Someone who believes “I believe it will rain” can easily be mistaken about the rain. But it does not seem likely, and might even be impossible, that he is wrong about the fact that he believes that it is going to rain. How can we account for this authority about our own beliefs – the phenomenon known as first person authority? In this paper I examine a type of theory proposed, in distinct forms, by Crispin Wright and Jane Heal (...) for an explanation of our authority. Both authors claim that our second-order beliefs (of the form “I believe that p”) are constitutive of the first-order beliefs that are self-ascribed in them (beliefs of the form “p”) and both try to derive the necessity of first person authority from this constitutive relation. My paper analyses and criticizes the two proposals and suggests a non-constitutive, alternative account of first person authority. (shrink)

When discussing the problem of evil, philosophers often distinguish between physical evil (harm caused within the natural world such as natural disasters, disease, and the like), and moral evil (harm caused by human agency). Mapping this traditional distinction is mapped onto the third section of Fichte’s The Vocation of Man would at first seem fairly straightforward: for Fichte, evil arising from nature occurs through “blind mechanism” and is unfree; in contrast, evil done by human beings arises out of free agency. (...) The answer may be more complicated, however, in two different ways. First, Fichte holds that nature is to be cultivated and controlled by human beings so that it is no longer a source of harm; this may imply that the continuing harm done by nature is the result of humans’ failure to have sufficiently tamed nature. In that case, some of the harm caused by nature may be attributable to free human causality and thus no longer be a clearcut instance of natural evil. Second, Fichte repeatedly states that those who fail to act morally and who fail to conform their wills to the moral law are still be in the power of the mechanisms of nature. Even though we must think of them as free, Fichte compares their actions to the operation of nature and its mechanism of necessity. By presenting a careful and nuanced Fichtean account of the traditional distinction between physical and moral evil, we can better appreciate how Fichte understood the meaning and scope of human responsibility. (shrink)

The experimental philosophy movement advocates the use of empirical methods in philosophy. The methods most often discussed and in fact employed in experimental philosophy are appropriated from the experimental paradigm in psychology. But there is a variety of other (at least partly) empirical methods from various disciplines that are and others that could be used in philosophy. The paper explores the application of corpus analysis to philosophical issues. Although the method is well established in linguistics, there are only a few (...) tentative attempts of philosophers to utilise it. Examples are introduced and the merit of corpus analysis is compared to that of using general internet search engines and questionnaires for similar purposes. (shrink)

Introduction to Engineering Ethics provides the background for discussion of the basic issues in engineering ethics. Emphasis is given to the moral problems engineers face in the corporate setting. It places those issues within a philosophical framework, and it seems to exhibit both their social importance and their intellectual challenge. The primary goal is to stimulate critical and responsible reflection on moral issues surrounding engineering practice and to provide the conceptual tools necessary for pursuing those issues. As per new ABET (...) 2000 guidelines, more and more introductory engineering courses cover engineering ethics as part of their instruction. Students preparing to function within the engineering profession need to be introduced to the basic issues in engineering ethics. This book places those issues within a wider philosophical framework than has been customary in the past and aims to stimulate critical and responsible reflection on the moral issues surrounding engineering practice and to provide the conceptual tools necessary for pursuing those issues. (shrink)

Das sinnvolle Leben ist nicht nur in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie wieder verstärkt ein Thema, sondern auch in Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie. Bereits seit langer Zeit jedoch spielt es eine zentrale Rolle in der Existenzanalyse und Logotherapie, die der Psychiater Viktor E. Frankl entwickelt hat. Frankls eigenständige Sinntheorie wird in der gegenwärtigen philosophischen Sinndebatte allerdings weitestgehend ignoriert. Das Ziel dieses Artikels ist es, diesen Zustand zu beenden und die heutige philosophische Sinndebatte mit Frankl ins Gespräch zu bringen. Einerseits geht es darum, Frankls (...) Sinntheorie im Lichte der philosophischen Sinndebatte zu verstehen und zu bewerten: Was für eine Art von Sinntheorie vertritt er? Wie ist sie einzuordnen? Wie steht es um ihre innere Kohärenz, die Plausibilität seiner sinntheoretischen Überzeugungen und die Qualität ihrer Begründung? Andererseits soll geprüft werden, inwiefern Frankls Ansatz die gegenwärtige philosophische Sinndiskussion voranbringen kann: Gibt es bei ihm theoretische Elemente, die in der Philosophie zu wenig Beachtung finden? Kann er der philosophischen Sinntheorie wichtige Impulse geben? Die Analyse folgt in ihrer Struktur wesentlichen Elementen der Frankl’schen Sinntheorie, von den grundlegenden formalen und metaethischen Aspekten hin zu inhaltlichen Bestimmungen des Sinns und dem individuellen Umgang mit ihm: Zunächst wird die zentrale Bedeutung des Sinns für das menschliche Leben thematisiert, dann Fragen nach der metaethischen Einordnung, nämlich nach der subjektivistischen oder objektivistischen Ausrichtung sowie der Rolle des Supernaturalismus. Dann stehen mit der Selbsttranszendenz und dem Wertebezug sowie den drei Wertkategorien wesentliche Elemente der Sinnkonstituierung im Fokus der Betrachtung. Die Ergebnisse werden im Schlusskapitel zusammengefasst. Es zeigt sich, dass der theoretische Austausch in beide Richtungen fruchtbar sein kann, Frankls Denken allerdings auch einige Hindernisse bereithält. Sein Ansatz entpuppt sich mit seinem objektivistischen Charakter und der zentralen Rolle von Selbsttranszendenz und Wertbezug als an die heutige Sinndiskussion gut anschlussfähig, seine oftmals fehlenden Begründungen hingegen als gravierender methodischer Makel, bei dem eine Orientierung an modernen philosophischen Standards wünschenswert wäre. Wiederholt entsteht der Eindruck, dass seine Sinntheorie maßgeblich durch sein praktisches, therapeutisches Interesse geprägt ist. Einigen seiner Theoreme wird das Potential zugesprochen, die philosophische Sinntheorie bereichern zu können: Das sind die Situativität und Individualität des Sinns sowie die Gegebenheit der Sinnmöglichkeiten und die Verantwortung für ihre Verwirklichung. (shrink)

Definition of the problem: The connection between time and the good life has already been worked out for a number of medical specialties and practices. However, what role does the temporality of the good life play for medicine as a whole? That is the central question of this article. Arguments: The good life is here understood as a meaningful life. Living meaningfully is only possible through present action. A fulfilled presence in this sense is therefore an essential aspect of the (...) temporality of the good life. Illness tends to prevent a fulfilled presence. In this respect, medical treatments aim to enable a fulfilled presence. A second structure of time, that is central to the good life, consists in the chronobiological rhythms, upon the maintenance and restoration of which health is critically dependent. Conclusion: The temporality of the good life has a twofold relevance for medicine as a whole. First, the purpose of medical treatment is to enable a fulfilled present. Second, this can and should be done by maintaining and restoring chronobiological rhythms. ++++ Der Zusammenhang von Zeit und gutem Leben wurde bereits für eine Reihe medizinischer Disziplinen und Praktiken herausgearbeitet. Doch welche Rolle spielt die Zeitlichkeit des guten Lebens für die Medizin insgesamt? Das ist die leitende Frage dieses Artikels. Dabei wird das gute Leben als sinnvolles Leben verstanden. In diesem Sinne wird für eine zweifache medizinische Relevanz der Zeitlichkeit des guten Lebens argumentiert: Erstens besteht der Sinn medizinischer Behandlungen in der Ermöglichung erfüllter Gegenwart. Zweitens kann und sollte ebendies u. a. durch die Wahrung und Wiederherstellung der chronobiologischen Rhythmen geschehen. (shrink)

Background: -/- One influential view is that vulnerability to major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with a proneness to experience negative emotions in general. In contrast, blame attribution theories emphasise the importance of blaming oneself rather than others for negative events. Our previous exploratory study provided support for the attributional hypothesis that patients with remitted MDD show no overall bias towards negative emotions, but a selective bias towards emotions entailing self-blame relative to emotions that entail blaming others. More specifically, we (...) found a decreased proneness for contempt/disgust towards others relative to oneself (i.e. self-contempt bias). Here, we report a definitive test of the competing general negative versus specific attributional bias theories of MDD. Methods: -/- We compared a medication-free remitted MDD (n = 101) and a control group (n = 70) with no family or personal history of MDD on a previously validated experimental test of moral emotions. The task measures proneness to specific emotions associated with different types of self-blame (guilt, shame, self-contempt/disgust, self-indignation/anger) and blame of others (other-indignation/anger, other-contempt/disgust) whilst controlling for the intensity of unpleasantness. Results: -/- We confirmed the hypothesis that patients with MDD exhibit an increased self-contempt bias with a reduction in contempt/disgust towards others. Furthermore, they also showed a decreased proneness for indignation/anger towards others. Conclusions: -/- This corroborates the prediction that vulnerability to MDD is associated with an imbalance of specific self- and other-blaming emotions rather than a general increase in negative emotions. This has important implications for neurocognitive models and calls for novel focussed interventions to rebalance blame in MDD. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a proof-theoretic characterization of relevant logics including fusion and fission connectives, as well as Ackermann’s truth constant. We achieve this by employing the well-established methodology of labelled sequent calculi. After having introduced several systems, we will conduct a detailed proof-theoretic analysis, show a cut-admissibility theorem, and establish soundness and completeness. The paper ends with a discussion that contextualizes our current work within the broader landscape of the proof theory of relevant logics.

Three professors reflect on the experience of creating a learning community of 22 students by linking courses in Literature and Ethics. The project demonstrates practical strategies for incorporating feminist scholarship and pedagogy into the core curriculum and for integrating core courses from diverse disciplines.

Background Neuroimaging and lesion studies suggested that the dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices mediate visual metacognitive awareness. The causal evidence provided by non-invasive brain stimulation, however, is inconsistent. -/- Objective/hypothesis Here we revisit a major figure discrimination experiment adding a new Kanizsa figure task trying to resolve whether bilateral continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) over these regions affects perceptual metacognition. Specifically, we tested whether subjective visibility ratings and/or metacognitive efficiency are lower when cTBS is applied to these two (...) regions in comparison to an active control region. -/- Methods A within-subjects design including three sessions spaced by one-week intervals was implemented. In each session, every participant was administered bilateral cTBS to either prefrontal, control or parietal cortices. Two concurrent tasks were performed, a real and an illusory figure task, stabilising objective performance with use of an adaptive staircase procedure. -/- Results When performing the replicated task, cTBS was found insufficient to disrupt neither visibility ratings nor metacognitive efficiency. However, with use of Kanizsa style illusory figures, cTBS over the dorsolateral prefrontal, but not over the posterior parietal cortex, was observed to significantly diminish metacognitive efficiency. -/- Conclusion(s) Real and illusory figure tasks demonstrated different cTBS effects. A possible explanation is the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the creation of expectations, which is necessary for efficient metacognition. Failure to replicate previous findings for the real figure task, however, cannot be said to support, conclusively, the notion that these brain regions have a causal role in metacognitive awareness. This inconsistent finding may result from certain limitations of our study, thereby suggesting the need for yet further investigation. (shrink)

In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes.

That believing truly as a matter of luck does not generally constitute knowing has become epistemic commonplace. Accounts of knowledge incorporating this anti-luck idea frequently rely on one or another of a safety or sensitivity condition. Sensitivity-based accounts of knowledge have a well-known problem with necessary truths, to wit, that any believed necessary truth trivially counts as knowledge on such accounts. In this paper, we argue that safety-based accounts similarly trivialize knowledge of necessary truths and that two ways of responding (...) to this problem for safety, issuing from work by Williamson and Pritchard, are of dubious success. (shrink)

This book explores a question central to philosophy--namely, what does it take for a belief to be justified or rational? According to a widespread view, whether one has justification for believing a proposition is determined by how probable that proposition is, given one's evidence. In this book this view is rejected and replaced with another: in order for one to have justification for believing a proposition, one's evidence must normically support it--roughly, one's evidence must make the falsity of that proposition (...) abnormal in the sense of calling for special, independent explanation. This conception of justification bears upon a range of topics in epistemology and beyond. Ultimately, this way of looking at justification guides us to a new, unfamiliar picture of how we should respond to our evidence and manage our own fallibility. This picture is developed here. (shrink)

The majority of historians and teachers of history tend to believe that it was the Propaganda of the educated elite that led to the Philippine Revolution of 1896. Reynaldo Ileto already made a powerful critique on such perspective by analyzing the mentalité of the pobres y ignorantes, and showed that they indeed possessed a certain worldview that was far different from that of the Ilustrados of the Propaganda Movement. Ileto, however, remained within the limits of the Catholic ideology and its (...) appropriation by the masses in the 19th century. This paper aims to study ginhawa, a Filipino concept, as both a concept and an ideology. The paper argues that ginhawa was used by the natives in interpreting the workings of colonialism. (shrink)

Ang papel na ito ay isang pagtatangka ng paghahawan ng landas tungo sa potensyal ngginhawa bilang isang konseptong kultural-pilosopikal. Gagawin ang paghahawan mula sapagtititistis ng ilang datos mula sa kasaysayan, kultura at maging sa wikang Filipino. Nahahatiang papel sa dalawang bahagi: una, ang talakay sa lagay ng Pilosopiyang Pilipino; pangalawaang pagbubulaybulay tungkol sa ginhawa bilang konsepto, sa aspektong historikal, politiko-ekonomiko, at linggwistiko.

Recent work in the philosophy of biology argues that we must rethink the biological individual beyond the boundary of the species, given that a key part of our essential functioning is carried out by the bacteria in our intestines in a way that challenges any strictly genetic account of what is involved for the biological human. The gut is a kind of ambiguous other within our understanding of ourselves, particularly when we also consider the status of gastro-intestinal disorders. Hegel offers (...) us theoretical tools to describe and understand our relationship to our gut. His description of our selves as continually mediated through otherness is strikingly compatible with the kind of structure contemporary biology presents us with. His accounts of digestion and habit, contextualized by his logic, help point toward an understanding of selfhood as porous and yet still capable of being sufficiently unified for us to make sense of ourselves, one which allows us to acknowledge otherness within us while still having enough unity for agency. (shrink)

Translation of "Von der Armut am Geiste; ein Dialog des jungen Lukács," by Ágnes Heller. This translation originally appeared in The Philosophical Forum, Spring-Summer 1972.

A discussion of L.A. Paul's 'Transformative Experience' from an Author Meets Critics session at the 2015 Pacific APA.

There is something puzzling about statistical evidence. One place this manifests is in the law, where courts are reluctant to base affirmative verdicts on evidence that is purely statistical, in spite of the fact that it is perfectly capable of meeting the standards of proof enshrined in legal doctrine. After surveying some proposed explanations for this, I shall outline a new approach – one that makes use of a notion of normalcy that is distinct from the idea of statistical frequency. (...) The puzzle is not, however, merely a legal one. Our unwillingness to base beliefs on statistical evidence is by no means limited to the courtroom, and is at odds with almost every general principle that epistemologists have proposed as to how we ought to manage our beliefs. (shrink)

Vigorous debate over the moral propriety of cognitive enhancement exists, but the views of the public have been largely absent from the discussion. To address this gap in our knowledge, four experiments were carried out with contrastive vignettes in order to obtain quantitative data on public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement. The data collected suggest that the public is sensitive to and capable of understanding the four cardinal concerns identified by neuroethicists, and tend to cautiously accept cognitive enhancement even as they (...) recognize its potential perils. The public is biopolitically moderate, endorses both meritocratic principles and the intrinsic value of hard work, and appears to be sensitive to the salient moral issues raised in the debate. Taken together, these data suggest that public attitudes toward enhancement are sufficiently sophisticated to merit inclusion in policy deliberations, especially if we seek to align public sentiment and policy. (shrink)

This article develops a criticism of Alain Badiou’s assertion that “mathematics is ontology.” I argue that despite appearances to the contrary, Badiou’s case for bringing set theory and ontology together is problematic. To arrive at this judgment, I explore how a case for the identification of mathematics and ontology could work. In short, ontology would have to be characterised to make it evident that set theory can contribute to it fundamentally. This is indeed how Badiou proceeds in Being and Event. (...) I review his descriptions of the ontological problematic at some length here, only to argue that set theory is a poor fit. Although philosophers working on questions of being were certainly occupied with matters of oneness and the part-whole relationship, I argue that Badiou’s discussion of philosophical sources points towards a mereological treatment, not a set-theoretic one. Finally, I suggest that Badiou’s philosophical interpretations of key set-theoretic results are better understood as some sort of analogising between mathematics, ontology, and philosophical anthropology. (shrink)

In their paper "How Fundamental Physics represents Causality", Andreas Bartels and Daniel Wohlfarth maintain that there is place for causality in General Relativity. Their argument contains two steps: First they show that there are time-asymmetric models in General Relativity, then they claim to derive that two events are causally connected if and only if there is a time-asymmetric energy flow from one event to the other. In our comment we first give a short summary of their paper followed by a (...) section introducing and pondering different conceptions of causation since Bartels and Wohlfarth don’t explicitly declare which notion of causation they build on in the paper. In order to analyze their argument in detail we formalize their crucial step in logical terms. This helps to pose the question whether their proposed derivation is not just a definition in a more precise way. (shrink)

According to a captivating picture, epistemic justification is essentially a matter of epistemic or evidential likelihood. While certain problems for this view are well known, it is motivated by a very natural thought—if justification can fall short of epistemic certainty, then what else could it possibly be? In this paper I shall develop an alternative way of thinking about epistemic justification. On this conception, the difference between justification and likelihood turns out to be akin to the more widely recognised difference (...) between ceteris paribus laws and brute statistical generalisations. I go on to discuss, in light of this suggestion, issues such as classical and lottery-driven scepticism as well as the lottery and preface paradoxes. (shrink)

Two major lines of argument support the notion that Hildegard of Bingen’s metaphysics is peculiarly gynocentric. Contra the standard commentary on her work, the focus is not on the notion of viriditas; rather, the first line of argument presents a specific delineation of her ontology, demonstrating that it is a graded hierarchy of beings, many of which present feminine aspects of the divine, and all of which establish the metaphysical notion of interpenetrability. The second line of argument specifically contrasts her (...) thought to that of Aquinas and Meister Eckhart, noting areas of similarity and difference. It is concluded that the visionary origins of Hildegard’s work may have to some extent precluded our understanding of it, and that her work merits consideration not only philosophically and theologically but from the standpoint of its early presentation of a gynocentric worldview. (shrink)

What is critical thinking, especially in the context of higher education? How have research and scholarship on the matter developed over recent past decades? What is the current state of the art here? How might the potential of critical thinking be enhanced? What kinds of teaching are necessary in order to realize that potential? And just why is this topic important now? These are the key questions motivating this volume. We hesitate to use terms such as “comprehensive” or “complete” or (...) “definitive,” but we believe that, taken in the round, the chapters in this volume together offer a fair insight into the contemporary understandings of higher education worldwide. We also believe that this volume is much needed, and we shall try to justify that claim in this introduction. (shrink)

As part of a trend in modern cognitive science, cognitive linguist, George Lakoff, and philosopher, Mark Johnson claim to provide a biologically-based account of subsymbolic meaningful experiences. They argue that human beings understand objects by extrapolating from their sensory motor activities and primary perceptions. Lakoff and Johnson’s writings have generated a good deal of interest among scholars of Early China because they maintain that “our common embodiment allows for common stable truths.” Although there are many grounds on which Lakoff and (...) Johnson’s theories have been criticized, this essay focuses in particular on problems related to their schema of Self as Container. Lakoff and Johnson contend that there are no pure experiences outside of culture, while nevertheless arguing that the experience of being a closed-off container is “direct.” “The concepts OBJECT, SUBSTANCE and CONTAINER emerge directly,” they write. “We experience ourselves as entities, separate from the rest of the world—as containers with an inside and an outside.” By “emerge directly,” they do not mean emerging free of culture, but rather that some experiences within culture, specifically physical experiences, are more directly given than others. My study explores the pitfalls of presuming the “direct” experience of containment makes good sense of texts from Early China (ca. 500–100 B.C.E). (shrink)

This paper argues that general skills and the varieties of subject-specific discourse are both important for teaching, learning and practising critical thinking. The former is important because it outlines the principles of good reasoning simpliciter (what constitutes sound reasoning patterns, invalid inferences, and so on). The latter is important because it outlines how the general principles are used and deployed in the service of ‘academic tribes’. Because critical thinking skills are—in part, at least—general skills, they can be applied to all (...) disciplines and subject-matter indiscriminately. General skills can help us assess reasoning independently of the vagaries of the linguistic discourse we express arguments in. The paper looks at the debate between the ‘specifists’—those who stress the importance of critical thinking understood as a subject-specific discourse—and the ‘generalists’—those that stress the importance of critical thinking understood independently of disciplinary context. The paper suggests that the ‘debate’ between the specifists and the generalists amounts to a fallacy of the false alternative, and presents a combinatory-‘infusion’ approach to critical thinking. (shrink)

In 1990 Edward Craig published a book called Knowledge and the State of Nature in which he introduced and defended a genealogical approach to epistemology. In recent years Craig’s book has attracted a lot of attention, and his distinctive approach has been put to a wide range of uses including anti-realist metaepistemology, contextualism, relativism, anti-luck virtue epistemology, epistemic injustice, value of knowledge, pragmatism and virtue epistemology. While the number of objections to Craig’s approach has accumulated, there has been no sustained (...) attempt to develop answers to these objections. In this paper we provide answers to seven important objections in the literature. (shrink)

A de minimis risk is defined as a risk that is so small that it may be legitimately ignored when making a decision. While ignoring small risks is common in our day-to-day decision making, attempts to introduce the notion of a de minimis risk into the framework of decision theory have run up against a series of well-known difficulties. In this paper, I will develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of overcoming two major obstacles to the modelling (...) of de minimis risk. The key move is to introduce, into decision theory, a non-probabilistic conception of risk known as normic risk. (shrink)

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in metaphysical explanation, and philosophers have fixed on the notion of ground as the conceptual tool with which such explanation should be investigated. I will argue that this focus on ground is myopic and that some metaphysical explanations that involve the essences of things cannot be understood in terms of ground. Such ‘essentialist’ explanation is of interest, not only for its ubiquity in philosophy, but for its being in a sense an ultimate (...) form of explanation. I give an account of the sense in which such explanation is ultimate and support it by defending what I call the inessentiality of essence. I close by suggesting that this principle is the key to understanding why essentialist explanations can seem so satisfying. (shrink)

Is it right to convict a person of a crime on the basis of purely statistical evidence? Many who have considered this question agree that it is not, posing a direct challenge to legal probabilism – the claim that the criminal standard of proof should be understood in terms of a high probability threshold. Some defenders of legal probabilism have, however, held their ground: Schoeman (1987) argues that there are no clear epistemic or moral problems with convictions based on purely (...) statistical evidence, and speculates that our aversion to such convictions may be nothing more than an irrational bias. More recently, Hedden and Colyvan (2019, section VI) describe our reluctance to convict on the basis of purely statistical evidence as an ‘intuition’, but suggest that there may be no ‘in principle’ problem with such convictions (see also Papineau, forthcoming, section 6). In this paper, I argue that there is, in some cases, an in principle problem with a conviction based upon statistical evidence alone – namely, it commits us to a precedent which, if consistently followed through, could lead to the deliberate conviction of an innocent person. I conclude with some reflections on the idea that the criminal justice system should strive to maximise the accuracy of its verdicts – and the related idea that we should each strive to maximise the accuracy of our beliefs. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of generics in social cognition. First, we explore the nature and effects of the most common form of generics about social kinds. Second, we discuss the nature and effects of a less common but equally important form of generics about social kinds. Finally, we consider the implications of this discussion for how we ought to use language about the social world.

The general aim of this article is to carry out a reconstruction of the theory of Population Dynamics (DP) in Ecology, according to Castle’s (2001) general stance with regard to the semantic view of theories, but doing it within the framework of metatheoretical structuralism. Thus, we will first identify Population Dynamics’ basic theory-element: its core K(DP) – with the class of potential models, the class of models (through the identification of its fundamental law) and the class of partial potential models (...) (though leaving aside the identification of its constraints and its intertheoretical links) –, and its domain of intended applications I(DP). Then, we will establish the general guiding lines of its theory-net, developing in some detail one of its main lines of specialization – namely, that related to the so-called “continuous growing” of the considered populations –, with DP’s principal “models”, and leave developing of the other of its main lines of specialization – namely, that related to the so-called “discrete growing” of the considered populations – for a further publication. (shrink)

This paper argues that Moore's specifist defence of critical thinking as ‘diverse modes of thought in the disciplines’, which appeared in Higher Education Research & Development, 30(3), 2011, is flawed as it entrenches relativist attitudes toward the important skill of critical thinking. The paper outlines the critical thinking debate, distinguishes between ‘top-down’, ‘bottom-up’ and ‘relativist’ approaches and locates Moore's account therein. It uses examples from one discipline-specific area, namely, the discipline of Literature, to show that the generalist approach to critical (...) thinking does not ‘leave something out’ and outlines why teaching ‘generic’ critical thinking skills is central to tertiary education, teaching and learning, and employment opportunities for students. The paper also defends the assessment of critical thinking skills. (shrink)

Karaniwang itinuturing si Jose Rizal bilang tagapanguna ng paninindigan sa karapatan ng babae sa Asya. Eksplisito itong ipinahayag ng pambansang heroé sa pamamagitan ng kanyang liham sa mga kababaihan ng Malolos. Ang mga prinsipyong isinulong dito ni Rizal, ayon kay Lilia Quindoza-Santiago, ay nagtataglay ng mga implikasyon sa kilusang kababaihan sa bansa. Maliban sa liham na nabanggit, mapagkukunan din ng interpretasyon ang ilang babaeng tauhan ni Rizal sa kanyang mga nobela. Ilang bagay ang dapat itanong: habang kritikal nga si Rizal (...) sa patriarka, saan maitatakda ang hangganan ng kanyang paninindigan tungkol sa kalagayan ng babae sa kolonya? Paano naging bahagi ng kaniyang nasyonalismo ang mga imahenaryong nilikha niya tungkol sa babae? (shrink)

“Critical thinking in higher education” is a phrase that means many things to many people. It is a broad church. Does it mean a propensity for finding fault? Does it refer to an analytical method? Does it mean an ethical attitude or a disposition? Does it mean all of the above? Educating to develop critical intellectuals and the Marxist concept of critical consciousness are very different from the logician’s toolkit of finding fallacies in passages of text, or the practice of (...) identifying and distinguishing valid from invalid syllogisms. Critical thinking in higher education can also encompass debates about critical pedagogy, i.e., political critiques of the role and function of education in society, critical feminist approaches to curriculum, issues related to what has become known as critical citizenship, or any other education-related topic that uses the appellation “critical”. Equally, it can, and usually does, refer to the importance and centrality of developing general skills in reasoning—skills that we hope all graduates possess. Yet, despite more than four decades of dedicated scholarly work “critical thinking” remains as elusive as ever. As a concept, it is, as Raymond Williams has noted, a ‘most difficult one’ (Williams, 1976, p. 74). (shrink)

According to the principle of Conjunction Closure, if one has justification for believing each of a set of propositions, one has justification for believing their conjunction. The lottery and preface paradoxes can both be seen as posing challenges for Closure, but leave open familiar strategies for preserving the principle. While this is all relatively well-trodden ground, a new Closure-challenging paradox has recently emerged, in two somewhat different forms, due to Backes :3773–3787, 2019a) and Praolini :715–726, 2019). This paradox synthesises elements (...) of the lottery and the preface and is designed to close off the familiar Closure-preserving strategies. By appealing to a normic theory of justification, I will defend Closure in the face of this new paradox. Along the way I will draw more general conclusions about justification, normalcy and defeat, which bear upon what Backes :2877–2895, 2019b) has dubbed the ‘easy defeat’ problem for the normic theory. (shrink)

A ‘lottery belief’ is a belief that a particular ticket has lost a large, fair lottery, based on nothing more than the odds against it winning. The lottery paradox brings out a tension between the idea that lottery beliefs are justified and the idea that that one can always justifiably believe the deductive consequences of things that one justifiably believes – what is sometimes called the principle of closure. Many philosophers have treated the lottery paradox as an argument against the (...) second idea – but I make a case here that it is the first idea that should be given up. As I shall show, there are a number of independent arguments for denying that lottery beliefs are justified. (shrink)

Metaphysical rationalism, the doctrine which affirms the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR), is out of favor today. The best argument against it is that it appears to lead to necessitarianism, the claim that all truths are necessarily true. Whatever the intuitive appeal of the PSR, the intuitive appeal of the claim that things could have been otherwise is greater. This problem did not go unnoticed by the great metaphysical rationalists Spinoza and Leibniz. Spinoza’s response was to embrace necessitarianism. Leibniz’s (...) response was to argue that, despite appearances, rationalism does not lead to necessitarianism. This paper examines the debate between these two rationalists and concludes that Leibniz has persuasive grounds for his opinion. This has significant implications both for the plausibility of the PSR and for our understanding of modality. (shrink)

Argument mapping is a way of diagramming the logical structure of an argument to explicitly and concisely represent reasoning. The use of argument mapping in critical thinking instruction has increased dramatically in recent decades. This paper overviews the innovation and provides a procedural approach for new teaches wanting to use argument mapping in the classroom. A brief history of argument mapping is provided at the end of this paper.

Since one of the connotations of maturity is development, the meaning of emotional maturity that we come to is to control and cultivate our ability to emote. Since this conception of emotional maturity is subsumed under a conception of the self, by describing the mechanism of the self as a process of development, we can also account for emotional maturity. The implications of this way of looking at emotional maturity, by looking at one’s self, reveal important problems about what the (...) mind is and how the mind functions in order for us to cope with and thrive in life. (shrink)

Reinholds Kritik an Kants Ausführungen über Willkürfreiheit aus der Einleitung zur "Metaphysik der Sitten". Zur Aktualität dieser Kritik.

One of the most intriguing claims in Sven Rosenkranz’s Justification as Ignorance is that Timothy Williamson’s celebrated anti-luminosity argument can be resisted when it comes to the condition ~K~KP—the condition that one is in no position to know that one is in no position to know P. In this paper, I critically assess this claim.

This paper is in two parts. Part I outlines three traditional approaches to the teaching of critical thinking: the normative, cognitive psychology, and educational approaches. Each of these approaches is discussed in relation to the influences of various methods of critical thinking instruction. The paper contrasts these approaches with what I call the “visualisation” approach. This approach is explained with reference to computer-aided argument mapping (CAAM) which uses dedicated computer software to represent inferences between premise and conclusions. The paper presents (...) a detailed account of the CAAM methodology, and theoretical justification for its use, illustrating this with the argument mapping software Rationale™. A number of Rationale™ design conventions and logical principles are outlined including the principle of abstraction, the MECE principle, and the “Holding Hands” and “Rabbit Rule” heuristics. Part II of this paper outlines the growing empirical evidence for the effectiveness of CAAM as a method of teaching critical thinking. (shrink)

There are a number of debates that are relevant to questions concerning objectivity in science. One of the eldest, and still one of the most intensely fought, is the debate over epistemic relativism. —All forms of epistemic relativism commit themselves to the view that it is impossible to show in a neutral, non-question-begging, way that one “epistemic system”, that is, one interconnected set of epistemic standards, is epistemically superior to others. I shall call this view “No-metajustification”. No-metajustification is commonly taken (...) to deny the objectivity of standards. In this paper I shall discuss two currently popular attempts to attack “No-metajustification”. The first attempt attacks no-metajustification by challenging a particular strategy of arguing in its defence: this strategy involves the ancient Pyrrhonian “Problem of the Criterion”. The second attempt to refute No-metajustification targets its metaphysical underpinning: to wit, the claim that there are, or could be, several fundamentally different and irreconcilable epistemic systems. I shall call this assumption “Pluralism”. I shall address three questions with respect to these attempts to refute epistemic relativism by attacking no-metajustification: Can the epistemic relativist rely on the Problem of the Criterion in support of No-metajustification? Is a combination of Chisholmian “particularism” and epistemic naturalism an effective weapon against No-metajustification? And is Pluralism a defensible assumption? (shrink)

This paper proposes a view of time that takes passage to be the most basic temporal notion, instead of the usual A-theoretic and B-theoretic notions, and explores how we should think of a world that exhibits such a genuine temporal passage. It will be argued that an objective passage of time can only be made sense of from an atemporal point of view and only when it is able to constitute a genuine change of objects across time. This requires that (...) passage can flip one fact into a contrary fact, even though neither side of the temporal passage is privileged over the other. We can make sense of this if the world is inherently perspectival. Such an inherently perspectival world is characterized by fragmentalism, a view that has been introduced by Fine in his ‘Tense and Reality’ (2005). Unlike Fine's tense-theoretic fragmentalism though, the proposed view will be a fragmentalist view based in a primitive notion of passage. (shrink)

Theories of epistemic justification are commonly assessed by exploring their predictions about particular hypothetical cases – predictions as to whether justification is present or absent in this or that case. With a few exceptions, it is much less common for theories of epistemic justification to be assessed by exploring their predictions about logical principles. The exceptions are a handful of ‘closure’ principles, which have received a lot of attention, and which certain theories of justification are well known to invalidate. But (...) these closure principles are only a small sample of the logical principles that we might consider. In this paper, I will outline four further logical principles that plausibly hold for justification and two which plausibly do not. While my primary aim is just to put these principles forward, I will use them to evaluate some different approaches to justification and (tentatively) conclude that a ‘normic’ theory of justification best captures its logic. (shrink)