This essay offers an account of the truth conditions of sentences involving deontic modals like ‘ought’, designed to capture the difference between objective and subjective kinds of ‘ought’ This account resembles the classical semantics for deontic logic: according to this account, these truths conditions involve a function from the world of evaluation to a domain of worlds (equivalent to a so-called “modal base”), and an ordering of the worlds in such domains; this ordering of the worlds itself (...) arises from two further elements – a probability function and a value function – since this ordering ranks the worlds in accordance with the expected value of certain propositions that are true at those worlds. Thus, a proposition of the form ‘Ought (p)’ is true at a world of evaluation w if and only if p is true at all the top-ranked worlds in the domain assigned to w. This domain of worlds consists of metaphysically possible worlds, while the probability function is defined over a space of epistemically possible worlds (which may include metaphysically impossible worlds, such as worlds where Hesperus is not Phosphorus). Evidence is given that this account assigns the correct truth conditions to a wide range of sentences involving ‘ought’. Since these truth conditions involve both a domain of metaphysically possible worlds and a space of epistemically possible worlds, there are two corresponding kinds of conditional involving ‘ought’, depending on which space of worlds is restricted by the conditional. Finally, some objections that might be raised against this account are answered. (shrink)

This is a response to Seana Shiffrin’s recent and important contribution to the continuing debate whether there is a universal moral or economic truth at the heart of contract law. While she adopts an unduly simplistic view of the divergence of morality in promise-keeping and contract law, her most significant advance toward a general theory of promise and contract is her identification of the critical moment at which the interposition of the public in a private matter occurs or is (...) contemplated. This essay carries that theme forward, suggesting that a universal justification for contract law is not possible because the law, by its very nature, objectifies what was heretofore a private relationship. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that scientists and historians employ different strategies to overcome a common problem: subjectivity. The difference in their strategies is symptomatic of a fundamental difference between science and the humanities. It is that whereas physical scientists, in trying to be objective, aspire to the view from nowhere, humanistic historians, in trying to be objective, aspire to the views from everywhere.

We present experimental evidence that people's modes of social interaction influence their construal of truth. Participants who engaged in cooperative interactions were less inclined to agree that there was an objective truth about that topic than were those who engaged in a competitive interaction. Follow-up experiments ruled out alternative explanations and indicated that the changes in objectivity are explained by argumentative mindsets: When people are in cooperative arguments, they see the truth as more subjective. These (...) findings can help inform research on moral objectivism and, more broadly, on the distinctive cognitive consequences of different types of social interaction. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive update on the scientific realism debate, enabling readers to gain a novel appreciation of the role of objectivity and truth in science and to understand fully the various ways in which antirealist conceptions have been subjected to challenge over recent decades. Authoritative representatives of different philosophical traditions explain their perspectives on the meaning and validity of scientific realism and describe the strategies being adopted to counter persisting antirealist positions. The coverage extends beyond the usual (...) discussion of realism within the context of the natural sciences, and especially physics, to encompass also its applicability in mathematics, logic, and the human sciences. The book will appeal to all with an interest in the recent realist epistemologies of science, the nature of current philosophical debate, and the ongoing rehabilitation of truth as the legitimate goal of scientific research. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that Kantian analytic judgments are about objects (as opposed to concepts) against two challenges raised by recent scholars. First, can it accommodate cases like “A two-sided polygon is two-sided”, where no object really falls under the subject-concept as Kant sees it? Second, is it compatible with Kant’s view that analytic judgments make no claims about objects in the world and that we can know them to be true without going beyond the given concepts? I address these (...) challenges in two steps. First, given Kant’s distinction between an object in general = x from an object of sensible intuition, I argue that analytic judgments are about objects in the former sense, no matter whether the purported objects can be given in our intuition. Second, using Kant’s method of representing certain logical relations of concepts with such figures as circles, I construct a model to show that analytic truths are truths about objects in general = x and yet can be determined solely by the intensional relation between the given concepts plus certain Kantian-logical laws. Analytic truths are thus shown as formal in the Kantian sense that they do not presuppose the purported objects as givable in our intuition. This account of the formality of analytic truths captures Kant’s diagnosis of the Leibnizian illusion that we can make material claims about the world by analytically true judgments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 40.1 (2006) 35-53 [Access article in PDF] "Truth Is What Works": Francisco J. Varela on Cognitive Science, Buddhism, the Inseparability of Subject and Object, and the Exaggerations of Constructivism—A Conversation Francisco J. Varela Bernhard Poerksen Institut für Journalistik und Kommunikationswissenschaft Universität Hamburg Francisco J. Varela (1946-2001) studied biology in Santiago de Chile, obtained his doctorate 1970 at Harvard University with a dissertation on (...) the insect eye, and worked there for some time in the laboratory of Torsten Wiesel, the later Nobel Laureate for medicine. From his scientific beginnings as a researcher in biology, he not only studied and practiced biology but, resisting the dominating mainstream, pursued a research program that ignored and broke down traditional disciplinary boundaries. This research program is best characterized as experimental epistemology, a concept introduced by the neuropsychiatrist and cybernetician Warren S. McCulloch. Francisco J. Varela's great aspiration was to examine and answer the philosophical ur-question of cognition with scientific precision and with the help of the best possible theoretical framework. [End Page 35]Having obtained his doctorate, he went back to Chile to work as a professor of biology together with Humberto R. Maturana. He contributed to the writing of the theory of autopoiesis, which was to cause a furor in the world of science as a universally applicable explanatory model. After the overthrow of Allende and the installation of the dictatorship by the putsch general Pinochet, Francisco J. Varela first escaped to Costa Rica, then became a professor at the American University of Colorado and University of New York, and finally returned in 1980 to the University of Chile in Santiago for five years. Temporary positions as guest professor for neurobiology, philosophy, and cognitive science in Germany, Switzerland, and France led him to Paris in the end, where he worked as research director of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique until his death on May 28, 2001.In his research work embracing cognitive science, evolutionary theory, and immunology, Francisco J. Varela, constantly inspired by his fundamental interest in the key questions of epistemology, gave the epistemological debate a new orientation. In his thinking he refuses to accept the strict separation of subject and object, of knower and known, which as a rule unites realists and constructivists alike. Francisco J. Varela rejects the fundamental dualism dividing mind and world, which had shaped Western philosophy from its earliest beginnings. He does not subscribe to the idea that human individuals can invent their own realities—blindly and arbitrarily, and without experiencing any resistance from the external world and all other things given. He equally distances himself, however, from the diametrically opposite position that overstates the eigenpower of the world of objects. The external world and all other things given cannot determine what happens in an organism. Varela's claim is that individual and world create each other. The Computational Model of the Mind Poerksen: The ancient key questions of philosophy are at the center of modern cognitive science. What is the essence of the mind? Do our conceptions represent a given world, which is independent from our minds? What is the formative power of external objects over our perceptions? How does cognition function? The search for an adequate answer and an improved understanding of the human mind has led many cognitive scientists to entertain the assumption that the brain is actually a kind of computer. Memory is taken to be a store. Thinking and perceiving are understood as data processing in the sense that an independent external world is computationally transformed into symbols and represented in the organism in this manner. You are very critical of this view. Why?Varela: If the brain is considered as a kind of computer, then cognitive research is limited to discovering certain self-sufficient shapes—the symbols—together with the rules [End Page 36] governing them—the programs. But this search for symbols and programs will never be profitable because it... (shrink)

Cicero once stressed as the first law of history that “the historian must not dare to tell any falsehood.” This precept entails a minimal ethical requirement that remains unscathed by the whirlpools of epistemic relativism that have called many other aspects of professional historians’ practice into question in the last century or so. No commendable scholar seems willing to invalidate Cicero’s first law, and dependable scholarship—whether relying on objectivity-friendly or objectivity-hostile theoretical assumptions—follows shared standards of integrity and accuracy with which (...) someone from Cicero’s time, for instance, would never be able to comply. In this essay, I suggest that those two circumstances should dispose us more favorably toward a refreshed notion of historical objectivity pointing not only to epistemology but also to professional ethics. I address the condemnation of lying and, more generally, historians’ commitment to sincerity as a way to highlight the ethical dimension of history writing. By focusing on the deep but underexplored moral roots of objectivity, I argue that this concept is still very useful as both an analytical tool and a normative ideal. Objectivity, in the sense I underline here, does not stand in opposition to subjectivity—on the contrary, it is actually tied up with subjective dispositions, virtues, and skills that help shape responsible historiography. (shrink)

The paper explores Hegel's theory of language, from the Subjective Spirit book of his Encyclopedia. Hegel distinguishes between linguistic signs, as arbitrary signifiers and words, which occur when the signs are filled with thought or meaning. Words have greater objectivity than signs. The words of the positive, empirical sciences are taken up into Hegelian Science (system), affording it greater objectivity, which it, reciprocally re-confers on its linguistic contents.

Subjective Bayesians typically find the following objection difficult to answer: some joint probability measures lead to intuitively irrational inductive behavior, even in the long run. Yet well-motivated ways to restrict the set of reasonable prior joint measures have not been forthcoming. In this paper I propose a way to restrict the set of prior joint probability measures in particular inductive settings. My proposal is the following: where there exists some successful inductive method for getting to the truth in (...) some situation, we ought to employ a (joint) probability measure that is inductively successful in that situation, if such a measure exists. In order to do show that the restriction is possible to meet in a broad class of cases, I prove a Bayesian Completeness Theorem, which says that for any solvable inductive problem of a certain broad type, there exist probability measures that a Bayesian could use to solve the problem. I then briefly compare the merits of my proposal with two other well-known proposals for constraining the class of admissible subjective probability measures, the leave the door ajar condition and the maximize entropy condition. (shrink)

The prescriptive has both an objective and a subjective interpretation. In the objective sense, what one ought to do depends on what is actually true. In the subjective sense it depends on what one believes to be true. Ordinary usage seems to vacillate between these two interpretations. An example (the indecisive terrorist) is used to show that a subjective ought statement can have a determinate truth-value in situations where the corresponding objective ought statement (...) has no truth-value, not even an unknowable one. Therefore the subjective ought is not definable in terms of the objective ought. However, definability in the other direction is not excluded by this argument. (shrink)

Love, Subjectivity, and Truth engages in a lively manner with the overlapping areas of philosophy and literature, philosophy of emotions, and existential thought. "Subjective truth," a phrase used in Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time, is rich with existential connotations. It invokes Kierkegaard above all, but significantly Nietzsche as well, and other philosophers who thematize love, subjectivity, and truth. In Search of Lost Time is especially concerned about what we can know about others through love. (...) Insofar as it conveys and analyzes experience, the novel is capable not only of exploring existential issues but also of doing something like phenomenology. What we know is shaped by our way of knowing, just as the properties of visible, colored objects are determined by the wavelengths of light our eyes can see. Nowhere does the subjective basis of our awareness appear so evident as it does when we view things through loving eyes. In Proust's novel we find skeptical views about love expressed again and again. However, we also note countercurrents, in which love is shown to provide a unique sort of insight. At those times, love seems to be a prerequisite of veridical apprehension. Love, Subjectivity, and Truth investigates this tension as it is played out in Proust's fiction. (shrink)

Heidegger's totally objective view of aesthetic truth, That the meaning of aesthetic experience is revealed only in and through the art-Object, Fails to appreciate the contributions of subjectivity to that meaningfulness. This is shown by pointing out that interpretation of an artwork can be relevant for our aesthetic appreciation and that sometimes subjective factors such as the artist's intentions, And the viewer's personal, Cultural background, Are relevant to interpretation.

Objective: In this essay, I will try to track some historical and modern stages of the discussion on the Gettier problem, and point out the interrelations of the questions that this problem raises for epistemologists, with sceptical arguments, and a so-called problem of relevance. Methods: historical analysis, induction, generalization, deduction, discourse, intuition results: Albeit the contextual theories of knowledge, the use of different definitions of knowledge, and the different ways of the uses of knowledge do not resolve all the (...) issues that the sceptic can put forward, but they can be productive in giving clarity to a concept of knowledge for us. On the other hand, our knowledge will always have an element of intuition and subjectivity, however not equating to epistemic luck and probability. Significance novelty: the approach to the context in general, not giving up being a Subject may give us a clarity about the sense of what it means to say – “I know”. (shrink)

The principle of the "uniformity of nature" states that reality is subject to natural laws. In this paper I argue that a weak version of the principle of the uniformity of nature is a necessary truth. According to this weakened principle, every reality for which the question of its subjection to natural laws can arise is subject to natural laws. I argue that this question arises only for a subject who knows of the existence of objective reality, qua (...) objective (that is, reality which is independent of any knowledge of it). I show that a necessary condition for knowledge of objective reality, qua objective, is that the subject can acquire knowledge of past and future events, which he does not perceive directly through his senses, and that only natural (contingent) regularities enable the subject to do so. Hence, I conclude that every reality for which the question of its subjection to natural laws can arise is subject to natural laws. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that any adequate evolutionary ethical theory needs to account for moral belief as well as for dispositions to behave altruistically. It also needs to be clear whether it is offering us an account of the motivating reasons behind human behaviour or whether it is giving justifying reasons for a particular set of behaviours or, if both, to distinguish them clearly. I also argue that, unless there are some objective moral truths, the evolutionary ethicist cannot (...) offer justifying reasons for a set of behaviours. I use these points to refute Waller's claims that the illusion of objectivity plays a dispensable role in Ruse's theory, that my critique of Ruse's Darwinian metaethics is built on a false dilemma, that there is nothing to be distressed about if morality is not objective, and that ethical beliefs are subject to a kind of causal explanation that undermines their objectivity in a way that scientific beliefs are not. (shrink)

How do historians approach objectivity? This is addressed by Mark Bevir in his book The Logic of the History of Ideas by his argument for an anthropological epistemology with objectivity in the historical narrative resting on the explanation of human actions/agent intentionality equating with meaning. The criticism of this position is at several levels. As sophisticated constructionists historians do not usually ask ‘Can history be objective?’ Rather, they work from the balance of evidence reflecting the intersubjectivity of truth (...) and they acknowledge the problematic nature of inferring agent intentionality and the difficulties in equating this with ‘what it means’. Why Abraham Lincoln issued the 1863 emancipation proclamation is a case in point. No historian would claim to have located its true meaning objectively in effect doubting Mark Bevir's claim that ‘objective knowledge arises from a human practice in which we criticise and compare rival webs of theories in terms of agreed facts’ . There are also further challenges to an over-reliance on rational action theory and the problems associated with the selection of evidence. Equally, most historians in practice doubt objectivity emerges from an accurate knowledge of the motives that can be matched to weak authorial intentions and that this leads to action via decisions. Few historians today accept that their narrative mimics past intentionality and that this provides true meaning. The article offers four reasons for rejecting Bevir's position and concludes with a defence of the narrative-linguistic determination of meaning. This suggests that history is subject to the same narrative and imaginative constraints as other forms of realist writing, rather than being privileged by an access to knowable intentionality and that this constitutes objective historical knowledge. (shrink)

Jacques Lacan comments repeatedly on anamorphic art as it exemplifies for him how the mind from a certain angle perceives through law-like patterns the world that would otherwise be nothing but a chaos of arbitrary multiplicities. The angle, though, has a certain effect on what is perceived; an effect that, as such, cannot be perceived within the realm of experience. The article tries to make the link between diffraction laws of perception more explicit in the subject-object dichotomy and refers for (...) that purpose to the work of both Hegel and Lacan. A reference to Hegel is necessary, as Hegel was not only one of Lacan’s own most important sources of insights, but the author who first focused on justified true belief through a theory of a missed encounter between truth and knowledge. (shrink)

In Probabilistic Knowledge Sarah Moss proposes that our credences and subjective probability judgments (SPJs) can constitute knowledge. Mossean probabilistic knowledge is grounded in probabilistic beliefs that are justified, true, and unGettiered. In this paper I aim to address and solve two challenges that arise in the vicinity of the factivity condition for probabilistic knowledge: the factivity challenge and the challenge from probabilistic arguments from ignorance (probabilistic AIs). I argue that while Moss's deflationary solution to the factivity challenge formally works, (...) it leaves us ill-equipped to handle probabilistic AIs. An account of probabilistic knowledge that cannot overcome probabilistic AIs makes knowledge of thoroughly probabilistic contents a rare and unstable phenomenon, at best, or, at worst, impossible. I hold that establishing a metaphysically enriched account of probabilistic truth is therefore mandatory. I go on to develop a truth-conditional approach on probabilistic factivity that is relativistic in its nature and centers on objective chances. I show that while the approach is still compatible with Moss's overall semantics for probabilistic knowledge, it provides us with a simple but forceful answer to probabilistic AIs. (shrink)

This book brings together over 25 years of Arindam Chakrabarti's original research in East-West 'fusion' philosophy on issues of epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. Organized under the three basic concepts of a thing out there in the world, the self who perceives it, and other subjects or selves, his work revolves around a set of realism links. Examining connections between metaphysical stances toward the world, selves, and universals, Chakrabarti engages with classical Indian and modern Western philosophical approaches to a (...) number of live topics including the refutation of idealism; the question of the definability of truth, and the possibility of truths existing unknown to anyone; the existence of non-conceptual perception; and our knowledge of other minds. He additionally makes forays into fundamental questions regarding death, darkness, absence, and nothingness. Together with conceptual clarification and progress towards alternative solutions to these substantial philosophical problems, Chakrabarti demonstrates the advantage of doing philosophy in a cosmopolitan fashion. Beginning with an analysis of the concept of a thing, and ending with an analysis of the concept of nothing, Realisms Interlinked offers a preview of a future metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind without borders. (shrink)

Review of the three volumes of Davidson's papers: _Subjective, Intersubjective_, _Objective; Problems of Rationality_; _Truth, Language, and History_.

Two meanings of "subjective consequentialism" are distinguished: conscious deliberation with the aim of producing maximally-good consequences, versus acting in ways that, given one's evidence set and reasoning capabilities, is subjectively most likely to maximize expected consequences. The latter is opposed to "objective consequentialism," which demands that we act in ways that actually produce the best total consequences. Peter Railton's arguments for a version of objective consequentialism confuse the two subjective forms, and are only effective against the (...) first. After reviewing the arguments of Eric Wiland and Frances Howard-Snyder against objective consequentialism, two of Railton's arguments which might seem to count against the second form of subjective consequentialism are shown to be ineffective. This leaves subjective consequentialism as a viable theory to replace objective consequentialism with. (shrink)

The Opening Chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, called "Sense Certainty," is brief: 283 lines or about seven and a half pages in the critical edition of Hegel's works . Just over half the text is devoted to a series of thought experiments1 that focus on "the Here" and "the Now" as the two basic forms of immediate sensuous particularity Hegel calls "the This." The chapter's main goal is to demonstrate that, in truth, the object of sense certainty is (...) precisely the opposite of what it purports to be: "the This" is mediated abstract universality. However, not just the truth of Hegel's claim but its very meaning has been the subject of dispute from early on.2 A currently influential interpretive . (shrink)

The mainstream view in the philosophy of language holds that every meaningful sentence has a truth-condition. This view, however, runs into difficulties with non-objective sentences such as sentences on matters of taste or value: these do not appear to be either true or false, but are generally taken to be meaningful. How can this conflict be resolved? -/- Truth Without Objectivity examines various ways of resolving this fundamental problem, before developing and defending its own original solution, a (...) relativist theory of truth. Standard solutions maintain either that in uttering non-objective sentences speakers make implicit reference to their own preferences and thus have unproblematic truth conditions, or that they have no truth conditions at all. Max Kölbel argues that both of these proposed solutions are inadequate, and that a third well-known position, minimalism, can only solve the problem if it is developed in the direction of relativism about truth. -/- Kölbel defends the idea that truth (as invoked in semantics) is a neutral notion: a sentence’s possessing a truth condition does not yet entail that it concerns an objective subject matter, because truth and objectivity are independent of one another. He argues that this notion of ‘truth without objectivity’ leads directly to relativism about truth, and goes on to defend one form of relativism against well-known objections. (shrink)

I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that (...) our knowledge is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

It is often asserted that Nietzsche's proposal that "there is no truth" is indebted to his views on aesthetics. That is, it is argued both that Nietzsche perceived art as exclusive of truth, and that he viewed the whole of existence as artistic in this sense. In this paper I attempt to supplement this argument by excavating the sense of truth that is available in Nietzsche's thought concerning art. "Dionysian truth" is not a property of objects (...) which represent the world. Rather, it arises in acts of artistic creation. I hope, here, to present a view of truth which is compatible with Nietzsche's attempt to understand the world as a process of conflicting forces rather than a collection of subjects and objects. ;The first chapter is concerned with Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, in which music is offered as an example of Dionysian truth. Music, in this work, enables us to overcome our sense of ourselves as isolated self-consciousnesses, an experience which engenders artistic creativity. The notion of Dionysian truth, however, is not fully disassociated, in The Birth of Tragedy, from the view that music pictures or represents the "world will." ;In the second chapter I argue that Nietzsche's commitment to the Dionysian is apparent in his unique understanding of physiology. The authority of the ego is undermined by exhibiting it as an epiphenomenon of the more fundamental physiological drives. I argue that such an understanding subverts the claim that Nietzsche values art as a means of sublimating the passions, as well as the claim that Nietzsche ultimately identifies truth with that which serves our own self-preservation. ;The third chapter demonstrates how a specific artistic practice,Expressionist Painting, understands itself in Dionysian terms, and suggests reasons why a Dionysian view of art may not offer itself as a means for the evaluation of artworks. Finally, I attempt to show how the understanding of power which is structured by a Dionysian perspective may help us to overcome some of Nietzsche's negative and reactionary suggestions that the powerful are, or should be, cruel and manipulative towards others. (shrink)

The presence of interpretation according to different perspectives in art forms in which we expect the 'truth' about the subject matter, provides an opportunity to understand what truth means in the context of perspectivism, the view that there is no objective standard of truth free from any perspective against which we can measure the veracity of an account. In this article, I explore perspectival truth through Nietzsche's philosophical autobiography, Ecce Homo , and Herzog's films, particularly (...) Little Dieter Needs to Fly. I argue that these artworks both contribute to and exemplify a perspectival truth practice. (shrink)

Kierkegaard’s influence on Wittgenstein’s conception of religious belief was profound, but this hasn’t so far been given the attention it deserves . Although Wittgenstein wrote comparatively little on the subject, while the whole of Kierkegaard’s oeuvre has a religious theme, both philosophers have become notorious for refusing to construe religious belief in either of the two traditional ways: as a ‘propositional attitude’ on the one hand or as a mere ‘emotional response’ with no reference to the ‘real world’ on the (...) other. This refusal to play by the orthodox dichotomies, as it were, has led to gross misrepresentation of their thought by numerous commentators. Neither Wittgenstein nor Kierkegaard has been immune to allegations of both ‘relativism’ and ‘fideism’, although neither charge could be wider of the mark. It is not that Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard reject the role that reason has to play in both religion and philosophy, but that they try to undermine from within certain common assumptions about the nature of both religious faith and the point of philosophical activity that make us believe that the traditional dichotomies exhaust all the available options. What I hope to show in this paper is that more sense can be made of Wittgenstein’s controversial remarks on religion, if we juxtapose them with Kierkegaard’s religious thought, especially that of Kierkegaard’s pseudonym , Johannes Climacus, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. The focal point of this paper is going to be the attempt to read what little Wittgenstein has to say about this topic through the lens of Climacus’ claim that ‘objectively there is no truth; an objective knowledge about the truth or the truths of Christianity is precisely untruth.’ I will begin by giving a brief exposition of Climacus’ views, will then sketch out what Wittgenstein has to say on the matter and will then attempt to bring the two together. In the remainder of the paper I will assess the implications of Wittgenstein’s and Kierkegaard’s conception as well as address some of the problems that their account might be said to engender. (shrink)

The main focus of this essay is to closely engage with the role of scientist-subjectivity in the making of objectivity in Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison’s book Objectivity, and Daston’s later and earlier works On Scientific Observation and The Moral Economy of Science. I have posited four challenges to the neo-Kantian and Foucauldian constructions of the co-implication of psychology and epistemology presented in these texts. Firstly, following Jacques Lacan’s work, I have argued that the subject of science constituted by the (...) mode of modern science suffers from paranoia. It is not the fear of subjectivity interfering with objectivity but the impossibility of knowing the truth of the real that causes paranoia. Here, I have argued that it is not the ethos of objectivity that drives epistemology as Daston and Galison suggest, but the pathos of paranoia. The second challenge builds upon Kant’s own denial that the perfect correspondence between the human will and the moral law is possible. Kant himself thought that an ethical human act is impossible without the component of “pathology.” This questions Daston and Galison’s argument that there is always ethical imperative at the core of epistemic virtue. The third challenge contests the way Daston and Galison take appearance for being in their application of the Foucauldian concept of technologies of the self in modeling the master scientist-self. The fourth challenge questions the notion of the psychological and unconscious in the making of epistemology in Daston’s later and earlier work. Against this background, I aim to make a claim that understanding and disclosing “entities” in the scientific domain presupposes an understanding of “being” in general. My goal is to open up the discussion for an alternative conception of the scientist-subject and thereby an affective and existential formulation of science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 215-232 [Access article in PDF] Eighteenth-Century Print Culture and the "Truth" of Fictional Narrative Lisa Zunshine As a session entitled "Truth" at a recent Modern Language Association of America annual convention has demonstrated, the obsession with the epistemologies of truth is alive and well. Our "familiar ways of thinking and talking about truth," as one of the speakers, Barbara Herrnstein (...) Smith, observed, remain "theoretically elusive, discursively slippery, and hard or perhaps impossible to articulate clearly in relation to other current concepts and ideas" 1 --an irresistible invitation to further thinking and talking on the subject. My essay enters this conversation by attempting to contemplate truth not as a stable attribute but as a ongoing attribution, that is, not as an inherent property but rather as a dynamic process predicated upon functional idiosyncrasies of our evolved cognitive architecture. The broad question posed here is this: What if our never-ending quest for truth is itself cognitively constructed and the various forms that this quest takes manifest the (not necessarily harmonious) interaction between our evolved cognitive capacities and the ever-changing specifics of our cultural environment?Consider just one of the forms of such an interaction, namely, our age-long preoccupation with the "truth" of literary narrative. In many respects, this preoccupation is counterproductive: the most "fantastic" story contains a number of contingently useful "truths" about the world, whereas the most "factual" narrative manipulates facts by virtue of being a narrative or a subjective arrangementof information. Still, we persevere in wanting to put the label "fiction" or "nonfiction" onto any story that comes our way. As I will argue, the bookstore's organization of its sections satisfies this species of "cognitive" craving as well as [End Page 215] reinforces it, making it seem culturally inevitable. Viewed from this perspective, our culture appears to be a multifaceted feedback mechanism engaged in the process of satisfying, reinforcing, struggling with, and manipulating our cognitive predispositions.The cultural manipulation of our cognitive predispositions is the topic of the present essay, which discusses several examples of such manipulation that respond to our desire to assign a certain "truth-value" to a given narrative, i.e., to attach a label to it announcing its "factuality" or "fictionality." "Truth-value" is a loaded term, resisting definition, and liable to lead me into trouble. Imperfect as it is, however, I need it in order to shuffle between two scholarly discourses that do not (yet) have much vocabulary in common: literary criticism and cognitive science. The reason for turning to cognitive science in my discussion of literary narrative is that cognitive anthropologists and psychologists frequently engage the same problems that we do when we ask, What is "Fiction"? How is it different from "History"? How do we decide whether what we are reading is "true?" The key difference between the two approaches is, however, that whereas the literary critic focuses on specific texts produced and read in specific cultural circumstances, the cognitive anthropologist pays attention to the cross-cultural insistence with which people wish to and often claim to distinguish "truth" from "fiction" and inquires into the possible evolutionary history of the cognitive architecture implicated in our never-ending quest for "truth." The latter perspective can thus be useful for literary studies because, by suggesting that our evolved cognitive architecture often "encourages" us to construe the world as a negotiation of "truths" and "nontruths," this perspective begins to account--at least on some level--for the fact that people may approach a complex cultural artifact, such as a novel, with a "truth"/"non-truth" binary in mind that is ultimately not very productive. 2 Evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists frequently point to disjunctions between the tasks that our brain evolved to solve and the tasks that we have to deal with in the modern environment; our vexed insistence on determining the truth-value of the 500-page printed narrative--not an object one would come across in the Pleistocene--can be seen as yet another instance of such a disjunction.Thus, I suggest that, on the... (shrink)

Kant insists that the use of concepts must be subject to empirical conditions if they are to have objective validity. This article analyses Kants distinction between empirical and transcendental truths. Since transcendental concepts are pure concepts without spatio-temporal content, their objective validity is of the same second-order kind as that of unschematized categories. This characteristic of transcendental concepts implies that the cognitive powers picked out by them are not particular psychological mechanisms, but rather abstract functional structures. Transcendental concepts (...) owe their objective validity to the realizability of the functional structures by empirical cognizers like humans. This relation in turn helps to explain the nature of transcendental truths. (shrink)

This project was undertaken as a response to a perceived deficiency regarding the role of communication in a large block of the phenomenological discourse on lying. The arguments presented here attempt to make the communication process an explicit, rather than an implicit component of this discussion. First, a ‘lie’ is explained as a communicative act that is identified by making a simple comparison between two contradictory realities, the reality presented by the lie, and some sort of ‘true’ reality. Existing discussions (...) of lying are examined and judged to be deficient because they limit their explanations of this ‘true reality’ to subjective and objective standards of truth. Intersubjectivity is presented as an alternative truth standard, and it is argued that ‘lies’ can only be discovered and understood through a process of interpretation or negotiation (dialogue) by human interactants. (shrink)

There are two versions of the correspondence theory of truth: the object-based correspondence theory and the fact-based correspondence theory. Some scholars have put forward their objections to my rejection of the concept of a fact and their defence of that concept. But their arguments are not cogent, since they haven’t clarified the relation between facts and propositions, haven’t successfully argued for the necessity and feasibility of introducing the concept of a fact, and haven’t provided an acceptable standard of identity (...) for facts. Under the framework of the fact-based correspondence theory, a “negative fact” is usually introduced to explain the falsehood of an affirmative proposition and the truth of a negative proposition. But, after careful analysis, we find that the positing of negative facts is the result of the concurrence of three factors: the positive states of objects, the expectations of cognitive subjects, and certain kinds of inferences, Thus, negative facts at most have a sort of inferential “existence” without independent ontological status. The positing of negative facts has been criticized for many reasons, such as the ontological inflation of negative facts, the supervenience of negative facts on positive facts, the imperceptibility of negative facts, and the lack of causal force of negative facts. Many replies to these criticisms have been put forward, such as the dilemma argument, the self-defeating argument, and the role-making of negative facts: constitution (e.g. hole-making), causation (event-making), chance-making, and truth-making. However, these replies can also be reasonably rejected. The final conclusion of this article is that, in order to account for the falsehood of an affirmative proposition and the truth of a negative proposition, we can appeal to the object-based correspondence theory of truth without appealing to the concept of a fact, let alone the concept of a “negative fact”. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the notion of color as a property of the surfaces of objects. It considers three positions on what colors are: objectivist, subjectivist, and relationalist. Examination of the arguments of the objectivists will help us understand how they seek to reduce color to a physical property of object surfaces. Subjectivists, by contrast, seek to argue that no such reduction is possible, and hence that color must be wholly subjective. This chapter argues that when functional considerations are (...) taken into account, a relationalist position best accommodates the primary data concerning color perception, and permits a better understanding of the ways in which color is both objective and subjective. The chapter ends with a reconsideration of the notions of objectivity and subjectivity themselves, and a consideration of how modern technology can foster misleading expectations about the specificity of color properties. (shrink)

_Pragmatism and Objectivity_ illuminates the nature of contemporary pragmatism against the background of Rescher’s work, resulting in a stronger grasp of the prospects and promises of this philosophical movement. The central insight of pragmatism is that we must start from where we find ourselves and deflate metaphysical theories of truth in favor of an account that reflects our actual practices of the concept. Pragmatism links truth and rationality to experience, success, and action. While crude versions of pragmatism state (...) that truth is whatever works for a person or a community, Nicholas Rescher has been at the forefront of arguing for a more sophisticated pragmatist position. According to his position, we can illuminate a robust concept of truth by considering its links with inquiry, assertion, belief, and action. His brand of pragmatism is objective and organized around truth and inquiry, rather than other forms of pragmatism that are more subjective and lenient. The contingency and fallibility of knowledge and belief formation does not mean that our beliefs are simply what our community decides, or that truth and objectivity are spurious notions. Rescher offers the best chance of understanding how it is that beliefs can be the products of human inquiry yet aim at the truth nonetheless. The essays in this volume, written by established and up-and-coming scholars of pragmatism, touch on themes related to epistemology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and ethics. (shrink)

The paper presents a realist account of the epistemic objectivity of science. Epistemic objectivity is distinguished from ontological objectivity and the objectivity of truth. As background, T.S. Kuhn’s idea that scientific theory-choice is based on shared scientific values with a role for both objective and subjective factors is discussed. Kuhn’s values are epistemologically ungrounded, hence provide a minimal sense of objectivity. A robust account of epistemic objectivity on which methodological norms are reliable means of arriving at the (...) truth is presented. The problem remains that deliberative judgement is required to determine the relevance and relative significance of a range of methodological norms. A role is sketched for cognitive virtues which may be exercised in the course of the deliberative judgement. (shrink)

The main object of this paper is to examine the new philosophical frame proposed by Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek and to show that it implies some traces of Sartre's philosophical and political heritage. According the project of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek one should no longer accept today's constellation of freedom, particularistic truth and democracy, but to inscribe the issues of freedom and universal truth into a political project that attempts to re-activate a thinking of revolution. Their (...) thinking consists in the wager that it is still possible to provide a philosophical frame for this leftist emancipatory position that claims the dimension of the universal against the vicious circle of capitalist globalization-cum-particularization and, by following Marx's claim that there are formal affinities between the ambitions of emancipatory politics and the working mode of capitalism, takes up the struggle of universalism against globalization. It is only through this struggle for the universal that the intertwined processes of a constant expansion of the automatism of capital and "a process of fragmentation into closed identities," accompanied by "the culturalist and relativist ideology" can be suspended. It is precisely this constellation of revolutionary act, universal truth, subject, and militant community, that reveal some similarities with Sartre's concepts of the subject, the revolutionary action, the militant community a.o. (shrink)

Chapter 1 discusses John Dewey's pragmatism and his reasons for rejecting a picture of the world which disallows human interest, striving, and concerns. Chapter 2 discusses the work of Richard Rorty's anti-foundationalism and attempts to reconstruct philosophy as hermeneutics. Chapter 3 discusses the work of Helen Longino, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, and Sandra Harding all of whom represent feminist attempts to reconstruct a concept of objectivity which is answerable to feminist concerns and which is built around an epistemolgical framework which does (...) not depend on the conception of a thing-in-itself and which emphasizes the social nature of epistemology. Longino makes clear how objects of inquiry are characterized differently in the context of different research projects. Nelson addresses the connection between moral reasoning and scientific reasoning. Harding's version of feminist standpoint theory constructs a version of 'strong objectivity'. In Chapter 4 I turn to a discussion of interpretations of Nietzsche. I argue that we need not see Nietzsche as denying truth, and I suggest the promising metaphor of omniperspectvism, found in The Genealogy of Morals, as a framework for a new concept of objectivity. Chapter 5 draws on the work of Lorraine Code to discuss how omniperspectivism and a discourse of epistemological virtue can be combined to define a better conception of objectivity than the traditional concept which emphasizes value-neutrality and disinterestedness. The major tenets of this chapter are that moral reasoning and scientific reasoning inform each other, and that these discourses interact together in the process of coming to know the world and each other; that feminist insights into the functioning of sexism and racism in scientific research, reasoning, and theory construction must be taken seriously, and that a new objectivity must allow us to evaluate and critically analyze presuppositions; that we will inevitably have problems of exclusion and disagreement, but that this need not undermine objectivity but may, in some instances, actually enhance it. (shrink)

This book argues that the primary function of human thinking in language is to make judgments, which are logical-normative connections of concepts. Robert Abele points out that this presupposes cognitive conditions that cannot be accounted for by empirical-linguistic analyses of language content or social conditions alone. Judgments rather assume both reason and a unified subject, and this requires recognition of a Kantian-type of transcendental dimension to them. Judgments are related to perception in that both are syntheses, defined as the unity (...) of representations according to a rule/form. Perceptual syntheses are simultaneously pre-linguistic and proto-rational, and the understanding makes these syntheses conceptually and thus self-consciously explicit. Abele concludes with a transcendental critique of postmodernism and what its deflationary view of ontological categories—such as the unified and reasoning subject—has done to political thinking. He presents an alternative that calls for a return to normativity and a recognition of reason, objectivity, and the universality of principles. (shrink)

Philsophers interested in comprehending the nature of truth and knowledge have studied reference, as have psychologists and linguists interested in uncovering the relations between thought and language, and other scholars trying to describe the role of reference in literature, culture and society.

One of the key achievements of critical realism has been to expose the modernist myth of universal reason, which holds that authentic knowledge claims must be objectively ‘pure’, uncontaminated by the subjectivity of local place, specific time and particular culture. Wright aims to address the lack of any substantial and sustained engagement between critical realism and theological critical realism with particular regard to: (a) the distinctive ontological claims of Christianity; (b) their epistemic warrant and intellectual legitimacy; and (c) scrutiny of (...) the primary source of the ontological claims of Christianity, namely the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, it functions as a prolegomena to a much needed wider debate, guided by the under-labouring services of critical realism, between Christianity and various other religious and secular worldviews. This important new text will help stimulate a debate that has yet to get out of first gear. This book will appeal to academics, graduate and post-graduate students especially, but also Christian clergy, ministers and informed laity, and members of the general public concerned with the nature of religion and its place in contemporary society. (shrink)

In VAGUENESS AND DEGREES OF TRUTH, Nicholas Smith develops a new theory of vagueness: fuzzy plurivaluationism. -/- A predicate is said to be VAGUE if there is no sharply defined boundary between the things to which it applies and the things to which it does not apply. For example, 'heavy' is vague in a way that 'weighs over 20 kilograms' is not. A great many predicates -- both in everyday talk, and in a wide array of theoretical vocabularies, from (...) law to psychology to engineering -- are vague. -/- Smith argues, based on a detailed account of the defining features of vagueness, that an accurate theory of vagueness must involve the idea that truth comes in degrees. The core idea of degrees of truth is that while some sentences are true and some are false, others possess intermediate truth values: they are truer than the false sentences, but not as true as the true ones. Degree-theoretic treatments of vagueness have been proposed in the past, but all have encountered significant objections. In light of these, Smith develops a new type of degree theory. Its innovations include a definition of logical consequence that allows the derivation of a classical consequence relation from the degree-theoretic semantics, a unified account of degrees of belief and their relationships with degrees of truth and subjective probabilities, and the incorporation of semantic indeterminacy -- the view that vague statements need not have unique meanings -- into the degree-theoretic framework. -/- As well as being essential reading for those working on vagueness, Smith's book provides an excellent entry-point for newcomers to the area -- both from elsewhere in philosophy, and from computer science, logic and engineering. It contains a thorough introduction to existing theories of vagueness and to the requisite logical background. (shrink)

Every perceptual experience has an objective and a subjective side. We see object size, independent of distance, but we also see that distant objects project smaller images. Early modern conceptions focused on local stimulation and thus on the subjective aspect. Helmholtz and Hering emphasized the objective aspect. Helmholtz split visual experience into two stages, with sensation representing the subjective side and perception, through cognitive processes, the objective side. Gestalt theory denied this dualism, rejecting both (...) sensory and cognitive stages. Despite contrary evidence, the sensation/perception dualism persists, in brightness models and past experience theories. That we can detect visual angle and luminance does not mean that these are raw sensations out of which perception of size and lightness is built. Size and color constancy are truly visual, not cognitive. Instructions to subjects in vision experiments must avoid the proximal mode on the one hand and cognitive judgments on the other. (shrink)