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Added by: Laura JimenezAbstract: Skepticism about the epistemic value of intuition in theoretical and philosophical inquiry has recently been bolstered by empirical research suggesting that people's concrete-case intuitions are vulnerable to irrational biases (e.g., the order effect). What is more, skeptics argue that we have no way to "calibrate" our intuitions against these biases and no way of anticipating intuitional instability. This paper challenges the skeptical position, introducing data from two studies that suggest not only that people's concrete-case intuitions are often stable, but also that people have introspective awareness of this stability, providing a promising means by which to assess the epistemic value of our intuitions.
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Karoline Paier
Abstract: Research on the status and experience of women in academia in the last 30 years has challenged conventional explanations of persistent gender inequality, bringing into sharp focus the cumulative impact of small scale, often unintentional differences in recognition and response: the patterns of 'post-civil rights era' discrimination made famous by the 1999 report on the status of women in the MIT School of Science. I argue that feminist standpoint theory is a useful resource for understanding how this sea change in understanding gender inequity was realized. At the same time, close attention to activist research on workplace environment issues suggests ways in which our understanding of standpoint theory can fruitfully be refined. I focus on the implications of two sets of distinctions: between types of epistemic injustice (and correlative advantage) that may affect marginalized knowers; and between the resources of situated knowledge and those of a critical standpoint on knowledge production.
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Added by: Suddha Guharoy and Andreas SorgerAbstract:
Sylvia Wynter is a radical Jamaican theorist influenced, among others, by Frantz Fanon. This well known interview is often considered to be the best introduction to her thinking about the question of human in the aftermath of 1492 and the consequent racialisation of humanity.
Wynter rethinks dominant concepts of being human, arguing that they are based on a colonial and racialized model that divides the world into asymmetric categories such as "the selected and the dysselected", center and periphery, or colonizers and colonized. Against this Wynter proposes a new humanism. According to Katherine McKittrick Wynter develops a "counterhumanism", that breaks from the classification of humans in static, asymmetric categories.Comment (from this Blueprint): Sylvia Wynter is a Jamaican novelist, playwright, and academic who draws on a huge breadth of academic literature, including amongst others anthropology, critical race theory, postcolonialism, and feminism, in her prolific academic writings that cover an equally diverse set of themes. One important strand of her work involves “unsettling” what she sees as the dominant (Western/European) understanding of “Man”, which she argues is responsible for enabling the brutal and harrowing treatment of non-whites by the European colonisers. Indeed, one of the goals of Wynter’s project is to theorise a new kind of humanism that does not collapse into violence and exclusion, as the current dominant Western paradigm has, but rather one that is truly “comprehensive and planetary” (p.121) in scope. The reading for this week is a long-form interview Wynter did with David Scott, the editor of Small Axe, and covers a huge breadth of her work. The preface of the interview offers a helpful contextualisation of Wynter’s work, while the section we will be reading offers an overview into Wynter’s thinking about the ways in which humanist discourse has functioned to exclude non-whites.
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Added by: Nick NovelliAbstract: It may appear that in order to be any way at all, a thing must exist. A possible - worlds version of this claim goes as follows: (E) For every x, for every possible world w, Fx at w only if x exists at w. Here and later in (R), the letter 'F' is used as a schematic letter to be replaced with a one - place predicate. There are two arguments against (E). The first is by analogy. Socrates is widely admired now but he does not exist now. So, it is not the case that for every x, for every time t, Fx at t only if x exists at t. Possible worlds are analogous to times. Therefore, (E) is false (cf., Kaplan 1973: 503 - 05 and Salmon 1981: 36 - 40). For the second argument, replace 'F' with 'does not exist'. (E) then says that for every x, for every possible world w, x does not exist at w only if x exists at w. This is obviously false. Therefore (E) is false (cf., Kaplan 1977: 498). Despite their considerable appeal, these arguments are not unassailable. The first argument suffers from the weakness inherent in any argument from analogy; the analogy it rests on may not.
Comment: A very concise argument against the claim that existence is a prerequisite for having properties. This is a familiar claim, and this paper would be useful when it comes up to show that there is controversy about it. It does presuppose a basic understanding of possible world semantics, so should be reserved for courses where students already have a grasp of such semantics or the instructor wants to teach it beforehand.
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Added by: Nick NovelliAbstract: Deep theorizing about possibility requires theorizing about possible objects. One popular approach regards the notion of a possible object as intertwined with the notion of a possible world. There are two widely discussed types of theory concerning the nature of possible worlds: actualist representationism and possibilist realism. They support two opposing views about possible objects. Examination of the ways in which they do so reveals difficulties on both sides. There is another popular approach, which has been influenced by the philosophy of Alexius Meinong. The Meinongian approach is relevant to theorizing about possible objects because it attempts to construct a general theory of objects other than ordinary concrete existing objects. Independently of the debate about the nature of possible worlds or about Meinongianism, it is not always as straightforward as it may at first appear to determine whether putative possible objects are indeed possible. Another category of object similar to that of a possible object is the category of a fictional object. Although initially attractive, the idea that fictional objects are possible objects should not be accepted blindly. An important instance of theoretical usefulness of possible objects is their central role in the validation of two controversial theorems of a simple quantified modal logic.
Comment: A good introduction to the different positions on possible objects, including their impact on modal logic. Would be a good starting point for a discussion of these issues in a metaphysics course, or as an introduction to these positions for an ontology of art/fiction course.
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Added by: Nick NovelliAbstract: Sherlock Holmes is a fictional individual. So is his favorite pipe. Our pre-theoretical intuition says that neither of them is real. It says that neither of them really, or actually, exists. It also says that there is a sense in which they do exist, namely, a sense in which they exist "in the world of" the Sherlock Holmes stories. Our pre-theoretical intuition says in general of any fictional individual that it does not actually exist but exists "in the world of" the relevant fiction. I wish to defend this pre-theoretical intuition. To do so, I need to defend two claims: that fictional individuals do not actually exist, and that they exist "in the world of" the relevant fiction. The aim of this paper is to defend the first claim.
Comment: A good argument against the existence of fictional characters. Clear presentation of the logic involved in various claims. In addition to ontology of art, the case of fictional characters can be an interesting way to present the arguments about ontology and linguistic commitment more generally, and this paper would be useful in that role as well.
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Added by: Laura JimenezAbstract: The paper intends to identify some particular basic assumptions, approaches and means of proceeding, which are spontaneously shared by philosophers, sociologists and historians of science, besides the common interchange of meta-notions describing science. To this end, the specific subject matter, scope, meta-cognitive goals and methodological background of each of the three domains of science study is first outlined. Only two shared proceedings are further discussed in details: the objective attitude, called 'playing a stranger', and the historiographers' involvement in demarcational problem resolution. A far-reaching prospect is finally suggested for philosophers and historiographers: methodological partnership, leading towards the elaboration of an impending integral metatheory of science.
Comment: Interesting paper about methodological partnership. Useful as well as a historical review of philosophy of science. Recommended for undergraduate students.
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Added by: Laura JimenezAbstract: The validity of three premises, set as foundational pillars of modern sociological approach to science, is contested, namely: (i) the postulate, stating that science is devoid of whatever generis specifical; (ii) it is liable to the usual empirical study; (iii) the practicing scientist's self-reflexive judgements must be disbelieved and rejected. Contrariwise, the ignored so far quaint nature of knowledge, escaping even from the elementary empirical treating - discernment and observation - is revealed and demonstrated. This peculiar nature requires, accordingly, a specific meta-cognitive dealing for positing it as 'empirical object', unfortunately missed still by the Strong Programme. The inadequate approach adopted led to a substitution of 'scientific' for common knowledge. The tacit thus far alternative, setting the foundations of meta-science, is suggested.
Comment: Valuable article for both philosophy of science and epistemology courses. Could be used as further reading for postgraduates who want to research topics such as the relation between science and meta-science.
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
The logical empiricists often appear as a foil for feminist theories. Their emphasis on the individualistic nature of knowledge and on the value neutrality of science seems directly opposed to most feminist concerns. However, several recent works have highlighted aspects of Carnap’s views that make him seem like much less of a straight-forwardly positivist thinker. Certain of these aspects lend themselves to feminist concerns much more than the stereotypical picture would imply.
Comment: available in this Blueprint
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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane FairbankAbstract: I argue that a thoroughgoing naturalized epistemology can easily underestimate the extent to which certain background assumptions will infl uence arguments. Instead, then, I suggest that we can borrow a conceptual tool from neo-Kantian philosophy of science, namely the constitutive a priori. This idea originates in neo-Kantian philosophers who understood, in light of Einsteinian physics, that Kantian views about the a priority of space were untenable. Frameworks that adopt some version of a constitutive a priori take certain propositions to play the role of a priori principles, without granting them the universality or necessity that such principles traditionally hold. I will argue that thinking of certain views or values as having the status of constitutive a priori principles can help us understand what would be required for an epistemic agent to change them, and thus illustrate the extent to which they are resistant to being dislodged by evidence.
Comment: available in this Blueprint
Comment: Essential reading for postgraduate courses on philosophical methodology, especially experimental philosophy. It covers important topics such as intuitional stability, belief strength, epistemic value and biases.