It is intended that a large Academy be erected, capable of containing nine thousand seven hundred forty and three persons, which, by modest computation, is reckoned to be pretty near the current nu...

Relativism is often motivated in terms of certain types of disagreement. In this paper, we survey the philosophical debates over two such types: faultless disagreement in the case of gustatory conflict, and fundamental disagreement in the case of epistemic conflict. Each of the two discussions makes use of a implicit conception of judgement: brute judgement in the case of faultless disagreement, and rule-governed judgement in the case of fundamental disagreement. We show that the prevalent accounts work with unreasonably high levels (...) of idealization. We defend two claims. First, philosophical discussions of disagreement need to be de-idealized. Second, once a less idealized account of disagreement is available, both our conception of judgement and our understanding of relativism need to be revised. Our example is a case study in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer’s classic Leviathan and the Air-Pump. This case study gives a less idealized account of disagreement that conceptualizes judgements as situated. We argue that this conception can and should be applied to cases of gustatory and epistemic disagreement. The payoff will be a reformulation of relativism in terms of rationally resolvable yet contingent disagreements. (shrink)

Accounts of the nature of unpleasant pain have proliferated over the past decade, but there has been little systematic investigation of which of them can accommodate its badness. This paper is such a study. In its sights are two targets: those who deny the non-instrumental disvalue of pain's unpleasantness; and those who allow it but deny that it can be accommodated by the view—advanced by me and others—that unpleasant pains are interoceptive experiences with evaluative content. Against the former, I argue (...) that pain's unpleasantness does indeed have noninstrumental disvalue; against the latter I argue both that my critics’ own desire-theoretic accounts of pain's unpleasantness cannot accommodate such disvalue, and that my evaluativist view can—either by appealing to “anti-unpleasantness” desires or by exploiting pain's perceptuality. (shrink)

The Philosophical Underpinnings of Social Constructionist Discourse Analysis Although discourse analysis emerges as a multi-faceted research method reflecting various schools of thought, disciplines and approaches, it is possible to pinpoint some meta-theoretical issues or fundamental assumptions common for most of them. This article aims to investigate different philosophical aspects and theoretical foundations that inform discourse analysis, such as the interplay between epistemological and ontological dimensions or the definition of language itself. Because space does not allow an in-depth discussion of all (...) the theoretical orientations collectively contributing to the development of social constructionist discourse analysis, this paper focuses on poststructuralist, constructivist, and social realist positions, and also attempts to trace the roots of social constructionism in linguistic philosophy, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Hopefully, this article will provide the opportunity to develop meta-theoretical reflections on discourse analysis, thus striking the balance between the philosophy, methodology and practice. (shrink)

Discussing the workings of technology in care as aesthetic rather than as ethical or epistemological interventions focusses on how technologies engage in and change relations between those involved. Such an aesthetic study opens up a repertoire to address values that are abundant in care, but are as yet hardly theorized. Kamphof studies the problem that sensor technology reveals things about the elderly patients without the patients being aware of this. I suggest improvement of these relations may be considered in aesthetic (...) terms, for instance by developing the affective quality of people’s technological relationships. (shrink)

This paper discusses the potential of the notions of reification and consensualization as developed by the theory of social representations as analytical tools for addressing the communication between the lay and scientific spheres. Social Representations Theory started by offering an over-sharp distinction between the reified and the consensual universes of which science and common sense, respectively, were presented as paradigmatic. This paper, however, suggests that the notions of consensual and reified can be considered as describing two distinct communicative formats: reification (...) implying the use of arguments which establish prescriptions for representations and action, and consensualization relying on arguments which recognize the heterogeneity of representation and action. We illustrate this proposal through the analysis of a case in which the expert and the lay spheres of a Lisbon neighborhood opposed each other regarding the new laws of public participation in community matters. This analysis showed how reification and consensualization can be used as discursive formats by both spheres. The implications of the use of reification and consensualization and how they may depend on several power resources and have different impacts on social change are discussed. (shrink)

This article investigates the status of Norbert Elias’s conception of the sociology of knowledge as the means to provide a new epistemological security for sociology. The author of the article argues that this translates into an effective critique of the underlaboring model of the relationship between philosophy and the social sciences, which is consistent with Elias’s attempt to consolidate his own sociological theory. Nevertheless, the author argues that Elias’s sociology of knowledge runs into problems in its attempt to evade the (...) problem of relativism in explanation, and in its conception of human agency. (shrink)

There exist two equally prominent, though seemingly divergent metaphilosophical viewpoints. One takes philosophy to be an essentially revolutionary process. The other sees philosophy as a constructive, collaborative enterprise that seeks increased rigor and consensus. Recent debate in the philosophy of language regarding the relationship of particular languages to the general capacity for language reveals an illuminating structural analogy with these divergent metaphilosophical trends. While neither debate is settled herein, regardless of their eventual determinations, it is concluded that there is little (...) reason to suppose that philosophy will some day become a science, at least not in any metaphilosophically meaningful sense of the phrase. (shrink)

It is a commonplace among certain recent philosophers that there is no such thing as the essence of anything. Nietzsche, for example, asserts that things have no essence of their own, because they are nothing but ceaselessly changing ways of acting on, and reacting to, other things. Wittgenstein, famously, rejects the idea that there is an essence to language and thought – at least if we mean by that some a priori logical structure underlying our everyday utterances. Finally, Richard Rorty (...) urges that we ‘abandon … the notion of “essence” altogether’, along with ‘the notion that man's essence is to be a knower of essences’. (shrink)

Jonathan Edwards identified the central act of faith as ‘the cordial consent of beings to Being in general’, which is to say to God. That equation, of Being, Truth and God, is rarely taken seriously in analytical circles. My argument will be that this is to neglect the real context of a great deal of past philosophy, particularly the very Cartesian arguments from which so many undergraduate courses begin. All too many students issue from such courses immunized against enthusiasm, in (...) the conceit that they have answers to all the old conundrums, which were in any case no more than verbal trickery. ‘By uttering the right words but failing to use them in propria persona, philosophy induces a kind of soporific amnesia bewitching us into forgetting our God-given task. That task is, of course, to do what Socrates did and to live as he lived'. Burrell's words are not wholly fair to academic philosophers, nor to the Lady Philosophy. Plenty of philosophers really mind about the truth, and want to be Socratic in pursuit of it. But the danger is a real one. If all that matters is debunking past philosophers, how does that differ from the repeated refutation of the Chaldaean Oracles or the Prophecies of Nostradamus? A pretty enough pastime for the young, but hardly serious business for adults. ‘If the history of philosophy is a process of ‘salvaging’ what you yourself have already thought, then why bother?’. (shrink)

I resolve several pressing and recalcitrant problems in contemporary philosophy of science using resources from John Dewey's philosophy of science. I begin by looking at Dewey's epistemological and logical writings in their historical context, in order to understand better how Dewey's philosophy disappeared from the limelight, and I provide a reconstruction of his views. Then, I use that reconstruction to address problems of evidence, the social dimensions of science, and pluralism. Generally, mainstream philosophers of science with an interest in Dewey (...) pay little attention to the body of scholarship on Dewey and tend to misinterpret or miss important features of his work, while Dewey scholars generally do not connect his work to the nuanced problems of the contemporary scene (with some notable exceptions). My dissertation helps to fill this important gap and correct common interpretive mistakes by reconstructing and clarifying Dewey's philosophy of science and using it to resolve several contemporary problems. Though his is the road less traveled, Dewey's views provide a good starting place for addressing current concerns. He worked towards a model of science that is both fully naturalistic and fundamentally oriented towards human practice, demands that have been strongly argued for but poorly assimilated by most mainstream philosophers of science. He treats scientific practice, and human thinking generally, as not only embodied but also socially and technologically embedded, and thus can be used to open up a dialogue with much of the social studies of science. He has an anti- foundationalist but structured epistemology, and he offers a way to navigate the narrow paths between an immodest and simplistic realism and the pessimistic extremes of anti-realism and social constructivism, a pursuit of interest to many major philosophers of science at present. Philosophy of science took a different path in the twentieth century, beginning with the "received view'' of logical positivism that left many of the nuances of the original movement by the wayside. No aspect of that starting point has avoided disrepute in recent decades. I show that Dewey avoided the wrong turns of mid- century philosophy of science which are now blocking the way forward. (shrink)

Debates about nonconceptual content impact many philosophical disciplines, including philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of language. However, arguments made by many philosophers from within the pragmatist tradition, including Quine, Sellars, Davidson, Rorty, and Putnam, undercut the very role such content purportedly plays. I explore how specifically Sellarsian arguments against the Given and Rortian defenses of “epistemological behaviorism” undermine standard conceptions of nonconceptual content. Subsequently, I show that the standard objections to epistemological behaviorism inadequately attend to the essentially social and (...) practical nature of justification. (shrink)

Considering the German idea of Bildung, I argue that it is a central concern of Habermas. First, he criticized the idea of being educated as a sign of innate abilities, emphasizing instead the significance of the social conditions of the upbringing. Subsequently, inspired by Adorno, he performed an analysis of Bildung, based on critique of ideology, in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The basic critique is that Bildung is too tightly connected to societal dominance, but still the ideal (...) holds some truth. His comments on Bildung over the subsequent years are sparse. However, in Knowledge and Human Interest he works his way out of the framework of philosophy of consciousness, which results in the Theory of Communicative Action, and with this approach he can discuss Bildung in relation to discourse ethics and the role of the university. In this new version, Bildung finally becomes crucial to Habermas' political philosophy in Between Facts and Norms. (shrink)

Modern Western thought and culture have envisaged their task in terms of a metaphorics, a metaphysics and a technics of 'enlightenment'. However, the ethical and environmental implications of this determination to dispel all shadows have become increasingly pernicious as modernity both extends and alters the conceptualization and employment of (a now artificial) light as a tool of discovery and control. Drawing on the work of Foucault and Benjamin amongst others, this paper seeks to illustrate, through a critical ethopoietics, the 'speculative (...) aporia' of contemporary society from the perspective of radical ecology. The world does not just reflect our own instrumental interests: it has an elusive, shadowy existence of its own that can impinge upon our ethical perceptions. (shrink)

Richard Smith; Learning from Experience, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 37–46, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1.

This chapter develops a simple theory of introspection on which a mental state is introspectively accessible just by virtue of the fact that one is in that mental state. This theory raises two questions: first, a generalization question: which mental states are introspectively accessible; and second, an explanatory question: why are some mental states introspectively accessible, rather than others, or none at all? In response to the generalization question, I argue that a mental state is introspectively accessible if and only (...) if it is phenomenally individuated. And in response to the explanatory question, I argue that a mental state is introspectively accessible if and only if it is among the determinants of justification. This provides the basis of an argument for a phenomenal conception of justification, according to which a mental state is among the determinants of justification if and only if it is phenomenally individuated. (shrink)

Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

There is overwhelming agreement amongst naturalists that a naturalistic ontology should not allow for the possibility of supernatural entities. I argue, against this prevailing consensus, that naturalists have no proper basis to oppose the existence of supernatural entities. Naturalism is characterized, following Leiter and Rea, as a position which involves a primary commitment to scientific methodology and it is argued that any naturalistic ontological commitments must be compatible with this primary commitment. It is further argued that properly applied scientific method (...) has warranted the acceptance of the existence of supernatural entities in the past and that it is plausible to think that it will do so again in the future. So naturalists should allow for the possibility of supernatural entities. (shrink)

Theories of children's developing understanding of mind tend to emphasize either individualistic processes of theory formation, maturation, or introspection, or the process of enculturation. However, such theories must be able to account for the accumulating evidence of the role of social interaction in the development of social understanding. We propose an alternative account, according to which the development of children's social understanding occurs within triadic interaction involving the child's experience of the world as well as communicative interaction with others about (...) their experience and beliefs (Chapman 1991; 1999). It is through such triadic interaction that children gradually construct knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of other people. We contend that the extent and nature of the social interaction children experience will influence the development of children's social understanding. Increased opportunity to engage in cooperative social interaction and exposure to talk about mental states should facilitate the development of social understanding. We review evidence suggesting that children's understanding of mind develops gradually in the context of social interaction. Therefore, we need a theory of development in this area that accords a fundamental role to social interaction, yet does not assume that children simply adopt socially available knowledge but rather that children construct an understanding of mind within social interaction. Key Words: language; Piaget; social interaction; theories of mind; Vygotsky; Wittgenstein. (shrink)

To view a work knowingly gives understanding but not hope Rorty, "The Necessity of Inspired Reading" I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. Thoreau, Walden.

It is difficult to imagine that a Royal Institute of Physics would organize an annual lecture series on the theme ‘conceptions of physics’. Similarly, it is quite improbable that a Royal Institute of Astronomy would even contemplate inviting speakers for a lecture series called ‘conceptions of astronomy’. What, then, is so special about philosophy that the theme of this lecture series does not appear to be altogether outlandish? Is it, perhaps, that philosophy is the reflective discipline par excellence, so that (...) the very nature of philosophy is a topic that belongs to its domain of investigations? Or is there something more serious at issue? Let me first tell you how the question concerning the nature of philosophy arose for me as a young student, and how I tried to answer it, quite naively, by endorsing Edmund Husserl's programme of turning philosophy into a rigorous science. In a second section, I shall offer three diagnoses of the fact that all such attempts seem to have failed. Finally, I'd like to say a few words on my own research agenda in philosophy and on a public function of philosophers. (shrink)

Although they may differ on the reason why, many philosophers hold that it is a priori that an object is red if and only if it is such as to look red to normal observers in normal conditions.

Lonergan writes both of a foundation for human knowing as well as of a functional specialty he termed ‘foundations’. Neither of these is the same as ‘foundation’ as the term is used by nonfoundationalists. Lack of clarity and differentiation regarding what is meant by ‘foundationalism’ sometimes informs the perception that Lonergan is a foundationalist. The burden of this essay is to show that Lonergan's philosophical and theological thought, as well as his use of the term ‘foundations’, fall awkwardly, if at (...) all, under anti-foundationalist strictures. There is a need to clarify and differentiate a range of terms and concepts in this regard. Lonergan shares with anti-foundationalists the rejection of ocular metaphors and other naïve approaches to human knowing. Lonergan's own search for ‘foundations’, which I argue is critical for a world Church consciousness and meets the Rahner-test for a world Church, is part of an overall project to situate knowing within identifiable, recurring patterns in the operations of human consciousness. (shrink)

Our aim is to explore and develop notions of objectivity that are useful and appropriate for critical realist empirical research. In Part I, we provided an initial definition that introduced the idea that objectivity is a value that must be chosen but that its significance is rooted in a series of other epistemological and ontological matters. We also addressed why it is worthwhile in realist terms to develop the notion of objectivity, and began to develop a revision of the concept (...) to recognise the role of subjectivities. This, we maintain, is an important clarification in developing social research. Part II explores the linkages between objectivity and situated action. In Part II we argue that the growth of knowledge requires engagement and critical analysis. We develop the idea that if subjects are engaged through multiple standpoints, then objectivity becomes significant as a lever of agency in the service of dialogue and debate and of transformations. Again, our aim is to be of use to practical researchers by providing underlying arguments. Specifically, we argue that objectivity is a bridge between the subjectivities of subjects and the rest of the real world. In so doing, the paper works through various desirable characteristics of an adequate theorisation of knowledge that could make objectivity part of the ontological underpinnings as well as the daily practices of a realist researcher. Objectivity thus links philosophical work to the everyday work of realist researchers. (shrink)

Words and Life (= WL) is a bulky collection of 29 essays, edited and introduced by James Conant. Pragmatism: An Open Question (= P) is a much thinner collection, dedicated to Conant, of just three lectures. Taken together, the two books constitute an argument for pragmatism as a viable option in contemporary philosophy, and a new (pragmatic) basis for what remains viable in the philosophical and political ideals of the Enlightenment. As in a previous collection of essays (Putnam 1990), Conant’s (...) role appears to be more than just editorial. In his own lengthy introductions, he gives Putnam’s work an interpretive ‘spin’, of which Putnam, for his part, seems to approve. Together, Putnam and Conant develop a strain of pragmatism which is well worth looking into.1 Putnam’s pragmatism is best captured by the quote from Cavell (1979: p. 125) which appears as the motto on the title page of the 1994 collection, and from which its title – ‘Words and Life’ – is derived. It is the view that although philosophy is an open ended practice of reflection, rather than a purely contemplative theory of one kind or another, the practice in question is at one and the same time a part of culture (immanence) and a step beyond it (transcendence). In Cavell’s language, the task of such reflection (‘philosophizing’) is ‘to confront culture with itself, along the lines in which it meets in me’, where the self in question – the individual qua philosopher – appears to be engulfed by culture even as he is confronting it from the outside. On this interpretation, Putnam’s appeal to practice in philosophy is part of an attempt to keep its transcendent, or critical, dimension alive, even while recognizing philosophy’s radical embeddedness in culture and tradition, and the futility of seeking some God’s-eye view from which reality as such is to be viewed.2 The question is whether, and how, these two perspectives can be held together. If our standards of rational criticism transcend any particular culture in terms of their scope and authority, how can they also be embedded in culture and immanent to it? Can pragmatism offer a coherent synthesis of these two dimensions.. (shrink)

If you do not wish to construe philosophical discourse as simply a discourse of cognition, a theoretical discourse; if you think it is also a practical, ethical discourse: how should you write? How should you frame the ethos, the authority of your discourse? This article re‐presents an extended preface I wrote and rewrote obsessively over a period of nearly two years in an effort to forge a voice and mode of address adequate to my sense of philosophical discourse as a (...) practical discourse, whilst also being accountable to the generic requirements of a PhD. As the textual record of this struggle, the value of this text must remain primarily in its capacity to evoke or provoke similar generic memories or ambitions in the reader. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to cast new light on an important and often overlooked notion of perspectival knowledge arising from Kant. In addition to a traditional notion of perspectival knowledge as "knowledge from a vantage point", a second novel notion — "knowledge towards a vantage point" —is here introduced. The origin and rationale of perspectival knowledge 2 are traced back to Kant's so-called transcendental illusion. The legacy of the Kantian notion of perspectival knowledge 2 for contemporary discussions on (...) disagreement and the role of metaphysics in scientific knowledge is discussed. (shrink)

James D Marshall; Wittgenstein on Rules: implications for authority and discipline in education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 1, 30 May.

Theorists, who broadly subscribe to Claude Lefort’s characterization of democracy as the dissolution of the markers of certainty, disagree over the proper enactment of democracy. In this article, I consider the possibility of narrowing the gap by attending to the ignorance advocated by each of the two approaches – the disruptive radical route Jacques Rancière describes and the reformist approach of Richard Rorty. I highlight the attributes and shortcomings of the positive link between practices of ignorance and democracy in the (...) work of the two theorists, and explore how the practices they describe can complement each other in the enactment of democracy. (shrink)

McDowell has argued that external world scepticism is a pressing problem only in so far as we accept, on the basis of the argument from illusion, the claim that perceiving that p and hallucinating that p involve a highest common factor.

This essay focuses on the ongoing references made to the ban on graven images for the foundation of political aesthetics. In this tradition the image itself plays a significant role in the creation of a dichotomy in which the image becomes either “icon” or false appearance. The image in this tradition is a powerful agent and gains as such performative power. From the Bible to Kant and German idealism to Adorno and Deleuze, the prohibition of the image signals its power (...) and turns it into a strong magnet in political aesthetics, may it be affirmative or negative. (shrink)

This paper presents a historical examination of the influence of the Darwinian metaphor 'the struggle for existence' on a variety of scientific theories which inform our current understanding of the prospects for sustainable development. The first part of the paper traces the use of the metaphor of struggle through two distinct avenues of thought relevant to the search for sustainable development. One of these avenues leads to the biophysical critique of conventional development popularised by 'ecological economists' such as Georgescu-Roegen and (...) Daly. This critique suggests that modern economic systems have gone astray by failing to respect the biological and physical limits to development and that they should be adapted to make them more like ecological systems. The other avenue leads to the modern insights of evolutionary psychology. These latter insights suggest that in certain key respects, the economic system (and actors within it) are already behaving more or less like an ecological system, driven as they are by evolutionary imperatives. Consequently, this second avenue appears to offer far bleaker prospects for achieving sustainable development than the first. However, the final part of the paper re-examines the historical roots of the metaphor itself, and suggests a number of ways in which a critical response to those historical roots might influence our understanding of the prospects for sustainable development. (shrink)

It is a commonplace among certain recent philosophers that there is no such thing as theessenceof anything. Nietzsche, for example, asserts that things have no essence of their own, because they are nothing but ceaselessly changing ways of acting on, and reacting to, other things. Wittgenstein, famously, rejects the idea that there is an essence to language and thought — at least if we mean by that somea priorilogical structure underlying our everyday utterances. Finally, Richard Rorty urges that we “abandon (...) […] the notion of ‘essence’ altogether”, along with “the notion that man's essence is to be a knower of essences”.It would be wrong to maintain that these writers understand the concept of essence in precisely the same way, or that they are all working towards the same philosophical goal. Nevertheless, they do share one aim in common: to undermine the idea that there is some deeper reality or identityunderlyingandgroundingwhat we encounter in the world, what we say and what we do. That is to say, they may all be described asanti-foundationalistthinkers — thinkers who want us to attend to the specific processes and practices of nature and humanity without understanding them to be the product of some fundamental essence or “absolute”. (shrink)

Pádraig Hogan; What Makes Practice Educational?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 15–26, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.146.

Reason, objectivity, and human nature are now suspect ideas. Among postmodern thinkers, Richard Rorty has advanced an especially forceful critique of these notions. Drawing partly on Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, Rorty contends that objectivity is no more than a metaphysical name for intersubjective agreement, and that “human nature” is an empty category, there being nothing beneath history and culture. Wittgenstein himself, however, recognized within the world's many civilizations “the common behavior of mankind,” without which Rorty's ethnocentric “solidarity” would be inconceivable. (...) This common form of life—the life of those who speak—encompasses countless human activities that presuppose and are interwoven with the concepts of reason and objectivity. (shrink)

There is a lapidary saying owing to Etienne Gilson, that is often misquoted or adapted – with ‘metaphysics’ taking the place of ‘philosophy’ – and which is invariably reproduced in isolation. It is that ‘Philosophy always buries its undertakers’. Understanding this remark as Gilson intended it is relevant to the issues of the nature of philosophy, and of what conception of it may be most appropriate or fruitful for us to pursue. The question of the mortality or otherwise of philosophy (...) in general, and of metaphysics in particular, is a significant one for ongoing intellectual enquiry, and it is also relevant to the current position of academic philosophy in Great Britain and in the English-speaking world. (shrink)

The concept of second nature plays a central role in McDowell's project of reconciling thought's external constraint with its spontaneity or autonomy: our conceptual capacities are natural in the sense that they are fully integrated into the natural world, but they are a second nature to us since they are not reducible to elements that are intelligible apart from those conceptual capacities. Rather than offering a theory of second nature and an account of how we acquire one, McDowell suggests that (...) Aristotle's account of ethical character formation as the acquisition of a second nature serves as a model that can reassure us that thought's autonomy does not threaten its naturalness. However, far from providing such reassurance, the Aristotelian model of second nature actually generates an anxiety about how the acquisition of such autonomous conceptual abilities could be possible. (shrink)

Philosophy's role is typically a reflective one. Yet this stance is in peril of being corrupted. Because it is being driven to specialized inquiries, the subdisciplines of which it is comprised may develop into separate fields, whose presence will then need to be justified in the same way the sciences are. This is impossible, however, given their diverging objectives. If this course of action persist, philosophy's end in the sense of its ending is imminent, on account of its no longer (...) having an end in the sense of its objective. (shrink)