Tanesini, Alessandra. “Calm down, dear”: intellectual arrogance, silencing and ignorance
2016, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90(1): 71-92.
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Added by: Rie IzukaAbstract: In this paper I provide an account of two forms of intellectual arrogance which cause the epistemic practices of conversational turn-taking and assertion to malfunction. I detail some of the ethical and epistemic harms generated by intellectual arrogance, and explain its role in fostering the intellectual vices of timidity and servility in other agents. Finally, I show that arrogance produces ignorance by silencing others (both preventing them from speaking and causing their assertions to misfire) and by fostering self-delusion in the arrogant themselves.Comment: This article examines intellectual vices of arrogance, and its counterpart: servility. The author explains how the former vice develops the latter: culpably breaking of the norms of turn-taking of conversation locutionarily silences other conversants, and such disrespectful behavior would lead conversants to fall into a vice of intellectual servility.
Tanesini, Alessandra. Teaching Virtue Changing Attitudes
2016, Logos and Episteme 7(4): 503-527.
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Added by: Rie IzukaAbstract: In this paper I offer an original account of intellectual modesty and some of its surrounding vices: intellectual haughtiness, arrogance, servility and self-abasement. I argue that these vices are attitudes as social psychologists understand the notion. I also draw some of the educational implications of the account. In particular, I urge caution about the efficacy of direct instruction about virtue and of stimulating emulation through exposure to positive exemplars.Comment: This article examins an intellecutal vice of arrogance, and also touches upon the issue of how to teach virtues. This paper works well in teaching individual vice to undergrads, it does not require any prior knowledge of virtue epistemology, hence, perfect for introductory course of virtue epistemology.
Tanesini, Alessandra. “Calm down, dear”: intellectual arrogance, silencing and ignorance
2016, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 90(1): 71-92.
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Expand entry
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Added by: Rie IzukaAbstract: In this paper I provide an account of two forms of intellectual arrogance which cause the epistemic practices of conversational turn-taking and assertion to malfunction. I detail some of the ethical and epistemic harms generated by intellectual arrogance, and explain its role in fostering the intellectual vices of timidity and servility in other agents. Finally, I show that arrogance produces ignorance by silencing others (both preventing them from speaking and causing their assertions to misfire) and by fostering self-delusion in the arrogant themselves.Comment: This article examines intellectual vices of arrogance, and its counterpart: servility. The author explains how the former vice develops the latter: culpably breaking of the norms of turn-taking of conversation locutionarily silences other conversants, and such disrespectful behavior would lead conversants to fall into a vice of intellectual servility. This paper works well in teaching individual vice to undergrads, it does not require any prior knowledge of virtue epistemology, hence, perfect for introductory course of virtue epistemology.
Tanesini, Alessandra. An introduction to Feminist Epistemologies
1998, Wiley-Blackwell
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Added by: Giada Fratantonio
Publisher's Note: Could gender, race, and sexuality be relevant to knowledge? Although their positions and arguments differ in several respects, feminists have asserted that science, knowledge, and rationality cannot be severed from their social, political, and cultural aspects. This book presents a comprehensive introduction to feminist epistemologies situated at the intersection of philosophical, sociological, and cultural investigations of knowledge. It provides several critiques of more traditional approaches, and explores the alternatives proposed by feminists. In particular, this book contains extensive discussions of topics such as objectivity, rationality, power, and subject. Drawing on a variety of sources, the author also argues that when knowledge is conceived in terms of practices, it becomes possible to see it as normative and socially constituted."
Tangwa, Godfrey. Revisiting the Language Question in African Philosophy
2017, Adeshina Afolayan, Toyin Falola (eds.): The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 129-140
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Added by: Sara Peppe and Björn FreterAbstract:
One of the multiple effects of colonialism in Africa was the suppression and marginalization of African indigenous languages and the imposition and valorization of colonial languages which thus became the exclusive vectors of modern education, religious proselytization, and international communication and dialogue. After independence, this language situation led to a series of debates centered on what should be the appropriate language of pedagogy, scholarship, and artistic expression in Africa. Having successfully struggled against colonialism, should Africans continue using the colonially imposed foreign languages for their teaching, knowledge production, artistic and literary expression, to the continued detriment of the colonially marginalized indigenous languages? In this chapter, Tangwa revisits the language problematic in Africa from the vantage position of one who had actively participated in the language debates in the early 1990s. Tangwa briefly considers the purpose, functions, and uses of language in general, the relationship between language and culture, and the polar positions in the language debate in Africa. The chapter ends with a brief examination of the contemporary situation in the evolution of the language problem and makes a recommendation on what appears to be the only way forward.Comment (from this Blueprint): An up-to-date, concise and solid overview of the language problem in African philosophy.
Tao, Terence. What is good mathematics?
2007, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 44(4): 623-634.
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Added by: Fenner Stanley TanswellAbstract:
Some personal thoughts and opinions on what “good quality mathematics” is and whether one should try to define this term rigorously. As a case study, the story of Szemer´edi’s theorem is presented.Comment (from this Blueprint): Tao is a mathematician who has written extensively about mathematics as a discipline. In this piece he considers what counts as “good mathematics”. The opening section that I’ve recommended has a long list of possible meanings of “good mathematics” and considers what this plurality means for mathematics. (The remainder details the history of Szemerédi’s theorem, and argues that good mathematics also involves contributing to a great story of mathematics. However, it gets a bit technical, so only look into it if you’re particularly interested in the details of the case.)
Taylor, Elanor. Explanation and the Explanatory Gap
2016, Acta Analytica 31 (1):77-88.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: The Explanatory Gap' is a label for the idea that we cannot explain consciousness in terms of brain activity. There are many different formulations of the explanatory gap, but all discussion about it assumes that there is only one gap, which consists of the absence of a deductive explanation. This assumption is mistaken. In this paper, I show that the position that deductive explanation is privileged in this case is unmotivated. I argue that whether or not there is an explanatory gap depends on the kind of explanation in question, so there is no single, unified explanatory gap but only the absence and (perhaps) presence of different sorts of explanation.
Taylor, Kenneth A.. Narrow content functionalism and the mind-body problem
1989, Noûs 23(3): 355-72.
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Added by: Nick NovelliSummary: Narrow content functionalism claims that the contents of beliefs are determined by their causal profile. If two belief tokens are of the same causal type, they are of the same semantic type. However, Taylor argues that de dicto semantic types do not supervene on causal types, due to multiple realizability. He establishes this with the thought experiment of "fraternal twin earth", where things are functionally identical but molecularily different.Comment: This paper shows how Putnam's "twin earth" thought experiment needs to be modified to address narrow content functionalism. Suited to higher-level mind and language courses. Best taught after some more introductory readings on the topic, as those not already familiar with some of the elements may become lost.
Taylor, Kenneth A.. How not to refute eliminative materialism
1994, Philosophical Psychology 7 (1):101-125 (1994)
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Added by: Nick NovelliAbstract: This paper examines and rejects some purported refutations of eliminative materialism in the philosophy of mind: a quasi-transcendental argument due to Jackson and Pettit (1990) to the effect that folk psychology is "peculiarly unlikely" to be radically revised or eliminated in light of the developments of cognitive science and neuroscience; and (b) certain straight-out transcendental arguments to the effect that eliminativism is somehow incoherent (Baker, 1987; Boghossian, 1990). It begins by clarifying the exact topology of the dialectical space in which debates between eliminativist and anti-eliminativist ought to be framed. I claim that both proponents and opponents of eliminativism have been insufficiently attentive to the range of dialectical possibilities. Consequently, the debate has not, in fact, been framed within the correct dialectical setting. I then go onto to show how inattentiveness to the range of dialectical possibilities undermines both transcendental and quasi-transcendental arguments against eliminativism. In particular, I argue that the quasi-transcendentalist overestimates the degree to which folk psychology can be insulated from the advance of neuroscience and cognitive science just in virtue of being a functional theory. I argue further that transcendental arguments are fallacious and do not succeed against even the strongest possible form of eliminativism. Finally, I argue that that transcendental arguments are irrelevant. Even if such arguments do succeed against a certain'very strong form of eliminativism, they remain complete non-starters against certain weaker forms of eliminativism. And I argue that if any of these weaker forms is true, folk psychology is in trouble enough to vindicate Paul Ckurchland's claim that our common sense psychological framework is "a radically false and misleading conception of the causes of human behavior and the nature of cognitive activity".Comment: Offers interesting refutations to arguments against eliminative materialism. Could be useful in motivating interest in eliminative materialism by demonstrating that it has not been decisively refuted, or as part of an in-depth examination of the view in a course on that subject.
Taylor, Kenneth A.. Truth and Meaning: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language
1998, Oxford: Blackwell.
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Added by: Nick NovelliSummary: This lucid and wide-ranging volume constitutes a self-contained introduction to the elements and key issues of the philosophy of language. In particular, it focuses on the philosophical foundations of semantics, including the main challenges to and prospects for a truth conditional semantics. Since the book is neither single-mindedly philosophical, nor single-mindedly technical, it is an accessible introduction to the philosophical foundations of semantics, and will provide the ideal basis for a first course in the philosophy of language and philosophical logic.Comment: This book offers a good introduction to theories of meaning, and includes some good, clear presentations of specialised systems of logic used in philosophy of language, giving students a good example of the existence and practical usefulness of logic beyond first-order. Chapter 3, on Tarski's formal theory of truth, is one of the better treatments of that subject available. Suitable for undergraduate and graduate teaching.
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