Truth and consequences

In his 1987 paper “Truth or Consequences,” Dan Brock describes a deep conflict between the goals and virtues of philosophical scholarship and public policymaking: whereas the former is concerned with the search for truth, the latter must primarily be concerned with promoting good consequences. When philosophers are engaged in policymaking, he argues, they must shift their primary goal from truth to consequences—but this has both moral and methodological costs. Brock’s argument exemplifies a pessimistic, but not uncommon, view of the possible shape and nature of applied philosophy. The present paper paints a richer and more optimistic picture. It argues that the difference between theoretical philosophy and applied philosophy is not best understood as a choice between truth and consequences. On the contrary, applied philosophers engage in forms of truth-seeking that are properly concerned with consequences—including the consequences of philosophical practice itself.     

Three Approaches to Doing Philosophy: a Proposal for Grouping Philosophical Exercises in Classroom Teaching

Classroom teaching has two aims: learning philosophy, that is, the great philosophers, and doing philosophy. This article provides an overview of thirty exercises that can be used for doing philosophy, grouped into three approaches. The first approach, doing philosophy as connective truth finding or communicative action, is related to such philosophers as Dewey and Arendt, and is illustrated by the Socratic method. The second, doing philosophy as test‐based truth finding, is related to such philosophers as Popper, and is illustrated by Community of Philosophical Inquiry. The third, doing philosophy as juridical debate, judging truth‐value and making judgment, is related to such philosophers as Foucault, and is illustrated by philosophical debate. The analysis shows that although the classical methods applied by the great philosophers appear to be missing from classroom exercises, they do, in fact, remain at the heart of the matter.     

The reality of the intuitive

According to current methodological orthodoxy philosophers rely on intuitions about thought experiments to refute general claims about the nature of knowledge, freedom, thought, reference, justice, beauty, etc. Philosophers working under the banner of ‘negative experimental philosophy’ have criticized more traditional philosophers for relying on this method. They argue that intuitions about thought experiments are influenced by factors that are irrelevant to the truth of their contents. Cappelen and Deutsch defend traditional philosophy against this critique by rejecting the picture of philosophical methodology it presupposes: philosophers do not really rely on intuitions. In this paper, I defend methodological orthodoxy by arguing that philosophers must rely on intuitions somewhere and that they do in fact often rely on intuitions about thought experiments. I also argue in favor of a reply to the negative experimental critique that is similar to at least part of Deutsch’s own.     

From the Exclusion of Women to the Transformation of Philosophy: Reclamation and its Possibilities

In the mid‐1980s, feminist philosophers began to turn their critical efforts toward reclaiming women in the history of philosophy who had been neglected by traditional histories and canons. There are now scores of resources treating historical women philosophers and reclaiming them for philosophical history. This article explores the four major argumentative strategies that have been used within those reclamation projects. It argues that three of the strategies unwittingly work against the reclamationist end of having women engaged as philosophers. The fourth type, the one that seeks to transform philosophical practice and reconstruct its history, is the only strategy that will result in that engagement because it is the only strategy that pays sufficient attention to the mechanisms by which women have been excluded from philosophy and its history.     

The value of philosophy: A Canguilhemian perspective

This paper represents a philosophical reflection on the nature and value of philosophy itself. Georges Canguilhem somewhat scandalously argued that the fundamental value of philosophy does not lie in truth. He suggests that truth is a typical value of science because truth is what science says and what is said scientifically. Why would a philosopher depreciate his own discipline? And does he really do so? Or is there a different motivation: to help philosophy to become a much more self-confident voice? And if truth is no longer a value of philosophy, what value fits it better? The article follows Canguilhem in his conception of truth, science, and philosophy. It is against the background of these considerations that the specific revised anthropology of the scientist or philosopher is formed. The main question is what this means for current philosophy and why it could be inspiring for philosophers today.     

Philosophers ought to develop,theorize about,and use philosophically relevant AI

The transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to philosophy—the only question is the degree to which philosophers will harness it. This paper argues that the application of AI tools to philosophy could have an impact on the field comparable to the advent of writing, and that it is likely that philosophical progress will significantly increase as a consequence of AI. The role of philosophers in this story is not merely to use AI but also to help develop it and theorize about it. In fact, the paper argues that philosophers have a prima facie obligation to spend significant effort in doing so, at least insofar as they should spend effort philosophizing.     

Must we measure what we mean?

This paper excavates a debate concerning the claims of ordinary language philosophers that took place during the middle of the last century. The debate centers on the status of statements about ‘what we say’. On one side of the debate, critics of ordinary language philosophy argued that statements about ‘what we say’ should be evaluated as empirical observations about how people do in fact speak, on a par with claims made in the language sciences. By that standard, ordinary language philosophers were not entitled to the claims that they made about what we would say about various topics. On the other side of the debate, defenders of the methods of ordinary language philosophy sought to explain how philosophers can be entitled to statements about what we would say without engaging in extensive observations of how people do in fact use language. In this paper, I defend the idea that entitlement to claims about what we say can be had in a way that doesn’t require empirical observation, and I argue that ordinary language philosophers are (at least sometimes) engaged in a different project than linguists or empirically minded philosophers of language, which is subject to different conditions of success.     

Philosophy,Famine Relief,and the Skeptical Challenge From Disagreement

Disagreement has been grist to the mills of sceptics throughout the history of philosophy. Recently, though, some philosophers have argued that widespread philosophical disagreement supports a broad scepticism about philosophy itself. In this paper, I argue that the task for sceptics of philosophy is considerably more complex than commonly thought. The mere fact that philosophical methods fail to generate true majority views is not enough to support the sceptical challenge from disagreement. To avoid demanding something that human reasoning cannot supply, sceptics must show that philosophers have sufficient overlap to resolve their disagreements in particular concrete cases.     

Neo-positivist metaphysics

Some philosophers argue that many contemporary debates in metaphysics are ??illegitimate,?? ??shallow,?? or ??trivial,?? and that ??contemporary analytic metaphysics, a professional activity engaged in by some extremely intelligent and morally serious people, fails to qualify as part of the enlightened pursuit of objective truth, and should be discontinued?? (Ladyman and Ross, Every thing must go: Metaphysics naturalized, 2007). Many of these critics are explicit about their sympathies with Rudolf Carnap and his circle, calling themselves ??neo-positivists?? or ??neo-Carnapians.?? Yet despite the fact that one of the main conclusions of logical positivism was that metaphysical statements are meaningless, many of these neo-positivists are themselves engaged in metaphysical projects. This paper aims to clarify how we may see a neo-positivist metaphysics as proceeding in good faith, one that starts with serious engagement with the findings of science, particularly fundamental physics, but also has room for traditional, armchair methods.     

Neopragmatic Thought and Counseling Values: Reconsidering the Role of Values in Counseling From an Alternative Epistemological Foundation

The history of Western philosophical thought has been dominated by the search for transcendent truth. As a consequence of this history, various epistemological dualisms (such as fact/value and appearance/reality) have come to structure modes of inquiry. Reliance on such dualisms has resulted in a degradation of values discourse, which, along with other “soft” forms of inquiry, is often viewed as epistemologically inferior to the “hard” sciences. However, particularly within the last century, philosophers have proposed compelling challenges to these dualisms, which, in turn, have massive implications for values discourse. These challenges are overviewed, and implications for values discourse within the counseling profession are discussed.     

Behavioral pragmatism: no place for reality and truth

The current article begins by reviewing L. J. Hayes's claim that pragmatism relies on a correspondence-based truth criterion. To evaluate her claim, the concept of the observation sentence, proposed by the pragmatist philosopher W. V. Quine, is examined. The observation sentence appears to remove the issue of correspondence from Quine's pragmatist philosophy. Nevertheless, the issue of correspondence reemerges, as the problem of homology, when Quine appeals to agreement between or among observation sentences as the basis for truth. Quine also argues, however, that the problem of homology (i.e., correspondence) should be ignored on pragmatic grounds. Because the problem is simply ignored, but not resolved, there appears to be some substance to Hayes's claim that pragmatism relies ultimately on correspondence as a truth criterion. Behavioral pragmatism is then introduced to circumvent both Hayes's claim and Quine's implicit appeal to correspondence. Behavioral pragmatism avoids correspondence by appealing to the personal goals (i.e., the behavior) of the scientist or philosopher as the basis for establishing truth. One consequence of this approach, however, is that science and philosophy are robbed of any final or absolute objectives and thus may not be a satisfactory solution to philosophers. On balance, behavioral pragmatism avoids any appeal to correspondence-based truth, and thus it cannot be criticized for generating the same philosophical problems that have come to be associated with this truth criterion.     

Why ‘Appeals to Intuitions’ might not be so bad

Abstract

There has been lively recent debate over the value of appeals to intuitions in philosophy. Some, especially ‘experimental philosophers’, have argued that such appeals can carry little or no evidential weight, and that standard analytic philosophy is consequently methodologically bankrupt. Various defences of intuitions, and analytic philosophy, have also been offered. In this paper I review the case against intuitions, in particular the claims that intuitions vary with culture, and are built by natural selection, and argue that much of their force depends on assuming that the required sense of intuition is of a kind of human universal. In opposition to this view I argue that there is reason to regard intuitions of professional philosophers as parochial developmental achievements (so that cultural variation among non-professionals is irrelevant) and also the product of a training process that warrants ascribing some evidential weight to them. The argument made here is not anti-naturalistic, nor does it grant intuitions any special or trumping evidential status. Unlike some defences of analytic philosophy it does not depend on denying that philosophers appeal to intuitions at all.     

Pure reason and contemporary philosophy of religion: the rational striving in and for truth

This essay urges contemporary philosophers of religion to rethink the role that Kant’s critical philosophy has played both in establishing the analytic nature of modern philosophy and in developing a critique of reason’s drive for the unconditioned. In particular, the essay demonstrates the contribution that Kant and other modern rationalists such as Spinoza can still make today to our rational striving in and for truth. This demonstration focuses on a recent group of analytic philosophers of religion who have labelled their own work ‘analytic theology’ and have generated new debates, including new arguments about Kant bridging philosophy and theology. Cultivation of a reflective critical openness is encouraged here; this is a practice for checking reason’s overly ambitious claims about God.     

Habermas and Dummett: Beyond Dogmatism and Scepticism

In this article I suggest a way of overcoming the traditional dichotomy between analytic and continental philosophy by pointing at some similarities between apparently disparate philosophical approaches, viz. those of Michael Dummett and Jürgen Habermas. The comparison revolves around the so-called 'paradox of analysis', which poses a dilemma concerning philosophical propositions: these are allegedly shown to be either trivial or unsecured. Both Dummett and Habermas offer ways out of the dilemma, through recognition of the intersection of analysis with life. A transcendentally characterized conception of language is conceived by both as the only way to overcome the haunting objective m subjective distinction. Thus they offer fresh insights into the nature of meaning and truth, and the place these occupy within philosophical systems. Both philosophers take the notions of justification and procedural rationality to be primary in the order of philosophical explanation. Meaning is not conceived in terms of representation and truth conditions, but in terms of validity claims. Truth is not viewed as independent and static, but as historically conditioned and constantly unfolding. As a result, even the statements of logic, and certainly those of philosophy, find a place between the alleged emptiness of analyticity and the robust empirical character of science. This common ground represents, I believe, one of the new faces of post-analytic m and hence also post-continental m philosophy. Parts of it are shared by other contemporary philosophers, such as Derrida and Brandom. What marks this new Weltanschauung is the way it surpasses the current eliminativist trends in philosophy.     

Derrida's language-games

Conclusion In previous essays (1973, 1975, 1977) I have praised Derrida's contributions to philosophical dialogue and also insisted on their limitations. The considerations raised in this present essay do not lead me to a position that is less ambivalent.Philosophy is a particular language-game. Like any other, it has its constitutive rules; or, perhaps better: its practice has certain distinctive features by means of which we recognize philosophizing and distinguish it from other linguistic activities. None of this can be set down in the form of necessary and sufficient conditions, and there always will be large areas of controversy about the paradigms themselves. Nonetheless there are philosophers, and they generally acknowledge Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Hume, and even some of their colleagues as also being philosophers. This acknowledgement holds even where there is philosophical disagreement - as must inevitably be the case, in view of the dialogical character of philosophical discourse.Derrida occasionally enters into the dialogue, as do many others - poets, novelists, critics, diplomats, attorneys, cooks, barbers, and babysitters. These occasional contributions to philosophical dialogue differ in focus, in style, and in lack of self-referentiality from the works which constitute the main corpus of philosophy. Some might wish to say, as if the matter were paradoxical, that such contributions are both philosophical and not philosophical, or that they are neither philosophy nor not-philosophy. That might be as good a thing to say as anything. The practice of philosophy is complex and has many levels. Those who are acknowledged as its finest practitioners have a focus, a style, and a respect for where questions begin and end. Derrida does not share these qualities, and does not care to share them. That is no reason to ignore his work, but it is sufficient to explain why philosophers do not recognize it as a contribution to the central corpus of philosophy.     

Two Concepts of Basic Equality

It has become somewhat a commonplace in recent political philosophy to remark that all plausible political theories must share at least one fundamental premise, ‘that all humans are one another's equals’. One single concept of ‘basic equality’, therefore, is cast as the common touchstone of all contemporary political thought. This paper argues that this claim is false. Virtually all do indeed say that all humans are ‘equals’ in some basic sense. However, this is not the same sense. There are not one but (at least) two concepts of basic equality, and they reflect not a grand unity within political philosophy but a deep and striking division. I call these concepts ‘Equal Worth’ and ‘Equal Authority’. The former means that each individual’s good is of equal moral worth. The latter means that no individual is under the natural authority of anyone else. Whilst these two predicates are not in themselves logically inconsistent, I demonstrate that they are inconsistent foundation stones for political theory. A theory that starts from Equal Worth will find it near impossible to justify Equal Authority. And a theory that starts from Equal Authority will find any fact about the true worth of things, including ourselves, irrelevant to justifying legitimate action. This helps us identify the origin of many of our deepest and seemingly intractable disagreements within political philosophy, and directs our attention to the need for a clear debate about the truth and/or relationship between the two concepts. In short, my call to arms can be summed up in the demand that political philosophers never again be allowed to claim ‘that all human beings are equals’ full stop. They must be clear in what dimension they claim that we are equals—Worth or Authority (or perhaps something else).     

Paradigms and possibilities

This paper is a excursus into a philosophy of science for deployment in the study of sport. It argues for the virtues of Thomas Kuhn's account of the philosophy of science, an argument conducted strategically by contrasting that account with one derived from views of Karl Popper. In particular, it stresses, first, that Kuhn's views have been widely misunderstood; second, that a rectified Kuhnianism can give due weight to truth in science, while recognising that social sciences differ in crucial ways from natural sciences. For, as Kuhn recognised, social sciences do not function in the paradigm-relative way characteristic of natural sciences. Yet there Kuhn's jargon, and especially misguided talk of ‘paradigms’, is almost ubiquitous.

These thoughts have relevance for three groups. First, as both sports scientists and exercise scientists come to grips with the claims to scientificity of their work, they will need increasingly to locate it within an epistemological framework provided by philosophy of science. So they must begin to take Kuhn's view seriously. Second, social scientists of sport – faced with the predominant scientism of colleagues in sport and exercise science – must also recognise alternatives to a postmodernist rejection of the concept of truth, where Kuhn's picture of natural science clarifies one such. Finally, philosophers writing on sport must not let antipathy to scientism close off the options they present or the terms in which they (we!) present them. And that may require debate among ourselves on abstract issues not immediately connected with sport.     

Knowledge,Truth and Plausibility

From antiquity several philosophers have claimed that the goal of natural science is truth. In particular, this is a basic tenet of contemporary scientific realism. However, all concepts of truth that have been put forward are inadequate to modern science because they do not provide a criterion of truth. This means that we will generally be unable to recognize a scientific truth when we reach it. As an alternative, this paper argues that the goal of natural science is plausibility and considers some characters of plausibility.     

REMOVING VEILS OF IGNORANCE1

For more than two millennia the development of philosophy in what is called the West has been the province of men who trace their intellectual heritage to (some) men in ancient Greece. Within “the development of philosophy” I include the training of philosophers as well as publishing and preserving philosophical work in libraries. Thus I regard philosophy as a very material as well as spiritual enterprise. My focus here is on the spiritual impact, actual and potential, of recent changes in the material base of philosophy and the material impact of recent changes in the spiritual focus of philosophers. Before the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions in the development of Western philosophy were its coming under the domination of Christian religious institutions and then its becoming relatively freed from such domination. Since the advent of the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions may come from the increasing access to academic institutions of the middle and working classes, of people of color with histories of oppression by white societies, and of women from all classes and ethnic backgrounds—people who do not always or only trace their intellectual heritages to men of ancient Greece. What differences might these changes make to, and call for in, the development of philosophy? What I have thought about most are differences made by women and differences that have drawn in women to academic philosophy in Western democracies, such as the United States. Twentieth Century women in these contexts have published substantial bodies of philosophical inquiry with feminist agendas (both philosophy of feminism and philosophy manifesting feminist perspectives in ethics, epistemology, etc.). I want to comment on two features of such inquiry that often make it attractive to women less readily engaged by the traditions defined by privileged men. These features are holism and what I call “historical particularism.” I begin with “particularism.”     

Engagement for progress: applied philosophy of science in context

Philosophy of science was once a much more socially engaged endeavor, and can be so again. After a look back at philosophy of science in the 1930s–1950s, I turn to discuss the current potential for returning to a more engaged philosophy of science. Although philosophers of science have much to offer scientists and the public, I am skeptical that much can be gained by philosophers importing off-the-shelf discussions from philosophy of science to science and society. Such efforts will likely look like efforts to do applied ethics by merely applying ethical theories to particular contexts and problems. While some insight can be gained by these kinds of endeavors, the most interesting and pressing problems for the actual practitioners and users of science are rarely addressed. Instead, I recommend that philosophers of science engage seriously and regularly with scientists and/or the users of science in order to gain an understanding of the conceptual issues on the ground. From such engagement, flaws in the traditional philosophical frameworks, and how such flaws can be remedied, become apparent. Serious engagement with the contexts of science thus provides the most fruit for philosophy of science per se and for the practitioners whom the philosophers aim to assist. And if one focuses on contexts where science has its most social relevance, these efforts can help to provide the thing that philosophy of science now lacks: a full-bodied philosophy of science in society.