VIRTUES, SOCIAL ROLES, AND CONTEXTUALISM

Abstract: Contextualism in epistemology has been proposed both as a way to avoid skepticism and as an explanation for the variability found in our use of "knows." When we turn to contextualism to perform these two functions, we should ensure that the version we endorse is well suited for these tasks. I compare two versions of epistemic contextualism: attributor contextualism (from Keith DeRose) and methodological contextualism (from Michael Williams). I argue that methodological contextualism is superior both in its response to skepticism and in its mechanism for changing contexts. However, methodological contextualism still faces two challenges: explaining why we are solidly committed to some contexts, and explaining why knowledge within a context is valuable. I propose virtue contextualism as a useful extension of methodological contextualism, focusing on the way that our virtues depend on our social roles. My proposed virtue contextualism retains the benefits of methodological contextualism while explaining both our commitment to particular contexts and the value of knowledge held within those contexts.     

成体干细胞可塑性研究中的若干哲学思考

随着干细胞生物学研究的不断深入,成体干细胞被发现可以分化成组织来源与其无关的其他系统的细胞,即成体干细胞的可塑性.但是最近不断有学者对其提出质疑,认为可塑性可能是与细胞融合或成年组织中的多潜能成年祖细胞有关.面对可塑性上两种截然相反的观点,我们在热切关注其研究进展的同时,也引发了一连串的哲学思考.     

RELIGIOUS HYPOTHESES AND THE APOPHATIC,RELATIONAL THEOLOGY OF CATHERINE KELLER

In one of its most urgent folds, Catherine Keller's Cloud of the Impossible juxtaposes negative theology with relational theology for the sake of thinking constructively about today's global climate of religious conflict and ecological upheaval. The tension between these two theological approaches reflects her desire to unsay past harmful theological speech but also to speak into the present silences about the (perhaps im)possibility of a future that is not only to be feared. Suffusing Keller's Cloud is the related (perhaps im)possibility of living out one's life in conversation with a religious tradition having accepted the nonknowing character of its wisdom. Here, I develop the notion of “hypothetical faith” as an epistemic posture that commits itself to some particular religious tradition even as it acknowledges the unverifiability of that tradition's deepest truths. Understood as operating at the opposite end of the testability spectrum from science, religion‐as‐hypothesis provides a way of saying and unsaying one's tradition at the same time.     

Seeing by Feeling: Virtues,Skills, and Moral Perception

Champions of virtue ethics frequently appeal to moral perception: the notion that virtuous people can “see” what to do. According to a traditional account of virtue, the cultivation of proper feeling through imitation and habituation issues in a sensitivity to reasons to act. Thus, we learn to see what to do by coming to feel the demands of courage, kindness, and the like. But virtue ethics also claims superiority over other theories that adopt a perceptual moral epistemology, such as intuitionism – which John McDowell criticizes for illicitly “borrow[ing] the epistemological credentials” of perception. In this paper, I suggest that the most promising way for virtue ethics to use perceptual metaphors innocuously is by adopting a skill model of virtue, on which the virtues are modeled on forms of practical know-how. Yet I contend that this model is double-edged for virtue ethics. The skill model belies some central ambitions and dogmas of the traditional view, especially its most idealized claims about virtue and the virtuous. While this may be a cost that its champions are unprepared to pay, I suggest that virtue ethics would do well to embrace a more realistic moral psychology and a correspondingly less sublime conception of virtue.     

PRECURSORS OF THE EUREKA MOMENT AS A COMMON GROUND BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY

Abstract. "Eureka moments" can be said to be based on intuition, but their deeper foundations are phylogenetic evolution and subconscious gestalt processes, as analyzed by the late Nobel laureate Konrad Lorenz. By incorporating Lorenz's findings, modern epistemology could avoid three common errors which have crept into the discussion. Those errors are: (1) that epistemology is language-dependent; (2) that epistemology is primarily subjective; and (3) that epistemology is creative and not methodological.     

Beyond the qualitative paradigm: A framework for introducing diversity within qualitative psychology

The case for qualitative research in psychology is considered. We argue against the idea that qualitative research is merely a matter of technique or method, and question the utility of viewing it as a unitary paradigm. Rather, the links between epistemology, methodology, and method are explored within three theorized strands of qualitative inquiry, making reference to illustrative projects. Each strand is organized around a different approach to the issues of justifying and warranting psychological knowledge: (1) reliability and validity; (2) generativity and grounding; and (3) discourse and reflexivity. These are exemplified in Miles and Huberman's ‘data display’ model, Glaser and Strauss' method of ‘grounded theory’, and in various forms of ‘discourse’ analysis. Reflections upon points of contact between the three strands address two main issues: (1) rendering research publicly accountable; and (2) challenging relativism.     

Naturalisms and Religion

Such terms as materialism , naturalism , and near synonyms evoke strong negative reactions among many believers. However, the notion of naturalism has various meanings; implications for religion differ for the several varieties of naturalism. In this paper I analyze epistemological and ontological variants of naturalism and explore the perspectives for religion within a nonreductive ontological naturalism.     

Argument Quality and Cultural Difference

Central to argumentation theory is a concern with normativity. Argumentation theorists are concerned, among other things, with explaining why some arguments are good (or at least better than others) in the sense that a given argument provides reasons for embracing its conclusion which are such that a fair- minded appraisal of the argument yields the judgment that the conclusion ought to be accepted -- is worthy of acceptance -- by all who so appraise it.This conception of argument quality presupposes that the goodness of arguments is characterizable in terms of features of the argument itself. It makes no reference either to the attributes of the persons appraising the argument and judging its normative force, or to the context in which that appraisal is carried out. But recent work by a wide range of philosophers, argumentation theorists, and social theorists rejects such an abstract, impersonal notion of argument goodness. Instead, these theorists insist upon taking seriously, in the evaluation of arguments, the features of the evaluators themselves. In particular, such theorists emphasize the importance of cultural difference in argument appraisal. Often locating themselves under the banner of multiculturalism, they argue that the quality of an argument depends upon culturally-specific beliefs, values, and presuppositions; that an argument may be of high quality in one cultural context but of low quality in another. Consequently, they contend, no abstract, impersonal characterization of argument quality can succeed.In this paper I consider this multiculturalist approach to argument quality. I argue that while there is much merit in the general multiculturalist perspective, the multiculturalist argument against impersonal conceptions of argument quality fails. It fails for several reasons detailed below; most fundamentally, it fails because it itself presupposes just the kind of impersonal account of argument quality it seeks to reject. I call this presupposition that of transcultural normative reach. I identify this presupposition in the multiculturalist argument, and show how it undercuts the multiculturalist challenge to abstract, impersonal, transcultural conceptions of argument quality. I conclude with an evaluation of the strengths, and weaknesses, of the multiculturalist challenge to such conceptions of argument quality.