Is There Any Good Reason to Say Goodbye to “Ethnomethodology”?

This paper is an essay about Harold Garfinkel??s heritage. It outlines a response to Eric Livingston??s proposal to say goodbye to ethnomethodology as pertaining to the sociological tradition; and it rejects part of Melvin Pollner??s diagnosis about the changes occurred in ethnomethodological working. If it agrees with Pollner about the idea that something of the initial ethnomethodology??s program has been left aside after the ??work studies?? turn, it asserts that such a turn has nonetheless made possible authentic discoveries. So the paper speaks for a better integration of the two versions of ethnomethodology separated by Pollner.     

Cooking with Philip Quinn

In response to various difficulties that confront John Hick??s pluralistic hypothesis, Philip Quinn proposes a recipe for developing ??more satisfactory?? pluralistic hypotheses. In this short exploratory paper I examine Quinn??s proposal, identify some problems that it faces, and consider some alternatives.     

How to refrain from answering Kripke’s puzzle

In this paper, I investigate the prospects for using the distinction between rejection and denial to resolve Saul Kripke??s puzzle about belief. One puzzle Kripke presents in ??A Puzzle About Belief?? poses what would have seemed a fairly straightforward question about the beliefs of the bilingual Pierre, who is disposed to sincerely and reflectively assent to the French sentence ??Londres est jolie??, but not to the English sentence ??London is pretty??, both of which he understands perfectly well. The question to be answered is whether Pierre believes that London is pretty, and Kripke argues, of each answer, that it is unacceptable. On my proposal, either answer to the question is to be rejected, but neither answer is to be denied, using the resource of partially-defined predicates. After demonstrating how this serves as a solution to the puzzle, I illustrate some philosophical motivations??independent of Kripke??s puzzle??for adopting a view on which belief is a partially defined predicate. I conclude that there are decent prospects for the proposed response to Kripke??s puzzle.     

Many Windows: Reflections on Robert Ulanowicz’s Search for Meaning in Science

This paper is an extended discussion of Robert Ulanowicz??s critique of mechanistic and reductionistic metaphysics of science. He proposes ??process ecology?? as an alternative. In this paper I discuss four sets of question coming out of Ulanowicz??s proposal. First, I argue that universality remains one of the hallmarks of the scientific enterprise even with his new process metaphysics. I then discuss the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the interpretation of the history of the universe. I question Ulanowicz??s use of the terms ??random?? and ??chance?? in his definition of process. Finally, I discuss what difference a relational and process metaphysics might make in addressing the political and practical problems in the twenty-first century.     

Knowledge and epistemic necessity

Claims of the form ??I know P and it might be that not-P?? tend to sound odd. One natural explanation of this oddity is that the conjuncts are semantically incompatible: in its core epistemic use, ??Might P?? is true in a speaker??s mouth only if the speaker does not know that not-P. In this paper I defend this view against an alternative proposal that has been advocated by Trent Dougherty and Patrick Rysiew and elaborated upon in Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath??s recent Knowledge in an Uncertain World.     

On the Quinean-analyticity of mathematical propositions

This paper investigates the relation between Carnap and Quine??s views on analyticity on the one hand, and their views on philosophical analysis or explication on the other. I argue that the stance each takes on what constitutes a successful explication largely dictates the view they take on analyticity. I show that although acknowledged by neither party (in fact Quine frequently expressed his agreement with Carnap on this subject) their views on explication are substantially different. I argue that this difference not only explains their differences on the question of analyticity, but points to a Quinean way to answer a challenge that Quine posed to Carnap. The answer to this challenge leads to a Quinean view of analyticity such that arithmetical truths are analytic, according to Quine??s own remarks, and set theory is at least defensibly analytic.     

Learning about wisdom from Lehrer

The paper discusses Lehrer??s pioneering approach to the topic of wisdom. His pithy proposal, that wisdom is preference of merit justified by an evaluation system and undefeated by error, fits well within the grand philosophical tradition of thinking about wisdom, offering a very clear and original formulation of its target. The first part of the paper puts it on a map of philosophical options concerning wisdom (anthropo-, theo- and cosmo-centric ones) and then raises questions about it: does preference have to motivate, what is the relation between factual and evaluative knowledge in the evaluation system, and how is the objectivity of merit secured? The second part briefly develops an alternative proposal inspired by Lehrer??s work. It is a two-level picture. Wisdom combines the virtues of the first-order production of decision and action (reliability and practical validity) with second-order reflective endorsement of the first-order picture. The first-order production yields phronesis-generated action-guiding desires which constitute practical wisdom in the narrow sense, and the second level the more refined and sophisticated wisdom of philosophers and their kin.     

Recurrence

Standard compositionality is the doctrine that the semantic content of a compound expression is a function of the semantic contents of the contentful component expressions. In 1954 Hilary Putnam proposed that standard compositionality be replaced by a stricter version according to which even sentences that are synonymously isomorphic (in the sense of Alonzo Church) are not strictly synonymous unless they have the same logical form. On Putnam??s proposal, the semantic content of a compound expression is a function of: (i) the contentful component expressions; and (ii) the expression??s logical form. Kit Fine recently expanded and modified Putnam??s idea into a sweeping theory in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. The present paper is a detailed critique of Fine??s ??semantic relationism.?? Fine??s notion of coordination is explained in terms of the familiar pragmatic phenomenon of recognition. A serious error in Fine??s formal disproof of standard Millianism is exposed. It is demonstrated furthermore that Church??s original criticism of Putnam??s proposal can be extended to Fine??s semantic relationism. Finally, it is also demonstrated that the positive position Fine proffers to supplant standard Millianism is in fact exactly equivalent to standard Millianism, so that Fine??s overall position not only does not displace standard Millianism but is in fact inconsistent.     

Changing minds in a changing world

I defend a general rule for updating beliefs that takes into account both the impact of new evidence and changes in the subject??s location. The rule combines standard conditioning with a ??shifting?? operation that moves the center of each doxastic possibility forward to the next point where information arrives. I show that well-known arguments for conditioning lead to this combination when centered information is taken into account. I also discuss how my proposal relates to other recent proposals, what results it delivers for puzzles like the Sleeping Beauty problem, and whether there are diachronic constraints on rational belief at all.     

Justified inference

This paper proposes a general account of the epistemological significance of inference. This account rests on the assumption that the concept of a ??justified?? belief or inference is a normative concept. It also rests on a conception of belief that distinguishes both (a) between conditional and unconditional beliefs and (b) between enduring belief states and mental events of forming or reaffirming a belief, and interprets all of these different kinds of belief as coming in degrees. Conceptions of ??rational coherence?? and ??competent inference?? are then formulated, in terms of the undefeated instances of certain rules of inference. It is proposed that (non-accidental) rational coherence is a necessary and sufficient condition of justified enduring belief states, while competent inference always results in a justified mental event of some kind. This proposal turns out to tell against the view that there are any non-trivial cases of ??warrant transmission failure??. Finally, it is explained how these proposals can answer the objections that philosophers have raised against the idea that justified belief is ??closed?? under competent inference.     

Person-affecting views and saturating counterpart relations

Parfit (Reasons and persons, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1984) posed a challenge: provide a satisfying normative account that solves the non-identity problem, avoids the repugnant and absurd conclusions, and solves the mere-addition paradox. In response, some have suggested that we look toward person-affecting views of morality for a solution. But the person-affecting views that have been offered so far have been unable to satisfy Parfit??s four requirements, and these views have been subject to a number of independent complaints. This paper describes a person-affecting account which meets Parfit??s challenge. The account satisfies Parfit??s four requirements, and avoids many of the criticisms that have been raised against person-affecting views.     

Johann Christian August Heinroth (1773–1843): The First Professor of Psychiatry as a Psychotherapist

Heinroth is known as the first professor of psychiatry. His chair was established 200?years ago on the 21st of October 1811. His major importance for the history of psychotherapy has not yet been acknowledged. Heinroth regarded restriction as well as activation as fundamental remedies for mental illnesses. Restriction meant making a voluntary decision to live a life based on religious faith and to abstain from earthly satisfaction. Within his specific psychotherapeutical module??the ??direct-psychic?? method??he utilized the patient??s mental powers??mood, mind and will, but also his spirituality. His therapeutic approach additionally contained elements of cognitive, behavioral and conversational therapy.     

Wittgenstein and the groundlessness of our believing

In his final notebooks, published as On Certainty, Wittgenstein offers a distinctive conception of the nature of reasons. Central to this conception is the idea that at the heart of our rational practices are essentially arational commitments. This proposal marks a powerful challenge to the standard picture of the structure of reasons. In particular, it has been thought that this account might offer us a resolution of the traditional scepticism/anti-scepticism debate. It is argued, however, that some standard ways of filling out the details of this proposal ultimately lead to an epistemology which is highly problematic. The goal here is to present a more compelling version of Wittgenstein??s account of the structure of reasons which can evade these difficulties.     

The Significance of Fallibilism Within Gettier’s Challenge: A Case Study

Taking his conceptual cue from Ernest Sosa, John Turri has offered a putative conceptual solution to the Gettier problem: Knowledge is cognitively adept belief, and no Gettiered belief is cognitively adept. At the core of such adeptness is a relation of manifestation. Yet to require that relation within knowing is to reach for what amounts to an infallibilist conception of knowledge. And this clashes with the spirit behind the fallibilism articulated by Gettier when stating his challenge. So, Turri??s form of response is irrelevant to that challenge, which was intended to pose a conceptual problem within fallibilist conceptions of knowledge. (And that failure on Turri??s part needs to be highlighted to remind epistemologists of the need to assess Gettier cases by a fallibilist standard. Although that need was described earlier by Robert Almeder, apparently his advice is being overlooked. This paper develops it anew, in a more general form.)     

Hegel’s logic of finitude

In ??Violence and Metaphysics?? Jacques Derrida suggests that ??the only effective position to take in order not to be enveloped by Hegel would seem to be??to consider false-infinity??irreducible.?? Inversely, refuting the charge of logocentrism associated with Hegelian true infinity (wahrhafte Unendlichkeit) would involve showing that Hegel??s speculative logic does not establish the infinity of being exempt from the negativity of the finite. This paper takes up Derrida??s challenge, and argues that true infinity is crucial to Hegel??s understanding of ideality as a question of normative authority, which does not fall prey to logocentrism. Through an exposition of the dialectic of the finite and the infinite in Hegel??s Science of Logic, I argue that true infinity is not an ontological category that eliminates division, but rather refers to the metalogical standpoint involved in a philosophical account of determinacy. Although fully achieved at the end of the Logic, the metalogical standpoint that Hegel elaborates in the Seinslogik under the banner of the true infinite already clarifies that determinacy is a product of normative authority that is itself precarious.     

Lehrer on consciousness

Keith Lehrer distinguishes three kinds of questions about consciousness: scientific questions, metaphysical questions, and epistemological questions. He leaves the scientific questions to the scientists. He articulates and answers the peculiar epistemological questions posed by consciousness. And he boldly contends that no metaphysical questions about consciousness remain, once the epistemological questions have been answered. This is an astonishing claim. What happened to the metaphysical questions? Were they pseudo-questions? Were they epistemological questions masquerading as metaphysical ones? And isn??t it possible that Lehrer??s epistemological account of consciousness raises metaphysical questions of its own? I will argue that Lehrer??s account of consciousness does leave a metaphysical remainder. To deal with this remainder, Lehrer could try to expand his explanatory framework??but this would involve to a substantial revision of his current views. I end with a speculative proposal that might allow Lehrer acknowledge all the points raised in this paper, but without forcing him to revise his account of consciousness in a substantial way.     

Two Challenges to Hutto’s Enactive Account of Pre-linguistic Social Cognition

Daniel Hutto??s Enactive account of social cognition maintains that pre- and non-linguistic interactions do not require that the participants represent the psychological states of the other. This goes against traditional ??cognitivist?? accounts of these social phenomena. This essay examines Hutto??s Enactive account, and proposes two challenges. The account maintains that organisms respond to the behaviours of others, and in doing so respond to the ??intentional attitude?? which the other has. The first challenge argues that there is no adequate account of how the organisms respond to the correct aspect of the behaviour in each situation. The second challenge argues that the Enactive account cannot account for the flexibility of pre- and non-linguistic responses to others. The essay concludes that these challenges provide more than sufficient reason to doubt the viability of Hutto??s account as an alternative to cogntivist approaches to social cognition.     

Cornerstones: You’d better believe them

Crispin Wright??s ??Unified Strategy?? for addressing some familiar sceptical paradoxes exploits a subtle distinction between two different ways in which we can be related to a proposition: (full-blown) belief and (mere) acceptance. The importance of the distinction for his strategy stems from his conviction that we cannot acquire any kind of evidence, either empirical or a priori, for the ??cornerstones?? of our cognitive projects, i.e., for those basic presuppositions of our inquiries that we must be warranted to endorse if we are to claim warrant for any of the beliefs formed as a result of such inquiries: regarding the idea of a non-evidential warrant to believe a proposition as a kind of ??conceptual solecism??, he doesn??t set himself the task of showing that we are evidentially warranted to believe such presuppositions, but only that of showing that we are non-evidentially warranted to accept them. In the present paper, I argue that such choice involves a fatal departure from a basic principle governing doxastic commitment??a principle that requires that we regard cornerstones propositions as propositions we are rationally committed to believe, not just entitled to accept. I press the point by presenting the Acceptance Argument, a sceptical paradox whose consideration leads to the conclusion that the Unified Strategy is caught between the Scylla of incoherently invoking a rather dubious form of epistemic alchemy and the Charybdis of placing an unexpected and apparently ad hoc restriction on the doxastic commitments we undertake by believing the things we believe. My final suggestion is that the Unified Strategy might be spared this dilemma only by undergoing a rather radical revision??a revision that would require setting aside the distinction between belief and acceptance to re-conceptualise its goal unabashedly in terms of (non-evidentially) warranted belief.     

The Laborers in the Vineyard: Putting Humor to Work

This article focuses on Jesus?? parable popularly known as ??The Laborers in the Vineyard?? (Matt. 20:1?C16). I propose that a psychoanalytic reading of the parable offers insights that are missing or overlooked in more traditional readings. In support of this proposal, I discuss the interpretation of the parable by Richard Q. Ford (1997) and his emphasis on the critical role of the listener in effecting the reconciliation of disputing parties; and then turn to Freud??s analysis of beggar jokes (Freud 1905/1960) to explore the generosity vs. envy issue to which the landowner alludes in his response to the complaining workers. I also employ Freud??s view that humor (Freud 1927/1963) reflects the superego??s comforting side to suggest that humor may assist in the effort to get the disputing parties to listen to one another and even perhaps to resolve their differences.