Kind Of Skepticism Research Articles

How the Laws of Logic Lie

AbstractNancy Cartwright's 1983 book How the Laws of Physics Lie argued that theories of physics often make use of idealisations, and that as a result many of these theories were not true. The present paper looks at idealisation in logic and argues that, at least sometimes, the laws of logic fail to be true. That might be taken as a kind of skepticism, but I argue rather that idealisation is a legitimate tool in logic, just as in physics, and recognising this frees logicians up to use false laws where these are helpful.

Is JTB Knowledge Hopeless?

An argument structure that covers both cases Gettier described in his 1963 paper reinforces the conclusion of my 2012 Logos & Episteme article that the justified true belief (JTB) conception of knowledge is inconsistent. The stronger argument makes possible identification of fundamental flaws in the standard approach of adding a fourth condition to JTB, so that a new kind of skepticism becomes inevitable unless conceptual change occurs.

Meta‐Skepticism

AbstractThe epistemological debate about radical skepticism has focused on whether our beliefs in apparently obvious claims, such as the claim that we have hands, amount to knowledge. Arguably, however, our concept of knowledge is only one of many knowledge‐like concepts that there are. If this is correct, it follows that even if our beliefs satisfy our concept of knowledge, there are many other relevantly similar concepts that they fail to satisfy. And this might give us pause. After all, we might wonder: What is so great about the concept of knowledge that we happen to have? Might it be more important, epistemically speaking, to investigate whether our beliefs satisfy some other relevantly similar concept instead? And how should questions such as these even be understood? This paper discusses the epistemological significance of these issues. In particular, a novel skeptical stance called ‘meta‐skepticism’ is introduced, which is a kind of skepticism about the idea that some knowledge‐like concepts are epistemically more important than others. It suggested that it is unclear whether this form of skepticism can be avoided.

Will to Power: Nietzsche's Transcendental Idealism

Abstract This article argues that in Beyond Good and Evil (BGE) Nietzsche defends “will to power” as a transcendentally ideal condition of objectivity, in the sense in which Kant considers, say, space, time, or the concepts of substance and causation to be such conditions. The article shows how Nietzsche's engagement with the transcendental idealist arguments of his Kantian contemporaries leads him to reject naturalism and to adopt a peculiarly transcendental kind of skepticism, which rejects as unjustified the conditions that would make objectivity possible. The article then turns to the argument for “will to power” in BGE 36, showing that it is best read as defending a transcendentally ideal condition of objectivity, and thus as responding to transcendental skepticism. The article concludes by elaborating on this understanding of “will to power,” particularly in relation to the sense of causality that Nietzsche invokes and in comparison with Kant's own transcendental claims.

A evolução cética da filosofia na ficção de Machado de Assis ao longo de quatro encontros na Rua do Ouvidor

São analisados no artigo quatro encontros na Rua do Ouvidor do narrador ficcional e protagonista de quatro narrativas de Machado de Assis. As narrativas são examinadas diacronicamente de modo a mostrar a evolução de uma perspectiva cética ao longo da ficção machadiana. Cada encontro sinaliza uma etapa na construção dessa perspectiva. No Primeiro Encontro são apresentadas as condições prévias ao surgimento da perspectiva cética na segunda fase. Examine-se o conto Felicidade pelo Casamento publicado no início da primeira fase da obra do escritor, no qual a aparência se contrapõe à realidade, caracterizando uma perspectiva dogmática. No Segundo Encontro, destacado das Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, romance que inicia a segunda fase e a perspectiva cética, a aparência penetra até o âmago da realidade, caracterizando uma perspectiva pascaliana. No Terceiro Encontro, flagrado no romance Dom Casmurro, a aparência obscurece a realidade, caracterizando uma perspectiva cética clássica. Enfim, no Quarto Encontro, presente no último romance de Machado, o Memorial de Aires, a aparência é o objeto e alvo último da percepção, caracterizando uma perspectiva cética-estética original machadiana. O artigo começa com uma apresentação da importância da Rua do Ouvidor na obra de Machado em geral.

Ceticismo e tolerância em Montaigne

O ceticismo de Montaigne no campo prático e moral é caracterizado pela falta de um critério ou regras de conduta para que se possa consentir num padrão geral de comportamento ou numa tradição qualquer. O período no qual ele viveu era propício para reforçar este quadro: as guerras religiosas na França e em toda a Europa e a descoberta dos povos do Novo Mundo foram fatores fundamentais para o crescimento da dúvida filosófica acerca do comportamento individual e em sociedade organizada. Apesar disso, Montaigne denuncia as crueldades cometidas em seu tempo, seja entre os indígenas, seja entre os católicos e protestantes e, frequentemente, argumenta em favor da liberdade de consciência e opinião. Neste artigo mostrarei que a filosofia de Montaigne, não obstante seu ceticismo, é suscetível a uma ideia geral de tolerância entre diferentes povos e indivíduos, ainda que o conceito de tolerância não esteja sistematizado em seus escritos e que a sua defesa pareça incompatível com um determinado tipo de ceticismo.

“LA PLACE D’AUTRUI”: PERSPECTIVISMO Y NORMATIVIDAD SEGÚN LEIBNIZ

My purpose in this paper is to analyse a form of perspectivism understood as a kind of skepticism and Leibniz’s arguments against it. I discuss how, according to him, this form of perspectivism leads to isostheneia and suspension of judgment, and I introduce Leibniz’s strategy to prevent these skeptical consequences; finally I present an example of this strategy.

Gaus, Hayek, and the place of civil religion in a free society

In The Order of Public Reason, Gerald Gaus uses Hayekian insights to give a contractarian justification for the specific social rules the rules that comprise the social order of a free people. But in doing so, Gaus inadvertently endorses a kind of skepticism about our ability to justify the institutions that comprise our social order as a whole. The disadvantage of a political theory so pervasively skeptical is that, while contractors can arrive at a series of specific solutions to their social problems, they have no way to assure themselves that their moral nature and their moral practices as a whole are sufficiently sound that the rules they endorse are genuinely morally binding. I argue that this problem can be solved in political practice through the adoption of a civil religion. Civil religions provide narratives and social practices that assure members of free orders that their regimes are good or justified on the whole. In this way, we can introduce the idea of civil religion into contractarian political theory as a social technology for sustaining a free social order.

An Attempt at a Logical Refutation of Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum

In the development of Greek philosophy, the focus of the ancient philosophers on realities, trying to determine the ultimate principle of all things, begs the question as to what part or extent of reality is assessable to man’s knowledge. And a kind of skepticism was born, shifting the attention from the object [or the realities on which the ancient philosophers were focused on] to the observing or the knowing subject; man and the means through which he comes into contact with the known object. Thus, the possibility of attaining certain knowledge about realities was denied by the skeptics, giving the unreliable nature of the means by which such knowledge were acquired and the complexities of realities as powerful premises for their conclusion until the emergence of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, proving that there was something that could be known for certain using their [or the skeptic’s] own method [doubting] to prove to them that in their own doubting, they confirm their own existence. This paper is concerned with whether or not the cogito is a suitable premise for the conclusion [“existence”] of his argument. However, my aim in this work is, not to refuse the truth of the existence of any reality, rather to show the inadequacies of Descartes’ argument for them, with particular focus on the context within which his argument proceeds, which might require a bit of logical analysis; perhaps to arrive at a better conclusion for his premises.

WORRISOME SKEPTICISM ABOUT PHILOSOPHY

ABSTRACTA new kind of skepticism about philosophy is articulated and argued for. The key premise is the claim that many of us are well aware that in the past we failed to have good responses to substantive objections to our philosophical beliefs. The conclusion is disjunctive: either we are irrational in sticking with our philosophical beliefs, or we commit some other epistemic sin in having those beliefs.

<b>Contra el escepticismo: la teoría de las hipótesis de Johannes Kepler

During the 16 th century, a skeptical approach on the status of astronomical hypothesis was widely spread among Lutheran communities and particularly among the astronomers belonging to those communities. Astronomical hypotheses were conceived as mere devices to save appearances (calculation tools), much more than entities to describe the real structure of the universe. Towards the end of century, Johannes Kepler hardly attacks this kind of skepticism. In his Apologia pro Tychone contra Ursum , the young Kepler introduces a set of fresh ideas concerning the nature of astronomical hypothesis as part of a strategy deployed against skepticism. I suggest that a new theory of hypothesis underlies Kepler's strategy.

Is Hobby Lobby Worse for Religious Liberty than Smith?

Imagine a world where religious people are a kind of aristocratic elite who are entitled to injure nonadherents with impunity – a world which would “permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.” Employment Division v. Smith held that “courting anarchy” in this manner was a conclusive reason to hold that there is no constitutional right to religious exemptions from laws of general applicability. The Hobby Lobby decision (by some of the same judges!) threatens to bring that world into being.If government refusals to accommodate are viewed with the kind of skepticism that the Court displays in Hobby Lobby, then claims of accommodation will always be supported by some imaginable less restrictive means, even if its enactment is politically impossible. The consequence in practice will be an interpretation of religious liberty in which adherents get to harm nonadherents. Religious liberty here means the right to impose your religion on other people who don’t share your views.One of the principal attractions of the idea of religious liberty has always been that the exercise of one person’s religion doesn’t hurt anyone else. In Thomas Jefferson’s classic formulation: “it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” But paying for contraceptives that should be covered by insurance is exactly like having one’s pocket picked, while involuntary pregnancy is worse than a broken leg. If this is the official meaning of religious liberty, then the broad acceptance of religious liberty will quickly fade.

Intuition and Inquiry

Recent work in philosophical methodology by experimental philosophers has brought to light a certain kind of skepticism about the role of intuitions in a priori philosophical inquiry. In this paper I turn attention away from a priori philosophical inquiry and on to the role of intuition in experimental design. I argue that even if we have reason to be skeptical about the role of intuition in a priori philosophical inquiry, we cannot remove intuition from inquiry altogether, because appeals to intuition are essential for experimental design.

Escepticismo, posesión de conceptos y externalismo social

One of the main objectives of Donald Davidson’s theory of language and content is to leave unfounded the skepticism which proposes the possibility that we are massively wrong about how the world is. It can be identified, in Davidson, two ways to argue against this kind of skepticism whose ultimate goal is to show the ‘true nature of belief ’. Our goal is to show that both argumentative strategies suffer some problems, so those don’t let unfounded skepticism. On the one hand, the omniscient interpreter argument is problematic because, or assume what it wants to show, that is, assume that we are not massively wrong, or it’s possible to think of a interpreter mistaken that, by maximizing the agreement with us, it would interpret us as massively wrong. On the other hand, for the argument of externalism and semantic holism, we show that the difference between getting a concept, doesn’t get it and to get it erred is not sufficiently clear and that this lack of clarity re-opens the possibility of skepticism about how conceive the world. However, we propose an argument to solve the problems that have these two ways of arguing against the skeptic. Our argument is to construct a flexible approach to the possession of concepts, using Putnam’s notion of ‘social division of linguistic labor’, from which it is not necessary to have all general true beliefs about a concept in order to say that it is owned. We believe that this reflection is important as it constitutes a response to radical skepticism about how we conceive the world.

Inquiring into the Real: A Realist Phenomenological Approach

The need for postpositivist or antipositivist methods in the social sciences, including library and information science, is well documented. A promising alternative synthesizes critical realism and phenomenology. This method embraces ontological reality in all things, including human and social action. The ontology underlying the realist phenomenological approach recognizes, following Bhaskar, intransitive and transitive objects of knowledge (mind‐independent reality and individual and social perceptions of that reality). The synthesis encompasses some particular elements, including perceptions of parts and wholes, the reconciliation of presence and absence, and the essential character of intentionality. Withholding judgment (exercising a particular kind of skepticism) enables inquirers to delve into the historicity and background of action. Potential uses of the method are manifold; some specifics are examined here.

Ethical Leadership and Business Decision Making in Contemporary Times

Leadership in recent times has seen increasing corporate scandals resulting in the collapse of hitherto reputable organizations, such as Enron and WorldCom. The canker of unethical leadership cuts across international boundaries, culture and societies. From business and sociological stand points, the consequences of unethical leadership behavior are insurmountable. The general objective of this paper is to look at leadership ethics and how it influences leadership decisions making and the exercise of good judgment. It was observed that the main role of leadership is setting new direction and getting people along this direction. However, resent leadership scandals have made people see leaders with some kind of skepticism. Laws and legislations are good, but their existence has not deterred unscrupulous leaders for example in the Enron case. Dealing with this issue in a pragmatic way is critical to minimizing this situation if not eradicating it. Although situations may differ from one problem to the other, a careful review of previews decision provides some guidance in dealing with similar issues. It is my sincere believe that the model developed in this study would help develop the needed understanding of leadership ethic s and judgment, and how to deal with the current situation in our society.

Language and experience in 17th-century British philosophy By Lia Formigari (review)

398 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 67, NUMBER 2 (1991) enteenth-century contrast between final action (PS) and currently relevant action (PC) (65). Subjects showed little significant social or demographic variation in their use of PC and PS, although middle-class subjects tended to use more PS than those whose parents were manual laborers, and subjects from the West and South of France tended to use more than those from Paris, the North, and the East (100). Ch. 5 (102-14) sets up a hierarchy of rules for tense choice between PC and PS. The only rule deemed obligatory is that PS is used when the axis of orientation or point of view is retrospective (Bull's RP-V), in which case the PS functions much like a pluperfect or past anterior (113). Other rules accounting for the various factors investigated are presented on a sliding scale of influence of tense choice (2,103-4). The conclusion (Ch. 6, 115-22) calls for more research with a wider variety of approaches, such as a study of children's acquisition of the PS as they try to use it in telling stories (120), and investigation of the use of the 'picturesque imperfect ', the historic present, and the historic future for past punctual narration (121). This last is a potentially fruitful field of inquiry. Like the Waugh & Monville-Burston study cited above, Engel's work uses newspaper articles as raw material for investigation of the use of one or two tenses, but does not integrate them into a broader description of tense choice in the French newspaper narrative, a unique prose genre with its own genre-specific tense choice rules. [Clyde Thogmartin, Iowa State University of Science and Technology.) Language and experience in 17th-century British philosophy. By Lia Formigari. (Studies in the History of Language Sciences, 48.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins , 1988. Pp. 178. $36.00. Crediting Bacon with charging 17th-century British linguistics with 'a kind of skepticism which tends to stress the shortcomings of language and advocate reform or even invent new languages, in order to adapt them to the real needs of communication' (1), F develops her history around the notion that Bacon's distrust of language was the catalyst for restructuring Renaissance linguistics. In fact, she organizes her book according to her thesis that there were three major evolutionary consequences of Bacon 's philosophy of language: scholars were first led to discover the imperfection of natural languages; then they developed artificial languages to replace natural languages; and finally, since they realized that artificial languages were prone to the same imperfections as were natural languages, they formulated semantic theories based on the constituents of thought. She concludes her book with an excellent bibliography that contains many rarely-cited sources. In the first section F points to John Wilkins' Mercury, a manual advancing a system of cryptography , as the start of a long line of works influenced by Bacon's distrust of natural language . She traces the intriguing 17th-century debate over whether or not the ideal language, Adamic language, was perfect; and she moves to Seth Ward's vision of constructing an artificial language which would be free of all the imperfections that creep into natural languages. She comments on John Webster's view, different from Ward's, that an artificial language should not be based on words but on Chineselike characters which would indicate the philosophical nature of their referents. F concludes her first section with a discussion of Thomas Hobbes' insistence that language is functional in that it is invented as needs dictate, so that neither Adamic language nor any natural language could remain perfect, because of an everchanging context. In her second section, F accurately traces the development of philosophical languages—artificial systems designed for international communication , which relied on symbols reflecting the philosophical nature oftheir referents. Thus, in a philosophical language, the speaker says as well as defines the word. Although she cites a large number of contributors to the movement, she draws mainly on the works of William Holder, George Dalgarno, Francis Lodwick, Commenius, and Wilkins. Surprisingly, she takes a rather well-discussed topic— 17th-century English linguistic scholarship—and offers a number of fresh insights...

The Vanity of Historicism

HE IDEA that we can learn any general lessons from history is likely to be met with smirks of condescension. Surely-it will be said-surely everyone knows by now that the only messages you get from history are the ones which your own theories dictate to it in advance? This is a sophisticated way of looking at the question, however; perhaps too sophisticated. For even the simplest kind of history, as untheorized as can be-the kind of knowledge you would get from reading through the dusty old love letters you found hidden up a chimney in a derelict house, for example-can teach and reteach you a simple but difficult truth: the truth, that is to say, of the historicity of things. The contemplation of historicity-of the sheer singularity of places and times, situations and conjunctures, including all those you habitually take for granted--will help you see that there are different ways of looking at the world, and that what is obvious in one perspective may be ridiculous in another. The kind of history which Paul Veyne has praised-bare inventories of the discoveries made by inquisitive travelers in time-can bring it home to you that your own most deeply held concepts and beliefs may really be incredibly arbitrary and strange;' with luck, it may even give them the power to take you by surprise. The shock of historicity, one might say, can function as a kind of philosophical exercise, comparable to the tropes for suspension of judgment deployed by classical skepticism. The skepticism it fosters is not the extreme and largely imaginary kind which, as everyone knows, is self-contradictory (it claims to know, does it not, that knowledge is impossible?). It is the kind of skepticism which everyone

Radical Criminology and Marxism: A Fallible Relationship

Two kinds of skepticism-increasingly prevalent in recent social commentary -have spread to criminology. The skepticism of science subjects all ideas to relentless questioning. Another kind of skepticism is colored by political partisanship. In various forms, radical criminology has gained new visibility recently. This paper welcomes this development when it conveys scientific skepticism beyond the "gadfly" functions of partisan skepticism. Among the versions of radical criminology, the Marxist approach blurs the distinction between the two kinds of skepticism and has other characteristics which illustrate the special difficulties for radical criminologists endeavoring to develop a genuine critical theory. Marx had little interest in criminology, requiring his disciples to tear his concepts out of context. Marxian thought has its own contradictions. Consequently, radical criminology is ambivalent in its rejection of liberal values, in presenting subjectivism as the equivalent of scientific analysis of criminological issues, and in inconsistent utilization of Marxist theory. If a radical theory is to emerge, these difficulties must be overcome.

The Possibility of a Rational Strategy of Moral Persuasion

There are two kinds of grounds for skepticism as to the possibility of rational persuasion. One is to say that there are not and never could be any good arguments concerning moral questions, and the other is to say that whether or not there are good arguments, it is not possible that they should persuade: Most of the reasons that are offered for the widespread skepticism that now exists are of the latter kind, and it is to reasons of this kind that I shall confine myself in this paper. I will try to show that such skepticism is altogether ill-founded. In doing so I will not altogether avoid consideration of possible arguments, but I will try to keep separate questions as to whether this or that argument is a good one, and questions as to whether any argument could possibly succeed. If I should produce any good arguments, or if there anyway are such arguments, that would not in itself show that they might persuade; and if any arguments I use as examples are not in fact sound, it is not on account of their unsoundness that the kind of skepticism I am considering claims that they could not persuade. I had best begin with some account, however rough, of what is to be meant in this paper by the rationality of a strategy of persuasion. In the first place, in some broad sense of the word 'argument', a strategy will be rational only if it deploys arguments. While some people might not want to call anything an argument unless it takes some form canonized by logicians, I not only see no reason for this restriction, I think it has bedeviled philosophical thinking on the subject of rational persuasion. Not many of the arguments that are ever actually deployed, either in philosophy or elsewhere, are presented in anything like any of the forms dear to logicians; but their informality does not prevent the arguments we mostly use from having what we might call 'traction': from being such that their introduction into our deliberations materially alters the complexion of a problem, independently of the tastes, idiosyncrasies, or other attributes of the particular persons involved. When an argument has 'traction, ' it does not normally establish something. It might be likened to a magnetic force: it exerts a real tug, but