‚Was Ist Begründung?’ Schwierigkeiten durch den Primat der Pragmatik vor der Semantik am Beispiel des Erlanger/Konstanzer Konstruktivismus

‘What is justification?’-Constructivism of Erlangen/Constanceschool as an example for problems resulting from priority of pragmatics to semantics. - R. Brandom's ‘Making it explicit’ is an attempt to work out how semantics is rooted in pragmatics: meaning in use and conceptual content in social functional roles. A philosophy that also focuses on reconstructing those norms that are implicit in pragmatics and constitutive to semanticsis developed by Constructivism of Erlangen/Constance school. This enquiry tries to work out that a discussion of constructivism might be useful for a comprehension of Brandom's ‘theory of expression’, because both philosophical positions meet themselves in a pragmatic way of justification that makes it impossible to justify claims to all rational beings but only to members of those communities that share the same interests and institutions.     

Wilson on Circular Arguments

This paper criticizes Kent Wilson's (`Circular Arguments', 1988) arguments against the analysis of the fallacy of begging the question in epistemic terms and against the division of the fallacy into equivalence and dependency types. It is argued that Wilson does not succeed in showing that the epistemic attitude to the fallacy analysis should be given up. Further, it is argued that Wilson's arguments against the division of the fallacy into two types can be overcome by altering the accounts he criticizes (David Sanford (1971, 1984, 1988) and John Biro (1977, 1984)): fallacy analysis should concentrate on externalized arguments, but this does not mean that either the epistemic attitude or the dependency conception should be given up.     

Knowledge,Authority and Identity: A Prolegomenon to an Epistemology of the Clinic

Disputes about theory in bioethics almost invariablyrevolve around different understandings of morality or practicalreasoning; I here suggest that the field would do well to becomemore explicitly contentious about knowledge, and start the taskof putting together a clinical epistemology. By way of providingsome motivation for such a discussion, I consider two cases ofresistance to shifts in clinical practice that are, by and large,not ethically controversial, highlighting how differentconceptions of epistemic authority may contribute to clinicians'unwillingness to adopt these changes, and sketching out someinitial suggestions for epistemic analysis of clinical practice.     

Woods on Ideals of Rationality in Dialogue

Woods' paper Ideals of Rationality in Dialogue raises six problems for dialogue theory. Woods is right about the seriousness of the problems, but one school of dialogue, that stemming from the work of Charles Hamblin, avoids each of Woods' problems by using commitment instead of belief and by using only immediate logical relations. This paper summarises the reasons Hamblin's school took this course, and explains how Woods' problems are thereby avoided.     

Argument as Inquiry in a Postmodern Context

Argumentation is a form of communication, rather than an application of(formal) logic, and is used in communicative activity as a means forinquiry, although it is more typically thought of as bringing inquiry toclosure. Thus interpretation is an intrinsic and crucial aspect ofconversational (interactive) argumentation. In order to further thisunderstanding of argumentative activity, I propose a procedure forinterpretation that draws upon hermeneutic phenomenology. In response tocriticisms by argumentation theorists (and others) who understand thistradition as oriented to psychological, perceptual, or textual objects, Iargue that hermeneutic phenomenology supports methods for analysis ofpublic communicative activity. The resulting conception of thick argumentation responds to contemporary (postmodern) claims that argumentation valorizes univocity, stasis, and certainty at the expense ofthe pluralism, fluctuation, and range of epistemic results thatcharacterize discourse in the public sphere.     

On the relation between justification of solution method and correctness of solution in statistical problem solving

The relation between the justification of a choice of solution method and the correctness of that choice in statistical problem solving was investigated. In the first of two studies 16 subjects were asked to think aloud while solving two statistical problems. The results showed that an incorrect choice of solution method was more common when subjects did not justify their choice of solution as compared to when they justified their choice with domain-specific knowledge. Study 2 employed an experimental design. A group of 20 subjects were instructed to provide a justification for each choice of solution method, while another group of 20 subjects received no such instructions. The results showed no difference between the groups with respect to number of correct choices of solution method. A qualitative analysis of the justifications in the instructed group showed that the justifications for incorrect solution methods were more often incorrect than subjects' justifications for correct solution methods. The results in Study 2 suggested that the association found between incorrect choice of solution method and lack of justification in Study 1 was not in the first place due to a strategical deficiency on the part of the subjects but due to a lack of domain-specific knowledge.     

Women as wives and rulers in Martin Luther's theology

This article offers a theological analysis of Martin Luther's complex view on women and their role in society, focusing on his exposition of the narratives of creation and fall in the Lectures on Genesis. Luther's understanding of women is defined by an ostensible paradox. On the one hand, Luther claims that all women are equal to men in relation to God and hold the power to rule over the earth, which they execute as leaders of the household. On the other hand, Luther passes on a traditional view of women being of a weaker nature and argues that wives have to subordinate to their husbands. I interpret this understanding of women as an outcome of Luther's theological anthropology based on his doctrine of justification. Men and women are equal as priests and kings in relation to God and authorized to manage their relationship with him, to teach and pray for others, and to disobey authority that interferes with this faith relation. As sinners, though, they must submit to authority to suppress sin. Both men and women exercise authority through their gender-specific callings in the earthly hierarchies, which constitute God's created order. However, women have to subordinate to their husbands in order to suppress sin. The article discusses whether this complex view on women promoted patriarchal social structures or whether the freedom and equality of the spiritual realm over time filtered through to the role of women in society, paving the way for their liberation.     

Epistemic deontology and the Revelatory View of responsibility

According to Universal Epistemic Deontology, all of our doxastic attitudes are open to deontological evaluations of obligation and permissibility. This view thus implies that we are responsible for all of our doxastic attitudes. But many philosophers have puzzled over whether we could be so responsible. This paper explores whether this puzzle can be resolved, and Universal Epistemic Deontology defended, by appealing to a view of responsibility it calls the Revelatory View. On that view, an agent is responsible for something when it reveals the kind of person the agent is. The paper explores four ways of developing the Revelatory View and argues that none of the views ultimately defends Universal Epistemic Deontology.     

Creativity and genius as epistemic virtues: Kant and early post-Kantians on the teachability of epistemic virtue

There is a classical paradox in education that also affects the epistemic virtues: the paradox inherent in the demand to develop general strategies for training persons to be free and creative individuals. This problem becomes particularly salient with respect to the epistemic virtue of creativity, the more so if we consider a radical form of creativity, namely, genius. This paper explores a historical constellation in which rigorous claims about the standards for knowledge and morality were developed, along with a highly influential notion of genius: the philosophy of Kant and of immediate post-Kantian philosophers. The paper shows how in this historical moment came together a new notion of “science,” a theory of “genius” and of virtues, and an analysis of the promises and difficulties inherent in educating a virtuous or creative individual. In this constellation of ideas, there also emerges a potentially fruitful account of how to teach intellectual creativity.     

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.