Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 602-620, July 2022.

This selection of articles by Lewis E. Hahn addresses the philosophical school of contextualism and four contemporary American philosophers: John Dewey, Henry Nelson Wieman, Stephen C. Pepper, and Brand Blanshard. Stressing the relatively recent contextualistic worldview, which he considers one of the best world hypotheses, Hahn seeks to achieve a broad perspective within which all things may be given their due place. After providing a brief outline, Hahn explains contextualism in relation to other philosophies. In his opening (...) chapter, as in later chapters, he expresses contextualism as a form of pragmatic naturalism. In spite of Hahn’s high regard for contextualism, however, he does not think it would be good if we were limited to a single worldview. “The more different views we have and the more different sources of possible light we have, the better our chances that some of these cosmic maps will shed light on our world and our place in it.”. (shrink)

RésuméLes articles de ce volume célèbrent le travail de Steven Burns. Des versions de ces articles ont été présentées à l'origine lors de deux séances organisées en l'honneur de Burns lors de la réunion 2022 de l'Association régionale des philosophes de l'Atlantique (ARPA), tenue à l'Université Dalhousie à Halifax. Cette introduction présente une brève biographie universitaire et résume chacune des contributions. Les articles, rédigés par Michael Hymers, Robbie Moser et Darren Bifford, Alice MacLachlan, Jason Holt et Warren Heiti, abordent des (...) thèmes éternels en philosophie, tels que la connaissance de soi, l'attention, l'amitié, l'interprétation et le jugement. Le recueil se termine par quelques derniers mots de Burns lui-même. (shrink)

Due to the obvious and widely studied Deweyan foundations in the educational program elaborated by philosopher Mathew Lipman, Philosophy for Children is often presented as a continuation of Dewey’s democratic ideal, as a mode of associated living. I argue that there is a democratic model specific to Lipman’s P4C, that cannot be reduced to Dewey’s theories. To do so, I propose to compare Dewey’s and Lipman’s educational models through the Bourdieusian notion of habitus, understood as a set of lasting mental (...) dispositions, following a specific social conditioning, revealed by some practical habits. Studying in depth Dewey’s and Lipman’s educational recommendations concerning inquiry does not only reveal that they are structured according to different rationalities, it also highlights the fact that they tend to develop different habits and dispositions in the child, that ultimately form two distinct citizen habitus. Dewey’s habitus could be called experimental and Lipman’s habitus dialogical and they both correspond to their respective reflections on democracy and the role a citizen should be playing. I conclude by highlighting the interesting possibilities that stem from the analysis and comparison of educational models through the notion of habitus.Resumen: En razón de las indudables y ampliamente estudiadas fundaciones deweyana en la pedagogía elaborada por el filósofo Mathew Lipman, la filosofía para niños es generalmente presentada como una continuación del ideal democrático de John Dewey, como un modo de vida asociada. Sostengo que existe un modelo democrático específico a la filosofía para niños como la que fue elaborada por Lipman, que no se puede reducir a las teorías de Dewey. Para mostrar eso, propongo de comparar las pedagogías de Dewey y de Lipman a través de la noción bourdieusiana del habitus, entendida como un conjunto de disposiciones mentales duraderas, proveniente de un condicionamiento social específico, que se manifiesta por hábitos prácticos. Un estudio en profundidad de las recomendaciones educativas de Dewey y de Lipman en cuento a la encuesta no sólo revela que están organizadas por racionalidades diferentes, sino también que desarrollan hábitos y disposiciones diferentes en el niño, que últimamente forman dos habitus ciudadanos distintos. El habitus de Dewey se puede llamar experimental, y el de Lipman un habitus dialógico, los dos corresponden a sus reflexiones respectivas sobre la democracia y el rol del ciudadano. Concluyo subrayando las posibilidades interesantes que emerjan de la analiza y comparación de las pedagogías a través de la noción de habitus. (shrink)

Soit deux peintures identiques, l’une réalisée en 1888 par Waterhouse, l’autre par une intelligence artificielle. Si ces deux peintures sont indiscernables sur le plan perceptif, sont-elles distinctes sur le plan ontique? Une telle différence est-elle susceptible d’affecter leur réception spectatorielle? Dans cette expérience de pensée, sont envisagés trois axes depuis lesquels on pourrait supposer des différences structurelles entre la réception spectatorielle des deux œuvres : la représentation, l’interprétation des choix auctoriaux et la contrainte interprétative. À la faveur de ces questions (...) ponctuelles, se pose une question transversale – celle de la prise en compte de l’auteur dans la réception des œuvres et de la persistance de sa figure en dépit de sa disparition factuelle. (shrink)

L'enfantement est-il le propre de la femme? Pourquoi n'y a-t-il qu'un seul sexe qui enfante? Les hommes ne pourraient-ils pas aussi enfanter? Est-il encore nécessaire d'en passer par le corps des femmes pour mettre au monde les enfants? La fin de l'enfantement se présente-t-elle comme une libération ou comme une aliénation des femmes? Serait-ce un progrès de s'en passer ou, au contraire, une perte sèche pour l'humanité? Une seule question semble toutes les contenir : quelle est la raison d'être de (...) l'enfantement? (shrink)

The study of the ways of presentation and conservation of the ex-votos deposited in the Delian sanctuaries and recorded in the annual inventories, reveals two interesting phenomena in the functioning of sacred stewardship: The ingenuity of the donors and administrators in combining the requirements of display and arrangement and in their descriptions of them in the catalogues through the use of a rich vocabulary and strict syntax, can thus be underlined. Over the years one can also glimpse an evolution in (...) attitude, evidenced in the more sophisticated and striking presentation of offerings, to the detriment sometimes of the sobre piety that surrounded them at the beginning of Delian independence. (shrink)

For the past few decades a concern with heritage in the countries of the Arab Gulf has led to the reclamation of the purebred Arabian horse as one of the iconic animals of the Bedouin identity and...

Générations futures, animaux, rivières, espèces, écosystèmes, œuvres d’art, androïdes. La liste des entités non-humaines (ou non-individuelles) aspirant à la personnalité juridique s’allonge. Un nombre croissant d’État leur attribuent des droits dans le but de les protéger, avec plus ou moins de succès, en tant qu’entité à part entière. L’article 71 de la Constitution de l’Équateur figure parmi les exemples les plus marquants puisqu’il fait de la Nature ( Pacha Mama ) un sujet de droits au nom desquels on compte le (...) droit au respect de son existence et le droit à la régénération de ses cycles vitaux. La vulnérabilité de ces entités non-humaines appelle une protection dépassant les intérêts individuels. Souvent dépourvues de la personnalité juridique, ces entités ne peuvent pas agir en justice par elles-mêmes. Leurs intérêts, bien que de plus en plus protégés par les normes juridiques, demeurent partiellement défendus par l’appareil juridictionnel. Au-delà de la résistance de nos imaginaires politiques, cela s’explique par la difficulté théorique et pratique d’ouvrir l’accès au prétoire à des requérants agissant au nom d’autrui, en l’occurrence de ces entités. Ce sont les obstacles juridiques que nous tentons ici de lever. Le principe Nul ne plaide par procureur interdit à toute personne d’agir en défense d’un droit subjectif qui ne lui appartiendrait pas en propre, sans requérir un mandat de représentation du bénéficiaire du droit. L’intérêt pour agir que l’on présente comme la condition sine qua non de recevabilité de l’action se caractérise, en substance, par l’intérêt lésé du requérant. Les actions en justice dans l’intérêt d’autrui ne sont admises que par exception et sans que les concepts doctrinaux ne les embrassent pleinement. L’action en justice tout autant que la protection juridique des intérêts ont été pensées presque exclusivement par le prisme des intérêts et des besoins humains et individuels. La reconnaissance de droits aux non-humains rebat les cartes du droit processuel. Il faut repenser l’intérêt à agir comme condition de recevabilité susceptible d’être caractérisée par une motivation du requérant qui puisse être autre que la lésion de son propre droit. Il faut élargir la catégorie des bénéficiaires de droit aux entités, quelles qu’elles soient, dont les intérêts sont objectivement protégés par des normes juridiques. Il faut concevoir l’action en justice comme subordonnées non pas à un intérêt personnel du requérant mais à une norme d’habilitation dont le contenu est laissé à la décision des autorités normatives. Les voies processuelles peuvent accueillir une grande diversité de configurations. Il appartient à la sphère politique de pondérer la nécessité de garantir les droits sans encourager l’engorgement du prétoire. Toutefois, intégré au sein de ce que l’on appelle les « grandes causes », le contentieux des droits des non-humains participe à la transformation du rôle la justice dans nos systèmes. En dépassant le règlement des conflits individuels, elle doit aujourd’hui se prononcer sur des questions qui sont habituellement discutées au sein des arènes démocratiques ( cause lawyering ). JEL Codes : K380, K410. (shrink)

This essay examines the ways in which Daniel Maximin, a Guadeloupean writer, tackles the work of history and memory that constitutes the ethical imperative of postcolonial writers in the African diaspora. From Proust to Joyce, Camus to Blanchot, Maximin “riffs” on the modernist canon to produce a truly hybrid hermeneutics. In three inter-connected works that share characters and circumstances and owe much to Eco’s concept of the “open work”, Maximin crafts one giant unbounded, untelelogical self-referential narrative that shall heal the (...) diasporic obsession with the all too real fractures of colonial history. (shrink)

Autour du Manifeste de Vienne se trouvent reunis des textes fondateurs ecrits autour de 1929. Leurs auteurs: Carnap, Hahn, Neurath, Schlick l'ame du Cercle de Vienne, et Waismann plus proche de Wittgenstein, temoignent d'un courant philosophique constituant aujourd'hui la tradition analytique de source continentale a la fois empiriste et logique. Forme de maniere informelle a Vienne, au coeur de l'Europe, le Cercle reunissait des savants de differentes branches qui voulaient se donner une philosophie susceptible d' unifier leurs vues. Echo (...) aux reves d'unite de la science, cette philosophie en exprime aussi le renversement complet. Veritable Discours de la methode, mais d'esprit anti-cartesien, elle entend reconstruire la science de maniere a evincer la speculation metaphysique, le but etant qu'aucun enonce ne soit laisse a l'exterieur de cette grande architecture de symboles s'il etait pourvu de sens. La declaration de guerre contre la metaphysique est un geste de militance a une epoque riche en differents manifestes. Incomprehensible en dehors du contexte socio-politique viennois de ces annees, elle porte aussi un programme de reconstruction rationnelle qui, au dela du langage de la science, devait toucher tous les secteurs de la vie. Plus complexe qu'il n'y parait, ce programme contient, en reference a Wittgenstein, son prestigieux representant a cote d'Einstein et Russell, une mise en garde contre differentes formes d'irrationalismes, qui est d'actualite. (shrink)

For 30 years, Quine, a dominant figure in logical theory and philosophy of logic, has combined insights in methodology, language, epistemology, and ontology, to blur the boundaries of speculative metaphysics and natural sciences. This revised text contains two new essays with replies from Quine.

Pendant plusieurs décennies, voire plusieurs siècles, les inventaires de Délos ont recensé les offrandes déposées chaque année dans les différents sanctuaires de l’île sacrée. Parmi elles se trouvent de nombreuses dédicaces de vêtements et de tissus dont la description témoigne de l’inventivité lexicale et sémantique des administrateurs sacrés. Parallèlement aux offrandes, les inventaires mentionnent également des tissus aux fonctions multiples. L’objectif ici est d’examiner la terminologie propre aux textes de Délos afin de déterminer ensuite quels renseignements nous livre cette étude (...) sémantique : les textiles à Délos sont les vecteurs d’identités multiples, qu’ils soient les témoins de pratiques religieuses particulières ou qu’ils constituent un indice social de l’époque hellénistique. (shrink)

In recent years, the receipt and the perception of information has changed in ways which have fueled fears about the fates of our democracies. However, real information on these possibilities or the direction of these changes does not exist. Into this gap, Hahn and colleagues bring the power of Condorcet's (1785) Jury Theorem to show that changes in our information networks have affected voter inter‐dependence so that it is likely that voters are now collectively more ignorant even if individual (...) voter competence remains unchanged. (shrink)

Our beliefs and opinions are shaped by others, making our social networks crucial in determining what we believe to be true. Sometimes this is for the good because our peers help us form a more accurate opinion. Sometimes it is for the worse because we are led astray. In this context, we address via agent-based computer simulations the extent to which patterns of connectivity within our social networks affect the likelihood that initially undecided agents in a network converge on a (...) true opinion following group deliberation. The model incorporates a fine-grained and realistic representation of belief and trust, and it allows agents to consult outside information sources. We study a wide range of network structures and provide a detailed statistical analysis concerning the exact contribution of various network metrics to collective competence. Our results highlight and explain the collective risks involved in an overly networked or partitioned society. Specifically, we find that 96% of the variation in collective competence across networks can be attributed to differences in amount of connectivity and clustering, which are negatively correlated with collective competence. A study of bandwagon or “group think” effects indicates that both connectivity and clustering increase the probability that the network, wholly or partly, locks into a false opinion. Our work is interestingly related to Gerhard Schurz’s work on meta-induction and can be seen as broadly addressing a practical limitation of his approach. (shrink)

The twenty-sixth volume in the highly acclaimed Library of Living Philosophers series is devoted to the work of British philosopher of logic and metaphysician, P. F. Strawson. Following the Library of Living Philosophers series format, the volume contains an intellectual autobiography, twenty critical and descriptive essays by leading philosophers from around the world, Strawson's replies to the essays, and a bibliography of Strawson's works. Born in 1919, Strawson was a leading proponent of ordinary language philosophy. He is the author of (...) the early and extremely influential paper "On Referring" in which he criticized Russell's theory of definite descriptions. His most influential book, Individuals, helped to raise the status of metaphysics as a philosophical enterprise. Themes first addressed in this book continued to be of concern to him in his later work, including the possibility of objective knowledge, the subject-predicate distinction, the ontological status of persons, and the problem of individuation. Contributors to the book include: Ruth Garrett Millikan, Susan Haack, E. M. Adams, Panayot Butchvarov, Richard Behling, John McDowell, Simon Blackburn, Tadeusz Szubka, David Frederick Haight, Joseph S. Wu, Andrew G. Black, David Pears, Robert Boyd, Hilary Putnam, Paul F. Snowdon, Arindam Chakrabarti, Wenceslao J. Gonzalez, Ernest Sosa, Chung-M. Tse, John R. Searle, P. F. Strawson. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to introduce and defend a revised conception of responsibility - namely, participatory responsibility. It starts from the insight that some pressing problems of global injustice render our common conception of responsibility useless. As an alternative the author mainly discusses Iris Marion Young's social connection model of responsibility. However, Young's approach becomes unconvincing in addressing and weighing specific duties. The author therefore adds a basic rights approach to her conception and argues that mere participation in (...) a basic-rights-violating structure creates superordinated responsibilities for justice. Thus institutions and individual persons hold responsibility not because they have intentionally caused a foreseeable wrong, but because they have participated in, and thereby maintained, a social structure which has morally unacceptable effects. (shrink)

The notion of “the burden of proof” plays an important role in real-world argumentation contexts, in particular in law. It has also been given a central role in normative accounts of argumentation, and has been used to explain a range of classic argumentation fallacies. We argue that in law the goal is to make practical decisions whereas in critical discussion the goal is frequently simply to increase or decrease degree of belief in a proposition. In the latter case, it is (...) not necessarily important whether that degree of belief exceeds a particular threshold (e.g., ‘reasonable doubt’). We explore the consequences of this distinction for the role that the “burden of proof” has played in argumentation and in theories of fallacy. (shrink)

Argumentation is pervasive in everyday life. Understanding what makes a strong argument is therefore of both theoretical and practical interest. One factor that seems intuitively important to the strength of an argument is the reliability of the source providing it. Whilst traditional approaches to argument evaluation are silent on this issue, the Bayesian approach to argumentation (Hahn & Oaksford, 2007) is able to capture important aspects of source reliability. In particular, the Bayesian approach predicts that argument content and source (...) reliability should interact to determine argument strength. In this paper, we outline the approach and then demonstrate the importance of source reliability in two empirical studies. These experiments show the multiplicative relationship between the content and the source of the argument predicted by the Bayesian framework. (shrink)

This paper proposes a systematic framework for the analysis of tensions in corporate sustainability. The framework is based on the emerging integrative view on corporate sustainability, which stresses the need for a simultaneous integration of economic, environmental and social dimensions without, a priori, emphasising one over any other. The integrative view presupposes that firms need to accept tensions in corporate sustainability and pursue different sustainability aspects simultaneously even if they seem to contradict each other. The framework proposed in this paper (...) goes beyond the traditional triad of economic, environmental and social dimensions and argues that tensions in corporate sustainability occur between different levels, in change processes and within a temporal and spatial context. The framework provides vital groundwork for managing tensions in corporate sustainability based on paradox strategies. The paper then applies the framework to identify and characterise four selected tensions and illustrates how key approaches from the literature on strategic contradictions, tensions and paradoxes—i.e., acceptance and resolution strategies—can be used to manage these tensions. Thereby, it refines the emerging literature on the integrative view for the management of tensions in corporate sustainability. The framework also provides managers with a better understanding of tensions in corporate sustainability and enables them to embrace these tensions in their decision making. (shrink)

(2013). Rational argument, rational inference. Argument & Computation: Vol. 4, Formal Models of Reasoning in Cognitive Psychology, pp. 21-35. doi: 10.1080/19462166.2012.689327.

The last decade has witnessed the emergence of a paradox perspective on corporate sustainability. By explicitly acknowledging tensions between different desirable, yet interdependent and conflicting sustainability objectives, a paradox perspective enables decision makers to achieve competing sustainability objectives simultaneously and creates leeway for superior business contributions to sustainable development. In stark contrast to the business case logic, a paradox perspective does not establish emphasize business considerations over concerns for environmental protection and social well-being at the societal level. In order to (...) contribute to the consolidation of this emergent field of research, we offer a definition of the paradox perspective on corporate sustainability and a framework to delineate its descriptive, instrumental, and normative aspects. This framework clarifies the paradox perspective’s contents and its implications for research and practice. We use the framework to map the contributions to this thematic symposium on paradoxes in sustainability and to propose questions for future research. (shrink)

We examine in detail three classic reasoning fallacies, that is, supposedly ``incorrect'' forms of argument. These are the so-called argumentam ad ignorantiam, the circular argument or petitio principii, and the slippery slope argument. In each case, the argument type is shown to match structurally arguments which are widely accepted. This suggests that it is not the form of the arguments as such that is problematic but rather something about the content of those examples with which they are typically justified. This (...) leads to a Bayesian reanalysis of these classic argument forms and a reformulation of the conditions under which they do or do not constitute legitimate forms of argumentation. (shrink)

In this analysis of one of the most difficult and neglected topics in Hegelian studies, Songsuk Susan Hahn tackles the status of contradiction in Hegel's ...

Why should one go to see works of art if one can look at faces in clouds and other somewhat more complex forms in tarmac? Does my aesthetic experience discover something unprecedented when it takes products of human Intentionality as substrate rather than “natural objects” supposedly lacking all Intentionality? These questions raise that of the contribution of authorship in the framework of aesthetic experience ; they question the role of the author from one of a number of possible points of (...) view. The aim here is to advance this thought setting out from an experience of thought. Borrowing from the methodology of Arthur Danto displayed in The transfiguration of the commonplace, this experience of thought seeks to determine the structural differences between an aesthetic experience undertaken concerning Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and that undertaken concerning an indiscernable perceptible said to have been generated randomly by nature. The question at the heart of this article is how to characterize the difference implied by the presence of the data-author for the aesthetic experience (transl. J. Dudley). (shrink)

After over 300 years of scrutiny, the subject of Galileo continues to be pursued with unabating intensity. Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter points to the popular interest in the man and his legacy. The Catholic Church, understandably interested in dispelling the notion that its censure of Galileo centuries ago is proof positive that religious faith and science as well as ecclesiastical authority and free pursuit of scholarship are irreconcilable, continues to offer explanations. New books, articles and conferences probe both in breadth (...) and in depth the magnetic field charged by Galileo, science, and the Church. Galileo's analysis of the physics of motion has also received considerable attention. In particular, a great deal has been written during the past thirty years about the structure and objectives of three experiments with inclined planes. Galileo had carried them out in Padua and recorded them in his working papers. The assessments of the three experiments differ widely in points of detail, but all regard them as sophisticated, ingenious, and remarkable. This article presents a new critical study of these experiments. Its conclusion is that one of the experiments is indeed a success, but that the other two fail and are abandoned because Galileo did not have a firm enough grip on the underlying physical principles and mathematical relationships. (shrink)