绝对不可错论是怀疑主义的根基——以彼得·乌格为例

乌格是当代为数不多的、公开为知识论怀疑主义辩护的著名哲学家.乌格为怀疑主义辩护的理路是:以"水平的"和"弯曲的"为例,来说明绝对术语与相对术语的不同,并把"确定性"当作绝对术语,来证明怀疑主义的正确性.乌格借绝对不可错论来为怀疑主义论证的这种方式,是怀疑主义论证的一般模式.研究鸟格的怀疑主义论证,有助于我们正确揭示怀疑主义产生的根源.     

Why We Need Qualitative Research in Suicidology

Using the differentiation between explanations and understanding from philosophy of science as the point of departure, a critical look at the current mainstream suicidological research was launched. An almost exclusive use of quantitative methodology focusing on explanations is demonstrated. This bias in scope and methodology has to a large extent taken the suicidological field into a dead‐end of repetitious research. It is argued that an increased focus on understanding and thus extended use of qualitative methodology is essential in bringing the suicidological field forward.     

Metaphor as Argument: Rhetorical and Epistemic Advantages of Extended Metaphors

This paper examines from a cognitive perspective the rhetorical and epistemic advantages that can be gained from the use of (extended) metaphors in political discourse. We defend the assumption that extended metaphors can be argumentatively exploited, and provide two arguments in support of the claim. First, considering that each instantiation of the metaphorical mapping in the text may function as a confirmation of the overall relevance of the main core mapping, we argue that extended metaphors carry self-validating claims that increase the chances of their content being accepted. Second, we show how the recognition of an extended metaphor’s sophistication and relevance (on behalf of the addressee) can benefit the speaker’s perceived competence (ethos). We then assess whether these two arguments measure against the dual epistemic monitoring postulated in the notion of epistemic vigilance (i.e., assessment of the source of a message and assessment of the message) and conclude that extended metaphors may fulfil the requirements of epistemic vigilance and lead to the stabilisation of a belief. We illustrate our account with an analysis of the extended metaphor of the USA as an empire found in a political pamphlet written by the Swiss politician Oskar Freysinger.     

Privacy and the Computer: Why We Need Privacy in the Information Society

For more than thirty years an extensive and significant philosophical debate about the notion of privacy has been going on. Therefore it seems puzzling that most current authors on information technology and privacy assume that all individuals intuitively know why privacy is important. This assumption allows privacy to be seen as a liberal "nice to have" value: something that can easily be discarded in the face of other really important matters like national security, the doing of justice and the effective administration of the state and the corporation. In this paper I want to argue that there is something fundamental in the notion of privacy and that due to the profoundness of the notion it merits extraordinary measures of protection and overt support. I will also argue that the notion of transparency (as advocated by Wasserstrom) is a useless concept without privacy and that accountability and transparency can only be meaningful if encapsulated in the context of privacy. From philosophical and legal literature I will discuss and argue the value of privacy as the essential context and foundation of human autonomy in social relationships. In the conclusion of the paper I will discuss implications of this notion of privacy for the information society in general, and for the discipline of information systems in particular.     

A Critique of Howard's Argument for Innate Limits in Chess Performance or Why We Need an Account Based On Acquired Skill and Deliberate Practice

In this issue Howard reported that the effect of chess study is surprisingly small among elite chess players, who continue playing more games in international chess tournaments. In contrast, we show that individual differences in chess study are the likely causes of both higher chess ratings and more chess games played in international tournaments, which is often very costly and includes airfare, hotel, and tournament registration fees. The low correlation between his estimates of study time and chess rating is shown to be a consequence of his methodology of relying on a couple of questions in an internet survey rather than the standard methodology in expert performance research involving a 30‐minute interview tracing yearly engagement in many different practice activities. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Engaged in Engagement: We Are Delighted We Did It

We emphasize that science and practice issues are equally salient when pursuing thinking and research on employee engagement. We agree with much of what the commentaries have to say, especially that organizational competitive advantage is the relevant focus of engagement research and practice and that engagement is not a new construct but one that required clarification vis-a-vis existing constructs. We also agree that state engagement can be highly variable, that disengagement needs study, that negative situations can induce engagement behaviors, that engagement surveys should yield actionable data, and that people can be hired who are more likely to be engaged. We disagree with the idea that all employee attitudes are essentially equal and that existing conceptualizations of performance make engagement behavior a nonuseful construct.     

Fairness in Knowing: Science Communication and Epistemic Justice

Science communication, as a field and as a practice, is fundamentally about knowledge distribution; it is about the access to, and the sharing of knowledge. All distribution (science communication included) brings with it issues of ethics and justice. Indeed, whether science communicators acknowledge it or not, they get to decide both which knowledge is shared (by choosing which topic is communicated), and who gets access to this knowledge (by choosing which audience it is presented to). As a result, the decisions of science communicators have important implications for epistemic justice: how knowledge is distributed fairly and equitably. This paper presents an overview of issues related to epistemic justice for science communication, and argues that there are two quite distinct ways in which science communicators can be just (or unjust) in the way they distribute knowledge. Both of these paths will be considered before concluding that, at least on one of these accounts, science communication as a field and as a practice is fundamentally epistemically unjust. Possible ways to redress this injustice are suggested.     

Epistemic Justice and a Role for Virtue in the Politics of Knowing

The dual aim of this article is to reveal and explain a certain phenomenon of epistemic injustice as manifested in testimonial practice, and to arrive at a characterisation of the anti–prejudicial intellectual virtue that is such as to counteract it. This sort of injustice occurs when prejudice on the part of the hearer leads to the speaker receiving less credibility than he or she deserves. It is suggested that where this phenomenon is systematic it constitutes an important form of oppression.     

Knowledge to Wisdom: We Need a Revolution

Introduction The following document is a very brief summary of a thesis and argument that I have devoted the last 30 years of my life to trying to get across to my fellow human beings. It was first spelled out in What’s Wrong With Science? (Bran’s Head Books, 1976) and subsequently in From Knowledge to Wisdom (Blackwell, 1984), Is Science Neurotic? (Imperial College Press, 2004) and numerous articles, references to which can be found on . Three years ago an international group was formed, called Friends of Wisdom, which seeks to get across to academics and the public the compelling arguments and urgent need to transform academic inquiry so that its basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom. The document below is taken from the website of Friends of Wisdom, the URL of which is . It is the mission statement of Friends of Wisdom. You are invited to join.     

Epistemic Justice and a Role for Virtue in the Politics of Knowing

The dual aim of this article is to reveal and explain a certain phenomenon of epistemic injustice as manifested in testimonial practice, and to arrive at a characterisation of the anti–prejudicial intellectual virtue that is such as to counteract it. This sort of injustice occurs when prejudice on the part of the hearer leads to the speaker receiving less credibility than he or she deserves. It is suggested that where this phenomenon is systematic it constitutes an important form of oppression.     

Ferenczi and Winnicott: Why We Need Their Radical Edge: Commentary on Paper by Michael Parsons

Parsons's paper, “An Independent Theory of Clinical Technique,” is discussed. Agreement is expressed with many of the theoretical points made by Parsons, and the creative and freeing historical role of the British Independent tradition (recently attacked by Kleinian authors such as Segal) is praised. However, the author sees some of the clinical examples in the paper as expressing a traditionalist conception of psychoanalytic practice, with a strong one-sided emphasis on the analyst as a knowledgeable expert offering deep interpretations. Parsons does not question the nature of the actual intersubjective relationship in each dyad, with its fluctuations and its subtle nuances, which can go far beyond the proclaimed roles of the two partners, at times even reversing them. More radical points of view can be found in the work of Ferenczi and Winnicott, two authors who are significant both for Parsons and for the author; for example, Ferenczi's emphasis on the patient's capacity to interpret the analyst's countertransference, and the experiments with the setting both made in their search for an adaptation to the unique ‘analysand's needs. In conclusion, the paper calls for continued departure from standard techniques of any kind, critically deconstructing all traditional assumptions regarding the analytic process.     

Epistemic Motivation and the Structure of Moral Intuition: Dispositional Need for Closure as a Predictor of Individualizing and Binding Morality

Moral foundations theory argues that morality encompasses both group‐preserving binding concerns about in‐group loyalty, authority and purity and individualizing concerns about harm avoidance and fairness. Although studies have examined the relationship between sociopolitical attitudes and the moral foundations, the relationship between individual differences in epistemic motivation—as indexed by need for cognitive closure—and moral intuition remains unexplored. Given the role of groups in providing epistemic security, we hypothesized that the need for closure would be most strongly related to support for the foundations most central to the regulation of group ties, that is, the binding foundations as opposed to the individualizing ones. Data from three samples provided evidence for this. Unpacking this pattern, we also found that those high in need for closure endorsed all foundations, whereas those low in need for closure emphasized only the individualizing ones. Finally, we found that the relationship between need for closure and the binding foundations was mediated by right‐wing authoritarianism, an orientation closely linked to a desire for the preservation of conventional in‐group morality. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Distributive Justice and Co-Operation in a World of Humans and Non-Humans: A Contractarian Argument for Drawing Non-Humans into the Sphere of Justice

Various arguments have been provided for drawing non-humans such as animals and artificial agents into the sphere of moral consideration. In this paper, I argue for a shift from an ontological to a social-philosophical approach: instead of asking what an entity is, we should try to conceptually grasp the quasi-social dimension of relations between non-humans and humans. This allows me to reconsider the problem of justice, in particular distributive justice. Engaging with the work of Rawls, I show that an expansion of the contractarian framework to non-humans causes an important problem for liberalism, but can be justified by a contractarian argument. Responding to Bell’s and Nussbaum’s comments on Rawls, I argue that we can justify drawing non-humans into the sphere of distributive justice by relying on the notion of a co-operative scheme. I discuss what co-operation between humans and non-humans can mean and the extent to which it depends on properties. I conclude that we need to imagine principles of ecological and technological distributive justice.     

Values and Science: An Argument for Why They Cannot Be Separated

A distinction between facts and values is often assumed when people in the modern West talk about science. The biologist Stephen Gould, for example, famously argued that religion covers questions of meaning and moral value, but science deals with empirical facts. This paper challenges the traditional fact/value distinction by questioning the presuppositions about science upon which it depends. It begins by describing the origins of the fact/value distinction in the Scientific Revolution and then gives three reasons for the inseparability of facts and values in scientific inquiry, drawing upon themes from the “practice turn” in recent scholarship on the sciences.