Results for 'Ragnar Fjelland'

22 found
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  1. HUMAN SOCIETY. SOCIAL THEORY: WHOLES, PARTS, AND THE FIELD OF TOLERATION.Ragnar Stara (ed.) - 2021 - Jakobstad, Finland: Starabooks.
    What is a society? According to sociologists and philosophers, the concept is a self-evident one. They describe society as an aggregate of people, as a society divided into classes or as a community - but also as an impossible object. Why is the answer so vague? There is a conceptual wall that stands in the way of a definition of society, at the same time as society must be defined in order for the social sciences to be possible. The book (...)
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  2. Moral Disagreement and Practical Direction.Ragnar Francén - 2022 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 23 (2):273-303.
    Whenever A judges that x-ing is morally wrong and B judges that x-ing is not morally wrong, we think that they disagree. The two standard types of accounts of such moral disagreements both presuppose that the class of moral wrong-judgments is uniform, though in different ways. According to the belief account, the disagreement is doxastic: A and B have beliefs with conflicting cognitive contents. This presupposes “belief-uniformity”: that the content of moral concepts is invariant in such a way that, whenever (...)
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  3. Mananas, flusses and jartles: belief ascriptions in light of peripheral concept variation.Ragnar Francén - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (12):3635-3651.
    On a simple and neat view, sometimes called the Relational Analysis of Attitude Ascriptions, a belief ascription on the form ‘S believes that x is F’ is correct if, and only if, S stands in the belief-relation to the proposition designated by ‘that x is F’, i.e., the proposition that x is F. It follows from this view that, for a person to believe, say, that x is a boat, there is one unique proposition that she has to believe. This (...)
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  4. Tricky Truths: How Should Alethic Pluralism Accommodate Racial Truths?Ragnar van der Merwe & Phila Msimang - forthcoming - Acta Analytica:1-23.
    Some alethic pluralists maintain that there are two kinds of truths operant in our alethic discourse: a realist kind and an anti-realist kind. In this paper, we argue that such a binary conception cannot accommodate certain social truths, specifically truths about race. Most alethic pluralists surprisingly overlook the status of racial truths. Douglas Edwards is, however, an exception. In his version of alethic pluralism—Determination Pluralism—racial truths are superassertible (anti-realist) true rather than correspondence (realist) true. We argue that racial truths exhibit (...)
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  5. On Paul Cilliers’ approach to complexity: Post-structuralism versus model exclusivity.Ragnar Van Der Merwe - 2021 - INDECS: Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 19 (4):457-469.
    Paul Cilliers has developed a novel post-structural approach to complexity that has influenced several writers contributing to the current complexity literature. Concomitantly however, Cilliers advocates for modelling complex systems using connectionist neural networks (rather than analytic, rule-based models). In this paper, I argue that it is dilemmic to simultaneously hold these two positions. Cilliers’ post-structural interpretation of complexity states that models of complex systems are always contextual and provisional; there is no exclusive model of complex systems. This sentiment however appears (...)
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  6. A Pragmatist Reboot of William Whewell’s Theory of Scientific Progress.Ragnar van der Merwe - 2023 - Contemporary Pragmatism 20 (3):218-245.
    William Whewell’s philosophy of science is often overlooked as a relic of 19th century Whiggism. I argue however that his view – suitably modified – can contribute to contemporary philosophy of science, particularly to debates around scientific progress. The reason Whewell’s view needs modification is that he makes the following problematic claim: as science progresses, it reveals necessarily truths and thereby grants a glimpse of the mind of God. Modifying Whewell’s view will involve reinventing his notion of necessary truth as (...)
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  7. Whewell’s hylomorphism as a metaphorical explanation for how mind and world merge.Ragnar van der Merwe - 2023 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 54 (1):19-38.
    William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science is sometimes glossed over as a footnote to Kant. There is however a key feature of Whewell’s account worth noting. This is his appeal to Aristotle’s form/matter hylomorphism as a metaphor to explain how mind and world merge in successful scientific inquiry. Whewell’s hylomorphism suggests a middle way between rationalism and empiricism reminiscent of experience pragmatists like Steven Levine’s view that mind and world are entwined in experience. I argue however that Levine does (...)
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  8. Stance Pluralism, Scientology and the Problem of Relativism.Ragnar van der Merwe - forthcoming - Foundations of Science: DOI: 10.1007/s10699-022-09882-w.
    Inspired by Bas van Fraassen’s Stance Empiricism, Anjan Chakravartty has developed a pluralistic account of what he calls epistemic stances towards scientific ontology. In this paper, I examine whether Chakravartty’s stance pluralism can exclude epistemic stances that licence pseudo-scientific practices like those found in Scientology. I argue that it cannot. Chakravartty’s stance pluralism is therefore prone to a form of debilitating relativism. I consequently argue that we need (1) some ground or constraint in relation to which epistemic stances can be (...)
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  9. A Beginner’s Guide to Crossing the Road: Towards an Epistemology of Successful Action in Complex Systems.Ragnar van Der Merwe & Alex Broadbent - forthcoming - Interdisciplinary Science Reviews.
    Crossing the road within the traffic system is an example of an action human agents perform successfully day-to-day in complex systems. How do they perform such successful actions given that the behaviour of complex systems is often difficult to predict? The contemporary literature contains two contrasting approaches to the epistemology of complex systems: an analytic and a post-modern approach. We argue that neither approach adequately accounts for how successful action is possible in complex systems. Agents regularly perform successful actions without (...)
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  10. Grounding the Selectionist Explanation for the Success of Science in the External Physical World.Ragnar van der Merwe - forthcoming - Foundations of Science: DOI: 10.1007/s10699-023-09907-y.
    I identify two versions of the scientific anti-realist’s selectionist explanation for the success of science: Bas van Fraassen’s original and K. Brad Wray’s newer interpretation. In Wray’s version, psycho-social factors internal to the scientific community – viz. scientists’ interests, goals, and preferences – explain the theory-selection practices that explain theory-success. I argue that, if Wray’s version were correct, then science should resemble art. In art, the artwork-selection practices that explain artwork-success appear faddish. They are prone to radical change over time. (...)
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  11. Collapsing the Complicated/Complex Distinction: It’s Complexity all the Way Down.Ragnar van der Merwe - 2023 - Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems 21 (1):1-17.
    Several complexity theorists draw a sharp and ontologically robust distinction between (merely) complicated systems and (genuinely) complex systems. I argue that this distinction does not hold. Upon fine-grained analysis, ostensibly complicated systems turn out to be complex systems. The purported boundary between the complicated and the complex appears to be vague rather than sharp. Systems are complex by degrees.
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  12. Stuart Kauffman’s metaphysics of the adjacent possible: A critique.Ragnar Van Der Merwe - 2023 - Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 48 (1):49-61.
    Stuart Kauffman has, in recent writings, developed a thought-provoking and influential argument for strong emergence. The outcome is his Theory of the Adjacent Possible (TAP). According to TAP, the biosphere constitutes a non-physical domain qualitatively distinct from the physical domain. The biosphere exhibits strongly emergent properties such as agency, meaning, value and creativity that cannot, in principle, be reduced to the physical. In this paper, I argue that TAP includes various (explicit or implicit) metaphysical commitments: commitments to (1) scientific realism, (...)
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  13. Enoch’s Defense of Robust Meta-Ethical Realism.Gunnar Björnsson & Ragnar Francén Olinder - 2016 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 13 (1):101–112.
    Taking Morality Seriously is David Enoch’s book-length defense of meta-ethical and meta-normative non-naturalist realism. After describing Enoch’s position and outlining the argumentative strategy of the book, we engage in a critical discussion of what we take to be particularly problematic central passages. We focus on Enoch’s two original positive arguments for non-naturalist realism, one argument building on first order moral implications of different meta-ethical positions, the other attending to the rational commitment to normative facts inherent in practical deliberation. We also (...)
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  14. A Dilemma for Determination Pluralism (or Dualism).Ragnar van der Merwe - 2021 - Axiomathes 31 (4):507-523.
    Douglas Edwards is arguably the most prominent contemporary advocate of moderate alethic pluralism. Significantly influenced by Crispin Wright and Michael Lynch, his work on the nature of truth has become widely discussed in the topical literature. Edwards labels his version of moderate alethic pluralism determination pluralism. At first blush, determination pluralism appears philosophically promising. The position deserves thoughtful consideration, particularly because of its capacity to accommodate the scope problem. I argue, however, that upon analysis the view is better understood as (...)
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  15. Internalists Beware—we Might all be Amoralists!Gunnar Björnsson & Ragnar Francén Olinder - 2013 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91 (1):1-14.
    Standard motivational internalism is the claim that by a priori or conceptual necessity, a psychological state is a moral opinion only if it is suitably related to moral motivation. Many philosophers, the authors of this paper included, have assumed that this claim is supported by intuitions to the effect that amoralists—people not suitably related to such motivation—lack moral opinions proper. In this paper we argue that this assumption is mistaken, seeming plausible only because defenders of standard internalism have failed to (...)
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  16. Rational Decision-Making in a Complex World: Towards an Instrumental, yet Embodied, Account.Ragnar Van der Merwe - 2022 - Logos and Episteme 13 (4):381-404.
    Prima facie, we make successful decisions as we act on and intervene in the world day-to-day. Epistemologists are often concerned with whether rationality is involved in such decision-making practices, and, if so, to what degree. Some, particularly in the post-structuralist tradition, argue that successful decision-making occurs via an existential leap into the unknown rather than via any determinant or criterion such as rationality. I call this view radical voluntarism (RV). Proponents of RV include those who subscribe to a view they (...)
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  17. How pluralistic is pluralism really? A case study of Sandra Mitchell’s Integrative Pluralism.Ragnar van der Merwe - 2024 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 38 (3):319-338.
    Epistemic pluralists in the philosophy of science often argue that different epistemic perspectives in science are equally warranted. Sandra Mitchell – with her Integrative Pluralism (IP) – has notably advocated for this kind of epistemic pluralism. A problem arises for Mitchell however because she also wants to be an epistemological pluralist. She claims that, not only are different epistemic perspectives in science equally warranted in different contexts, but different understandings of these epistemic perspectives in science are also equally warranted in (...)
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  18. K. Brad Wray: Resisting Scientific Realism, Book Review. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2018. [REVIEW]Ragnar van der Merwe - 2020 - Journal for the General Philosophy of Science 51 (4):637-641.
    Book Review K. Brad Wray: Resisting Scientific Realism. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 2018, xii + 224 pp, £ 75.00 (Hardcover), ISBN: 9781108231633. By Ragnar van der Merwe. In The Journal for the General Philosophy of Science.
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  19. Book Review of The Metaphysics of Truth by Douglas Edwards. [REVIEW]Ragnar van der Merwe - 2020 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 28 (4):555-574.
    Book Review The Metaphysics of Truth by Douglas Edwards Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. x + 210. ISBN 9780198758693. £45.00 ($56.00) (hardcover).
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  20. Recent Work on Motivational Internalism.Fredrik Björklund, Gunnar Björnsson, John Eriksson, Ragnar Francén Olinder & Caj Strandberg - 2012 - Analysis 72 (1):124-137.
    Reviews work on moral judgment motivational internalism from the last two decades.
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  21. Motivational internalism and folk intuitions.Gunnar Björnsson, John Eriksson, Caj Strandberg, Ragnar Francén Olinder & Fredrik Björklund - 2015 - Philosophical Psychology 28 (5):715-734.
    Motivational internalism postulates a necessary connection between moral judgments and motivation. In arguing for and against internalism, metaethicists traditionally appeal to intuitions about cases, but crucial cases often yield conflicting intuitions. One way to try to make progress, possibly uncovering theoretical bias and revealing whether people have conceptions of moral judgments required for noncognitivist accounts of moral disagreement, is to investigate non-philosophers' willingness to attribute moral judgments. A pioneering study by Shaun Nichols seemed to undermine internalism, as a large majority (...)
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  22. Imagination Rather Than Observation in Econometrics: Ragnar Frisch’s Hypothetical Experiments as Thought Experiments.Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld - 2019 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 9 (1):35-74.
    In economics, thought experiments are frequently justified by the difficulty of conducting controlled experiments. They serve several functions, such as establishing causal facts, isolating tendencies, and allowing inferences from models to reality. In this paper, I argue that thought experiments served a further function in economics: facilitating the quantitative definition and measurement of the theoretical concept of utility, thereby bridging the gap between theory and statistical data. I support my argument by a case study, the “hypothetical experiments” of the Norwegian (...)
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