Reasoning and rationalization

Contra Lewis, it is argued that the correspondence theory is a genuine rival theory of truth: it goes beyond the redundancy theory; it competes with other theories of truth; it is aptly summarized by the slogan 'truth is correspondence to fact'; and it really is a theory of truth.     

Subversive rationalization: Technology,power, and democracy 1

This paper argues, against technological and economic determinism, that the dominant model of industrial society is politically contingent. The idea that technical decisions are significantly constrained by ‘rationality’ ‐ either technical or economic ‐ is shown to be groundless. Constructivist and hermeneutic approaches to technology show that modern societies are inherently available for a different type of development in a different cultural framework. It is possible that, in the future, those who today are subordinated to technology's rhythms and demands will be able to control it and to determine its evolution. I call the process of creating such a society ‘subversive rationalization’ because it requires technological advances that can only be made in opposition to the dominant hegemony.     

Reactance versus rationalization: divergent responses to policies that constrain freedom

How do people respond to government policies and work environments that place restrictions on their personal freedoms? The psychological literature offers two contradictory answers to this question. Here, we attempt to resolve this apparent discrepancy. Specifically, we identify the absoluteness of a restriction as one factor that determines how people respond to it. Across two studies, participants responded to absolute restrictions (i.e., restrictions that were sure to come into effect) with rationalization: They viewed the restrictions more favorably, and valued the restricted freedoms less, compared with control participants. Participants responded in the opposite way to identical restrictions that were described as nonabsolute (i.e., as having a small chance of not coming into effect): In this case, participants displayed reactance, viewing the restrictions less favorably, and valuing the restricted freedoms more, compared with control participants. We end by discussing future research directions.     

现象证据与事实证据

知觉指引我们的行为,也给予我们关于周遭世界的证据;幻觉和错觉则会误导我们,它们会促使我们以并不与我们身边世界相契合的方式来误行,也会误导我们形成关于世界的错误信念。"能力观点"给证据提供了一种公平对待这两个事实的解释。它展示出为何幻觉和错觉会误导我们并促使我们误行。它进一步展示出了为何产生知觉而不是错觉的时候,我们才处于一个更好的认识位置上。"能力观点",即一种认为知觉经验因为应用在知觉过程中的知觉能力所具有的认知和形而上学的优先性,而具有认知力的观点。通过将经验的认知力奠基于有关经验的形而上学结构的事实,能力观点并不只是一个外在主义的观点,而更多地是一个带有知觉经验认识论的自然主义观点。所以它是一个可靠论的外在主义和自然主义替代物。讨论这个观点的影响,既是为了给信念以辩护,给心智状态以认知透明,也是为了给那些常见问题予以解答。     

Experience and Evidence

It is the aim of this paper to assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence. In Sect. 1, I will summarize Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence. In Sect. 2, I will delineate Husserl’s concept of experience and in Sect. 3, I will try to define the concept of evidence in Husserl. In Sect. 4–6, I will assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concepts of evidence and show that Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s concept of evidence is out of the mark, since it is based on a total misunderstanding of Husserl’s concepts of evidence.     

Knowledge and Evidence

Most of us, tacitly or explicitly, embrace a more or less Cartesian conception of our epistemic condition. According to such a conception, "what we have to go on"in learning about the world is, on the one hand, that which is a priori accessible to us, and, on the other, the inner experiences—visual imagery, tactile sensations, recollective episodes and so on—that pop into our Cartesian theaters. One of the central themes of Knowledge and its Limits is that this picture is fundamentally wrong. Williamson suggests that we should embrace the thesis that our body of evidence at a given time is all and only that which we know. Call this the "E=K thesis."If the E=K thesis is correct, then what we have to go on is both more and less than the Cartesian picture would suggest: more because its domain extends outwards in space, and forwards and backwards in time; less because that which is unknown about our experiential life is excluded. In what follows, I shall identify and briefly discuss a number of themes connected to the E=K thesis.     

Argumentation and Evidence

This essay explores the role of informal logicand its application in the context of currentdebates regarding evidence-based medicine. This aim is achieved through a discussion ofthe goals and objectives of evidence-basedmedicine and a review of the criticisms raisedagainst evidence-based medicine. Thecontributions to informal logic by StephenToulmin and Douglas Walton are explicated andtheir relevance for evidence-based medicine isdiscussed in relation to a common clinicalscenario: hypertension management. This essayconcludes with a discussion on the relationshipbetween clinical reasoning, rationality, andevidence. It is argued that informal logic hasthe virtue of bringing explicitness to the roleof evidence in clinical reasoning, and bringssensitivity to understanding the role ofdialogical context in the need for evidence inclinical decision making.     

Evidence and Knowledge

According to Williamson, your evidence consists of all and only what you know (E = K). According to his critics, it doesn’t. While E = K calls for revision, the revisions it calls for are minor. E = K gets this much right. Only true propositions can constitute evidence and anything you know non-inferentially is part of your evidence. In this paper, I defend these two theses about evidence and its possession from Williamson’s critics who think we should break more radically from E = K.     

Evidence and Inference

I articulate a functional characterisation of the concept of evidence, according to which evidence is that which allows us to make inferences that extend our knowledge. This entails Williamson's equation of knowledge with evidence.     

Evidence and psychotherapy

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) and its relevance to psychotherapy and counselling are discussed. It is argued that much that is important to psychotherapy is ignored in EBM. Thus, tradition, custom, intuition and love are all important in psychotherapy. Also there are many sources of evidence that go beyond the positivistic notion of evidence in EBM. It is concluded that EBM has little relevance to psychotherapy and counselling.