Arguing with Children: Exploring Problems of Charity and Strawmanning

Argumentation - This paper will highlight how the existing approaches to the Strawman Fallacy and the Principle of Charity are unable to fully accommodate the problems of interpreting...     

Arguing about definitions

What are the implications of taking seriously Chaïm Perelman's proposition that “definitions are rhetorical”? Efforts to find Real Definitions are dysfunctional to the extent they direct argumentation toward pseudo “is” claims and away from explicit “ought” claims about how words are to be used. Addressing definitional disputes explicitly as propositions ofought rather thanis could put on the agenda the pragmatic concerns of definitional choice that might otherwise remain tacit.     

Arguing Anselm's Argument

Interpretation surrounding Saint Anselm's celebrated Proslogion often divides across analytical (philosophical) and non-analytical (historical, phenomenological, etc.) lines, with focus on the argument(s) of Chapters 2 and 3 isolated from the rest of the text. Interpretations may vary significantly, but the lines of interpretation continue along these divisions, thus propagating the distinction. Alternative tools, however, expose difficulties of such a division of the Proslogion ; they permit analytical justification of claims, concerns and intuitions of historical, phenomenological, and other interests, implicating a more complex re-interpretation of the presuppositions supporting the isolation of Chapters 2 and 3.
Based on an approach to reading developed from semiotics and text linguistics, this analysis challenges the major line of analytic interpretation of the Proslogion . This paper argues that the Proslogion has a structure different from the previously realized one, and that the structure consists of three nested frameworks within a devotional whole, faith leading the heart to illuminate the intellect, which in turn can grasp the syllogisms of chapters 2–3/4. Such a textual structure suggests strongly different conclusions about the core significance, utility, and meaning of the Proslogion as "argument".     

德里达：翻译与解构

德里达认为,自柏拉图以来的西方理性主义有一个根本的错误,即都在寻找某些“超验所指”(在任何语言中的任何时间都表达同样概念的所指),并以它们为中心,建构起具有等级秩序的逻各斯中心主义。要解构逻各斯中心主义,必须先解构其赖以生存的“可译性”基础。这样,解构问题转化为翻译问题。翻译,特别是语际翻译,见证、展现和诠释了能指与所指的分裂、所指/概念/意义自身的分裂、语言的(内部的和外部的)分裂以及文本的(内部的和外部的)分裂。在这一切发生的同时,翻译也撕裂了自身。它不再担“翻译”的名,而蜕化为无限暧昧的“变形”(transformation)概念,德里达用莎士比亚名剧《威尼斯商人》中的一句话“when mercy seasonsjustice”(情理兼顾)揭示了其内涵。     

德里达和现象学

该文希望通过对德里达和现象学的关系的梳理和探讨,分析德里达思想从胡塞尔现象学开始而又从一开始就与之“偏离”(或可说“延异”)的由来和发展,试图指出德里达对现象学运动是有贡献的,对于德里达从现象学出发的哲学反思和由此展开的独特的跨学科的哲学质疑的探讨和研究,有助于我们深入理解当代西方思想的诸多问题的实质和内涵,是非常有意义的事情。文章主要通过对德里达早期著作的分析,从起源问题及其解决途径入手探讨德里达与现象学的关系。现象学在德里达的著述中处处留下踪迹而又处处被“偏离”,这构成了德里达解构思想的一个重要特点,也恰恰是德里达对现象学运动本身的贡献。     

On Post-Heideggerean Difference: Derrida and Deleuze

This paper takes up the Heideggerean question of difference. I argue that while Heidegger raises this question, his response to the question remains ambiguous and that this ambiguity pivots around the question of time. The bulk of the paper then looks at how Derrida and Deleuze respectively attempt to advance beyond Heidegger's ambiguity regarding the questions of difference and time. Derrida is able to demonstrate the manner in which time—as delay—is constitutive of any attempt to think difference. I argue, however, that his innovative articulation of “différance” maintains an extrinsic rather than intrinsic relation to difference in-itself. To achieve an intrinsic relation, it is necessary to turn to the work of Deleuze, particularly to his discussion of “nonsense” and “singularity.”     

Winnicott and Derrida: development of logic-of-play

In this essay I develop the logic of play from the writings of the British psychoanalyst Donald W. Winnicott and the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. The logic of play serves as both a conceptual framework for theoretical clinical thinking and a space of experiencing in which the therapeutic situation is located and to which it aspires. I argue that both Winnicott and Derrida proposed a playful turn in Western thinking by their attitude towards oppositions, viewing them not as complementary or contradictory, but as 'peacefully-coexisting'. Derrida criticizes the dichotomous structure of Western thought, proposing playful movement as an alternative that does not constitute itself as a mastering construction. I will show that Winnicott, too, proposes playful logic through which he thinks and acts in the therapeutic situation. The therapeutic encounter is understood as a playful space in which analyst and analysand continuously coexist, instead of facing each other as exclusionary oppositions. I therefore propose the logic of play as the basis for the therapeutic encounter. The playful turn, then, is crucial for the thought and praxis expressed by the concept of two-person psychology. I suggest the term playful psychoanalysis to characterize the present perspective of psychoanalysis in the light of the playful turn. I will first present Derrida's playful thought, go on to Winnicott's playful revolutionism, and conclude with an analysis of Winicott's clinical material in the light of the logic of play.     

德里达的学位：一个荣誉问题

本文原是发表在《泰晤士报》上的一封信,反映了分析哲学家对德里达哲学的基本看法,如认为德里达的作品不符合公认的清晰、严谨标准,令人难以理解等等.     

Theology After Derrida

It has recently been argued that Derrida's work is thoroughly atheistic, which seems to put any dialogue between Derrida and theology out of play. However, such arguments forget that to forbid the impossible outright is as much to be a slave to metaphysics as to presume that one could attain to it in language. Here I revisit the relationship between deconstruction and negative theology, and reconsider utilising Derrida to think God as the impossible. Arguing that thinking God in the absolute future still cannot sustain theology, I suggest how Derrida's work might nevertheless open onto the possibility of revelation.     

Reflective Argumentation: A Cognitive Function of Arguing

Why do we formulate arguments? Usually, things such as persuading opponents, finding consensus, and justifying knowledge are listed as functions of arguments. But arguments can also be used to stimulate reflection on one’s own reasoning. Since this cognitive function of arguments should be important to improve the quality of people’s arguments and reasoning, for learning processes, for coping with “wicked problems,” and for the resolution of conflicts, it deserves to be studied in its own right. This contribution develops first steps towards a theory of reflective argumentation. It provides a definition of reflective argumentation, justifies its importance, delineates it from other cognitive functions of argumentation in a new classification of argument functions, and it discusses how reflection on one’s own reasoning can be stimulated by arguments.