Analytic Philosophy Research Articles

Margaret Macdonald, Philosopher of Language

Abstract I chart the philosophical development of neglected figure Margaret Macdonald and situate that development in the context of mid-century analytic philosophy more broadly. I examine Macdonald’s changing attitude towards verificationism, and show that these changing views led her, in 1950 and beyond, to a very thorough appreciation of language use as capable of being employed in the execution of distinctive kinds of performative act. I compare Macdonald’s views with the far better known work of J. L. Austin, and I emphasise the extent to which she has, despite her insightful contributions, been omitted from the history of philosophy.

The state of the question in early Heidegger studies

AbstractThis article surveys the state of the literature in English‐language scholarship on Heidegger's early work (1919–29). The survey falls into roughly two halves. The first is devoted to scholarship on Heidegger's intellectual development during the 1920s, focusing on four themes: Heidegger's relationship to Husserl; Heidegger's early phenomenology of religious life; Heidegger's appropriation of Aristotle; and Heidegger's retrieval of Kant's First Critique. The second half focuses on work on the early Heidegger that has arisen out of the reception of his early thought into mainstream Anglophone philosophy. It examines Hubert Dreyfus's interpretation of Heidegger, the status of “das Man” and social normativity, Heidegger's concept of death, Heidegger's conception of authenticity, and truth (with a very brief overview of further topics).

I Act Therefore I Live? Autopoiesis, Sensorimotor Autonomy, and Extended Agency

This paper aims to determine whether extended human-machine cognitive systems and group systems can be regarded as autonomous agents. For this purpose, I compare two notions of agency: one developed within analytical philosophy of action and based on the concept of intention, and the other introduced by enactivists via the concepts of autopoiesis and sensorimotor autonomy. I argue that only the latter approach can be used to demonstrate autonomous agency in respect of systems that are not humans as such, though they contain humans as their elements. After introducing Maturana and Varela’s conception of minimal autonomy as a kind of generalization of autopoiesis, I present the three conditions of agency put forward by Barandiaran, Di Paolo and Rohde, noting that they do not invoke the property of being alive as necessary in that respect. I argue that both extended and group systems can satisfy these conditions of agency, even though they are not alive as such. The fulfillment of these conditions, however, is ensured by the autopoietic nature of the living components of these systems. That being said, an autonomous system itself does not need to be alive in the biological sense. Sensorimotor, adaptive agency could emerge out of other processes than those responsible for biological life. The article concludes with a suggestion that this is exactly what will happen if an autonomous system is ever artificially created. It would be functionally indistinguishable from a living organism, though not alive in a biological sense.

Editors’ Introduction: Fictions in Law, Literature, and Philosophy

While several collections have been published recently from the perspective of common law focused specifically on jurisprudence and from the perspective of both literary theory and the philosophy of language, a more integrative approach that sharpens the underlying fundamental concept(s) by bringing together insights from legal theory/history, doctrinal legal scholarship, literary studies, and analytic philosophy has been missing so far. Not only has an examination of a decidedly interdisciplinary perspective been rare in research on fictions and fictionality, but also a decidedly integrative view of European and Anglo-American research approaches has been the exception. This special issue both addresses and seeks to bridge this research gap. In shedding light on the family resemblances and differences of “fiction(s)” in each of the aforementioned disciplines, we hope to identify blind spots and offer some fresh ideas with regard to a transdisciplinary theory of fiction(s) which considers their conceptual, functional, as well as historical characteristics. A particularly significant aspect of this project is that it fuses contributions from an anglophone law and literature perspective with contributions from European continental contexts, offering perspectives from related but also distinct legal and literary traditions.

Navigating the Pitfalls of Counterfactuality: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Legal Fictions

The introductory essay on legal fictionality engages with the practice of legal fictions from Roman Law to the twenty-first century, and with the attempts of legal scholarship to conceptualize this particular form of legal imagination. It will discuss the major questions established in the past, with a particular emphasis on the classical understanding of legal fictions as “untrue” or “counterfactual” assumptions—a dichotomy that has pervaded legal thinking for centuries. It will argue that the classical approach is outdated and in urgent need of revision, also demonstrating that theories of other disciplines are better equipped to adequately deal with the issue, from the early debates on truth to more recent positions, such as possible world theory and institutional theories of fictionality. The essay will mainly draw on analytic philosophy and literary theory, but will also invoke more recent legal scholarship that engages with inter- or transdisciplinary approaches. Authors include James, Bradley, Kelsen, Vaihinger, Cohen, Lewis, Meinong, Fuller, Neurath, Rescher, Habermas, Rorty, Glasersfeld, Goodman, Routley, Searle, Genette, Beardsley, Wolterstorff, Currie, Walton, Eco, Anderegg, Doležel and Pavel.

What’s in a Name? Legal Fictions and Philosophical Fictionalism

This paper uses analytic philosophy to prevent merely verbal disputes about the concept of fiction within discussions on fictiones iuris. It provides a survey of potentially fruitful connections between legal fictions and fictionalism. More specifically, I will argue that by enriching current accounts of legal fictions in legal theory with insights from (1) the philosophy of language on fictional speech and from (2) contemporary metaphysics on philosophical fictionalism, it seems natural to explore the position that talk involving fictiones iuris is structurally an exemplification of elliptical speech. Such fictionalism about legal fictions illuminates why prominent condemnations of fictions in law – e.g. as blatant falsehoods, shady fraudulences, or legal defects – are theoretical myths, since they fail to distinguish between analytically distinct (ontological, epistemic, alethic, semantic, and evaluative) levels. Moreover, a fictionalist account might even sharpen our sense of which legal fictions are more “innocent” than others. I will begin by introducing philosophical fictionalism (II), before the fictiones iuris will be characterized as an operation in legal reasoning by consulting the Leibnizian reconstruction of Roman Law’s epistemology (III). Sections IV and V seek to provide further clarifications on the ‘fictional’ / ‘fictitious’ distinction as well as the heterogeneity of fictionalist research questions. Section VI then contains a little guided tour through the different analyses of the concept of fiction(s) within fictionalism. Subsequently, I will show how insights from those discussions contribute to demystify some of the most prominent allegations raised against legal fictions (VII). Fictionalism about legal fictions, Section VIII tentatively suggests, might not only harmonize with both classic and recent treatments of legal fictions, but help to also highlight their epistemic values. In slogan form: fictiones iuris are instruments to preserve legal truths worth having.

On Discussing What We Should Do

AbstractMany of the good things which make human life worthwhile are essentially social, cannot be enjoyed by one person unless they are enjoyed together with others. And it is obvious that thinking in terms of the first-person plural, we/us, plays a large part in everyday life as people consider puzzlements (‘What should we do?’) and remark on the success of what they decided on (‘That worked out really well for us!’). Analytic philosophers should accept this at face value, recognising that human beings are often co-subjects with each other, that there is irreducible plural intentionality. The paper explores how the existence of plural intentionality manifests itself in our concepts and ways of proceeding and how attempted ‘analysis’ of what goes on as the assemblage of many interlocking instances of singular intentionality distorts and misleads.

Knowledge, Opinion, Belief: The Dialectical Challenging

This paper is written in the continental tradition – facing the analytic one – and advocates the knowledge first thesis, reviewing the entailment thesis (where believing is knowing, because to know entails to believe). It starts from the ancient distinction between knowledge and opinion and develops criteria for distinguishing knowledge, opinion and belief. The demonstration necessarily arrives to the kinds of beliefs and thus, to the relationships between knowledge and these kinds. While the distinction of kinds of beliefs leads to the understanding of why the knowledge belief problem did appear in epistemology, the analysis with this distinction is not rigid and can be approached dialectically. This standpoint is aiming at contributing to the debate of knowledge belief problem and to warmer relations between the continental and the analytic philosophy. Keywords: epistemology, knowledge, opinion, belief, truth, cognisance, system, criteria, dialectic.

Poetic Difficulty and Epistemic Authority

Whatever an analytic philosophy of poetry is, one achieves a sense of it by exploring the debates that animate it, which is likely all that constitutes its identity as a field. To give a sense of what is ›analytic‹ about these debates, I explore two topics that enlist poetry to approach issues of general interest in core areas of analytic philosophy: meaning and the self, with particular emphasis on motivating a concept of meaning-as-aboutness. I will suggest that, contrary to common practice, we ought to approach these two debates as implicitly linked, since this helps bring to our attention a matter that should be more central to contemporary philosophy of poetry: a statement of how lyrically-mediated self-images tell us something interesting about the relationship between language and personhood. That is, I outline how these recent debates can help shed light on what philosophers like to call the ›cognitive value‹ of poetry, which is to say, its ability to communicate, through poetic form itself, forms of understanding of the world and human predicament.

보편을 다시 무대에 올리며, 보편의 상 아래에서 말하기 - ‘탈진실’ 시대 진리 개념의 포스트-구조주의적 재구성을 위한 정치철학적 시론 -

The present study takes the politico-philosophical approach of reconstructing the concepts of truth and the universal in a poststructuralist way in order to criticize our present situation of post-truth. This approach takes the following four steps. First, beyond simply diagnosing the present post-truth situation, it also critically analyzes the various discourses that criticize the post-truth situation. The conclusion of this critical diagnosis is that the discourses which criticize the present post-truth situation treat truth in a cognitivist way in accordance with the propositional conception of truth, which is based on a superficial misunderstanding of Anglophone analytic philosophy. Second, in order to criticize these attempts to reduce truth to the dimension of the true, it reconstructs the post-structuralist triangle of truth-history-subject based on French historical epistemology, i.e. the post-structuralist conception of truth. The post-structuralist conception of truth does not reduce truth to a dimension of the true but elevates it to the dimension of truth itself. Third, it defines this post-structuralist triangle of truthhistory-subject as the triangle of the universal, based on the post structuralist philosopher Étienne Balibar’s reflections on the universal. Through an analysis of the history of philosophy, Balibar deduces three qualities of universality - equivocal universality, conflictual universality, universality as translation - from the thoughts of Spinoza-Wittgenstein, Hegel-Marx, Quine-Benjamin. Fourth, in order to address the objection that can be raised against the post-structuralist conception of truth and the universal, which is the problem of the arbitrariness of the standards for truth and the universal, it criticizes the Deleuze-Nietzschean reflection on the courage of the false, based on Balibar’s philosophy of actualityas- structure. Lastly, it reflects on how truth and the universal ought to be thought of from the standpoint of the intellectuals in this post-truth situation. In the end, the aim of this article is to provide a theoretical key to overcoming our current post-truth situation, by thinking about truth and the universal in a different way from current discourses.

Beatrice Edgell’s myth of the given

ABSTRACT Wilfrid Sellars' ‘myth of the given' had a momentous influence on 20th-century epistemology, putting under pressure the internalist foundationalism so prominent in early analytic philosophy. In this paper, I argue that the core themes in Sellars' argument are anticipated in the work of the London philosopher and psychologist Beatrice Edgell (1871-1948). Edgell explicitly argued that “‘knowledge by acquaintance' is a myth invented by epistemology” (“Is there ‘Knowledge by Acquaintance'?”, 196). In some respects, however, Edgell's argument against the myth of the given is even more compelling than Sellars' - or so I will argue. The core of the paper logically reconstructs and historically contextualizes Edgell's line of argument, as emerging out of a critique of Russell’s epistemology, with the goal of showing that the ‘myth of the given' effectively predated Sellars by four decades.

Rekonstruksi Kurikulum Pendidikan: Sebuah Analisis Filsafat untuk Membangun Kreativitas Siswa

The purpose of writing this scientific article is to find out about the reconstruction of the educational curriculum: a philosophical analysis to build student creativity. Reconstructing the educational curriculum is an important effort to adapt the education system to the demands of the ever-evolving times. This paper aims to provide an analytical philosophy in the context of curriculum reconstruction, with a focus on building student creativity. The philosophical approach provides a theoretical basis for understanding the essence of education and the role of creativity in the learning process. This analysis includes an in-depth understanding of the principles of educational philosophy, such as human essence, educational goals, and views on knowledge. The philosophies of existentialism and progressivism are the main conceptual frameworks that encourage student empowerment to develop their creative potential. Thus, it is hoped that the reconstruction of the educational curriculum based on philosophical analysis can create a generation of students who are not only skilled in terms of knowledge, but also have the ability to think creatively and innovatively in facing future challenges.

I, You, and We: Beyond Individualism and Collectivism

ABSTRACT The contemporary debate on collective intentionality in analytic philosophy has lasted several decades, but questions concerning the nature of ‘we’ and the relation between the individual and the community are obviously far older. We can find a particularly rich discussion in early phenomenology. Indeed, while starting out with an interest in the individual mind, phenomenologists began their exploration of dyadic forms of interpersonal relations shortly before the start of World War I and were already deeply engaged in extensive analyses of collective forms of intentionality a few years later. A distinctive feature of the phenomenological contribution was its exploration of the relation between the first- and second-person singular and the first-person plural perspectives. How are I, you, and we intertwined? The aim of this paper is to present some core insights from this early debate.

Logicality and the picture theory of language

I argue that there is tension in Wittgenstein’s position on trivialities (i.e. tautologies and contradictions) in the Tractatus, as it contains the following claims: (A) sentences are pictures; (B) trivialties are not pictures; (C) trivialities are sentences. A and B follow from the “picture theory” of language which Wittgenstein proposes, while C contradicts it. I discuss a way to resolve this tension in light of Logicality, a hypothesis recently developed in linguistic research. Logicality states that trivialities are excluded by the grammar, and that under the right analysis sentences which look trivial are in fact contingent. The tools necessary to support Logicality, I submit, were not available to Wittgenstein at the time, which explains his commitment to C. I end the paper by commenting on some points of contact between analytic philosophy and the generative enterprise in linguistics which are brought into relief by the discussion.

От поколения континентальной философии к поколению аналитической философии

The article examines the evolution of philosophical generations in the Moscow academic environment from the late 90s of the last century to the mid-10s of this century. The work notes that the concept of “philosophical generation” should be used to indicate the exclusivity of any cultural phenomenon associated with a certain period of time. As a rule, at these stages of social development, we note in all spheres of cultural life a special rise in creative activity associated with the production or development of new ideas, meanings, the emergence of new trends in the discussion of already familiar problems and phenomena, the formation of a special vision and perception of the world as a whole. It is involvement in this activity that allows for the formation of a special generational identity, which presupposes a sense of involvement in some common process. Another point of this article is that waves of creative upswing are always followed by downturns. During these periods, we cannot identify any single cultural trend that allows the formation of a designated identity. Accordingly, we cannot talk about the presence of a special generation. Based on personal experience, the author of the article notes the changes in the academic philosophical environment that occurred during the designated period. This transformation was characterized by the transition from the generation of continental philosophy of the 90s through a period of decline to the formation of a generation of analytical philosophy in the late 2000s and early 1900s of this century.

Проблема убеждений в философии Ю. Уильямса

Modern analytical philosophy studies religious, moral, political, ideological and practical beliefs as elements of ideological systems. At the same time, she poses methodological questions: what is the fact of an individual’s conviction? Is belief related to decision and will? An illustrative example of the answer to these questions of analysis is the work of Bernard Williams. This article summarizes one of his articles.

Racism, epistemic injustice, and ideology critique

Since its 2007 publication, Miranda Fricker’s Epistemic Injustice has sparked a vigorous conversation in analytic philosophy about how social power corrodes individual’s epistemic capacities and distorts collective meaning-making in unjust ways. Yet for all its normative insights into social silencing, I argue that Fricker’s theorization of epistemic dysfunction remains too individualized, cognitivist, and dematerialized to account for racialized imaginaries. Rather than view racisms as normal and normative in racist cultures, Fricker frames identity-driven prejudice as a troubling aberration from otherwise unblemished epistemic and moral norms. This leads her into adopting an overly voluntarist and idealist theory of social change that centres training better knowers rather than unmaking racialized worlds. Ultimately, I contend that we should return to a materialist theory of ideology, following the work of Stuart Hall. Doing so jettisons the narrow focus on individual epistemic failures and instead problematizes how certain social ideas consolidate and reproduce racial hierarchies.

Philosophy and Logic in a Time of War

Abstract This interview was given by Yaroslav Shramko (b. 1963), professor of the Department of Philosophy and rector of the Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University (Ukraine). His main research interests lie in the fields of logic and analytical philosophy. He has carried out several projects on modern non-classical logic: 1996–1998, within the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship at Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany); 1999–2000, within the Fulbright Program at Indiana University in Bloomington (USA); and 2003–2004, as a Wilhelm Bessel Awardee at Dresden University of Technology (Germany), among others. He has been a frequent invited speaker at international conferences and congresses. He is a member of the editorial boards of several international logic journals, such as Logic and Logical Philosophy (Torun, Poland), Bulletin of the Section of Logic (Łódź, Poland), European Journal of Mathematics (Springer), and Studia Logica (Springer). Prof Shramko is the author of “Truth and falsehood: An inquiry into generalized logical values” (Springer, 2011, joint work with Heinrich Wansing) and a number of articles on logic and analytic philosophy in peer-reviewed international journals.

Is there a culture of political violence in the Basque Country?

An analytical tradition considers political violence linked to ethno-nationalist claims from a culturalist approach, which intends to offer a relevant interpretative model. This article aims to test this type of approach to the conflict in the Basque Country. In order to examine the validity of this interpretative model, we conducted a qualitative sociological survey among 73 former clandestine militants. The empirical data allow us to conclude that a culturalist and essentialist approach of the use of political violence in this case is irrelevant. On the other hand, we will show the interest of an analysis of the symbolic production of armed groups that gives a prominent place to the motives of resistance and national liberation.

Jan Łukasiewicz and His German Ally. A History of Łukasiewicz-Scholz Cooperation and Friendship

Abstract The article presents interpersonal relations and mutual influences between German logician Heinrich Scholz and Polish scholars, first of all Jan Łukasiewicz. The background for presenting these relationships consists of reflections on the development of logic in Poland and various conceptions of how to apply logic to philosophical issues. Firstly, Jan Łukasiewicz’s program of logicisation of philosophy and his search for allies is presented. Secondly, the forms of cooperation between Łukasiewicz and Scholz, as well as contacts between the latter and other Polish scholars are sketched. Finally, forms of Scholz’s help to Polish friends during the tumultuous period of World War II are examined. The article provides also some reflections on the approach to logic in various European centers of analytic philosophy and historical comments on the continuity of philosophical and logical schools.