It is commonplace to describe the pragmatist conception of truth as incompatible with correspondence theory. This popular description relies on a deflationary reading of Peirce and James’s many apparent endorsements of correspondence. This reading says they regarded it as a mere platitude or truism, not as a substantive piece of philosophical theorizing. There are two main reasons typically offered in support of this platitude narrative – its consonance with Peirce’s original formulation of PT from 1878, and the objections that pragmatists (...) frequently raised against various notions traditionally associated with CT. I argue that neither reason is compelling and that PT and CT are compatible conceptions of truth. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce famously claimed that ‘The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by the truth’ (W3: 273). Christopher Hookway has argued for a highly distinctive interpretation of this claim in terms of speech-acts and the normative commitments we incur in performing them. So-construed, Peirce’s conception of truth is difficult to compare with standard theories of the concept, which tend to focus instead upon some property or feature that is (...) shared by all and only true propositions, and with whether or not that property is substantive or metaphysically significant. This paper examines Hookway’s interpretation of Peirce’s conception of truth in an effort to clarify its position in logical space. It then raises some difficulties for the way Hookway tries to accommodate Peirce’s remarks about the special status of assertion and belief in science. (shrink)

This paper defends a key aspect of the Peircean conception of truth—the idea that truth is in some sense epistemically-constrained. It does so by exploring parallels between Peirce’s epistemology of inquiry and that of Wittgenstein in On Certainty. The central argument defends a Peircean claim about truth by appeal to a view shared by Peirce and Wittgenstein about the structure of reasons. This view relies on the idea that certain claims have a special epistemic status, or function as what are (...) popularly called ‘hinge propositions’. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the long-standing debate over the coherence of Charles Sanders Peirce’s overall system of philosophy. It approaches that issue through the lens of a contemporary debate over the notion of metaphysical grounding, or more broadly, the nature of metaphysical explanation, employing the laws of logic as a case study. The central question concerns how we can take seriously what we shall call Peirce’s Rule—that nothing can be admitted to be absolutely inexplicable—without being vulnerable to a (...) vicious regress or equally vicious circularity. I first argue that in Peirce’s early work he offers a quietist conception of grounding that provides a persuasive and ground-breaking answer to this central question. I then raise a familiar concern, that in Peirce’s later work we find hints of a more metaphysical conception of grounding that seems unable to answer that question and is thus inconsistent with his earlier work. The paper ends with a speculative interpretation of Peirce’s approach to metaphysics and its possible role in grounding logical principles. (shrink)

Peircean Truth is the view that truth is in some sense epistemically constrained, constrained that is by what we would, if we inquired long enough and well enough, eventually come to believe. Contemporary Peirceans offer various different formulations of the view, which can make it difficult, particularly for critics, to see exactly how PT differs from popular alternatives such as correspondence theories or deflationism. This article, therefore, considers four possible formulations of PT, and sets out the different objections and challenges (...) they each face and their relationships with one another. I focus upon the question of what, if anything, PT has to say about the property of truth. (shrink)

In his influential book Truth, Paul Horwich deploys a philosophical method focused on linguistic usage, that is, on the function(s) the concept of truth serves in actual discourse. In doing so Horwich eschews abstract metaphysics, arguing that metaphysical or ontological conceptions of truth rest on basic misconceptions. From this description, one might reasonably expect Horwich's book to have drawn inspiration from, or even embodied philosophical pragmatism of some kind. Unfortunately Horwich relies upon Russell's tired caricature of pragmatism about truth (''p' (...) is true if and only if it is useful to believe p' (Ibid., p. 34, p. 47)), and as a result underestimates the challenge it poses to Minimalism. This paper develops a pragmatist critique of minimalism that focuses on the seemingly central, plausibly constitutive role played by the concept of truth in the speech-act of assertion. The critique suggests that Horwich's Minimalism does not and cannot accomplish its stated goal of explaining all of the facts involving truth. Indeed, the kind of thorough-going deflationism sought by Horwich and others (including pragmatist sympathizer Bob Brandom) is incompatible with an adequate account of assertion, and perhaps other concepts (like belief, judgement and inquiry) as well. (shrink)

This paper explores a distinction between two types of response- dependence (RD) account (shallow vs. deep). This distinction is inherent in much of the existing literature, however it is neither widely nor well understood, and has never been drawn explicitly. The distinction is often taken to be a metaphysical, or ‘realism-relevant’ one—i.e. deep RD accounts entail qualified realism (or perhaps anti-realism), while shallow RD accounts are metaphysically neutral. I argue that the distinction is not reliably realism-relevant. I formulate a weaker (...) version of the distinction that may help prevent some common and understandable confusion about RD biconditionals and their relationship to realism. The weaker distinction rests on the different roles assigned to RD biconditionals by the two types of account. (shrink)

Mark Johnston claims the pragmatist theory of truth is inconsistent with the way we actually employ and talk about that concept. He is, however, sympathetic enough to attempt to rescue its respectable core using ‘response-dependence’, a revisionary form of which he advocates as a method for clarifying various philosophically significant concepts. But Johnston has misrepresented pragmatism; it does not require rescuing, and as I show here, his ‘missing explanation argument’ against pragmatism therefore fails. What Johnston and other critics including Putnam (...) have overlooked is the distinctive nature of the pragmatist strategy, specifically, that it is non-reductive, a characteristic it shares with a more promising form of response-dependence; what Johnston calls ‘Descriptive Protagoreanism’ (DP). In this paper I offer a defence of pragmatism and show how it might be re-articulated as a form of DP. (shrink)

Philosophical methodology is the central focus of pragmatism’s founding documents. The early works of Peirce, James, and Dewey examine methodological questions such as ‘how do we make philosophical ideas clear?’, ‘what is the best method for fixing belief?’ and ‘how do we know whether a philosophical question is answerable?’. Thus, many consider pragmatism inherently methodological – as a metaphilosophy, a view about how philosophy should or must be done (e.g. Talisse 2017). Any summary of pragmatist methods is therefore a summary (...) of pragmatism itself. Given such an impossibly broad remit, this chapter does only three things. First, it provides four broad claims common to pragmatist approaches to philosophical methodology, claims reflecting its underlying theory of inquiry. Second, it briefly examines three core pragmatist methods – for conceptual clarification, for fixing belief, and for settling or dissolving philosophical disputes. Third, it briefly describes differences between the Classical figures regarding each method. This is merely a brief sketch – the reader should consider all entries in this volume relevant to pragmatism qua philosophical method. (shrink)

In this comment on Misak’s Cambridge Pragmatism, I examine a case study—debate about the existence of free will—in order to explore residual tensions between Misak’s ‘truth-affirming,’ Peircean pragmatism, and mainstream analytic philosophy. I suggest that Misak’s Peirce makes a metaphysical commitment to the existence of rational self-control, and thereby to the existence of free will. I also suggest, however, that her ‘analytic pragmatism’ thus far offers few clues about how we should defend such a commitment from skeptical arguments emerging from (...) contemporary analytic metaphysics. I conclude that analytic pragmatists have more work to do in explaining pragmatism’s complex relationship with metaphysics, and defending its core commitments from skeptical threats. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Beyond Realism & Anti-Realism: John Dewey and the NeopragmatistsAndrew W. HowatDavid L. Hildebrand Beyond Realism & Anti-Realism: John Dewey and the Neopragmatists Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2003. xii + 241 pp.In this book David Hildebrand provides a spirited defence of the philosophy of John Dewey, a defence he claims is faithful to his actual views and contrary to those of the "neopragmatists," specifically Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty. (...) Hildebrand rejects the neopragmatist assumption that Dewey's oeuvre can support one or other side of the realism/anti-realism debate, at least without obscuring some of Dewey's vital insights. In particular, he thinks Rorty and Putnam miss the centrality and significance of Dewey's "Practical Starting Point" for philosophy and his understanding of key concepts such as "knowledge," "experience" and "inquiry." He argues that when taken together these insights show that Dewey transcends traditional debates about realism, and that this was the essence of his pragmatism.The first two chapters set out Dewey's views in the context of his contemporaries (especially the New and Critical Realists). They emphasise the radical nature of Dewey's position; that it aimed to supplant the well-established philosophical dualisms and debates of the day. Chapters Three and Four recount and criticise how Rorty and Putnam employ Dewey's insights to support near-opposite ends of the realism/anti-realism debate. The final chapter summarises and recapitulates the central themes and arguments of the book.Hildebrand describes his motivating worries as "pedagogical" and "political." If contemporary pragmatists serve as authorities on the subject, [End Page 296] this threatens to occlude the significance of classical texts for new students. This would be unfortunate, as those original texts are beautiful pieces of philosophy. Moreover, there is the danger that contemporary 'authorities' on pragmatism are mistaken, or have their own distorting agenda. It is thus vital that students and professionals continue to study original texts, gaining a grasp on this subtle and rewarding era of philosophy first-hand.Hildebrand's argument is immediately plausible, given that misinterpretations and caricatures of classical pragmatism are sadly common and familiar. It is also novel however, as it asserts pragmatism's foremost contemporary representatives are also guilty of misinterpretation. Hildebrand courts controversy, concluding his introduction by saying the neopragmatists "misuse central epistemological and metaphysical views of classical pragmatism for their own ends, all the while sustaining dualisms that the classical pragmatists fought to dissolve." This book may polarise opinion about Hildebrand's success, if so contemporary debate about pragmatism should be enriched.Readers may enjoy the novel account of New and Critical Realism in Chapter One, movements of which I knew nothing before reading the book. Hildebrand uses these movements to locate Dewey historically and dialectically amid the popular realism & idealism of his time. He demonstrates Dewey's views clearly diverged from those of his contemporaries, despite some of their best efforts to assimilate them for their realist or idealist cause. His main argument concerns Dewey's view that New Realists were responsible for hypostatising the faculties of knowledge and perception and conflating their products, resulting in paradoxical psychophysical dualism. They claimed that knowledge "can be simply had, in an instant," while Dewey insisted that "knowledge is an achievement, the eventual, alembicated product of inquiry," and that contrary to the way New Realists made it sound "Knowledge is never received like manna from heaven." Dewey's work on the reflex arc illustrated that perception is similarly an active or participatory process, though its products are distinct from those of knowledge. Hildebrand argues Dewey was trying to show how such mistakes created two crippling problems for New Realism: the problem of illusion and relapse into the very idealism the movement was designed to refute.Chapter Two concerns aspects of Dewey's views which realists (New and Critical) considered at odds with their own, implying too close an affinity with idealism. Like its predecessor this chapter would benefit from more (or better) examples to help elucidate Dewey's sometimes oblique prose. The dialectic is often highly abstract, focusing on such notions as the given (versus Dewey's preferred "taken"), Dewey's unusual understanding of temporal epistemology (knowledge of past... (shrink)

David S. Clarke is clearly passionate about pragmatism. In this short, compelling book he explores what he calls “two fundamental claims” of pragmatism. He does this, he explains, with the “conviction that if pragmatism is to continue as a viable force in contemporary philosophy it must incorporate advances in philosophical method introduced by the linguistic philosophers of the past century” (xi). The two fundamental claims that interest Clarke are as follows: that cognitive inquiry and belief are to be understood in (...) terms of their relation to purpose and action rather than as a means of simply satisfying intellectual curiosity; (x) that relationships between belief, purpose, and action within us as individuals and within society at large have parallels in the infrahuman species from which we have evolved. (x-xi) After an introductory chapter, which provides an overview of the two claims, Clarke provides a more detailed picture of each claim in chapters 2 and 3, before exploring their implications within three areas: pragmatics and the philosophy of language (Ch. 4), moral conduct (Ch. 5), and metaphysics/ontology (Ch. 6). (shrink)

David S. Clarke is clearly passionate about pragmatism. In this short, compelling book he explores what he calls "two fundamental claims" of pragmatism. He does this, he explains, with the "conviction that if pragmatism is to continue as a viable force in contemporary philosophy it must incorporate advances in philosophical method introduced by the linguistic philosophers of the past century" (xi). The two fundamental claims that interest Clarke are as follows: that cognitive inquiry and belief are to be understood in (...) terms of their relation to purpose and action rather than as a means of simply satisfying intellectual curiosity; [x] that relationships between belief, purpose, and action within us as individuals and within society at large have parallels in the infrahuman species from which we have evolved. [x–xi] After an... (shrink)

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)

Field theories have been central to physics over the last 150 years, and there are several theories in contemporary physics in which physical fields play key causal and explanatory roles. This paper proposes a novel field trope-bundle (FTB) ontology on which fields are composed of bundles of particularized property instances, called tropes and goes on to describe some virtues of this ontology. It begins with a critical examination of the dominant view about the ontology of fields, that fields are properties (...) of a substantial substratum. (shrink)

This book offers an exciting re-interpretation of Auguste Comte, the founder of French sociology. Following the development of his philosophy of positivism, Comte later focused on the importance of the emotions in his philosophy resulting in the creation of a new religious system, the Religion of Humanity. Andrew Wernick provides the first in-depth critique of Comte's concept of religion and its place in his thinking on politics, sociology and philosophy of science. He places Comte's ideas in the context of (...) post-1789 French political and intellectual history, and of modern philosophy, especially postmodernism. Wernick relates Comte to Marx and Nietzsche as seminal figures of modernity and examines key features of modern and postmodern French social theory, tracing the inherent flaws and disintegration of Comte's system. Wernick offers original and fascinating insights in this rich study which will attract a wide audience from sociologists and philosophers to cultural theorists and historians. (shrink)

This book contends that the discussions which threatened to disrupt various religious bodies were not between science and religion, but between science and dogmatic theology. It also holds that science, though it has conquered dogmatic theology--so far as this was based on biblical texts and ancient modes of though--will nevertheless hereafter go hand in hand with religion.

In this paper I explore the pedagogical and political shift marked by the meaning and practice of diversity offered through New Labour education policy texts, specifically, the policy and practice of personalized learning (or personalization). The aim of this paper is to map the ways in which diversity relays and mobilizes a set of neoliberal positions and relationships in the field of education and seeks to govern education institutions and education users through politically circulating norms and values. These norms and (...) values, I want to argue, echo and redeem the kinds of frameworks, applications and rationalities typically aligned with modes of neoliberal or advanced liberal governance, e.g. marketization, monetarization, atomization and deregulation. I conclude the paper by considering how diversity in education renders problematic conventional antinomies of the citizen and consumer, public and private, state and civil society, etc., and forces us to confront the rhizomatic character of contemporary governance and education in the era of neoliberalism. (shrink)

Baghdad, California -- Calm down -- Clearing the dust -- Proof -- The big bang -- Evolution -- Evil -- Religion -- A crisis of reason.

Philosophers interested in the fitting attitude analysis of final value have devoted a great deal of attention to the wrong kind of reasons problem. This paper offers an example of the reverse difficulty, the wrong kind of value problem. This problem creates deeper challenges for the fitting attitude analysis and provides independent grounds for rejecting it, or at least for doubting seriously its correctness.

We discuss the view that a hole is identical to the region of spacetime at which it is located. This view is more parsimonious than the view that holes are sui generis entities located at those regions surrounded by their hosts and it is more plausible than the view that there are no holes. We defend the spacetime view from several objections.

Kant holds that in order to have knowledge of an object, a subject must be able to “prove” that the object is really possible—i.e., prove that there is neither logical inconsistency nor “real repugnance” between its properties. This is (usually) easy to do with respect to empirical objects, but (usually) impossible to do with respect to particular things-in-themselves. In the first section of the paper I argue that an important predecessor of Kant’s account of our ignorance of real possibility can (...) be found in Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding. In the middle sections I discuss the way in which our inability to prove the real possibility of things-in-themselves motivates Kant’s famous prohibition on certain kinds of knowledge-claims about them. In the final section I examine Hegel’s attempts to dissolve this problem of real repugnance and thereby remove an inherited obstacle to speculative knowledge of the supersensible. -/- . (shrink)

Despite his impressive influence on nineteenth-century philosophy, F. A. Trendelenburg's own philosophy has been largely ignored. However, among Kant scholars, Trendelenburg has always been remembered for his feud with Kuno Fischer over the subjectivity of space and time in Kant's philosophy. The topic of the dispute, now frequently referred to as the ?Neglected Alternative? objection, has become a prominent issue in contemporary discussions and interpretations of Kant's view of space and time. The Neglected Alternative contends that Kant unjustifiably moves from (...) the claim that we have a priori intuitions of space and time to the sceptical conclusion that space and time are exclusively subjective. Most current discussions trace the objection back to Trendelenburg and often use him to motivate the objection. However, to date Trendelenburg's actual arguments and reasons for rejecting the Kantian view of space and time have not been sufficiently uncovered; my goal here is to fill this lacuna. By better understanding what Trendelenburg actually argued, we will be in a better position to assess whether the Neglected Alternative objection against Kant is successful. But in addition, Trendelenburg's own system is of independent philosophical interest, and my work here will shed light on one part of it. (shrink)

Critical Realism and Marxism addresses controversial debates, revealing a potentially fruitful relationship; deepening our understanding of the social world and contibuting towards eliminating barbarism in contemporary capitalism.

Part of a group commentary on Kant's Religion book. This chapter focuses on Part 2, section 2 on "The Evil Principle's Rightful Claim to Dominion over the Human Being, and the Struggle of the Two Principles with One Another" -/- .

Unrestricted Composition (UC) is, roughly, the claim that given any objects at all, there is something which those objects compose. (UC) conflicts in an obvious way with common sense. It has as a consequence, for instance, that there is something which has as parts my nose and the moon. One of the more influential arguments for (UC) is Theodore Sider’s version of the Argument from Vagueness. (A version of the Argument from Vagueness was first presented by David Lewis (1986), pp. (...) 212–213). That argument purports to show that some plausible claims concerning the nature of vagueness entail (UC). In this paper I will suggest a response to this argument. I will show that the proponent of Supersubstantivalism (SS)—the view that material objects are identical to regions of spacetime—can reject a premise of Sider’s argument without denying the plausible claims concerning vagueness. Doing so requires only rejecting a certain view concerning the relationship between the proper sub-region relation and the proper parthood relation. So, proponents of (SS) are in a better position than many of us to side with common sense regarding composition. In the first section of the paper, I will present Sider’s argument. In the second section, I will introduce (SS) and briefly discuss some reasons one might have to believe that it is true. In the third section, I will show how the proponent of (SS) can avoid commitment to (UC) and reject a premise of Sider’s argument. Last, I’ll briefly consider and respond to some objections. (shrink)

The literature on metaphysical explanation contains three widely accepted assumptions. First, that the notion of metaphysical explanation with which philosophers are interested is a notion with which the folk are familiar: it is at least continuous with the folk notion. Second, that metaphysical explanations are true propositions of a certain form that are true, (or false), simpliciter. Third, that it is at least the case that mostly, if x metaphysically explains y, then y does not metaphysically explain x. On the (...) basis of empirical investigations that we pursued, we argue that at least two of these assumptions are false . (shrink)

In this wide-ranging interview Andrew Sayer discusses how he became a realist and then the development of his work over the subsequent decades. He comments on his postdisciplinary approach, his early work on economy and its influences, how he came to write Method in Social Science and the transition in Realism and Social Science to normative critical social science and moral economy. The interview concludes with discussion of his three most recent books and the themes that connect them, not (...) least the ongoing problem of a ‘diabolical double crisis’ of capitalism: extreme inequality and climate change. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend what may seem a surprising view: that John Stuart Mill’s famous harm principle would, if taken to be what justifies government action, disallow the existence of corporations. My claim is not that harmful activities of currently existing corporations warrants their losing corporate status according to the harm principle. The claim, rather, is that taken strictly, the harm principle and the legal possibility of incorporation are mutually exclusive. This view may be surprising—and I do not at (...) all mean to attribute it to Mill—but if I am right, it should be obvious. It should also encourage us to think more about the nature of the markets within which business occurs. (shrink)

“Doğal din” terimi, bazen doğanın kendisinin ilahi olduğu bir panteistik doktrine atıfta bulunur. “Doğal teoloji” terimi ise aksine, başlangıçta gözlemlenen doğal gerçekler temelinde (ve bazen) Tanrı’nın varlığını savunmaya yönelik projeye atıfta bulunur. Bununla birlikte çağdaş felsefede, hem “doğal din” hem de “doğal teoloji” genel olarak, dinî veya teolojik konuları araştırmak için insana, “doğal” olan bilişsel yetilerini – akıl, algı, içgözlem- kullanma projesini ifade eder. Doğal din veya teoloji, mevcut anlayış üzerine, doğayla ilgili ampirik araştırmalarla sınırlı olmamakla birlikte ayrıca panteistik bir (...) sonuçla da bağlantılı değildir. Bununla birlikte o, özel doğal olmayan yetilere (ESP, telepati, mistik deneyim) veya doğaüstü bilgi kaynaklarına (kutsal metinler, vahiy teolojisi, inanç otoriteleri, doğrudan doğaüstü iletişim) hitap etmekten kaçınır. Genel olarak, doğal din veya teoloji (bundan böyle “doğal teoloji” olarak anılacaktır), diğer felsefi ve bilimsel girişimlerle aynı rasyonel inceleme standartlarına uymayı amaçlamaktadır ve aynı değerlendirme ve eleştiri yöntemlerine tabidir. (shrink)

An effort to expand and defend aspects of my earlier reading of the Deduction of Taste. The Red Scorpion is just for fun. -/- .

Wittgenstein said in the Investigations, ‘A philosophical problem has the form: “I don’t know my way about”’ (§ 123). The problem of mirror reversal – specifically the twentieth-century transatlantic controversy between the psychologist Richard Gregory, the mathematical columnist Martin Gardner, the physicist Richard Feynman and various analytic philosophers, including David Pears, Ned Block and Don Locke – is presented here as an instructive case of our not knowing our way about. ‘Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up (...) and down?’ We discover that our perplexity disappears as we get clearer about the employment of the familiar oppositions left and right, up and down, back and front, and others. Finding our way about in these logico-grammatical fells, we see connections with our troubles in more vertiginous landscapes. Our disquietude may not be deep (§ 111) but the ‘battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence’ (§ 109) is surprisingly severe. (shrink)

Andrew Sayer undertakes a fundamental critique of social science's difficulties in acknowledging that people's relation to the world is one of concern. As sentient beings, capable of flourishing and suffering, and particularly vulnerable to how others treat us, our view of the world is substantially evaluative. Yet modernist ways of thinking encourage the common but extraordinary belief that values are beyond reason, and merely subjective or matters of convention, with little or nothing to do with the kind of beings (...) people are, the quality of their social relations, their material circumstances or well-being. The author shows how social theory and philosophy need to change to reflect the complexity of everyday ethical concerns and the importance people attach to dignity. He argues for a robustly critical social science that explains and evaluates social life from the standpoint of human flourishing. (shrink)

The fallacy fallacy is either the misdiagnosis of fallacy or the supposition that the conclusion of a fallacy must be a falsehood. This paper explores the relevance of these and related errors of reasoning for the appraisal of arguments, especially within virtue theories of argumentation. In particular, the fallacy fallacy exemplifies the Owl of Minerva problem, whereby tools devised to understand a norm make possible new ways of violating the norm. Fallacies are such tools and so are vices. Hence a (...) similar problem arises with argumentative vices. Fortunately, both instances of the problem have a common remedy. (shrink)

This chapter explores two kinds of testimonial trust, what we call ‘evidential trust’ and ‘non-evidential trust’ with the aim of asking how testimonial trust could provide epistemic reasons for belief. We argue that neither evidential nor non-evidential trust can play a distinctive role in providing evidential reasons for belief, but we tentatively propose that non-evidential trust can in some circumstances provide a novel kind of epistemic reason for belief, a reason of epistemic facilitation. The chapter begins with an extensive discussion (...) of standard accounts of both kinds of trust and criticises especially the standard accounts of non-evidential trust. A new account of non-evidential trust is offered that avoids a number of difficulties that plague the standard accounts by rejecting what we call ‘attitude-liability assumptions’. (shrink)

Virtue theories have become influential in ethics and epistemology. This paper argues for a similar approach to argumentation. Several potential obstacles to virtue theories in general, and to this new application in particular, are considered and rejected. A first attempt is made at a survey of argumentational virtues, and finally it is argued that the dialectical nature of argumentation makes it particularly suited for virtue theoretic analysis.

A dynamic systems (DS) approach uncovers important connections between emotion and neurophysiology. It is critical, however, to include a developmental perspective. Strides in the understanding of emotional development, as well as the present use of DS in developmental science, add significantly to the study of emotion. Examples include stranger fear during infancy, intermodal perception of emotion, and development of individual emotional systems.

INTRODUCTION I What is teleology? If you ever look closely at an ants' nest, you will see an intricate network of pathways and chambers teeming with ...

Many philosophers accept both of the following claims: (1) consciousness matters morally, and (2) species membership doesn’t matter morally. In other words, many reject speciesism but accept what we might call 'sentientism'. But do the reasons against speciesism yield analogous reasons against sentientism, just as the reasons against racism and sexism are thought to yield analogous reasons against speciesism? This paper argues that speciesism is disanalogous to sentientism (as well as racism and sexism). I make a case for the following (...) asymmetry: (a) some non-humans clearly have interests, but (b) no non-conscious entities clearly have interests. This asymmetry, I argue, renders sentientism resistant to the standard argument against speciesism. (shrink)

Disagreements that resist rational resolution, often termed “deep disagreements”, have been the focus of much work in epistemology and informal logic. In this paper, I argue that they also deserve the attention of philosophers of mathematics. I link the question of whether there can be deep disagreements in mathematics to a more familiar debate over whether there can be revolutions in mathematics. I propose an affirmative answer to both questions, using the controversy over Shinichi Mochizuki’s work on the abc conjecture (...) as a potential example of both phenomena. I conclude by investigating the prospects for the resolution of mathematical deep disagreements in virtue-theoretic approaches to informal logic and mathematical practice. (shrink)