Epistemic Normativity, Argumentation, and Fallacies

In Biro and Siegel (1992) we argued that a theory of argumentation mustfully engage the normativity of judgments about arguments, and we developedsuch a theory. In this paper we further develop and defend our theory.     

Social epistemology and reflexivity: Two versions of how to be really useful

This essay argues that the really useful character of reflexivity is that it enables a radical critique of representation and its conventional material and rhetorical practices. It is uniquely able to produce paradox and thus disrupt discourses by undermining authorial privilege. Because Fuller's social epistemology is insensitive to its own reflexive implications, and limits itself to normative questions about knowledge policy, it is too limited — and limiting — to provide a context that can nurture reflexivity.     

Knowledge-How and Epistemic Value

A conspicuous oversight in recent debates about the vexed problem of the value of knowledge has been the value of knowledge-how. This would not be surprising if knowledge-how were, as Gilbert Ryle [1945, 1949 Ryle, Gilbert 1949. The Concept of Mind, London: Hutchinson's University Library.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]] famously thought, fundamentally different from knowledge-that. However, reductive intellectualists [e.g. Stanley and Williamson 2001 Ryle, Gilbert 1949. The Concept of Mind, London: Hutchinson's University Library.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Brogaard 2008, 2009 Brogaard, Berit 2009. What Mary Did Yesterday: Reflections on Knowledge-Wh, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78/2: 439–67.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2011 Brogaard, Berit 2011. Knowledge-How: A Unified Account, in Knowing How: Essays on Knowledge, Mind, and Action, ed. John Bengson and Marc A. Moffett, New York: Oxford University Press: 136–60. [Google Scholar]; Stanley 2011a Stanley, Jason 2011a. Knowing (How), Noûs 45/2: 207–38.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 2011b Stanley, Jason 2011b. Know How, Oxford: Oxford University Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]] maintain that knowledge-how just is a kind of knowledge-that. Accordingly, reductive intellectualists must predict that the value problems facing propositional knowledge will equally apply to knowledge-how. We show, however, that this is not the case. Accordingly, we highlight a value-driven argument for thinking (contra reductive intellectualism) that knowledge-how and knowledge-that come apart.     

Do We Share a Project of Being in the World Well?

ABSTRACT

I question whether the flourishing that McMullin presents as negotiating the demands of three distinct normative domains is itself normative. If it is, I argue it must be incremental in some way to McMullin’s three normative domains, because there is no single, plausible, structural inter-relation between the domains. This leads to regress. If flourishing is not normative, then it undermines the unity of reason that is a cornerstone of McMullin’s account. These difficulties lead to further consideration of flourishing conceived, as McMullin does, as a project of living well in the world. What is the content of this project and what role can it play? If it is merely formal, i.e. without content, then it can be shared, but is empty, therefore without a role. If it has content, and so plays a role in balancing or unifying one’s responses to the normative domains, then that content comes, McMullin claims, from answers to the question, “Who am I?” However, I claim that this question and the answers it is likely to elicit cannot supply the content required. Even if it could, it could not do so to produce a project that is plausibly normative, leaving it thus disconnected from the normative domains. I conclude that the normative character of McMullin’s notion of flourishing cannot be made good. My tentative suggestions are to jettison flourishing as a central part of conceiving a life well-lived; or to swap Aristotle for Plato to supplant flourishing with the idea of a good life.     

The Morality System with and without God

What I set out to do is to cast some doubt on the thesis that, in Bernard Williams's words, any appeal to God in morality either adds nothing at all, or it adds the wrong sort of thing. A first conclusion is that a morality of real, inescapable and (sometimes) for the agent costly obligations, while being at home in a theistic metaphysic, does not sit easily with metaphysical, atheistic naturalism. The second conclusion is that Christine Korsgaard's impressive ethical project which is neutral towards theism and atheism fails in giving a satisfying account of such obligations. My final claim is that a theistic account in terms of a strong divine command theory might succeed where non- and atheistic accounts seem to founder.     

On Empty Compliments and Deceptive Detours A Neopragmatist Response to Theodore W. Nunez

The philosophical question Nunez raises is whether we can have, as he thinks we need, a theoretical grounding for appeal to the intrinsic value of nature. This article examines the neopragmatist reasons for repudiating metaphysical realism's notions of intrinsicality and subject-independent reality. Following the holism of Donald Davidson and Richard Rorty rather than the epistemological premises of Holmes Rolston and Bernard Lonergan, the author concludes that coping with the ecological crisis does not require conjuring an epistemic crisis. Environmental ethics in neopragmatist hands would seek procedures for bringing about agreement in improving our practices, not our epistemology.