Introduction to the symposium “What makes a philosopher (good or bad)? Philosophical virtues and vices: Past and present”

The main ambition of the eight articles in this collection is to bring together two currently distinct bodies of literature—on scholarly virtues and vices in the sciences and the humanities, and on epistemic virtues and vices—and to jointly connect them to recent work in (revisionary) historiography of philosophy. This introduction briefly reflects on this ambition, providing background and context, and offers a short overview of the eight articles.     

Systematic studies of modified vocalization: speech production changes during a variation of metronomic speech in persons who do and do not stutter

The most common way to induce fluency using rhythm requires persons who stutter to speak one syllable or one word to each beat of a metronome, but stuttering can also be eliminated when the stimulus is of a particular duration (e.g., 1 second [s]). The present study examined stuttering frequency, speech production changes, and speech naturalness during rhythmic speech that alternated 1 s of reading with 1 s of silence. A repeated-measures design was used to compare data obtained during a control reading condition and during rhythmic reading in 10 persons who stutter (PWS) and 10 normally fluent controls. Ratings for speech naturalness were also gathered from naïve listeners. Results showed that mean vowel duration increased significantly, and the percentage of short phonated intervals decreased significantly, for both groups from the control to the experimental condition. Mean phonated interval length increased significantly for the fluent controls. Mean speech naturalness ratings during the experimental condition were approximately “7” on a 1–9 scale (1 = highly natural; 9 = highly unnatural), and these ratings were significantly correlated with vowel duration and phonated intervals for PWS. The findings indicate that PWS may be altering vocal fold vibration duration to obtain fluency during this rhythmic speech style, and that vocal fold vibration duration may have an impact on speech naturalness during rhythmic speech. Future investigations should examine speech production changes and speech naturalness during variations of this rhythmic condition.Educational objectives: The reader will be able to: (1) describe changes (from a control reading condition) in speech production variables when alternating between 1 s of reading and 1 s of silence, (2) describe which rhythmic conditions have been found to sound and feel the most natural, (3) describe methodological issues for studies about alterations in speech production variables during fluency-inducing conditions, and (4) describe which fluency-inducing conditions have been shown to involve a reduction in short phonated intervals.     

Epistemic Gradualism and Ordinary Epistemic Practice: Responce to Hetherington

This paper responds to Stephen Hetherington's discussion of my ‘Is Fallibility an Epistemological Shortcoming?’ (2004). The Infallibilist skeptic holds that in order to know something, one must be able to rule out every possible alternative to the truth of one’s belief. This requirement is false. In this paper I first clarify this requirement’s relation to our ordinary practice. I then turn to a more fundamental issue. The Infallibilist holds – along with many non-skeptical epistemologists – that Infallibility is epistemically superior to the epistemic position attained when we have (what we ordinarily call) knowledge. This is false, too, as our ordinary practices show. Ordinary epistemic appraisal does not concern our standing on a scale of evaluation which has Infallibility at its apex. For this reason, even if gradualism is correct, it does not show how Infallibilist skepticism can arise out of our ordinary practice.     

Good News for Moral Error Theorists: A Master Argument Against Companions in Guilt Strategies

Moral error theories are often rejected by appeal to ‘companions in guilt’ arguments. The most popular form of companions in guilt argument takes epistemic reasons for belief as a ‘companion’ and proceeds by analogy. I show that this strategy fails. I claim that the companions in guilt theorist must understand epistemic reasons as evidential support relations if her argument is to be dialectically effective. I then present a dilemma. Either epistemic reasons are evidential support relations or they are not. If they are not, then the companions in guilt argument fails. If they are, then a reduction of epistemic reasons to evidential support relations becomes available and, consequently, epistemic reasons cease to be a viable ‘companion’ for moral reasons. I recommend this structure of argument over existing strategies within the literature and defend my claims against recent objections from companions in guilt theorists.     

Une étude sur le rôle modérateur des traits de personnalité sur la relation entre les conditions de l’organisation du travail et la détresse psychologique

This study is about psychological distress lived by Canadian workers. Only a few studies considered personal traits in the comprehension of this phenomenon. This study aims to determine the moderator role of self-esteem, the sense of control and the sense of cohesion on the relation between the work organization conditions and psychological distress. Some longitudinal data (n=7338 workers) coming from five cycles (1994-2003) of the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) have been used to complete some multilevel analysis (n1=time and n2=individual). The results indicate that the sense of control and the sense of cohesion play a moderator role on the relation between some of the work organization conditions and the level of psychological distress.     

Rules for Reasoning from Knowledge and Lack of Knowledge

In this paper, the traditional view that argumentum ad ignorantiam is a logical fallacy is challenged, and lessons are drawn on how to model inferences drawn from knowledge in combination with ones drawn from lack of knowledge. Five defeasible rules for evaluating knowledge-based arguments that apply to inferences drawn under conditions of lack of knowledge are formulated. They are the veridicality rule, the consistency of knowledge rule, the closure of knowledge rule, the rule of refutation and the rule for argument from ignorance. The basic thesis of the paper is that knowledge-based arguments, including the argument from ignorance, need to be evaluated by criteria for epistemic closure and other evidential rules that are pragmatic in nature, that need to be formulated and applied differently at different stages of an investigation or discussion. The paper helps us to understand practical criteria that should be used to evaluate all arguments based on knowledge and/or ignorance.