Order:
  1. Is there a defensible conception of reflective equilibrium?Claus Beisbart & Georg Brun - 2024 - Synthese 203 (3):1-26.
    The goal of this paper is to re-assess reflective equilibrium (“RE”). We ask whether there is a conception of RE that can be defended against the various objections that have been raised against RE in the literature. To answer this question, we provide a systematic overview of the main objections, and for each objection, we investigate why it looks plausible, on what standard or expectation it is based, how it can be answered and which features RE must have to meet (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  2. (1 other version)Empirical Studies on Truth and the Project of Re‐engineering Truth.Kevin Https://Orcidorg Reuter & Georg Brun - 2021 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 2106 (3):493-517.
    Most philosophers have largely downplayed any relevance of multiple meanings of the folk concept of truth in the empirical domain. However, confusions about what truth is have surged in political and everyday discourse. In order to resolve these confusions, we argue that we need a more accurate picture of how the term ‘true’ is in fact used. Our experimental studies reveal that the use of ‘true’ shows substantial variance within the empirical domain, indicating that ‘true’ is ambiguous between a correspondence (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  3. Re-engineering contested concepts. A reflective-equilibrium approach.Georg Brun - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2):1-29.
    Social scientists, political scientists and philosophers debate key concepts such as democracy, power and autonomy. Contested concepts like these pose questions: Are terms such as “democracy” hopelessly ambiguous? How can two theorists defend alternative accounts of democracy without talking past each other? How can we understand debates in which theorists disagree about what democracy is? This paper first discusses the popular strategy to answer these questions by appealing to Rawls’s distinction between concepts and conceptions. According to this approach, defenders of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  4. Making Reflective Equlibrium Precise: A Formal Model.Claus Beisbart, Gregor Betz & Georg Brun - 2021 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8:441–472.
    Reflective equilibrium (RE) is often regarded as a powerful method in ethics, logic, and even philosophy in general. Despite this popularity, characterizations of the method have been fairly vague and unspecific so far. It thus may be doubted whether RE is more than a jumble of appealing but ultimately sketchy ideas that cannot be spelled out consistently. In this paper, we dispel such doubts by devising a formal model of RE. The model contains as components the agent’s commitments and a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  5. Reflective equilibrium: conception, formalization, application—introduction to the topical collection.Georg Brun, Gregor Betz & Claus Beisbart - 2025 - Synthese 205 (2):1-9.
    Reflective equilibrium ("RE", for short) is a method of justification which works roughly as follows: We start with our pre-theoretical judgements (about, e.g. moral issues) and try to explain them by a systematic theory. This leads to a process in which judgements and principles are mutually adjusted to each other until a state of equilibrium is reached. For more than half a century, RE has been very popular, as well as controversial, among philosophers of many persuasions. Given how frequently the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. Die richtige Formel: Philosophische Probleme der logischen Formalisierung.Georg Brun - 2003 - Frankfurt a.M.: De Gruyter.
    Logik ist nach dem traditionellen Verständnis eine ars iudicandi, eine Kunst, die Gültigkeit von Schlüssen zu prüfen. Da mit die normalen Mittel der modernen Logik zu diesem Zweck eingesetzt werden können, müssen erst Formeln an die Stelle von Sätzen treten: umgangssprachliche Schlüsse müssen adäquat formalisiert werden. Die richtige Formel entwickelt ein theoretisches Konzept des Formalisierens und praktisch anwendbare Adäquatheitskriterien für Formalisierungen. Dabei werden zentrale Fragen der Philosophie der Logik unter dem Gesichtspunkt des Zusammenspiels von Umgangssprache und Formalismus untersucht. Die ausführliche (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  7. Logical Forms: Validity and Variety of Formalizations.Georg Brun - 2023 - Logic and Logical Philosophy 32 (3):341-361.
    Formalizations in first-order logic are standardly used to represent logical forms of sentences and to show the validity of ordinary-language arguments. Since every sentence admits of a variety of formalizations, a challenge arises: why should one valid formalization suffice to show validity even if there are other, invalid, formalizations? This paper suggests an explanation with reference to criteria of adequacy which ensure that formalizations are related in a hierarchy of more or less specific formalizations. This proposal is then compared with (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. (1 other version)Wer hat ein Problem mit irrationalen Präferenzen? Entscheidungstheorie und Überlegungsgleichgewicht.Georg Brun - 2009 - Studia Philosophica: Jahrbuch Der Schweizerischen Philosoph Ischen Gesellschaft, Annuaire de la Société Suisse de Philosphie 68:11-41.
    Decision theory explicates norms of rationality for deriving preferences from preferences and beliefs. Empirical studies have found that actual preferences regularly violate these norms, launching a debate on whether this shows that subjects are prone to certain forms of irrationality or that decision theory needs to be revised. It has been claimed that such a revision is necessitated by the fact that normative uses of decision theory must be justified by a reflective equilibrium. The paper discusses three points. First, the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark