of whether grasping our experiential and moral laws as our laws constitutes our reason. (shrink)

Neither traditional philosophy nor current applied ethics seem able to cope adequately with the highly dynamic character of our modern technological culture. This is because they have insufficient insight into the moral significance of technological artifacts and systems. Here, much can be learned from recent science and technology studies. They have opened up the black box of technological developments and have revealed the intimate intertwinement of technology and society in minute detail. However, while applied ethics is characterized by a certain (...) “technology blindness,” the most influential approaches within STS show a “normative deficit” and display an agnostic or even antagonistic attitude toward ethics. To repair the blind spots of both applied ethics and STS,the authors sketch the contours of a pragmatist approach. They will explore the tasks and tools of a pragmatist ethics and pay special attention to the exploration of future worlds disclosed and shaped by technology and the management of deep value conflicts inherent to a pluralist society. (shrink)

Abstract Under the influence of Hilary Putnam’s collapse of the fact/value dichotomy, a resurging approach that challenges the movements of American pragmatism and discourse ethics, I tease out in the first section of my paper the demand for the warranted assertibility hypothesis in Putnam’s sense that may be possible, relying on moral realism to get rid of ‘rampant Platonism’. Tracing back to ‘communicative action’ or the Habermasian way that puts forward the reciprocal understanding of discourse instigates the idea of life-world (...) as composed of ‘culturally transmitted and linguistically organized stock of interpretative patterns’, this section looks for whether Habermas’ psychoanalysis of prolonged discussion can accord with Putnam’s thick ethical terms or not. The last section of the paper pitfalls Putnam’s stance to accepting Habermas’ ‘discourse ethics’ that centers around the context of entangling ‘rational thoughts’ to ‘communication’, but he introduces the idea of fallibilism in a rational query that also attacks the Habermasian metaphysical idea of the validity of ethical statements that goes towards the truth. My next attempt is to see whether Putnam’s objective dictum towards morality that resonates the collapse of fact/value dichotomy from a universalistic stand can successfully evade Rorty’s naive realism (structured by linguistic representation) and Habermas’ ‘sociologism about values’ (a kind of minimalist ethics depending on solidarity) respectively. This sort of claim insists on a universalizable pattern of culture-relative value. I consider that the idea of a fact/value dichotomy engages with the inextricable entanglement between the normative and descriptive content, besides the epistemic values having exclusively intertwined with the structure of factual discourse that intends towards collapsing the fact/value dichotomy, a subjective universalizability predilection. (shrink)

Under the influence of Hilary Putnam’s collapse of the fact/value dichotomy, a resurging approach that challenges the movements of American pragmatism and discourse ethics, I tease out in the first section of my paper the demand for the warranted assertibility hypothesis in Putnam’s sense that may be possible, relying on moral realism to get rid of ‘rampant Platonism’. Tracing back to ‘communicative action’ or the Habermasian way that puts forward the reciprocal understanding of discourse instigates the idea of life-world as (...) composed of ‘culturally transmitted and linguistically organized stock of interpretative patterns’, this section looks for whether Habermas’ psychoanalysis of prolonged discussion can accord with Putnam’s thick ethical terms or not. The last section of the paper pitfalls Putnam’s stance to accepting Habermas’ ‘discourse ethics’ that centers around the context of entangling ‘rational thoughts’ to ‘communication’, but he introduces the idea of fallibilism in a rational query that also attacks the Habermasian metaphysical idea of the validity of ethical statements that goes towards the truth. My next attempt is to see whether Putnam’s objective dictum towards morality that resonates the collapse of fact/value dichotomy from a universalistic stand can successfully evade Rorty’s naive realism and Habermas’ ‘sociologism about values’ respectively. This sort of claim insists on a universalizable pattern of culture-relative value. I consider that the idea of a fact/value dichotomy engages with the inextricable entanglement between the normative and descriptive content, besides the epistemic values having exclusively intertwined with the structure of factual discourse that intends towards collapsing the fact/value dichotomy, a subjective universalizability predilection. (shrink)

This paper examines the metaphysical status of the fact-value entanglement. According to Hilary Putnam, among others, this is a major theme in both classical and recent pragmatism, but its relevance obviously extends beyond pragmatism scholarship. The pragmatic naturalist must make sense of the entanglement thesis within a broadly non-reductively naturalist account of reality. Two rival options for such metaphysics are discussed: values may be claimed to emerge from facts (or normativity from factuality), or fact and value may be considered continuous. (...) Thus, pragmatic naturalism about fact and value may be based on either emergentism or Peircean synechism. This is a crucial tension not only in pragmatist philosophy of value but in pragmatically naturalist metaphysics generally. (shrink)