Skepticism and the principle of sufficient reason

Philosophical Studies - The Principle of Sufficient Reason must be justified dialectically: by showing the disastrous consequences of denying it. We formulate a version of the Principle that is...     

The cosmological argument,sufficient reason,and why-questions

Summary To sum up the main results of this study: I have disentangled two distinct patterns of argument that Taylor runs together in his attempt to show that there is a reason or explanation for the world as a whole. The first is based on the causal dependency of things in the world, the second is based on their logical contingency. It seems to make the most sense of Taylor's discussion if we interpret him not as invoking the principle of sufficient reason at the crucial juncture, but as using these arguments to give backing to that principle by showing that it applies to the world in its totality. However, these arguments do not succeed in doing that. The first fails because it depends on a remote analogy between the world as a whole and the physical objects in the world. Concerning the second, an analysis of the logic of why-questions about the existence of things has revealed that the logical contingency of something is not a ground for thinking it has an explanation. The only promising interpretation of the principle of sufficient reason that we have found is as a causal principle pertaining to things in nature.     

Two observations about human reason

The first observation is that existential reason has two principal strata. While the function of lower reason is primarily reasoning or logic, upper reason ponders emotions, the meaning of existence, the transcendent. Those whose understanding of reason is confined to lower reason are handicapped in coping with emotional and spiritual suffering. Upper reason is a necessary intellectual facility in the resolution of such suffering. The second observation is of thedialectical nature of reason, with which clinicians and theologians trade when pondering reality and in dealing with those they counsel. Yet, many people, especially Americans, are oblivious to the “both-and” reality of existence. Consequently they are not realistic about life nor are they skillful in dealing with their resulting existential conflicts. They are lost when psychological problems cannot be satisfactorily resolved by lower reason; for only upper reason can perceive and creatively integrate the dialectical tensions of existential problems.     

Recent criticisms of group ability testing in the schools

In a series of articles in Education, the journal of the N.S.W. Teachers' Federation, from March to July 1983, Poulos, Junor and Andreoni severely criticized the use of group verbal general ability tests by the N.S.W. Department of Education. Their criticisms were manifold. Poulos in particular objects to “streaming” or ability grouping. He and Junor condemn general ability tests because they were so often sponsored in the U.S.A. in the second, third and fourth decades of this century by hereditarians and racists and were thought by such sponsors to measure an innate hereditary trait. They fail to mention contrary views propounded in the same period by other psychologists. They quite often follow Kamin in characterizing their bětes noites. All three authors deny the short-term predictive value in an educational setting of group ability tests and exaggerate the long-term influence in N.S.W. of pssessed IQs established in Year 6. The ACER which produces the tests under attack is subjected to a vicious ideological assault. A not very convincing case is made for parents being asked to give permission for the testing of their children; a better case is made for the giving of the results of the testing to the parents (though this is a task for the counsellor rather than the teacher). Andreoni, though rather cavalier with the evidence she uses, probably has a case in urging that the administration of verbal general ability tests to “migrant” children after only 4 years in the local schools is too soon for a valid assessment of current intellectual functioning without taking many other factors into account.     

I. Some criticisms of the katzian metatheory of semantics

C. Fred Alford contends that the manner in which I objected to Feyerabend's democratic relativism is vulnerable to Feyerabend's rhetorical strategy, and that a better strategy would be to show that Feyerabend fails to demonstrate that democratic relativism is desirable. I reply in defense of the ‘plausibility’ issue on the grounds that Feyerabend's theory lends itself to uses (and abuses) beyond Utopian critique (in Alford's sense). I argue that it is the fact that critics ‐ myself included ‐ have assumed the burden of demonstrating the impossibility of Feyerabend's political theory that has led to the stalemate Alford describes, and that we may retain the ‘plausibility’ question while avoiding the stalemate by placing the burden of argument on Feyerabend to show that his theory is plausible.     

Answering two criticisms of hypothesis testing: a comment

In a recent article, Leventhal (1999) responds to two criticisms of hypothesis testing by showing that the one-tailed test and the directional two-tailed test are valid, even if all point null hypotheses are false and that hypothesis tests can provide the probability of decisions being correct which are based on the tests. Unfortunately, the falseness of all point null hypotheses affects the operating characteristics of the directional two-tailed test, seeming to weaken certain of Leventhal's arguments in favor of this procedure.