Im institutionalisierten Bereich interkultureller Beziehungen kommt es permanent zu Bemühungen, über gemeinsame musikalische Projekte Brücken zum Austausch von Lebensrealitäten und Erfahrungen zu erzielen. In vielen Fällen besteht jedoch nicht die Gelegenheit des gegenseitigen Austausches, weil die beteiligten Akteure entweder nebeneinander agieren, ohne aufeinander einzugehen und die Impulse ihres Gegenübers in den eigenen Beiträgen zu reflektieren, oder aber eine der beiden Bestandteile den anderen dominiert, und keine entsprechende Gelegenheit zur gleichberechtigten Artikulation einräumt. Der Grund dafür liegt häufig in der Starrheit der (...) musikalischen Systeme, die bei solchen Gelegenheiten aufeinander treffen und deren Unfähigkeit, auf Impulse außerhalb des jeweiligen Bezugsrahmens einzugehen. Die Improvisation bietet in diesem Zusammenhang einen tatsächlichen Spielplatz für unterschiedliche Zugänge und Entwürfe, der dazu einlädt, sich spielerisch einander anzunähern. Während im idiomatisch eingeschränkten Ausdrucksspektrum auch hier noch einige Barrieren existieren dürften, stellt sich im Kontext der harmonisch und rhythmisch freien Variante eine scheinbar ideale Basis zum gegenseitigen Erfahrungsaustausch dar. Diese wird nicht zuletzt aufgrund einer stark individualisierten Klangästhetik und Ausdruckspalette erzielt, deren Repräsentationsanteil an deutlich zuzuordnenden Elementen einer jeweiligen kulturellen Entität jedoch oft nicht exakt zu bestimmen ist. So widmet sich ein zentraler Aspekt der Arbeit der Frage nach der Zuweisungsebene der in diesem Zusammenhang getätigten Ausdrucksweisen, die sich im Bereich zwischen eindeutig einer bestimmten kulturellen Entität zuzuordnenden Elemente – häufig in Form von traditionellen Instrumenten als kulturelle Artefakte einer spezifischen regionalen Zugehörigkeit – und der rein technischen Herangehensweise an die musikalische Praxis der Kollektiv-Improvisation als Bestandteil einer global präsenten Subkultur der freien Improvisationsszene bewegt. Regelmäßig initiierte Projekte, die sich mit dieser Thematik auseinandersetzen werden im methodischen Teil der Arbeit zur Diskussion gestellt und als Ausgangspunkt für Erkenntnisse zur Optimierung von Projekten mit ähnlich ausgerichteten Zielsetzungen herangezogen. (shrink)

Authors from all over the world unite in an effort to cultivate dialogue between Asian and Western philosophy. The papers forge a new, East-West comparative path on the whole range of issues in Kant studies. The concept of personhood, crucial for both traditions, serves as a springboard to address issues such as knowledge acquisition and education, ethics and self-identity, religious/political community building, and cross-cultural understanding. Edited by Stephen Palmquist, founder of the Hong Kong Philosophy Café and well known for both (...) his Kant expertise and his devotion to fostering philosophical dialogue, the book presents selected and reworked papers from the Kant in Asia conference, held in Hong Kong in May 2009. In addition to keynote essays by Patricia Kitcher (Columbia), Günter Wohlfart (Wuppertal), and Cheng Chung-ying (Hawaii), the book contains 64 contributed essays. The latter include contributions from Andrew Brook, David Cummiskey, Rainer Enskat, Wolfgang Ertl, Hans Feger, Klaus-Gerd Giesen, Ronald Green, Martin Moors, Ulrich Seeberg, Susan Shell, Rein Vos, Günter Zoeller, and numerous Asian philosophers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophies versus Philosophy:In Defense of a Flexible DefinitionRein RaudIt is strange that no one has taken up Carine Defoort's clearly formulated and timely argument about the intercultural tensions in interpreting what philosophy is, although the issue deserves at least a roundtable, if not an international conference.1 I doubt that this is because there is a general consensus that the matter is now settled, and I would therefore like to (...) develop the argument a bit further and offer a few additional factors to consider. It is also obvious that the problem is not limited to the subject of Chinese philosophy alone: all traditions of thought from all over the world, but most notably the Indian, Islamic, and Japanese heritages, are affected by the positions we adopt. As in most debates about the commensurability of cultural traditions, we can find differences when we look for them, and similarities if these are what we would like to see, so the "conflict of sensitivities"2 is also a matter of attitudes. My own position is that regardless of what we prefer to call the practice of deeper thought (and 'philosophy' is a very good name), it would be extremely useful for all of its participants, whatever their origin and upbringing, to find a common denominator for them to be able to exchange ideas and mutually enrich each other on its basis. In what follows I shall try to sketch a perspective from which this could, in my opinion, be theoretically grounded.Four PositionsDefoort has identified four possible points of view on the problem of whether classical Chinese thought could or should be called 'philosophy,' which could be summarized as follows.1. Chinese classical thought is not philosophy, because it does not satisfy the conditions of philosophy as it is generally and traditionally understood in the West.2. Chinese classical thought is philosophy, because it reveals the necessary characteristics if analyzed with the help of an appropriate (Western-type) observation language.3. Chinese classical thought can be called philosophy, but only if we redefine philosophy in order to accommodate some of its nontypical or clearly deviant features.4. Chinese classical thought should not be called philosophy, because philosophy is a culturally closed Western phenomenon with a limited scope and incapable of understanding fundamentally different modes of thought. [End Page 618]If we dismiss the birthright variety of the first position, we could label it essentialist, and its weakest point is certainly that Western philosophy has not remained unchanged during the course of history. It is highly doubtful that Socrates, Diogenes, scholastics, Nietzsche, and Gareth Evans could all be members of the same set if the same strict criteria were applied to all periods and all cultural settings in the same way, and, as Defoort herself stresses,3 the fact that seventeenth-century Jesuits (the basis of whose original worldview, we should think, was much farther from the Chinese than ours) had no problem in calling Chinese thought philosophy should show us that the paradigm shift of the thing called 'philosophy' has occurred in the West and is, so to speak, our problem and not theirs.Now, it is also possible that in some circles even some prominent names in the Western tradition do not qualify as real philosophers, in the sense in which Hegel was treated by Bertrand Russell4 and Heidegger was dismissed by Alfred Ayer5 in their respective histories of philosophy (while they nevertheless felt compelled to include chapters or passages on them). A definition of philosophy that puts forward such criteria that a considerable number of thinkers would have to remain outside its borders should be labeled sectarian-and it can still be met, even if ever less often, in some analytical schools of philosophy. It is my conviction, however, that in our globalizing world any definition that would leave non-European philosophy outside the borders of 'philosophy proper' should be considered sectarian in nature. The main problem that I have with Defoort's family model6 is precisely that in it the head of the family, who makes the decisions as to who can be adopted and who cannot, is always Western, and the... (shrink)

Reality exists independently of human observers, but does the same apply to its structure? Realist ontologies usually assume so: according to them, the world consists of objects, these have properties and enter into relations with each other, more or less as we are accustomed to think of them. Against this view, Rein Raud develops a radical process ontology that does not credit any vantage point, any scale or speed of being, any range of cognitive faculties with the privilege to (...) judge how the world ‘really’ is. In his view, what we think of as objects are recast as fields of constitutive tensions, cross-sections of processes, never in complete balance but always striving for it and always reconfiguring themselves accordingly. The human self is also understood as a fluctuating field, not limited to the mind but distributed all over the body and reaching out into its environment, with different constituents of the process constantly vying for control. The need for such a process philosophy has often been voiced, but rarely has there been an effort to develop it in a systematic and rigourous manner that leads to original accounts of identity, continuity, time, change, causality, agency and other topics. Throughout his new book, Raud engages with an unusually broad range of philosophical schools and debates, from New Materialism and Object-Oriented Ontology to both phenomenological and analytical philosophy of mind, from feminist philosophy of science to neurophilosophy and social ontology. Being in Flux will be of interest to students and scholars in philosophy and the humanities generally and to anyone interested in current debates about realism, materialism and ontology. (shrink)

This article argues for a new way to interpret Dōgen's theory of time, reading the notion of uji as momentary existence, and shows that many notorious difficulties usually associated with the theory can be overcome with this approach, which is also more compatible with some fundamental assumptions of Buddhist philosophy (the non-durational existence of dharmas, the arbitrariness of linguistic designations and the concepts they point to, the absence of self-nature in beings, etc.). It is also shown how this reading leads (...) to an innovative treatment of the concept of selfhood, viewing the self as the active openness of an existent to the surrounding world, with which it is able to identify through a mutual relation with other existents within the existential moment. This argument is supported by an alternative translation in the "momentary mode" of those extracts of the fascicle that introduce or elaborate on Dōgen's key concepts. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed a sharp increase of interest in the cultures and regions of South and East Asia, owing in part to the prominent role Asian economies have played in the era of globalization. Asian Worldviews: Religions, Philosophies, Political Theories is a unique, reader-friendly introduction to the intellectual heritage of the region. Assuming no previous background in Asian cultural history, Asian Worldviews moves beyond chronological and geographic boundaries to present an integrated treatment of the beliefs, teachings, and ideologies that (...) have shaped the worldviews of approximately half of the global population. Rein Raud explores forms of knowledge in China, India, Tibet, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia, providing balanced coverage of all historical periods from antiquity to the modern day. -/- Asian Worldviews embraces the connections rather than the divisions between the religious and philosophical dimensions of South and East Asian thought, and emphasizes a robust engagement with each culture's political, social, and economic contexts. Clear, accessible chapters discuss the development of religious, philosophical, and political thought in India, China, and Japan, and provide succinct overviews of the history of ideas in Korea, Tibet, and Southeast Asia. Throughout the book, Raud uses a comparative approach to examine the mutual influence and productive dialogue, past and present, between Asian cultures as well as with the West, and considers the impact of various worldviews on the development of modern Asian societies. -/- Comprehensive and well-informed by recent developments in the scholarship, Asian Worldviews: Religions, Philosophies, Political Theories is an unparalleled resource for a broad range of courses in Asian studies, philosophy, religious studies, and global politics, as well as an excellent introduction for non-specialist readers looking for a contextual foothold in the rich cultural and intellectual history of South and East Asia. (shrink)

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)

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)

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)

Recent developments in Continental philosophy have included the emergence of a school of “speculative realism,” which rejects the human-centered orientation that has long dominated Continental thought. Proponents of speculative realism differ on several issues, but many agree on the need for an object-oriented ontology. Some speculative realists identify realism with materialism, while others accord equal reality to objects that are non-material, even fictional. Several thinkers retain a focus on difference, a well-established theme in Continental thought. This paper looks at speculative (...) realism from the perspective of systems theory. Many of the tenets of speculative realism have long been features of systems metaphysics and are expressed clearly in a systems framework. However, some views of some speculative realists differ substantially from systems theoretic ideas. (shrink)

This paper seeks to widen the dialogue between the “epistemology of peer disagreement” and the epistemology informed by Wittgenstein’s last notebooks, later edited as On Certainty. The paper defends the following theses: not all certainties are groundless; many of them are beliefs; and they do not have a common essence. An epistemic peer need not share all of my certainties. Which response to a disagreement over a certainty is called for, depends on the type of certainty in question. Sometimes a (...) form of relativism is the right response. Reasonable, mutually recognized peer disagreement over a certainty is possible.—The paper thus addresses both interpretative and systematic issues. It uses Wittgenstein as a resource for thinking about peer disagreement over certainties. (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)

Our understanding of subjunctive conditionals has been greatly enhanced through the use of possible world semantics and, more precisely, by the idea that they involve variably strict quantification over possible worlds. I propose to extend this treatment to ceteris paribus conditionals – that is, conditionals that incorporate a ceteris paribus or ‘other things being equal’ clause. Although such conditionals are commonly invoked in scientific theorising, they traditionally arouse suspicion and apprehensiveness amongst philosophers. By treating ceteris paribus conditionals as a species (...) of variably strict conditional I hope to shed new light upon their content and their logic. (shrink)

Philosophers have observed that metaphysical necessity appears to be a true or real or genuine form of necessity while epistemic necessity does not. Similarly, natural necessity appears genuine while deontic necessity does not. But what is it for a form of necessity to be genuine? I defend an account of genuine necessity in explanatory terms. The genuine forms of necessity, I argue, are those that provide what I call necessitarianexplanation. I discuss the relationship of necessitarian explanation to ground.

In this paper, I list various kinds of ‘plurality’ in philosophical investigations. By plurality, I mean a plurality of methodological criteria which we apply to philosophical phenomena and which are very often incompatible with each other. Any philosophical phenomenon can be approached from different methodological viewpoints and result in utterly different ontological and ideological commitments. In other words, I assume that one philosophical problem can have different solutions which depend on different methodological and theoretical presuppositions. Instead of considering this feature (...) of philosophical theories as a problem, I take this plurality as a natural meta-philosophical result. As an example, I consider impossible phenomena and ways of treating them systematically. (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)

In a recent paper, Björn Lundgren and H. Orri Stefánsson (forthcoming) present three objections to normic de minimis expected utility theory (NDEUT) – a decision theoretic framework defended in Smith (2024). In this paper, I respond to these objections and outline some possible ways in which NDEUT might be modified or further developed. Like any de minimis framework, NDEUT employs a risk threshold to sort possibilities into those that must be considered when making a decision, and those that can be (...) legitimately ignored – the so-called ‘de minimis risks’. While this threshold would usually take the form of a probability value, in NDEUT the de minimis risks are identified instead on the basis of their abnormality. In the first section I will set up some of the formalism used in NDEUT and consider Lundgren and Stefánsson’s first objection – which is essentially formal in nature. In the second section I will delve further into the interpretation of NDEUT and consider the second and third objections, which turn on particular examples. (shrink)

Many epistemologists have responded to the lottery paradox by proposing formal rules according to which high probability defeasibly warrants acceptance. Douven and Williamson present an ingenious argument purporting to show that such rules invariably trivialise, in that they reduce to the claim that a probability of 1 warrants acceptance. Douven and Williamson’s argument does, however, rest upon significant assumptions – amongst them a relatively strong structural assumption to the effect that the underlying probability space is both finite and uniform. In (...) this paper, I will show that something very like Douven and Williamson’s argument can in fact survive with much weaker structural assumptions – and, in particular, can apply to infinite probability spaces. (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)

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)

In this article, we discuss the ethics of research suspensions in animal research facilities and the consequent (mis)treatment of laboratory animals during emergencies. Through a case study from Switzerland during the COVID-19 pandemic, we articulate ethical principles and moral considerations that ought to guide the treatment and care of laboratory animals within animal research facilities during emergencies. They include a principle of preparedness, the importance of recognizing animal laboratory personnel as essential workers and conducting a Harm-Benefit Analysis in the case (...) of an emergency, assigning responsibilities in a clear way, and providing psychological support in the aftermath of an emergency. More generally, we suggest that the pandemic should be taken as a learning opportunity for critically re-evaluating and improving emergency planning within animal research institutions worldwide, in view of mitigating risks to both human and animal well-being in future emergencies. (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)

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)

In this paper I respond to Marcello Di Bello’s criticisms of the ‘normic account’ of the criminal standard of proof. In so doing, I further elaborate on what the normic account predicts about certain significant legal categories of evidence, including DNA and fingerprint evidence and eyewitness identifications.

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)

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)

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.

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.

In this paper I defend the claim that justification is closed under conjunction, and confront its most alarming consequence — that one can have justification for believing propositions that are unlikely to be true, given one's evidence.

Could I have been someone other than who I am? Philosophers from Williams to Nagel to Lewis have been tempted to answer 'yes', but how can we make sense of such a view? I argue that to say that it is contingent who I am is to say that it is contingent what perspective I have, in a distinctively metaphysical sense of perspective.

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)

There is a concern about the effectiveness of petitionary prayer. If I pray for something good, wouldn’t God give it to me anyway? And if I pray for something bad, won’t God refrain from giving it to me even though I’ve asked? This problem has received significant attention. The typical solutions suggest that the prayer itself can alter whether something is good or bad. I will argue that this is insufficient to fully address the problem, but also that the problem (...) requires another assumption which can be doubted, thereby opening up a new way to solve the problem. (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)

Companies committed to corporate social responsibility should ensure that their managers possess the appropriate competencies to effectively manage the CSR adaptation process. The literature provides insights into the individual competencies these managers need but fails to prioritize them and adequately contextualize them in a manner that makes them meaningful in practice. In this study, we contextualized the competencies within the different job roles CSR managers have in the CSR adaptation process. We interviewed 28 CSR managers, followed by a survey to (...) explore the relative importance of the competencies within each job role. Based on our analysis, we identified six distinct managerial roles, including strategic, coordinating, and stimulating roles. Next, we identified per role key individual CSR-related competencies as prioritized by the respondents. Our results show that the context, as indicated in this study by CSR managers’ job roles, indeed influenced the importance of particular CSR-related competencies, because each role seems to require a different combination and prioritization of these competencies. Moreover, the results suggest that the relative importance of these competencies within each role may be driven by business logic rather than an idealistic logic. The results are presented as a competence profile which can serve as a reflection tool and as a frame of reference to further develop the competence profile for CSR managers. (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)

In a recent paper in this journal Duncan Pritchard responds to an objection to the modal account of risk pressed by Ebert, Smith and Durbach ( 2020 ). In this paper, I expand upon the objection and argue that it still stands. I go on to consider a more general question raised by this exchange – whether risk is ‘objective’, or whether it is something that varies from one perspective to another.

I survey the philosophical literature on grounding explanation and its connection to metaphysical ground.

In this paper I propose a new solution to the problem of change: situationalism. According to this view, parts of reality fundamentally disagree about what is the case and reality as a whole is unsettled (i.e. metaphysically indeterminate). When something changes, parts of the world irreconcilably disagree about what properties it has. From this irreconcilable disagreement, indeterminacy arises. I develop this picture using situations, which are parts of possible worlds; this gives it the name situationalism. It allows a B-theory endurance (...) view on which there is genuine incompatibility when things change. There are costs to the view, which are explored, but it is a novel approach which offers a distinct explanation of what happens when things exist through change. (shrink)

Bayesian models of legal arguments generally aim to produce a single integrated model, combining each of the legal arguments under consideration. This combined approach implicitly assumes that variables and their relationships can be represented without any contradiction or misalignment, and in a way that makes sense with respect to the competing argument narratives. This paper describes a novel approach to compare and ‘average’ Bayesian models of legal arguments that have been built independently and with no attempt to make them consistent (...) in terms of variables, causal assumptions or parameterization. The approach involves assessing whether competing models of legal arguments are explained or predict facts uncovered before or during the trial process. Those models that are more heavily disconfirmed by the facts are given lower weight, as model plausibility measures, in the Bayesian model comparison and averaging framework adopted. In this way a plurality of arguments is allowed yet a single judgement based on all arguments is possible and rational. (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)

El presente capítulo tiene dos propósitos. El primero es mostrar los fundamentos fisicalistas de las posturas filosóficas que defienden el determinismo naturalista, en la tradición de la filosofía analítica. El segundo es analizar una posible compatibilidad entre el determinismo teológico y el naturalista de acuerdo con los principios causales de estos determinismos. Concluyo que tal compatibilidad no es posible porque ambos determinismos están fundados en los principios del fisicalismo que es intrínsecamente contradictorio. Además, ninguno de tales determinismos es defendible si (...) se atiende a la distinción epistemológica entre hechos y proposiciones, que permite introducir una asimetría entre las propiedades de lo físico y lo mental. (shrink)

In this paper we present an overview, with historical and critical remarks, of two articles by S. Jaśkowski ([20, 21] 1948 and [22, 23] 1949), which contain the oldest known formulation of a paraconsistent logic. Jaśkowski has built the logic – he termed discussive (D2) – by defining two new connectives and by introducing a modal translation map from D2 systems into Lewis’ modal logic S5. Discussive systems, for their formal details and their original philosophical justification, have attracted discrete attention (...) among experts. Indeed, in what follows, after having introduced Jaśkowski methodology of building D2 and his main philosophical motivations for providing such a system, we will explore some of the main contributions to the development of D2. (shrink)

Wayne Martin and colleagues argue that decisions about patients’ best interests must sometimes take into account the interests of others Doctors often find themselves in circumstances where they must make decisions on behalf of an incapacitated patient. As a matter of both ethics and law, such decisions must be taken in the best interests of the patient, but uncertainty remains about what is meant by best interests, especially in relation to the interests of others. Should the interests of others (...) enter into a determination of the patient’s best interests? We believe that they should and argue against a recent trend to focus solely on the patient. It only takes a moment’s reflection to appreciate that the interests of one person are often wrapped up with the interests of others. A patient has an interest in recovering from her illness, but so do her family, employer, care providers, etc. Sometimes these various interests can be independently specified, but in other cases they are inextricably intertwined. Suppose that I am a single parent whose overriding interest is to ensure the wellbeing of my children. In that case the proper specification of my best interest is a function of theirs; I simply cannot determine the one without considering the other. This can create an ethical problem in medical decision making. In circumstances where medical staff must make a decision in the best interests of an incapacitated patient, to what extent can or should they take account of the interests of other people whose lives are affected by the outcome? These ethical issues have taken on a concrete legal shape in the UK with the implementation of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which specifies that, “An act done, or decision made, under this Act for or on behalf of a person who lacks capacity …. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate whether there are any cases in which it is rational for a person to hold inconsistent beliefs and, if there are, just what implications this might have for the theory of epistemic justification. A number of issues will crop up along the way – including the relation between justification and rationality, the nature of defeat, the possibility of epistemic dilemmas, the importance of positive epistemic duties, and the distinction between transitional and terminal attitudes.