Argumentative Discussion: The Rationality of What?

Topoi - Most dialectical models view argumentation as a process of critically testing a standpoint. Further, they assume that what we critically test can be analytically reduced to (1) individual...     

Semantic Shifts in Argumentative Processes: A Step Beyond the ‘Fallacy of Equivocation’

In naturally occuring argumentation, words which play a crucial role in the argument often acquire different meanings on subsequent occasions of use. Traditionally, such semantic shifts have been dealt with by the fallacy of equivocation. In my paper, I would like to show that there is considerably more to semantic shifts during arguments than their potentially being fallacious. Based on an analysis of a debate on environmental policy, I will argue that shifts in meaning are produced by a principle I call local semantic elaboration. I will go on to show that semantic shifts in the meaning of a word, the position advocated by a party, and the questions that the parties raise during an argumentative process are neatly tailored to one another, but can be incommensurable to the opponent's views. Semantic shifts thus may have a dissociative impact on a critical discussion. By linking the structure of argumentation to its pragmatics, however, it may be revealed that there are two practices that account for a higher order of coherence of the debate. The first practice is a general preference for disagreeing with the opponent, the second practice is the interpretation of local speech acts in terms of an overall ideological stance that is attributed to the speaker. Because of these practices, parties do not criticize divergent semantic conceptions as disruptive, but they treat them as characteristic and sometimes even metonymic reflections of the parties' positions.     

Where is the Dialectic in the Community‐Diversity Dialectic?

Agent‐based modeling has provided some interesting investigations of the hypothesis that there is a dialectical relationship between sense of community and diversity. A close look at those models strongly suggests that only models in which the attributes of agents are fixed completely support that hypothesis. Models which acknowledge that diversity is contextually defined, and thus changeable, suggest that there is no inherent dialectical relationship between the two values. Rather, it is the context of the setting, the way in which the setting is socially constructed, that determines whether a strong sense of community can exist in highly diverse settings.     

The Value of Knowledge/Rationality or the Knowledge/Rationality of Value?: Implications for Education

This paper reviews and augments important work in philosophy of education on intrinsic aims for education, of knowledge, of knowledge of values, and of rationality. A contemporary conception of knowledge as ``rationality's `data-base' is proposed and an in-depth section on the intrinsic value of rationality is incorporated.     

The Progress of Society: An Inquiry into an ‘Old-Fashioned’ Thesis of Walter Bagehot

The nineteenth century saw the rise of Darwinism as a new paradigm for the study of nature and man mans an integral part thereof. Many scholars were intent on removing the abstract principles and universal truths of early modern philosophy in favour of understanding man's nature through more scientifically-based methods. Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) was one of the leading exponents of this view. Our focus is on one of Bagehot's famous books, Physics and Politics, or thoughts on the application of the principles of `natural selection' and `inheritance' to political society. Physics and Politics can be seen as one of the most remarkable attempts to think the intertwining of politics and Darwinism. In our paper, we want to examine Bagehot's efforts to apply natural sciences to politics and philosophy and his focus on progress and the idea that such progress is inherited over generations. We want to examine in what way a Darwinian framework of thinking is actually used in Physics and Politics. Our conclusion is that perhaps Physics and Politics established a framework for the application of biological principles to political society, but it definitely did not do so for the application of Darwin's principle of natural selection.     

What's Formal about Formal Indication? Heidegger's Method in Sein und Zeit 1

Against the background of a recent exchange between Cristina Lafont and Hubert Dreyfus, I argue that Heidegger's method of “formal indication” is at the heart of his attempt in Sein und Zeit to answer “the ontological question of the being of the ‘sum’” (SZ, p. 46). This method works reflexively, by picking out certain essential features of one's first-person singular being at the outset of its investigation that are implicit in the question “what is it to be the entity I am?” On the basis of these features, various further a priori, ontological structures (care and temporality) that constitute one as a first-person singular entity then become accessible. Formal indication is thus formal in two senses: it officially designates or signals certain first-person singular phenomena as the topic of investigation, and it picks out features which define the ontological form of the entity in question. It is thereby the method by which a legitimately transcendental account of our being may be begun to be generated by each of us from out of our factical, immanent existence.     

Why Utilize Complexity Principles in Social Inquiry?

Complexity is introduced as a fitting paradigmatic orientation to social inquiry. A complexity approach is compared and contrasted with other holistic social inquiry orientations (systems thinking, cybernetics, and ecological thinking) and constructivist styles of thinking that have informed and guided the evolution of qualitative social inquiry.     

The Conjunction Effect: Fallacy or Bayesian Inference?

It has been suggested by Wolford, Taylor, and Beck (1990) that the conjunction fallacy is not really a fallacy at all but arises when individuals misconstrue the judgmental problem providing estimates of the kind P(X|A&B) or P(X|B) (reverse probabilities) instead of the actual quantities that are being sought by the experimenter: P(A&B|X) or P(B|X). As pointed out by Wolford and co-workers, while the following judgment, P(A&B|X) > P(B|X), is a violation of the conjunction rule, outcomes such as P(X|A&B) > P(X|B) do not necessarily violate any probabilistic law. In an attempt to de-bias the judgment process, in Study 1 participants were requested to provide both types of probabilities at the same time. The results revealed a drop in the incidence of the conjunction fallacy to 32% averaged over all scenarios compared with 57% for the same scenarios in an earlier study. In each scenario the two sets of estimates, normal and reverse, were significantly different from each other indicating that participants were capable of distinguishing between the two concepts. Despite this fact in two of the four scenarios a significant minority of participants (44 and 49%) continued to commit the fallacy. These combined outcomes cast doubt on Wolfordet al.’s (1990) account of the fallacy. In addition, Studies 2 and 3 showed that under certain conditions, most participants’ judgments of the kind P(X|A&B) > P(X|B), far from being normative, were inconsistent with Bayes’ theorem even in broad terms.     

Is Modernism Really Modern? Uncovering a Fallacy in Postmodernism

Some postmodernists criticize the view that the logics of Western thought can be employed universally. In doing so, they assume without adequate proof that different human societies have greatly different rationalities and employ completely different logics. This essay argues that, on the contrary, widely different cultures often share noteworthy similarities in rationality.     

Gender differences in mathematics anxiety: An artifact of response bias?

Abstract

Females are more likely than males to report anxiety about mathematics. Hunsley and Flessati (1988) examined two explanations for this difference: the sex-role socialization hypothesis, which states that gender differences occur as a result of differences in socialization, and the math experiences hypothesis, which states that math anxiety is due to previous experiences with mathematics, regardless of gender. They found support only for the math experiences hypothesis, and suggested that the gender difference in math anxiety may be an artifact of response bias.

The present study replicated the Hunsley and Flessati study and included an evaluation of response bias. One hundred and fifty Introductory Psychology students completed a series of questionnaires examining mathematics anxiety, attitudes and mathematical background. The findings of Hunsley and Flessati were replicated, however no evidence was found for a gender-linked response bias. An alternative explanation for the gender difference in math anxiety is proposed based on the finding that females are more self-critical.     

Finding Treasures: Is the Community of Philosophical Inquiry a Methodology?

Studies in Philosophy and Education - In the world of Philosophy for Children (P4C), the word “method” is found frequently in its literature and in its practitioner’s handbooks....     

Morality in Children's Worlds – Rationality of Thought or Values Emanating from Relations?

The topic of this article is morality among pre-school children.Two different theories of morality, morality as lived and morality asrationality of thought, are analyzed with a special view to exploringtheir respective consequences for doing research on small children'smorality. Children's lived morality is then interpreted and discussed interms of rights.     

Systematic reasoning: Formal or postformal cognition?

The focus of this study was to investigate the relationship between formal and postformal systematic metasystematic reasoning. Shayer's (1978) chemicals task and a modified version of Kuhn and Brannock's (1977) plant task were used to measure formal thinking and Commons, Richard, and Kuhn's (1982) multisystem task and balance-beam task to detect postformal reasoning. Subjects were university students from the humanities and social sciences (N=35). For each subject, a composite score was defined by taking into account the highest score in the tasks measuring the same developmental stage. Findings indicated that composite scores of formal and postformal reasoning were significantly correlated. Results also indicated that full formal operations are not a necessary condition for systematic thinking. The developmental status of systematic reasoning should be defined more strictly than has so far been the case. Further studies should focus on metasystematic reasoning as a possible postformal mode of reasoning. Longitudinal designs are also required to assess whether metasystematic reasoning develops in adulthood.     

Formal dominance: the emperor's new clothes?

I previously argued that formal dominance requires the ability to attribute knowledge to other individuals (D. Maestripieri, 1996). Formal dominance is otherwise indistinguishable from the way dominance has previously been conceptualized. For example, the notion that nonhuman primates have social relationships and that 2 individuals express their knowledge about the state of their relationship with signals of dominance and submission is intrinsic to the concept of dominance and not peculiar to formal dominance. Moreover, the claims made by formal dominance supporters that macaque signals such as the bared-teeth display are always displayed unidirectionally to other group members and never directed to predators are incorrect. If the mentalistic terms used to describe formal dominance must not be taken literally, then the interpretation of submissive signals such as the bared-teeth display from a formal dominance perspective remains unclear.     

Melancholy: An elusive dimension of depression?

Journal of Medical Humanities - This paper presents a view of melancholy based on Kierkegaard's insight of the self, showing that this dimension of depression is anticipatory of threat to...