What is the true worth of Wittgenstein's contribution to philosophy? Answers to this question are strongly divided. However, most assessments rest on certain popular misreadings of his purpose. This book challenges both "theoretical" and "therapeutic" interpretations. In their place, it seeks to establish that, from beginning to end, Wittgenstein regarded clarification as the true end of philosophy. It argues that, properly understood, his approach exemplifies rather than betrays critical philosophy and provides a viable alternative to other contemporary offerings.

The notions 'worldview' and 'social identity' are examined to consider whether they contribute substantively to causal sequences or networks or thought clusters that result in group acts executed intentionally. ... Three proposed explanaitons of sectarian conflict or ethnic violence are analysed as examples of theories that causally link intenitonal group behaivour to the worldviews and social identities of the individual agents directly involved. But as will be shown, it is not a priori features of worldivews and identities as such, but (...) historically specific facts and contingent circumstances that need to be examined in order to explain group-motivated behaviour. Reference to worldviews and identities detract from adequate explanation. (shrink)

Les représentants de l'École autrichienne sont ici mis sous la même bannière pour autant seulement qu'ils ont été unanimes à revendiquer pour les postulats de l'économie pure, les «lois exactes» de la théorie économique, c'est-à-dire de la théorie marginale de l'utilité, un statut particulier en ce sens qu'ils tenaient pour impossible, voire absurde ou simplement inutile de soumettre les postulats en cause à des tests empiriques. L'apriorisme dont ils se réclament, fait à juste titre la marque de commerce de l'École (...) marginaliste autrichienne; Menger en a fourni les principes, von Mises la justification, et Rothbard s'est occupé de propager la doctrine de l'autre côté de l'Atlantique. (shrink)

Frank Jackson and David Chalmers have suggested that the diagonal intensions defined by their two-dimensional framework can play the two key roles of Fregean senses: they provide a priori accessible extension conditions for a representation and they provide the identity conditions for meanings and thought contents. In this paper, I clarify the nature of the psychological abilities that are needed to underwrite the first role. I then argue that these psychological abilities are not sufficiently stable or cognitively salient to individuate (...) meanings or thought contents. (shrink)

The methodology implicit in empirically grounded social scientific studies of religion naturally allies with forms of semantic holism. However, a well known argument which questions whether holism in general is consistent with the fact that languages are learnable can be extended into an epistemological one which questions whether holism is consistent with an empirical methodology. In other words, there is question whether holism, in fact, makes social science possible. I diagnose the assumptions on which that objection rests, pointing out that (...) they are not necessary for semantic holism per se. I argue that a form of semantic holism along the lines advocated by W. V. O. Quine and Donald Davidson can avoid the objection. Moreover, when seen in this light, it has the resources to withstand an even deeper methodological problem. In so doing, though, several important but overlooked implications for the study of religion emerge. (shrink)

Care reasoning is valuable not because its nicer or kinder. Rather, it is the most reasonable way to come to terms with moral phenomena. Interpreting arguments requires making sense of the relationship between statements. Making sense of moral pheno mena requires making sense of relationships between moral subjects. Thus, the best reconstructions of moral problems will be realized in a medium where meaningfulness is not undermined by indeterminacy. Fur ther, the rationality of care reasoning, which Gilligan calls narrative, can be (...) appreciated by analogy with the rationale for the principle of charity in the interpretation of arguments. (shrink)