An argument is epistemically self-defeating when either the truth of an argument’s conclusion or belief in an argument’s conclusion defeats one’s justification to believe at least one of that argument’s premises. Some extant defenses of the evidentiary value of intuition have invoked considerations of epistemic self-defeat in their defense. I argue that there is one kind of argument against intuition, an unreliability argument, which, even if epistemically self-defeating, can still imply that we are not justified (...) in thinking intuition has evidentiary value. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to Michael Huemer’s reply to my objection against Phenomenal Conservatism (PC). I have argued that Huemer’s Self-defeat Argument for PC does not favor PC over competing theories of basic propositional justification, since analogous self-defeat arguments can be constructed for competing theories. Huemer responds that such analogous self-defeat arguments are unsound. In this paper, I argue that Huemer’s reply does not save his Self-defeat Argument for PC from my original objection.

According to conciliatory views on the significance of disagreement, it’s rational for you to become less confident in your take on an issue in case your epistemic peer’s take on it is different. These views are intuitively appealing, but they also face a powerful objection: in scenarios that involve disagreements over their own correctness, conciliatory views appear to self-defeat and, thereby, issue inconsistent recommendations. This paper provides a response to this objection. Drawing on the work from defeasible logics paradigm (...) and abstract argumentation, it develops a formal model of conciliatory reasoning and explores its behavior in the troubling scenarios. The model suggests that the recommendations that conciliatory views issue in such scenarios are perfectly reasonable—even if outwardly they may look odd. (shrink)

Huemer defends phenomenal conservatism (PC) and also the further claim that belief in any rival theory is self-defeating (SD). Here I construct a dilemma for his position: either PC and SD are incompatible, or belief in PC is itself self-defeating. I take these considerations to suggest a better self-defeat argument for (belief in) PC and a strong form of internalism.

In this essay, I consider an evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) that purports to undermine the epistemic justification of the belief in the reliability of our belief-forming processes, and an evolutionary vindicating argument (EVA) that seeks to establish that such a belief is epistemically justified. Whereas the EDA in question seems to fall prey to crippling self-defeat, the EVA under consideration seems to fall prey to vicious circularity. My interest in those arguments and the problems they face lies in (...) what they might tell us about the possibly aporetic nature of reason. For, if we take the EDA and the EVA in question to consist of true or plausible premises and valid inferences at which we arrive through a meticulous use of reason, then their falling victim to either crippling self-defeat or vicious circularity might be regarded as a sign that, when we push rational reflection on the reliability, or lack thereof, of our belief-forming capacities to the limit, we end up in a situation of aporia from which there seems to be no escape. (shrink)

Evolutionary Debunking Arguments are defined as arguments that appeal to the evolutionary genealogy of our beliefs to undermine their justification. Recently, Helen De Cruz and her co-authors supported the view that EDAs are self-defeating: if EDAs claim that human arguments are not justified, because the evolutionary origin of the beliefs which figure in such arguments undermines those beliefs, and EDAs themselves are human arguments, then EDAs are not justified, and we should not accept (...) their conclusions about the fact that human arguments are unjustified. De Cruz's objection to EDAs is similar to the objection raised by Reuben Hersh against the claim that, since by Gödel's second incompleteness theorem the purpose of mathematical logic to give a secure foundation for mathematics cannot be achieved, mathematics cannot be said to be absolutely certain. The response given by Carlo Cellucci to Hersh's objection shows that the claim that by Gödel's results mathematics cannot be said to be absolutely certain is not self-defeating, and can be adopted to show that EDAs are not self-defeating as well in a twofold sense: an argument analogous to Cellucci's one may be developed to face De Cruz's objection, and such argument may be further refined incorporating Cellucci's response itself in it, to make it stronger. This paper aims at showing that the accusation of being self-defeating moved against EDAs is inadequate by elaborating an argument which can be considered an EDA and which can also be shown not to be self-defeating. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Phenomenal Conservatism (PC) is not superior to alternative theories of basic propositional justification insofar as those theories that reject PC are self-defeating. I show that self-defeat arguments similar to Michael Huemer’s Self-Defeat Argument for PC can be constructed for other theories of basic propositional justification as well. If this is correct, then there is nothing special about PC in that respect. In other words, if self-defeat arguments can (...) be advanced in support of alternatives to PC, then Huemer’s Self-Defeat argument doesn’t uniquely motivate PC. (shrink)

Jennifer Saul argues that the evidence from the literature on implicit biases entails a form of skepticism. In this paper, I argue that Saul faces a dilemma: her argument is either self-defeating, or it does not yield a skeptical conclusion. For Saul, both results are unacceptable; thus, her argument fails.

The rhetorical theory of argument, if held as a conclusion of an argument, is self-defeating. The rhetorical theory can be refined, but these refinements either make the theory subject to a second self- defeat problem or tacitly an epistemic theory of argument.

Global meta-philosophical skepticism (i.e. completely unrestricted skepticism about philosophy) based upon disagreement faces the problem of self-defeat since it undercuts its motivating conciliatory principle. However, the skeptic may easily escape this threat by adopting a more modest kind of skepticism, that will be called “extensive meta-philosophical skepticism”, i.e., the view that most of our philosophical beliefs are unjustified, except our beliefs in epistemically fundamental principles. As I will argue in this paper, this kind of skepticism is well-motivated, does not (...) undercut the conciliatory principle, but still poses a radical challenge to philosophy as a cognitive discipline. Moreover, I will argue that non-global skepticism that is still extensive undermines itself as well. The deeper reason for this is that this more modest kind of skepticism can only be motivated by the assumption that disagreement with philosophical peers is abundant and that we can identify peers only by relying on track-record arguments. But then one can argue for extensive meta-philosophical skepticism only if one presupposes that those philosophical beliefs that form the basis of track-record evaluations are justified. Here, the threat of self-defeat looms again. I will proceed by first defending the premises of this new anti-skeptical argument against standard objections from the literature. Second, I will show in more detail where the epistemic inconsistency arises in the argument for extensive meta-philosophical skepticism. I conclude with an assessment of the scope and the limits of my argument. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga has famously argued that the naturalist who accepts evolutionary theory has a defeater for all of her beliefs, including her belief in naturalism and evolution. Hence, he says, naturalism, when conjoined with evolution, is self defeating and cannot be rationally accepted. This is known as the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN). However, Tyler Wunder (Religious Studies 51:391– 399, 2015) has recently shown that if the EAAN is framed in terms of objective probability and theism is assumed (...) to be non-contingent, then either theism is necessarily false or the EAAN is unsound. Neither option is attractive to the proponent of the EAAN. Perry Hendricks (Religious Studies 1–5, 2018) has responded to Wunder’s criticism, showing that the EAAN can be salvaged and, indeed, strengthened, by framing it in terms not of naturalism (N), but of a proposition that is entailed by N that is also consistent with theism. We will show that once Hendricks’ solution to Wunder’s objection is accepted, a puzzle ensues: if the EAAN provides the naturalist with a defeater for all of her beliefs, then an extension of it appears to provide God with a defeater for all of his beliefs. After bringing out this puzzle, we suggest several ways in which the proponent of the EAAN might solve it, but also show some potential weaknesses in these purported solutions. Whether the solutions to the puzzle that we consider ultimately succeed is unclear to us. (Translation: the authors disagree. One author thinks that the solutions (or,at least, some of them) that we consider do solve the puzzle while the other author does not.) However, it is clear to us that this is an issue that proponents of the EAAN need to address. (shrink)

The well-known empiricist apories of the lawfulness of nature prevent an adequate philosophical interpretation of empirical science until this day. Clarification can only be expected through an immanent refutation of the empiricist point of view. My argument is that Hume’s claim, paradigmatic for modern empiricism, is not just inconsequent, but simply contradictory: Empiricism denies that a lawlike character of nature can be substantiated. But, as is shown, anyone who claimes experience to be the basis of knowledge (as the empiricist naturally (...) does), has, in fact, always already presupposed the lawfullness of nature, i.e. has assumed the ontology of a nature lawful in itself. If lawfulness is, more closely, understood as dependency on conditions, then the functional character of the laws of nature is involved with the consequence that verification is not to be taken as a mere repetition of measurements but as clarification of the conditional structure of the physical process. Furthermore the functionality of the laws of nature also includes a statement on their invariance (relative to certain transformations) and so their lawlikeness. This throws a new light on the problem of induction. Seen in this way it is hardly surprising that the notorious neglect of the functional aspect in empiricism has led to fundamental problems with the concept of the law of nature. (shrink)

Plato argues, at Theaetetus 170e-171c, that Protagoras’ relativism is self-refuting. This argument, known as the ‘exquisite argument’, and its merits have been the subject of much controversy over the past few decades. Burnyeat (1976b) has argued in defense of Plato’s argument, but his reconstruction of the argument has been criticized as question-begging. After offering an interpretation of Protagoras’ relativism, I argue that the exquisite argument is successful, for reasons that Burnyeat hints at but fails to develop sufficiently. I consider (...) Protagorean relativism under both of the two possible readings with respect to its scope: global relativism, according to which all truths are only relatively true, and qualified relativism, according to which the relativistic thesis itself is excepted. Taking into consideration some contemporary work on relativism and self-refutation, I show that Plato’s argument succeeds on both of these readings. Given that Protagoras could avoid self-contradiction simply by denying that an enduring subject exists, I argue that the exquisite argument is best understood as confronting Protagoras with a dilemma between self-contradiction and self-defeat of various sorts, all of which lead to the same result, that Protagoras violates the requirements of rational discourse in such a way that he becomes an absurd figure who has nothing to say to us. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments purport to show that robust moral realism, the metaethical view that there are non-natural and mind-independent moral properties and facts that we can know about, is incompatible with evolutionary explanations of morality. One of the most prominent evolutionary debunking arguments is advanced by Sharon Street, who argues that if moral realism were true, then objective moral knowledge is unlikely because realist moral properties are evolutionary irrelevant and moral beliefs about those properties would not be selected (...) for. However, no evolutionary, causal explanation plays an essential role in reaching the argument’s epistemological conclusion. Street’s argument depends on the Benacerraf-Field challenge, which is the challenge to explain the reliability of our moral beliefs about causally inert moral properties. The Benacerraf-Field challenge relies on metaphysically necessary facts about realist moral properties, rather than on contingent Darwinian facts about the origin of our moral beliefs. Attempting to include an essential causal empirical premise yet avoiding recourse to the Benacerraf-Field problem yields an argument that is either self-defeating or of limited scope. Ultimately, evolutionary, causal explanations of our moral beliefs and their consequences do not present the strongest case against robust moral realism. Rather, the question is whether knowledge of casually-inert, mind-intendent properties is plausible at all. (shrink)

An objection that has been raised to the conciliatory stance on the epistemic significance of peer disagreement known as the Equal Weight View is that it is self-defeating, self-undermining, or self-refuting. The proponent of that view claims that equal weight should be given to all the parties to a peer dispute. Hence, if one of his epistemic peers defends the opposite view, he is required to give equal weight to the two rival views, thereby undermining his (...) confidence in the correctness of the Equal Weight View. It seems that the same objection could be leveled against those who claim to suspend judgment in the face of pervasive unresolvable disagreements, as do the Pyrrhonian skeptics. In this paper, I explore the kind of response to the objection that could be offered from a neo-Pyrrhonian perspective, with the aim of better understanding the intriguing character of Pyrrhonian skepticism. (shrink)

A RELATIVISTIC THEORY OF PHENOMENOLOCICAL CONSTITUTION: A SELF-REFERENTIAL, TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH TO CONCEPTUAL PATHOLOGY. (Vol. I: French; Vol. II: English) -/- Steven James Bartlett -/- Doctoral dissertation director: Paul Ricoeur, Université de Paris Other doctoral committee members: Jean Ladrière and Alphonse de Waehlens, Université Catholique de Louvain Defended publically at the Université Catholique de Louvain, January, 1971. -/- Universite de Paris X (France), 1971. 797pp. -/- The principal objective of the work is to construct an analytically precise methodology which can (...) serve to identify, eliminate, and avoid a certain widespread _conceptual fault_ or _misconstruction_, called a "projective misconstruction" or "projection" by the author. It is argued that this variety of error in our thinking (i) infects a great number of our everyday, scientific, and philosophical concepts, claims, and theories, (ii) has largely been undetected, and (iii), when remedied, leads to a less controversial and more rigorous elucidation of the transcendental preconditions of human knowledge than has traditionally been possible. The dissertation identifies, perhaps for the first time, a _projective_ variety of self-referential inconsistency, and proposes an innovative, self-reflexive approach to transcendental argument in a logical and phenomenological context. The strength of the approach lies, it is claimed, in the fact that a rejection of the approach is possible only on pain of self-referential inconsistency. The argument is developed in the following stages: A general introduction identifies the central theme of the work, defines the scope of applicability of the results reached, and sketches the direction of the studies that follow. The preliminary discussion culminates in a recognition of the need for a _critique of impure reason_. The body of the work is divided into two parts: Section I seeks to develop a methodology, on a purely formal basis, which is, on the one hand, capable of being used to study the transcendental foundations of the special sciences, including its own proper transcendental foundation. On the other hand, the methodology proposed is intended as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for dealing with _projective_ uses of concepts. The approach initiates an analysis of concepts from a perspective which views _knowledge as coordination_. Section I describes formal structures that possess the status of preconditions in such a coordinative account of knowledge. Special attention is given to the preconditions of _identifying reference_ to logical particulars. The first section attempts, then, to provide a self-referential, transcendental methodology which is essentially revisionary in that it is motivated by a concern for conceptual error-elimination. Phenomenology, considered in its unique capacity as a self-referential, transcendental discipline, is of special relevance to the study. Section II accordingly examines a group of concepts which come into question in connection with the central theme of _phenomenological constitution_. The "_de-projective methodology_" developed in Section I is applied to these concepts that have a foundational importance in transcendental phenomenology. A translation is, in effect, proposed from the language of consciousness to a language in which preconditions of referring are investigated. The result achieved is the elimination of self-defeating, projective concepts from a rigorous, phenomenological study of the constitutive foundations of science. The dissertation was presented in a two volume, double-language format for the convenience of French and English researchers. Each volume contains an analytical index. (shrink)

‘Performative’ transcendental arguments exploit the status of a subcategory of self-falsifying propositions in showing that some form of skepticism is unsustainable. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between performatively inconsistent propositions and transcendental arguments, and then to compare performative transcendental arguments to modest transcendental arguments that seek only to establish the indispensability of some belief or conceptual framework. Reconceptualizing transcendental arguments as performative helps focus the intended dilemma for the skeptic: (...) performative transcendental arguments directly confront the skeptic with the choice of abandoning either skepticism or some other deep theoretical commitment. Many philosophers, from Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas to Jaakko Hintikka, C.I. Lewis, and Bernard Lonergan, have claimed that some skeptical propositions regarding knowledge, reason, and/or morality can be shown to be self-defeating; that is to say, they have claimed that the very upholding of some skeptical position is in some way incompatible with the position being upheld, or with the implied, broader dialectical position of the skeptic in question. Statements or propositions alleged to have this characteristic also sometimes are called ‘self-falsifying,’ ‘self-refuting,’ ‘self-stultifying,’ ‘self-destructive,’ or ‘pointless.’ However, proponents of the strategy of showing skepticism to be self-defeating have not in general adequately distinguished between two types of self-defeating proposition: self-falsifying and self-stultifying. In the first part of this paper I distinguish between self-falsifying and self-stultifying propositions, and introduce the notion of performative self-falsification. In the second part I discuss classical transcendental arguments, ‘modest’ transcendental arguments, and objections to each. In the third part I introduce two types of transcendental argument—each labeled “performative”—corresponding to two types of performatively self-falsifying proposition, and I compare them to modest transcendental arguments. (shrink)

According to the argument from moral disagreement, the existence of widespread or persistent moral disagreement is best explained by, and thus supports, the view that there are no objective moral truths. One of the most common charges against this argument is that it “overgeneralises”: it implausibly forces its proponents to also deny the existence of objective truths about certain matters of physics, history, philosophy, etc. (“companions in guilt” objections) or even about the argument’s own conclusion or its own soundness (“ (...) class='Hi'>self-defeat” objections). My aim in this article is to provide a detailed clarification and assessment of this overgeneralisation charge. Various (mostly empirical) issues relevant to assessing the above objections have so far not been sufficiently investigated. Nevertheless, there are good reasons to believe that realists have exaggerated the significance of their overgeneralisation charge. Both its companions in guilt and its self-defeat versions likely fail. (shrink)

Normative error theorists aim to defend an error theory which says that normative judgments ascribe normative properties, and such properties, including reasons for belief, are never instantiated. Many philosophers have raised objections to defending a theory which entails that we cannot have reason to believe it. Spencer Case objects that error theorists simply cannot avoid self-defeat. Alternatively, Bart Streumer argues that we cannot believe normative error theory but that, surprisingly, this helps its advocates defend it against these objections. I (...) think that if Streumer’s argument is successful, it provides error theorists an escape from Case’s self-defeat objection. However, I build upon and improve Case’s argument to show that we could never even successfully defend normative error theory whether we can believe it or not. So, self-defeat remains. I close by offering some reasons for thinking our inability to defend normative error theory means that we should reject it, which, in turn, would mean that it’s false. (shrink)

A number of moral philosophers have endorsed instances of the following curious argument: it would be better if a certain moral theory were true; therefore, we have reason to believe that the theory is true. In other words, the mere truth of the theory—quite apart from the results of our believing it or acting in accord with it—would make for a better world than the truth of its rivals, and this fact provides evidence of the theory’s truth. This form of (...) argument may seem to be an obvious non-starter. After all, the fact that the truth of some empirical claim, say, the claim that there is an afterlife, would be desirable does not, by itself, give us any reason to believe it. But I argue that, when it is properly understood, this form of argument—which I call the better world argument—is valid in moral philosophy. I develop and defend a version of the argument that rests on the view that the correct moral theory cannot exhibit a certain form of self-defeat—a form that, as far as I know, has not been discussed in the literature. I also identify two promising applications of this form of argument. The first is a defense of permissions to promote one’s own private aims, rather than promote the greater good, and the second, an argument against the possibility of moral dilemmas. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to improve the practical argument for beliefs in God. Some theists, most famously Kant and William James, called our attention to a particular set of beliefs, the Jamesian-type beliefs, which are justified by virtue of their practical significance, and these theists tried to justify theistic beliefs on the exact same ground. I argue, contra the Jamesian tradition, that theistic beliefs are different from the Jamesian-type beliefs and thus cannot be justified on the same ground. I (...) also argue that the practical argument, as it stands, faces a problem of self-defeat. I then construct a new practical argument that avoids both problems. According to this new argument, theistic beliefs are rational to accept because such beliefs best supply us with motivation strong enough to carry out demanding moral tasks. (shrink)

Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s challenge to scientific realism is analyzed. Mizrahi’s argument is worth of attention for at least two reasons: unlike other criticisms that have been made to Stanford’s view so far, Mizrahi’s argument does not question any specific claim of Stanford’s argument, rather it puts into question the very coherence of Stanford’s position, because it argues that since Stanford’s argument rests on the problem of the unconceived alternatives, Stanford’s argument is self-defeating. Thus, if Mizrahi’s argument is (...) effective in countering Stanford’s view, it may be able to question the validity of other philosophical positions which similarly rest on the problem of the unconceived alternatives; Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s view is in part based on the development of a Stanford-like argument for the field of philosophy. This makes Mizrahi’s argument potentially relevant to the metaphilosophical debate. After careful examination, Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s instrumentalism is found wanting. Moreover, a Stanford-like argument is developed, which aims at challenging the metaphilosophical stance implied by Mizrahi’s argument against Stanford’s instrumentalism. (shrink)

This paper elaborates a neo-Wittgensteinian, philosophical-anthropological alternative to classically Aristotelian approaches in the philosophy of friendship. On the classic approach, the value of friendship, as a practice, and the value of particular friendships within the life of any given individual, are each subordinated to the ur-value of individual flourishing. That is, it starts with a value that it sees as frustrated or fulfilled by social practice. The alternative, meanwhile, moves from the articulation of social practice to the values these practices (...) frame. I will argue that the alternative is descriptively and prescriptively superior when what’s at issue is the status of a social practice like friendship. By acknowledging the co-constitution of self, practice, and other, the alternative gives one the latitude to recognize and philosophize about relationships that tend to fall out of contemporary accounts of love and friendship as these are actually lived; produces descriptions and questions that are truer to lived experiences of friendship; and respects one of the most basic norms of friendship—that is, a friend’s irreducible particularity to oneself—without having to provide a self-defeatingly instrumentalist or reductionist argument for it. (shrink)

Hume’s famous and influential contributions to the philosophy of religion pursue two broad themes that have deep links with his general sceptical and naturalistic commitments throughout his philosophy as a whole.1 The first is his sceptical critique of the philosophical arguments and doctrines of various (Christian) theological systems. The second is his naturalistic account of the origins and roots of religion in human nature. Taken together, these two themes serve to advance Hume’s “Lucretian mission”, which was to discredit and (...) dislodge the role of religion in human life. In this paper I consider the criticism that Hume’s entire Lucretian mission is fundamentally misguided and misconceived as judged in terms of his own claims and hypotheses concerning religion. More specifically, it may be argued that if Hume is right about the foundations of religion in human nature and the human predicament, then his Lucretian mission is neither wise nor achievable. His project is, in other words, both theoretically self-refuting and practically self-defeating. Drawing from Hume’s writings on this subject, I will suggest a set of replies and responses to these criticisms. (shrink)

In a recent paper published in this journal, Hughes (2019) has argued that Machery’s (2017) Dogmatism Argument is self-defeating. Machery’s (2019) reply involves giving the Dogmatism Argument an inductive basis, rather than a philosophical basis. That is, he argues that the most plausible contenders in the epistemology of disagreement all support the Dogmatism Argument; and thus, it is likely that the Dogmatism Argument is true, which gives us reason to accept it. However, Machery’s inductive argument defines the leading (...) views in terms of their citation counts. But there is no necessary connection between citation counts and truth; it is a truism that many highly cited papers over the past century have turned out to contain false arguments. This inductive information should lead Machery to revise his argument; what Machery (2019) owes—but has failed to provide—is a positive argument for ruling out another plausible contender that Hughes (2019) raises. Without such an account, Machery’s inductive case for the Dogmatism Argument fails. (shrink)

This paper discusses a wide range of anti-naturalistic argument from reason due to Balfour, Haldane, Joad, Lewis, Taylor, Moreland, Plantinga, Reppert, and Hasker. I argue that none of these arguments poses a serious challenge to naturalists who are identity theorists. Further, I argue that some of these arguments do not even pose prima facie plausible challenges to naturalism. In the concluding part of my discussion, I draw attention to some distinctive differences between Hasker’s anti-naturalistic arguments and the (...) other anti-naturalistic arguments mentioned above. (shrink)

Ferenc Huoranszki argues for two main claims in the ninth chapter of Freedom of the Will: A Conditional Analysis (Huoranszki 2011). First, Huoranszki tries to show that libertarian restrictivism is false because self-determination in the libertarian sense is not necessary for our responsibility, even if motives, reasons or psychological characteristics can influence us relatively strongly to choose one or the other alternative. second, Huoranszki rejects the so-called manipulation argument.1 this is an argument for the conclusion that unless physical indeterminism (...) is true, nobody can be morally responsible because our behavior is never independent enough of our environment. Therefore, according to Huoranszki, neither libertarian self-determination nor physical indeterminism is required for moral responsibility. in my view, Huoranszki’s counterarguments do not defeat libertarian restrictivism. How- ever, they can force philosophers who defend this theory to modify or refine it. i analyze Huoranszki’s arguments against libertarian self-determination in the first part of my paper. in the second part, I briefly argue for one supervenience argument inspired by a similar objection made earlier (bács 2012). According to this modified argument, Huoranszki’s theory about abilities and responsibility would entail that if physical determinism is true then we are responsible for our ordinary actions only because we are able to do miraculous acts as well. if this objection is correct, Huoranszki’s compatibilism is unsuccessful. (shrink)

When a belief is self-fulfilling, having it guarantees its truth. When a belief is self-defeating, having it guarantees its falsity. These are the cases of “self-impacting” beliefs to be examined below. Scenarios of self-defeating beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack sufficient reason to have any belief whatsoever. Scenarios of self-fulfilling beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack reason to have any one belief (...) over another. Both scenarios have been used independently to challenge Evidentialism, on which what we may rationally believe is all and only what fits our current evidence. Here we tie the two scenarios together and explore what a knowledge-sensitive evidentialist approach to one implies for the other. (shrink)

The Reflection Principle can be defended with a Diachronic Dutch Book Argument (DBA), but it is also defeated by numerous compelling counter-examples. It seems then that Diachronic DBAs can lead us astray. Should we reject them en masse—including Lewis’s Diachronic DBA for Conditionalization? Rachael Briggs’s “suppositional test” is supposed to differentiate between Diachronic DBAs that we can safely ignore (including the DBA for Reflection) and Diachronic DBAs that we should find compelling (including the DBA for Conditionalization). I argue that Brigg’s (...) suppositional test is wrong: it sets the bar for coherence too high and places certain cases of self-doubt on the wrong side of the divide. Given that the suppositional test is unsatisfactory, we are left without any justification for discriminating between Diachronic DBAs and ought to reject them all—including the DBA for Conditionalization. (shrink)

Christopher Johnson has put forward in this journal the view that ad hominem reasoning may be more generally reasonable than is allowed by writers such as myself, basing his view on virtue epistemology. I review his account, as well as the standard account, of ad hominem reasoning, and show how the standard account would handle the cases he sketches in defense of his own view. I then give four criticisms of his view generally: the problems of virtue conflict, vagueness, conflation (...) of speech acts, and self-defeating counsel. I then discuss four reasons why the standard account is superior: it better fits legal reality, the account of other fallacies, psychological science, and political reality. (shrink)

If an ethical theory sometimes requires that agents be motivated by features other than those it advances as justifications for the rightness or wrongness of actions, some consider this type of self-effacement to be a defeater from which no theory can recover. Most famously, Michael Stocker argues that requiring a divided moral psychology in which reasons are partitioned from motives would trigger a “malady of the spirit” for any agent attempting to live according to the prescriptions of modern ethical (...) theories. Stocker’s argument is tremendously influential, and the fact that he specifically links modern ethical theories to self-effacement leads advocates of virtue ethics to presume that their view is immune to the problem of self-effacement and that this immunity gives virtue ethics an advantage over its contemporary rivals. This immunity has been challenged by Thomas Hurka and Simon Keller, who maintain that virtue ethics is equally as vulnerable to the charge of self-effacement as its modern counterparts. I argue in this paper that recent attempts to reply to Hurka and Keller are not successful. Specifically, I argue that recent attempts to immunize virtue ethics from self-effacement do not adequately address the challenge from Keller that virtue ethics can only escape from self-effacement via measures that are also available to modern theories. Thus, even if virtue ethics can avoid self-effacement, one must give up the claim that virtue ethics is uniquely immune to self-effacement compared to its modern rivals. I close by noting that my aim is not to argue that virtue ethics is deficient in this respect. Instead, I suggest that advocates of virtue ethics ought to consider the possibility that self-effacement is a tolerable psychological challenge for any ethical theory that requires agents to reflect on the substantive normative guidance it provides. (shrink)

Some normative theories are self-defeating. They tell us to respond to our situations in ways that bring about outcomes that are bad, given the aims of the theories, and which could have been avoided. Across a wide range of debates in ethics, decision theory, political philosophy, and formal epistemology, many philosophers treat the fact that a normative theory is self-defeating as sufficient grounds for rejecting it. I argue that this widespread and consequential assumption is false. In (...) particular, I argue that a theory can be self-defeating and still internally consistent, action-guiding, and suitable as a standard for criticism. (shrink)

Conciliatory theories of disagreement require that one lower one’s confidence in a belief in the face of disagreement from an epistemic peer. One question about which people might disagree is who should qualify as an epistemic peer and who should not. But when putative epistemic peers disagree about epistemic peerhood itself, then Conciliationism makes contradictory demands and paradoxes arise.

Moral subjectivism is not self-defeating, contrary to what moral objectivists claim. Ockham’s Razor favors moral subjectivism over moral objectivism. It is circular for moral objectivists to say that since we construct sound and cogent arguments out of moral statements, moral statements are true. Moral subjectivism acknowledges the role that arguments play in our moral lives, contrary to what moral objectivists contend. The way in which moral objectivists attempt to establish moral objectivism ironically supports moral subjectivism.

NOTE TO THE READER - December, 2021 ●●●●● -/- After a long period of time devoted to research in other areas, the author returned to the subject of this paper in a book-length study, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning. In this book (Chapter 11, “The Metalogic of Meaning”), the position developed in the 1982 paper, "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning", has been substantively revised and several important corrections made. It is recommended that readers read (...) the revised and corrected version that appears in the book, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON. ●●●●● -/- The book is available in a printed edition, ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6, from online booksellers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and through independent bookstores. The book is also available as a freely downloadable _corrected second edition_ eBook, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5458352, through PhilSci, PhilPapers, HAL, and other online archives. ●●●●● -/- In addition to the above-mentioned book, readers may find "A Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON" to be useful as a guide to the nearly 900-page CRITIQUE. The primer is available as a free download through PhilPapers. ●●●●● -/- "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning" describes a logically compelling criterion of meaning — that is, a necessary condition of meaning, one which is non-arbitrary and compelling. One cannot _not_ accept the proposed criterion without self-referential inconsistency. This “metalogical” variety of self-referential inconsistency is new, opening a third category beyond semantical and pragmatical forms of self-referential inconsistency. ●●●●● -/- It is argued that such a criterion of meaning can serve as an instrument of internal criticism for any theoretical framework that permits reference to a class of objects. The paper combines the concern of the logical empiricists to formulate a rigorous meaning criterion, with the analytical interest in identifying and eliminating self-defeating statements through an analysis of the referential structure of theories. ●●●●● -/- The paper is followed by a list of other publications by the author that further develop and extend the ideas presented here. (shrink)

True beliefs are better guides to the world than false ones. This is the common-sense assumption that undergirds theorizing in evolutionary epistemology. According to Alvin Plantinga, however, evolution by natural selection does not care about truth: it cares only about fitness. If our cognitive faculties are the products of blind evolution, we have no reason to trust them, anytime or anywhere. Evolutionary naturalism, consequently, is a self-defeating position. Following up on earlier objections, we uncover three additional flaws in (...) Plantinga's latest formulation of his argument: a failure to appreciate adaptive path dependency, an incoherent conception of content ascription, and a conflation of common-sense and scientific beliefs, which we diagnose as the ‘foundationalist fallacy’. More fundamentally, Plantinga's reductive formalism with respect to the issue of cognitive reliability is inadequate to deal with relevant empirical details. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’, which is the view that ideal primary positive conceivability entails primary metaphysical possibility, is self-defeating. To this end, we outline two reductio arguments against ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’. The first reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is true, it follows that conceivability both is and is not conclusive evidence for possibility. The second reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is true, it follows that (...) it is possible that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is necessarily false, and hence that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is false. We then argue that adopting a weaker position according to which conceivability is merely prima facie evidence for possibility provides limited protection from our criticism of conceivability arguments. (shrink)

This is Vol. I in French. Vol. II in English is available separately from this website. -/- The principal objective of the work is to construct an analytically precise methodology which can serve to identify, eliminate, and avoid a certain widespread conceptual fault or misconstruction, called a "projective misconstruction" or "projection" by the author. -/- It is argued that this variety of error in our thinking (i) infects a great number of our everyday, scientific, and philosophical concepts, claims, and theories, (...) (ii) has largely been undetected, and (iii), when remedied, leads to a less controversial and more rigorous elucidation of the transcendental preconditions of human knowledge than has traditionally been possible. -/- The dissertation identifies, perhaps for the first time, a projective variety of self-referential inconsistency, and proposes an innovative, self-reflexive approach to transcendental argument in a logical and phenomenological context. The strength of the approach lies, it is claimed, in the fact that a rejection of the approach is possible only on pain of self-referential inconsistency. The argument is developed in the following stages: -/- A general introduction identifies the central theme of the work, defines the scope of applicability of the results reached, and sketches the direction of the studies that follow. The preliminary discussion culminates in a recognition of the need for a critique of impure reason. -/- The body of the work is divided into two parts: Section I seeks to develop a methodology, on a purely formal basis, which is, on the one hand, capable of being used to study the transcendental foundations of the special sciences, including its own proper transcendental foundation. On the other hand, the methodology proposed is intended as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool for dealing with projective uses of concepts. -/- The approach initiates an analysis of concepts from a perspective which views knowledge as coordination. Section I describes formal structures that possess the status of preconditions in such a coordinative account of knowledge. Special attention is given to the preconditions of identifying reference to logical particulars. The first section attempts, then, to provide a self-referential, transcendental methodology which is essentially revisionary in that it is motivated by a concern for conceptual error-elimination. -/- Phenomenology, considered in its unique capacity as a self-referential, transcendental discipline, is of special relevance to the study. Section II accordingly examines a group of concepts which come into question in connection with the central theme of phenomenological constitution. The "de-projective methodology" developed in Section I is applied to these concepts that have a foundational importance in transcendental phenomenology. A translation is, in effect, proposed from the language of consciousness to a language in which preconditions of referring are investigated. The result achieved is the elimination of self-defeating, projective concepts from a rigorous, phenomenological study of the constitutive foundations of science. -/- The dissertation was presented in a two volume, double-language format for the convenience of French and English researchers. Each volume contains an analytical index. (shrink)

Radical empiricism is the view that a person's experiences (sensory and introspective), or a person's observations, constitute the person's evidence. This view leads to epistemic self-defeat. There are three arguments, concerning respectively: (1) epistemic starting points; (2) epistemic norms; (3) terms of epistemic appraisal. The source of self-defeat is traced to the fact that empiricism does not count a priori intuition as evidence (where a priori intuition is not a form of belief but rather a form of (...) seeming, specifically intellectual as opposed to sensory). Moderate rationalism, by contrast, avoids self-defeat. (shrink)

Nils-Frederic Wagner takes issue with my argument that influential critics of “transplant” thought experiments make two cardinal mistakes. He responds that the mistakes I identify are not mistakes at all. The mistakes are rather on my part, in that I have not taken into account the conceptual genesis of personhood, that my view of thought experiments is idiosyncratic and possibly self-defeating, and in that I have ignored important empirical evidence about the relationship between brains and minds. I argue (...) that my case still stands and that transplant thought experiments can do damage to rivals of a psychological continuity theory of personal identity like Marya Schechtman’s Person Life View. (shrink)

In this chapter we focus on the debate over publicly-maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the US (chiefly regarding the over 700 monuments devoted to the Confederacy), but to some degree also in Britain and Commonwealth countries, especially South Africa (chiefly regarding monuments devoted to figures and events associated with colonialism and apartheid). After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist, and neutrally categorize removalist (...) and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating, and that when concerns of civic sustainability are put on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments. (shrink)

Using two decades worth of experimental philosophy (aka x-phi), Edouard Machery argues in Philosophy within its Proper Bounds (OUP, 2017) that philosophers’ use of the “method of cases” is unreliable because it has a strong tendency to elicit different intuitive responses from non-philosophers. And because, as Machery argues, appealing to such cases is usually the only way for philosophers to acquire the kind of knowledge they seek, an extensive philosophical skepticism follows. I argue that Machery’s “Unreliability” argument fails because, once (...) its premises are percisified, they are either self-defeating or without justification. This is a significant result because Machery’s arguments are the most widely cited and discussed x-phi arguments for philosophical skepticism and many hold that Machery provides the most empirically informed, convincing, and thus best case for this kind of skepticism. So, if my arguments are sound, then the best x-phi argument for philosophical skepticism fails. I further argue that this result provides strong reason to believe the more general conclusion that “negative” x-phi is likely doomed: x-phi likely can never support a substantive philosophical skepticism. Ultimately, I argue for the broad conclusion that all empirically minded arguments for philosophical skepticism are likely to fail for the same reasons that Machery’s does, i.e. they are (likely) self-defeating. (shrink)

Eliminativists sometimes invoke evolutionary debunking arguments against ordinary object beliefs, either to help them establish object skepticism or to soften the appeal of commonsense ontology. I argue that object debunkers face a self-defeat problem: their conclusion undermines the scientific support for one of their premises, because evolutionary biology depends on our object beliefs. Using work on reductionism and multiple realizability from the philosophy of science, I argue that it will not suffice for an eliminativist debunker to simply appeal (...) to some object-free surrogate theory of evolution that results from converting any scientific proposition about some object K into a proposition about simples arranged K-wise. In the process, I examine some hazards peculiar to eliminative reductions of scientific theories, and propose a trilemma for eliminativists who attempt to recoup generality for ontologically sparse reducing theories by appealing to pluralities of simples arranged K-wise. The paper is intended to define and develop the object debunker’s self-defeat problem for further study, and to clarify some of the ways sparse and abundant ontologies interact with scientific theory. (shrink)

Central to philosophical practice is the application of philosophers' work by philosophical practitioners to inspire, educate, and guide their clients. For example, in Logic-Based Therapy (LBT) philosophical practitioners help their clients to find an uplifting philosophy that promotes guiding virtues that counteract unrealistic and often self-defeating conclusions derived from irrational premises. I will present the argument that Simone de Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics can be applied as an uplifting philosophy as per LBT methodology, and therefore has utility for philosophical (...) practice. Additionally, I will propose that Beauvoir’s existentialist ethics, as an uplifting philosophy, may act as an antidote for ideological obsession and ideology addiction. I will also suggest that LBT may be a suitable intervention when challenging the unrealistic conclusions derived from illogical premises in practical reasoning that contribute to ideological obsession, because it can contest irrational beliefs in a way that could mitigate the fragmentation anxiety that often arise when individuals relinquish maladaptive self-object organizations. (shrink)

Hun Chung’s recent article “Rawls’s Self-Defeat: A Formal Analysis” argues that the selection of results equivalent to justice as fairness can be derived by utilitarianism. Chung argues that these results can be achieved through the use of Rawls’s constructed utility function from his work Justice as Fairness. Although Chung’s article is finely argued and presented in great detail, this paper will show that Chung made three mistakes in the fundamentals of his argument. First, Chung mistakes Rawls’s constructed utility function (...) as actually utilitarian. Second, Chung confuses the motivations and the assumptions of those held by agents in the original position and those held by utilitarian agents. Last, Chung’s previous mistakes result in the incorrect conclusion that an equal distribution of resources will be selected by representative agents instead of the unequal distribution prescribed by the difference principle. (shrink)

Arguments for handgun ownership typically appeal to handguns’ value as an effective means of self-protection. Against this, critics argue that private ownership of handguns leads to more social harm than it prevents. Both sides make powerful arguments, and in the absence of a reasonable consensus regarding the merits of gun ownership, David DeGrazia proposes two gun control policies that ‘reasonable disputants on both sides of the issue have principled reasons to accept.’ These policies hinge on his claim (...) that ‘an even-handed examination of the available evidence casts considerable doubt on the thesis that handgun ownership enables more adequate self-defense and physical security in the home.’ We challenge DeGrazia’s ‘moderate gun control’ policies on both philosophical and empirical grounds. Philosophically, we show that the arguments he gives in support of his proposed gun-control measures are too narrow and incomplete to warrant his conclusions about what kind of gun control there ought to be, even if he is right about the empirical evidence. Empirically, we argue that a truly even-handed examination of the evidence makes DeGrazia’s claim that gun ownership is on average self-defeating much less plausible than he supposes. Our conclusion is that DeGrazia has failed to establish his claim that gun ownership is self-defeating and therefore has no case for the gun-control policies he suggests. (shrink)

This essay presents an argument, which it calls the Bias Argument, with the dismaying conclusion that (almost) everyone should significantly reduce her confidence in (too many) philosophical beliefs. More precisely, the argument attempts to show that the most precious philosophical beliefs are biased, as the pervasive and permanent disagreement among the leading experts in philosophy cannot be explained by the differences between their evidence bases and competences. After a short introduction, the premises of the Bias Argument are spelled out in (...) the first part. The second part explains why the objections to the Bias Argument are not compelling. Even though the essay does not adopt the conclusion of the Bias Argument, partly because it seems to be self-defeating, the authors know no plausible way to refute its premises. Thus, the primary aim of the essay is to clarify why the aporetic situation of the Bias Argument arises. (shrink)

Expressivist views of an area of discourse encourage us to ask not about the nature of the relevant kinds of values but rather about the nature of the relevant kind of evaluations. Their answer to the latter question typically claims some interesting disanalogy between those kinds of evaluations and descriptions of the world. It does so in hope of providing traction against naturalism-inspired ontological and epistemological worries threatening more ‘realist’ positions. This is a familiar position regarding ethical discourse; however, some (...) authors have recently defended a similar view regarding epistemic discourse. Others have argued that epistemic expressivism faces special problems, not necessarily attaching to expressivism about other areas. Their arguments differ in interesting ways, but the common strategy is an attempt to show that the very sort of meta-epistemological theorizing needed to articulate and establish epistemic expressivism involves the epistemic expressivist in some sort of internal incoherence or self-defeat. That is, they think that articulating or defending the position requires implicit commitment to the negation of one of the positions core tenets. This paper responds to those arguments on behalf of epistemic expressivism, suggesting that they each misunderstand what is crucial to epistemic expressivism. By responding to these arguments, we hope to achieve more clarity about what epistemic expressivism is and why one might want to endorse it in a meta-epistemology. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that equal respect-based accounts of the normative basis of tolerance are self-defeating, insofar as they are unable to specify the limits of tolerance in a way that is consistent with their own commitment to the equal treatment of all conceptions of the good. I show how this argument is a variant of the long-standing ‘conflict of freedoms’ objection to Kantian-inspired, freedom-based accounts of the justification of systems of norms. I criticize Thomas Scanlon’s defence (...) of ‘pure tolerance’, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti’s work on the relationship between tolerance, equal respect and recognition, and Arthur Ripstein’s recent response to the ‘conflict of freedoms’ objection. The upshot of my argument is that, while valuing tolerance for its own sake may be an appealing ideal, it is not a feasible way of grounding a system of norms. I close with a thumbnail sketch of two alternative, instrumental (i.e. non-Kantian) approaches to the normative foundations of tolerance. (shrink)

Peter Unger has challenged philosophical objectivism, the thesis that traditional philosophical problems have definite objective answers. He argues from semantic relativity for philosophical relativity, the thesis that for certain philosophical problems, there is no objective answer. I clarify, formulate and challenge Unger's argument. According to Unger, philosophical relativism explains philosophical idling, the fact that philosophical debates appear endless, philosophical disagreements seem irresolvable, and very little substantial progress seems made towards satisfactory and definite answers to philosophical problems. I argue, however, that (...) the reality of philosophical idling is doubtful and, ironically, undermined by philosophical relativism. I then raise problems for several steps in Unger's argument for philosophical relativity. I conclude by arguing that philosophical relativism can avoid self-defeat only by an ad hoc limitation of its scope. (shrink)