Metaphilosophical Skepticism

One of the questions that philosophers discuss is: How can we avoid, or at least reduce, errors when explaining the world? The skeptical answer to this question is: We cannot avoid errors since no statement is certain or even definitely plausible, but we can eliminate some past errors. This book advocates the skeptical position and discusses its practical applications in science, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. It brings philosophy down to earth and comprises an outline of a skeptical guide to the (...) real world. (shrink)

This paper argues that higher-order doubt generates an epistemic dilemma. One has a higher-order doubt with regards to P insofar as one justifiably withholds belief as to what attitude towards P is justified. That is, one justifiably withholds belief as to whether one is justified in believing, disbelieving, or withholding belief in P. Using the resources provided by Richard Feldman’s recent discussion of how to respect one’s evidence, I argue that if one has a higher-order doubt with regards to P, (...) then one is not justified in having any attitude towards P. Otherwise put: No attitude towards the doubted proposition respects one’s higher-order doubt. I argue that the most promising response to this problem is to hold that when one has a higher-order doubt about P, the best one can do to respect such a doubt is to simply have no attitude towards P. Higher-order doubt is thus much more rationally corrosive than non-higher-order doubt, as it undermines the possibility of justifiably having any attitude towards the doubted proposition. (shrink)

This book offers the first historical treatment and analytic analysis of the problem of the criterion. It provides analyses of the ancient and modern characterizations of the problem and a resolution of each. My purpose is to show that there are at least two versions of the problem, one posed by a Pyrrhonian sceptic and one by a dogmatic sceptic. I show that both versions have a dissolution. Then, by examining the presuppositions of the dogmatic sceptic, I demonstrate that the (...) sceptic's position is self-undermining. I argue that meta-epistemological scepticism is much less reasonable than some forms of meta-epistemic cognitivism. (shrink)

ABSTRACTMany philosophers have suggested that disagreement is good grounds for scepticism. One response says that disagreement-motivated scepticism can be mitigated to some extent by the thesis that philosophical disputes are often verbal, not genuine. I consider the implications of this anti-sceptical strategy, arguing that it trades one kind of scepticism for others. I conclude with suggestions for further investigation of the epistemic significance of the nature of philosophical disagreement.

ABSTRACT ABSTRACT: Most of what we believe comes to us from the word of others, but we do not always believe what we are told. We often reject thinkers’ reports by attributing biases to them. We may call this debunking. In this essay, I consider how debunking might work and then examine whether, and how often, it can help to preserve rational belief in the face of disagreement.

I reconstruct and critique two arguments Laurence BonJour has recently offered against skepticism about the a priori. While the arguments may provide anti-skeptical, internalist foundationalists with reason to accept the a priori, I show that neither argument provides sufficient reason for believing the more general conclusion that there is no rational alternative to accepting the a priori.

In this article I investigate a neglected form of radical skepticism that questions whether any of our logical, mathematical and other seemingly self-evident beliefs count as knowledge. ‘A priori skepticism,’ as I will call it, challenges our ability to know any of the following sorts of propositions: (1.1) The sum of two and three is five. (1.2) Whatever is square is rectangular. (1.3) Whatever is red is colored. (1.4) No surface can be uniformly red and uniformly blue at the same (...) time. (1.5) If ‘if p then q’ is true and ‘p’ is true, then ‘q’ is true. (1.6) No statement can be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect. (1.7) If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A is taller than C. (1.8) Everything is identical to itself. (1.9) If the conclusion of an inductive argument is contingent, it is possible for the premises of that argument to be true and its conclusion to be false. (1.10) George W. Bush could have been a plumber. (1.11) George W. Bush could not have been a prime number. (1.12) ‘2 + 3 = 5’ is necessarily true. (shrink)

The most interesting thing about sceptical theism is its sceptical component. When sceptical theists use that component in responding to arguments from evil, they think it is reasonable for their non-theistic interlocutors to accept it, even if they don't expect them to accept their theism. This article focuses on that sceptical component. The first section explains more precisely what the sceptical theist's scepticism amounts to and how it is used in response to various sorts of arguments from evil. The next (...) section considers and responds to objections to sceptical theism. It is shown that just as there are non-theists who accept the sceptical theist's scepticism, so also are there theists who reject it. (shrink)

Skeptical theists endorse the skeptical thesis (which is consistent with the rejection of theism) that we have no good reason for thinking the possible goods we know of are representative of the possible goods there are. In his newest formulation of the evidential arguments from evil, William Rowe tries to avoid assuming the falsity of this skeptical thesis, presumably because it seems so plausible. I argue that his new argument fails to avoid doing this. Then I defend that skeptical thesis (...) against objections, thereby supporting my contention that relying on its falsity is a weakness in an argument. (shrink)

Some evidential arguments from evil rely on an inference of the following sort: 'If, after thinking hard, we can't think of any God-justifying reason for permitting some horrific evil then it is likely that there is no such reason'. Sceptical theists, us included, say that this inference is not a good one and that evidential arguments from evil that depend on it are, as a result, unsound. Michael Almeida and Graham Oppy have argued (in a previous issue of this journal) (...) that Michael Bergmann's way of developing the sceptical theist response to such arguments fails because it commits those who endorse it to a sort of scepticism that undermines ordinary moral practice. In this paper, we defend Bergmann's sceptical theist response against this charge. (shrink)

Suppose a person who is agnostic about most philosophical issues wishes to have true philosophical beliefs but equally wishes to avoid false philosophical beliefs. I argue that this truth-seeking, error-avoiding agnostic would not have good grounds for pursuing philosophy. Widespread disagreement shows that pursuing philosophy is not a reliable method of discovering true answers to philosophical questions. More likely than not, pursuing philosophy leads to false belief. Many attempts to rebut this sceptical argument fail.

We can identify two broad categories of post-modernist political views: a "weak" view and a "strong" view. The latter cannot support a practice of democratic politics. In contrast, the "weak" view is compatible with a conception of democratic politics that is pluralistic, liberal, and pragmatic. The central issue over which the two views part ways is whether human beings have enough in common to permit mutual comprehension. The strong view implies that they do not, and for this reason must be (...) rejected. Within the weak view, disagreements are really a matter of emphasis: When and in what circumstances should we emphasize difference rather than commonality? (shrink)

Diese Studie greift die klassische philosophische Frage nach den Grenzen unseres Wissens auf und analysiert kritisch aktuell diskutierte Argumente, welche die Begrenztheit unseres Wissens erweisen sollen. Im Zentrum stehen dabei drei Argumentationsansätze: Zunächst geht es um Komplexitätsgrenzen des Wissens, wie sie G. Chaitin mit seiner algorithmischen Informationstheorie aufzeigen will. Dann wird auf Präzisionsgrenzen des Wissens eingegangen, die sich aus der epistemischen Theorie der Vagheit (T. Williamson u.a.) ergeben. Schließlich werden Grenzen unserer Selbsterkenntnis erörtert. Dabei geht es um verschiedene Argumente für (...) die Unerforschlichkeit des menschlichen Geistes bzw. für die Unlösbarkeit des Leib-Seele-Problems, wie sie von C. McGinn oder im Rahmen der erkenntnistheoretischen Deutung von K. Gödels Unvollständigkeitssätzen vorgeschlagen wurden. Während diese Ansätze Fragen aufwerfen sollen, deren Antworten uns kognitiv unzugänglich sind, verteidigt das Buch eine alternative Sicht, die derjenigen des späten Wittgenstein ähnelt: In den meisten Fällen handelt es sich aufgrund semantischer Unbestimmtheit nur um scheinbare Fragen in dem Sinne, dass wir sie einfach deshalb nicht beantworten können, weil sie keine Antworten besitzen. (shrink)

Focuses on the arguments that show the externalism of mental content. Discussion on the principle of knowledge identification; Account of basic self-knowledge; Interpretations of sentence content; Skepticism of knowledge content.

A Treatise of Human Nature opens with ambitious hopes for the science of man, but Hume eventually launches into a series of skeptical arguments that culminates in a report of radical skeptical despair. This essay is a preliminary exploration of how to interpret this surprising development. I first distinguish two kinds of surprise twist: those that are incompatible with some preceding portion of the work, and those that are not. This suggests two corresponding pictures of Hume. On one picture, he (...) believed the skeptical development to be at odds with something in early Treatise; on the other, he took these two portions of Book 1 to be perfectly compatible. After defending the claim that Hume endorsed both of these portions, I sketch two promising interpretations—a “perspectivist,” incompatibilist interpretation and a “post-skeptical,” compatibilist interpretation—and offer some reasons to favor the latter view. (shrink)

Often philosophers have reason to ask fundamental questions about the aims, methods, nature, or value of their own discipline. When philosophers systematically examine such questions, the resulting work is sometimes referred to as “metaphilosophy.” Metaphilosophy, it should be said, is not a well-established, or clearly demarcated, field of philosophical inquiry like epistemology or the philosophy of art. However, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries there has been a great deal of metaphilosophical work on issues concerning the methodology of (...) philosophy in the analytic tradition. This article focuses on that work. (shrink)

This Introduction to the special issue on “Skepticism and Justification” provides a background to the nine articles collected here and a detailed summary of each, which highlights their interconnections and relevance to the debate at the heart of the issue.

Set in the context of the current interest among Analytic philosophers in the “epistemology of disagreement,” this paper explores the meta-philosophical problem of philosophical incommensurability. Motivated by Nietzsche’s provocative remark about philosophy as prejudices and desires of the heart “sifted and made abstract,” the paper first outlines the contours of the problem and then traces it through a series of examples. Drawing largely on the tradition of phenomenology and philosophical hermeneutics, a broadly Continental response to this formidable problem is suggested. (...) Disagreement cannot be understood simply in terms of epistemological strategy, but needs to be regarded in a fundamentally hermeneutical light. (shrink)

This paper introduces (or reiterates) a paradox: if humanist (rational and egalitarian) principles of social organization are attendant upon the evolution of an educated, leisured class (be it feudal or bourgeois), how can these norms be applied from the “bottom up”? It is the paradox of democratic liberalism, the spectre behind the ideal of “participatory parity” which both entails and presupposes equality of capability, and hence of socioeconomic status. By way of a very brief genealogy of enlightenment values, against contemporary (...) public discourse, this article sets the question into stark relief, viz.: if the principles of equality and rational exchange do not correspond to any common substratum of humanity, any inalienable aspect of persons or social organization per se, but comprise rather a ruling class etiquette, for and among the members of this class, therefore reflecting a developmental achievement, then can these principles be taken out of their context and reapplied, so to speak, where they never belonged and from which they evolved? Are the principles of rational discourse the same as the principles of material (re)production? Could they ever be? Or do they necessarily convey the most insidious of ruling class ideologies? Contemporary thought on (post)colonization and critical theory of capitalism (“bourgeois” critique, arguably) beg this question and invite this paradox. (shrink)

In attempting to re-think the notion of asymmetry and its relations with 'first philosophy' and to see how that notion is tracked by the provocation of scepticism, the paper demonstrates something about the implications of Levinas' ethical asymmetry. The paper considers Levinas' tendency to introduce the topic of scepticism when confronted by the logical and textual difficulties that necessarily befall his account of the ethical relation. It argues that such an introduction commits Levinas to the claim: first philosophy entails a (...) fundamental (first person) asymmetry and its attendant scepticism. If, for Levinas, scepticism and first person asymmetry are implicated in all attempts at first philosophy, the paper suggests that an intriguing place to set it to work is those pages of Being and Time which prioritize being-towards-death, the polemical focus of Levinas' being-for-beyond-my-death. (shrink)

1 1 Ulrich de Balbian Meta-Philosophy Research Center (Meta-Philosophy) Death of Philosophy Part 2 PART 2 Philosophy subject-matter page2 Different approaches to doing philosophy (Methods) page 164 Metaphysics, Ontology, Epistemology page.

My new (Experimental) PHILOSOPHY (XPhi) book for FREE download -/- https://www.academia.edu/31973890/_Meta-Philosophy_Theorizing_about_Philosophy_CMT_CB_and_CM_as_an_e xercise_inXPhi -/- (Meta-Philosophy) Theorizing about Philosophy (CMT, CB and CMA) as an exercise inXPhi -/- The processes of theorizing are explored, Weick's Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Blending Theory and Conceptual Metaphor tool are described. This Meta-Philosophy investigation of philosophy and philosophizing is an exercise in Experimental Philosophy. The Empirical Generalization or Hypothesis arrived at states that: Philosophy/izing is like or resembles the process/es of Theorizing.

What, if anything, is the correlation between the specialized or technical ideas of the philosopher and the rest of his existence? His everyday life outside his philosophical role. In the specialized reality and reality constitution, when employing the discourse and discipline of philosophy, the philosopher subscribe to many things in an explicit manner and he employs a number of implicit things and assumptions that are not stated explicitly. These things concern the different branches, areas and domains of the philosophical discourse, (...) for example metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, ontology, cognition, consciousness, mind, perception, thinking, etc. Is there a relation between these technical 'beliefs' of the philosopher and other, not philosophical areas of his existence? Does and can all of his non-philosophical existence reflect his philosophical beliefs, statements and expressions? Is it possible that the everyday existence or life world of the philosopher can resemble, confirm and express his philosophical ideas? If this is not the case, what are the factors that are involved in such discrepancies? Do they imply a lack of integrity, of wholeness of integration on behalf of the philosopher? What are the causes of such an illogical or surprising lack of compatibility or similarity between these sets of two or more facts? What are the things that we can look for in such a lack of compatibility – things such as the following? - inconsistency, difference, disparity, variance, variation, deviation, divergence, -/- disagreement, dissimilarity, dissimilitude, mismatch, lack of similarity, contrariety, contradictoriness, disaccord, discordance, incongruity, -/- lack of congruence, incompatibility, irreconcilability, conflict, opposition? -/- I illustrate the above by means of four examples. 1 Let us assume that the embodied human person consists of both voluntary and involuntary processes and activities. Do the philosophy of an individual reflect or express these activities or is it completely or partially unrelated to them? Do the voluntary processes and activities or the voluntary aspects of perception, cognition, brain processes and other activities resemble or express the philosophy of a thinker? 2 Some thinkers are seriously concerned about the importance of discourse and dialogue and the equality of all those involved. We find their concern about the ideal discourse and dialogue described in their written work and talks, but to what an extend do their own discursive and dialogical actions and behaviour reflect the ideal situation they preach? 3 Ethics and morality can be find in and are emphasized in all sorts of disciplines, of course they are major subjects in providing ways to live off for philosophers and we even find institutions devoted to their teaching and investigation. Do the lives, the lived morality and ethics of those individuals who preach the ideals of ethics or ethical ideals reflect the ideals they preach and that provides them with ways to earn a living? Or, is it the case that morality and ethics are merely faked by those individuals living off their preaching of ethics? And, that they merely employ the values, norms, customs and attitudes of a culture, sub-culture, community, group or another social grouping? In other words are the preachers of ethics really more ethical than the rest of the community and society? 4 When the philosopher expresses his ideas by means of all sorts of philosophical tools he is aware of the fact that he employs them, or at least aware of some of them being intentionally employed by him while he is unaware of others that he employs. Do the tools the philosopher employs to theorize (identify problems, the nature of the questions he asks, the nature of his ways of questioning, the assumptions he makes, the forming and testing of hypotheses, the making of generalizations, etc) or philosophize (perceive things, think, think about things, reason, argumentation etc) resemble what he beliefs, asserts and says about thinking, perception, cognition, understanding, subjects, objects, relationships between subjects and objects and other features and processes of epistemology? In short – does the lived philosophy, ontology, epistemology, ethics etc of the philosopher resemble, represent, confirm, substantiate, back, endorse, support, authenticate and corroborate the ideas, assertions and speculations that are expressed by the statements his philosophy or philosophizing consist of? Does he walk the walk of his talk? Are they similar and identical, the same things and merely expressions of the same things in different mediums? (shrink)

Many themes and topics, both immanent as well as non- immanent, concerning philosophy and meta-philosophy are dealt with. Many of these take the form of my answers to questions addressed at me. Some of the topics and themes that are dealt with are - Self-reference and Self-application Immanence and non-immanence Disagreement and diversity Primacy of the practical Philosophy good and bad Philosophy and expertise Ends of philosophy Death of philosophy Anti-philosophies Philosophy and assertion Philosophy and exposition Philosophy and style.

Traditional philosophy is no longer viable,‭ ‬relevant and acceptable.‭ ‬It might be possible to continue doing philosophizing in traditional ways.‭ ‬It is possible to continue fabricating fictional realities in the manner of the Pre-Socratics,‭ ‬Spinoza,‭ ‬Leibniz,‭ ‬Husserl,‭ ‬Hegel,‭ ‬Plato,‭ ‬et al.‭ ‬It is possible to devise pictures of realities and depictions of‭ ‬human consciousness and cognition like Descartes or in the Kantian manner. -/- One of the major issues with traditional philosophy is its lack of self-awareness,‭ ‬the absence of meta-cognition.‭ (...) ‬This lack of meta-cognition of traditional philosophers leads to the creation of all sorts of questionable phenomena and fake problems. -/- Traditional philosophy,‭ ‬metaphysics,‭ ‬ontology,‭ ‬epistemology,‭ ‬ethics,‭ ‬philosophy of sciences,‭ ‬religion,‭ ‬arts,‭ ‬etc are little more than the possibilities,‭ ‬limits and restrictions enabled and allowed by the philosopher's methodology,‭ ‬techniques and tools.‭ -/- It is most likely possible to envisage a project to devise a collection or synthesis of‭ ‬many alternative realities by means of the insights and theories of theoretical physics,‭ ‬mathematics,‭ ‬bio-chemistry,‭ ‬biology and other sciences,‭ ‬the depictions produced by the arts and pictures of realities presented by the humanities.‭ ‬If such a system of pictures of reality is philosophically relevant and meaningful is however another matter. -/- The original,‭ ‬creative thinking philosopher constitutes alternattive or new realities by his philosophizing.‭ ‬This philosophizing employs and resembles aspects and stages of the processes of theorizing. -/- The real goal of philosophizing is to increase ever greater wisdom.‭ ‬Not merely wisdom in an abstract sense,‭ ‬but different kinds of practical and applied wisdom in all areas of human,‭ ‬everyday existence.‭ ‬In other words,‭ ‬like spirituality and mysticism philosophizing attempts to embody or incarnate wisdom.‭ ‬While mysticism or the mystical paths and aspects of religions aspire to unity experience,‭ ‬to become one with THE ONE,‭ ‬to become the ONE,‭ ‬REAL SELF,‭ ‬to realize the Buddha mind or to be united or‭ '‬married‭' ‬to the Beloved of Sufism. (shrink)

In this meta-philosophical study I commence with an investigation of Wisdom. I then continue with an exploration of the institutionalization of the subject and the professionalization of those involved in it. This I contrast with original and creative philosophizing. In then sows that philosophizing resembles and attempts to do theorizing. The 9 questions, etc of the Socratic Method and details of the Philosophical Toolkit occur throughout different stages of theorizing as one level and one dimension of it. Linked books are (...) FREE for download. -/- 1 Seeking, development and realization of wisdom 4 2 Institutionalization, Professionalization of ‘philosophy’ 5 3 Original and Creative Thinking Philosophizing 37 4 Philosophizing resembles Theorizing 38 (i) Socratic Method 41 (ii) Philosophical Toolkit 145 -/- . (shrink)

An exploration of philosophy, its subject-matter (and development of new objects of study and investigation or philosophizing, for example experimental ‘philosophy’, inter-disciplinary work such as in the discourse of cognitive research and philosophy of everything, i e the arts, sport, religion, sex, love, politics, etc), its methods and confines, both internal and external linits, eg cognitive biases, fallacies, -isms, one-dimensionality, uni-levelled, etc. Philosophy - institutionalization, Professionalization, subject-matter, methods, cognitive biases, fallacies.

Exploration of the meanings, dimensions, levels of the umbrella-notion of wisdom. I added a discussion between the academics of the notion and research into it (on Wisdom list LISTSERV@JISCMAIL.AC.UK ) as second appendix. I added on 7/09/2017 a new appendix http://www.drrogerwalsh.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/What-is-Wisdom-Cross-Cultural-Cross-Disciplin ary-Syntheses-Roger-Walsh-2015-Review-of-General-Psychology.pdf . -/- Most people involved in this discourse will be aware of the meaning of the word philosophy. The love part might be familiar to many of the human beings, although each individual will probably have his/her own superficial notion (...) of this idea. It is the second part of the word that will baffle anyone who reflects at all. The notion of wisdom is another umbrella-word, like mind, consciousness, reality, the world, etc. Notions that cover a whole range of ideas and concepts, but that are frequently employed as if it has one specific, precisely defined meaning and usage. When we are informed about the three, four or five features, aspects or characteristics of the word wisdom, we are actually presented with some form of conceptual analysis of possible meanings of the word wisdom. In the following 7 dimensions (characteristics?) of the notion or idea of wisdom are proposed. This is like a conceptual analysis of the word wisdom. Brown and Greene outline their efforts to developing and testing a reliable ‘Wisdom Development Scale’. Their study provides evidence to support the theory that wisdom is a multidimensional construct with the following 7 dimensions: (1) Self-Knowledge (2) Emotional Management (3) Altruism (4) Inspirational Engagement (5) Judgment (6) Life Knowledge (7) Life Skills Jeste suggests that: Most of us agree that wisdom is a complex trait. It’s not just one thing – it’s not like ‘optimism,’ which is a single specific trait. Wisdom is far more complex, comprised of different components. He says: He found six such dimensions or components. Social decision-making. ‘Emotional Regulation’ – control over one’s emotions. ,The third one is ‘Prosocial Behaviours’ – things that we do for others ,Then comes ‘Insight’ – knowing yourself. It includes self-reflection,The fifth is ‘Acceptance of uncertainty’, which also means ‘acceptance of diversity of views.’ ,The last component in that list was still being ‘Decisive’, in that you accept uncertainty, you accept diversity of views, and yet you cannot sit on the fence all the time. You cannot be ambivalent all the time. You have to make a decision. We found that those six were still the most common components, but there were three others that some people have proposed as components of wisdom. Those three are ‘Spirituality’, ‘Sense of Humor’ and ‘Openness to new experience.’ -/- . (shrink)

I have been working on meta-philosophy for quite some time and was pleasantly surprised to encounter, mid-May 2017, someone who shares this commitment (apart from his many other interests and specializations) for very similar reasons as my own. He is Dr Desh Ray Sirswal from India and one of his numerous websites, blogs, journals, etc is - http://drsirswal.webs.com/ I let him speak for himself. “My objective is to achieve an intellectual detachment from all philosophical systems, and not to solve specific (...) philosophical problems but to become sensitively aware of what it is when we philosophize.” Copyright© Desh Raj Sirswal . I commence by dealing with the teaching of philosophy, because the contents of what is being taught at under-graduate level is for most people who are slightly informed about the subject what philosophy is about. This usually consists of the history of Ideas of Western Philosophy. Although an increasing number of faculties now broaden the scope to the ‘philosophies’ of Asia, the Far East and the Middle East. This international broadening of what is being included in curricula of or as philosophy is another index that Western Philosophy is in need of subject-matter as its traditional subject-matter have all but died out. Apart from the History of Philosophical ideas, the subject often is presented in terms of so-called branches, for example metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, ethics, logic, and so on. A number of authors suggest that both ways of teaching the discipline is very selective because of the departments adherence to some form of either ‘analytical’ or ‘continental’ philosophy. Apart from the traditional lecture-style the teaching of philosophy is dealt with by means of some variation on the Oxbridge ‘tutorial’-style. Tutorials are often acclaimed as being an amazing, to be highly regarded innovation. Some studies and research of it however revealed that is not at all very comprehensive but is restricted to a number of items concerning reasoning, argumentation and critical re-viewing and thinking. This approach forms part of the attempt by contemporary research universities to teach aspects of ‘research’. This brings us to my next section on methods of doing philosophy. I suggest that the doing of philosophy resembles certain aspects and contexts of some of the steps and stages of doing theorizing. This is the rationale for including the next section on theorizing, its steps, stages and other aspects such as the use of metaphors, imaginary experiments, heuristic devices, etc. The next section deals with the changing nature of traditional philosophy as it lost most of its subject-matter to other disciplines that have been socio-culturally differentiated. And the search for new philosophical subject-matter such as Experimental Philosophy or XPhi, the involvement of philosophers in inter-disciplinary studies, especially the latest fad of cognitive studies or sciences and of course the fabrication of philosophies of all areas of human behaviour and kinds of socio-cultural activities for example sport, the arts, sciences, cognition, sex, violence, gender, race, religion, etc etc. I then turn to the question about how, where and why one could perhaps do philosophy against the background of the above. In this investigation I make explicit some of the self-imposed limits of the discourse. Some of these restrictions have been created because of the absolute institutionalization of the discipline as just another subject of universities. This institutionalization of course requires that those involved in the discipline of institutionalized philosophy must be professionals. This absolute requirement lays down the condition that to be a philosopher one must be a professional and an academic. The conditions of institutionalization and professionalization have far reaching consequences for the philosophical discourse, its subject-matter, methods, principles, values, aims, purposes and norms. One of these is the need to publish and to publish often especially in peer-reviewed journals and in their required, institutionalized format. Because of these institutionalized restrictions of what philosophy is, what it must be like, what it may be like and what it may not be like I explore the lack of self-cognition of academically institutionalized philosophy and the associated absence of critical, meta-cognition and self-awareness of professional philosophers. I question the values of doing that type of philosophy, philosophy-on-demand and because of demand and suggest that it is preferable to engage with the more original, creative-thinking philosophers’ work. All of the above are of course intersubjectively determined and this is why I finally explore the nature and operation of different forms of intersubjectivity, for example of common sense, everyday existence, that of the different sciences, the arts, etc and the roles or functions of these things in the creation or constitution of alternative discourses, their realities, life-worlds or perspectives on ‘the world, reality, and existence’. This is the phantom, the ghost of the deceased discourse of philosophy that I chased, encountered and describe. -/- . (shrink)

Abstract: We sometimes say our moral claims are "objectively true," or are "right, even if nobody believes it." These additional claims are often taken to be staking out metaethical positions, representative of a certain kind of theorizing about morality that "steps outside" the practice in order to comment on its status. Ronald Dworkin has argued that skepticism about these claims so understood is not tenable because it is impossible to step outside such practices. I show that externally skeptical metaethical theory (...) can withstand his attacks, thereby defending the possibility of this kind of metatheoretical method and showing that the additional objectivity claims still make sense as external claims. Four interpretations of the additional objectivity claims can still be understood externally: as secondary properties, as arguing for some form of causal correspondence, as explaining error, and under Blackburn's expressivism. In the end, Dworkin's argument can be turned against itself. (shrink)

This fourth volume of the Middle Way Philosophy series uses cognitive psychology and balanced sceptical philosophy to explain both how we get stuck in dogmas, and how provisionality is possible. It is argued that we can make progress both in avoiding delusions and developing wisdom not by finding ‘truth’ or employing ‘rationality’, but rather through awareness of our assumptions. We need not ultimately true beliefs (as is often assumed), but judgements that are more adequate to each new set of conditions. (...) The book includes a wide survey of the cognitive biases identified by psychology, with an argument that the practically important aspect of each is an absolutising assumption that we could potentially avoid through awareness. (shrink)

This third volume of the Middle Way Philosophy series applies the revolutionary view, taken from cognitive science, that meaning is found in our bodies rather than in a relationship between language and reality. Cognitive and emotive meaning cannot be separated. This approach reveals the basic error of the metaphysical views that depend on absolute cognitive meaning. It also provides the basis for an account of how we can integrate meaning. Each new time we connect an experience to a symbol we (...) extend meaning in a way that gives us more resources to develop more adequate beliefs. The practice of integrating meaning can be promoted by the arts, meditation and focusing, and can also involve working to resolve archetypes. (shrink)

The first of a series of 4 volumes on Middle Way Philosophy. Middle Way Philosophy was originally inspired by the Middle Way of the Buddha but is developed in an entirely Western context. It addresses the questions of objectivity, justification, facts and values, and the relationship of philosophy and psychology. It develops the concept of experiential adequacy to provide a non-metaphysical resolution of the dichotomy between absolutism and relativism in both facts and values.

When it comes to second-order knowledge, internalists typically contend that when we know that p, we can, by reflecting, directly know that we are knowing it. Gettier considerations are employed to challenge this internalistic contention and to make out a prima facie case for internalistic metaepistemological skepticism, the thesis that no one ever intemalistically knows that one internalistically knows that p. In particular, I argue that at the metaepistemological second-order level, the Gettier problem generates three distinct problems which, taken together, (...) seriously undermine the possibility of anyone possessing second-order internalistic knowledge. (shrink)