Local and normative rationality of science: The ‘content of discovery’ rehabilitated

The recent turn to the context of discovery and other postmodernist developments in the philosophy of science have undermined the idea of a universal rationality of science. This parallels the fate of the classical dream of a logic of discovery. Still, justificational questions have remained as a distinct perspective, though comprising both consequential and generative justification — an insight delayed by certain confusions about the (original) context distinction. An examination of one particular heuristic strategy shows its local rationality; even as an efficient procedure of hypothesis generation, it carries probative weight. It will be explored in which respects such a strategy can be normative or contain normative elements.Parts of this paper were published, in summary fashion, in Kirschenmann (1989).     

Scepticism and Ordinary Epistemic Practice

It is not unusual for epistemologists to argue that ordinary epistemic practice is a setting within which (infallibilist) scepticism will not arise. Such scepticism is deemed to be an alien invader, impugning such epistemic practice entirely from without. But this paper argues that the suggested sort of analysis overstates the extent to which ordinary epistemic practice is antipathetic to some vital aspects of such sceptical thinking. The paper describes how a gradualist analysis of knowledge can do more justice to what sceptics seek to achieve – while also showing how sceptical thinking can even be part of (and is able to have some muted epistemic impact within) ordinary epistemic practice.

The Undecidability of Iterated Modal Relativization

In dynamic epistemic logic and other fields, it is natural to consider relativization as an operator taking sentences to sentences. When using the ideas and methods of dynamic logic, one would like to iterate operators. This leads to iterated relativization. We are also concerned with the transitive closure operation, due to its connection to common knowledge. We show that for three fragments of the logic of iterated relativization and transitive closure, the satisfiability problems are fi1 ¹₁–complete. Two of these fragments do not include transitive closure. We also show that the question of whether a sentence in these fragments has a finite (tree) model is fi0 ⁰₁–complete. These results go via reduction to problems concerning domino systems.     

Cognitive colonialism: Nationality bias in Brazilian academic philosophy

This paper presents the results of an experiment designed to test for nationality bias among members of the Brazilian philosophical community. Faculty members and postgraduate students from philosophy departments at seven Brazilian universities evaluated texts attributed to authors of European and Latin American nationalities. Results showed a clear preference for French nationality over Brazilian. They were inconclusive, however, when contrasting other Latin American nationalities with European nationalities, which likely relates to the academic background of the participants. These overall results support the claim that Brazilian academic philosophers are highly critical of Brazilians who produce theories of their own. The paper calls on philosophers to carefully consider the ways in which Eurocentrism impacts their very ability to reason.     

On critical African philosophy: Mapping the boundaries of a good philosophical tradition

This essay deploys the existence of epistemic vices in the trajectory of Western philosophy to map the erasures and complicities that accompanied the emergence of contemporary African philosophy (CAP₁). It argues that the complicity of CAP₁ in the hyperspecialization and academic self-absorption that marked the professionalization of Western philosophy, makes it difficult to attend to the conditions for its own possibility. CAP₁ arguably needs to make a critical turn into critical African philosophy (CAP₂), understood as a metatheoretical and metaphilosophical framework for an internal transformation that is emancipatory. CAP₂ is envisioned, first, as a critique of postcoloniality that rehumanizes the autonomous African subject; and, second, as an ethicopolitical project that explores the cracks between philosophy as theoretical practice and philosophy as praxis in opening up the spaces for postcolonial emancipation. The essay identifies three conditions that instigate the emancipatory possibility of philosophizing on the continent: the spatial/platial, demosophic, and political.     

There's a certain slant of light: Three attitudes toward the political turn in analytic philosophy

There has been a growing interest within analytic philosophy in addressing political and social issues, which has been referred to as the “political turn” in the discipline. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it discusses the very characterization of the political turn. In particular, it introduces the definition proposed by Bordonaba-Plou, Fernández-Castro, and Torices, suggests that we should not consider the turn a form of activism, and explores an additional benefit of the ideal/nonideal distinction for characterizing the turn. Second, it addresses the concern of what attitude we should take in the face of the different sensitivities we might have with respect to what constitutes an injustice. Which philosophical works should count as part of the political turn? The paper explores three different attitudes toward this dilemma, and favors what it calls the revisionist attitude, which emphasizes the fact that our perception of injustice is subject to error.     

Philosophers ought to develop,theorize about,and use philosophically relevant AI

The transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to philosophy—the only question is the degree to which philosophers will harness it. This paper argues that the application of AI tools to philosophy could have an impact on the field comparable to the advent of writing, and that it is likely that philosophical progress will significantly increase as a consequence of AI. The role of philosophers in this story is not merely to use AI but also to help develop it and theorize about it. In fact, the paper argues that philosophers have a prima facie obligation to spend significant effort in doing so, at least insofar as they should spend effort philosophizing.     

Critical Thinking is Epistemically Responsible

Michael Huemer ( 2005 ) argues that following the epistemic strategy of Critical Thinking—that is, thinking things through for oneself—leaves the agent epistemically either worse off or no better off than an alternative strategy of Credulity—that is, trusting the authorities. Therefore, Critical Thinking is not epistemically responsible. This article argues that Reasonable Credulity entails Critical Thinking, and since Reasonable Credulity is epistemically responsible, the Critical Thinking that it entails is epistemically responsible too.     

Promising,Expecting, and Utility

While openmindedness is often cited as a paradigmatic example of an intellectual virtue, the connection between openmindedness and truth is tenuous. Several strategies for reconciling this tension are considered, and each is shown to fail; it is thus claimed that openmindedness, when intellectually virtuous, bears no interesting essential connection to truth. In the final section, the implication of this result is assessed in the wider context of debates about epistemic value.     

VALUES IN SCIENCE

Abstract In this essay, which was his presidential address to the Philosophy of Science Association, Ernan McMullin argued that the watershed between “classic” philosophy of science (by this meaning, not just logical positivism but the logicist tradition in theory of science stretching back through Kant and Descartes to Aristotle) and the “new” philosophy of science can best be understood by analyzing the change in our perception of the role played by values in science. He begins with some general remarks about the nature of value, goes on to explore some of the historical sources for the claim that judgement in science is value‐laden, and concludes by reflecting on the implications of this claim for traditional views of the objectivity of scientific knowledge‐claims.