A critic may attack an arguer personally by pointing out that the arguer’s position is pragmatically inconsistent: the arguer does not practice what he preaches. A number of authors hold that such attacks can be part of a good argumentative discussion. However, there is a difficulty in accepting this kind of contribution as potentially legitimate, for the reason that there is nothing wrong for a protagonist to have an inconsistent position, in the sense of committing himself to mutually inconsistent propositions. (...) If so, any such charge seems to be irrelevant. The questions to be answered in this essay are: what, if any, is the dialectical rationale for this type of criticism, and in what situations, if any, is this kind of charge dialectically legitimate? It will be shown that these attacks can be dialectically legitimate, in special circumstances, and that they can be seen as strategic␣manoeuvres where a party attempts to reconcile his dialectical and his rhetorical objectives. (shrink)

Skepticism described by Sextus Empiricus faces the persistent charge that it is an inconsistent, self-refuting view. However, recently its consistency hasbeen defended in three important ways: it is a thesis with weak assertion, it is a practice without any assertion, and it is a process developing over time.The first option is not well supported by Sextus’ texts, where even a weak assertion is not allowed. The second option cannot explain the rationality of skeptical arguments. The third option reveals two levels (...) of Sextan skepticism; however, the developing skeptic has to accept the self-refutation charge, and the mature skeptic takes flight from the charge without any rational answer. I claim that Sextus embraces the self-refutation charge. The mature skeptic’s speech acts are pragmatically inconsistent: their content cannot be asserted without contradiction. As a result, the charge of inconsistency is not answered. (shrink)

In this paper I shall consider the difficulty for Ethical Egoism, Act Utilitarianism and later what I shall call Cumulative Effect Utilitarianism, that they both commit the fallacy of pragmatic inconsistency. I shall distinguish various forms of the fallacy of pragmatic inconsistency; in particular I shall distinguish between the fallacy of direct and indirect pragmatic inconsistency, and shall argue that though both Ethical Egoism and Act Utilitarianism probably commit both, Cumulative Effect Utilitarianism does not.

A number of statements of the form 'x asserts p', Often described as pragmatically inconsistent, Are examined. By applying the predicate calculus and descriptive axioms to these sentences it is shown that if it is assumed that p is true a formal inconsistency is deducible from them. From the results of this analysis partial definitions of both assertion and pragmatic inconsistency are formulated.

Both behavioral and standard neoclassical economists place a heavy emphasis on the consistency of preferences. In particular, transitive preferences are considered a desideratum. This paper attempts to show that consistency at the level of individual choice may be pragmatically irrelevant. Consistently following an environmentally adapted rule can result in intransitive preferences without negative consequences for individual or social goals. I give three examples of this. Social scientists should look at intransitivity of choices as a challenge to offer better explanations rather (...) than as a normative defect. (shrink)

Mathias Frisch provides the first sustained philosophical discussion of conceptual problems in classical particle-field theories. Part of the book focuses on the problem of a satisfactory equation of motion for charged particles interacting with electromagnetic fields. As Frisch shows, the standard equation of motion results in a mathematically inconsistent theory, yet there is no fully consistent and conceptually unproblematic alternative theory. Frisch describes in detail how the search for a fundamental equation of motion is partly driven by pragmatic considerations (...) (like simplicity and mathematical tractability) that can override the aim for full consistency. The book also offers a comprehensive review and criticism of both the physical and philosophical literature on the temporal asymmetry exhibited by electromagnetic radiation fields, including Einstein's discussion of the asymmetry and Wheeler and Feynman's influential absorber theory of radiation. Frisch argues that attempts to derive the asymmetry from thermodynamic or cosmological considerations fail and proposes that we should understand the asymmetry as due to a fundamental causal constraint. The book's overarching philosophical thesis is that standard philosophical accounts that strictly identify scientific theories with a mathematical formalism and a mapping function specifying the theory's ontology are inadequate, since they permit neither inconsistent yet genuinely successful theories nor thick causal notions to be part of fundamental physics. (shrink)

Chemists do not aim at testing preconceptions or theoretical hypotheses only; they first and foremost produce and determine the object of chemical investigation: they learn through making. They never cease to create and stabilize heterogeneous devices, methods, models, and theories in order to act upon the world. Chemical bodies cannot be studied in isolation; their properties constitutively depend on what surrounds and acts upon them. Starting from the specificity of chemical practices, this paper investigates the meaning of consistency, inconsistency, (...) and that of the ceteris paribus clause, in this domain of science. In so doing, it defends the idea that studying what we call ‘a lack of consistency’ should always include the scrutiny of: the way a particular scientific practice is stabilized, and the ontological or pragmatic assumptions about the entities and processes upon which this practice revolves. (shrink)

Mark Schroeder has argued that all reasonable forms of inconsistency of attitude consist of having the same attitude type towards a pair of inconsistent contents (A-type inconsistency). We suggest that he is mistaken in this, offering a number of intuitive examples of pairs of distinct attitudes types with consistent contents which are intuitively inconsistent (B-type inconsistency). We further argue that, despite the virtues of Schroeder's elegant A-type expressivist semantics, B-type inconsistency is in many ways the more (...) natural choice in developing an expressivist account of moral discourse. We close by showing how to adapt ordinary formality-based accounts of logicality to define a B-type account of logical inconsistency and distinguish it from both semantic and pragmatic inconsistency. In sum, we provide a roadmap of how to develop a successful B-type expressivism. (shrink)

The mathematical concept of pragmatic truth, first introduced in Mikenberg, da Costa and Chuaqui (1986), has received in the last few years several applications in logic and the philosophy of science. In this paper, we study the logic of pragmatic truth, and show that there are important connections between this logic, modal logic and, in particular, Jaskowski's discussive logic. In order to do so, two systems are put forward so that the notions of pragmatic validity and (...) class='Hi'>pragmatic truth can be accommodated. One of the main results of this paper is that the logic of pragmatic truth is paraconsistent. The philosophical import of this result, which justifies the application of pragmatic truth to inconsistent settings, is also discussed. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 22 This is an attempt to discover and clarify the philosophical nature of what Eelco Runia claims to be his new and up-to-date philosophy of history, a programme offered in his 2014 book _Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation_. His suggestion that his argument is a “dance” is taken seriously, and following an analysis of historical “meaning” and its time-extended nature it is argued that the book’s presentation commits Runia to a conception of meaning (...) that requires more weight than he allows to the centrality of narrative understanding in history. His attempt to reconnect critical and substantive philosophies of history is analysed and criticised. His apparently inconsistent commitments to both Vico’s _verum-factum_ claim, where we can make history, and to Gumbrecht’s “presence”, where history can make us, is clarified in terms of a pragmatic philosophy that permits Runia to have the psychology-based approach that he relies upon. (shrink)

In this paper I argue against the stronger of the two views concerning the right and wrong kind of reasons for belief, i.e. the view that the only genuine normative reasons for belief are evidential. The project in this paper is primarily negative, but with an ultimately positive aim. That aim is to leave room for the possibility that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. Work is required to make room for this view, because evidentialism of a strict (...) variety remains the default view in much of the debate concerning normative reasons for belief. Strict versions of evidentialism are inconsistent with the view that there are genuine pragmatic reasons for belief. (shrink)

American jurisprudence currently applies two incompatible validity standards to determine which laws are enforceable. The natural law tradition evaluates validity by an uncertain standard of divine law, and its methodology relies on contradictory views of human reason. Legal positivism, on the other hand, relies on a methodology that commits the analytic fallacy, separates law from its application, and produces an incomplete model of law. These incompatible standards have created a schism in American jurisprudence that impairs the delivery of justice. This (...) dissertation therefore formulates a new standard for legal validity. This new standard rejects the uncertainties and inconsistencies inherent in natural law theory. It also rejects the narrow linguistic methodology of legal positivism. In their stead, this dissertation adopts a pragmatic methodology that develops a standard for legal validity based on actual legal experience. This approach focuses on the operations of law and its effects upon ongoing human activities, and it evaluates legal principles by applying the experimental method to the social consequences they produce. Because legal history provides a long record of past experimentation with legal principles, legal history is an essential feature of this method. This new validity standard contains three principles. The principle of reason requires legal systems to respect every subject as a rational creature with a free will. The principle of reason also requires procedural due process to protect against the punishment of the innocent and the tyranny of the majority. Legal systems that respect their subjects' status as rational creatures with free wills permit their subjects to orient their own behavior. The principle of reason therefore requires substantive due process to ensure that laws provide dependable guideposts to individuals in orienting their behavior. The principle of consent recognizes that the legitimacy of law derives from the consent of those subject to its power. Common law custom, the doctrine of stare decisis, and legislation sanctioned by the subjects' legitimate representatives all evidence consent. The principle of autonomy establishes the authority of law. Laws must wield supremacy over political rulers, and political rulers must be subject to the same laws as other citizens. Political rulers may not arbitrarily alter the law to accord to their will. Legal history demonstrates that, in the absence of a validity standard based on these principles, legal systems will not treat their subjects as ends in themselves. They will inevitably treat their subjects as mere means to other ends. Once laws do this, men have no rest from evil. (shrink)

Identifying which subjects are vulnerable, and implementing safeguards to protect them, is widely regarded as essential to clinical research. Commentators have endorsed a number of responses to these challenges and have thereby made significant progress in understanding vulnerability in clinical research. At the same time, this literature points to a central contradiction which calls into question its potential to protect vulnerable subjects in practice. Specifically, analysis suggests that all human subjects are vulnerable and vulnerability in clinical research is comparative and (...) context dependent, in the sense that individuals are vulnerable relative to others and in some contexts only. Yet, if everyone is vulnerable, there seems to be no point in citing the vulnerability of some individuals. Moreover, the conclusion that everyone is vulnerable seems inconsistent with the claims that vulnerability is comparative and context dependent, raising concern over whether it will be possible to develop a comprehensive account of vulnerability that is internally consistent. The solution to this dilemma lies in recognition of the fact that the practical significance of claims regarding vulnerability depends on the context in which they are used. The claims that appear to lead to the central contradiction are in fact accurate conclusions that follow from different uses of the term ‘vulnerability’. The present manuscript describes this ‘pragmatic’ approach to vulnerability in clinical research and considers its implications for ensuring that subjects receive appropriate protection. (shrink)

This paper outlines the fundamental of a new Pragmatics, formulated in a new conceptual framework, including a new normative system - Conversational Etiquette. It's claimed that it does better than the Gricean system or its offshoots, and covers a much broader domain. It's main new concepts are: Steering-Thrust; Posting; and Pragmatic Stances. Its main applications are: 1. Assertion is a Pragmatic construction, which invokes a raise in the degree of Steering Thrust. 2. 'presupposition' as used in Logic/Linguistics (or (...) what's in the 'Common Ground') is analyzed in terms of the new Pragmatics: The main phenomenon involves is: Posting-without Steering. 3. There is no Pragmatic Encroachment (into the semantics of 'know'). Fluctuations in knowledge-ascriptions in High/Low Stakes convey a DIFFERENT dominant Pragmatic content that drives our intuitions, which track so-called 'Sayability' rather than Truth-Values. 4. Pragmatic Inconsistencies amount to Steering-Thrusts in opposite directions (polarity). Moorean sentences invoke Pragmatic Inconsistencies. 5. Misleading is a Pragmatic phenomenon. (shrink)

Relational theories of normative language allegedly face special problems in accounting for the extent of disagreement, but this is everybody’s problem because normative sentences are relativized to different information in contexts of deliberation and advice. This paper argues that a relational theory provides a pragmatic solution that accounts for some disagreements as involving inconsistent preferences rather than beliefs. This is shown to be superior to the semantic solution offered by expressivists like Allan Gibbard, as it accounts for a wider (...) range of disagreements, explains a puzzling asymmetry, and avoids the expressivist’s problem with negation. This pragmatic account extends to fundamental disagreements involving preferences for different ends. Three different kinds of normative disagreement are distinguished: instrumental, rational, and outright. (shrink)

By articulating a Peircean strain of bioethical inquiry, Elizabeth Cooke admirably attempts to avert the anti-realism, subjectivism and focus on consensus that afflict much so-called “pragmatic” bioethics. Yet, like many of her Deweyan colleagues, she falls prey to the egalitarian conviction that inquiry should be undertaken by huge numbers of like-minded individuals, proceeding in accordance with an authoritative canon of rules of discourse. In this essay, I argue that Cooke's egalitarianism is inconsistent with her apparent commitment to Peirce, and (...) that an alternative, libertarian account of inquiry is better and truer to Peirce. (shrink)

Inspired by the early Wittgenstein’s concept of nonsense (meaning that which lies beyond the limits of language), we define two different, yet complementary, types of nonsense: formal nonsense and pragmatic nonsense. The simpler notion of formal nonsense is initially defined within Tarski’s semantic theory of truth; the notion of pragmatic nonsense, by its turn, is formulated within the context of the theory of pragmatic truth, also known as quasi-truth, as formalized by da Costa and his collaborators. While (...) an expression will be considered formally nonsensical if the formal criteria required for the assignment of any truth-value (whether true, false, pragmatically true, or pragmatically false) to such sentence are not met, a (well-formed) formula will be considered pragmatically nonsensical if the pragmatic criteria (inscribed within the context of scientific practice) required for the assignment of any truth-value to such sentence are not met. Thus, in the context of the theory of pragmatic truth, any (well-formed) formula of a formal language interpreted on a simple pragmatic structure will be considered pragmatically nonsensical if the set of primary sentences of such structure is not well-built, that is, if it does not include the relevant observational data and/or theoretical results, or if it does include sentences that are inconsistent with such data. (shrink)

Direct reference theory faces serious prima facie counterexamples which must be explained away (e.g., that it is possible to know a priori that Hesperus = Phosphorus). This is done by means of various forms of pragmatic explanation. But when those explanations that provisionally succeed are generalized to deal with analogous prima facie counterexamples concerning the identity of propositions, a fatal dilemma results. Either identity must be treated as a four-place relation (contradicting what just about everyone, including direct reference theorists, (...) takes to be essential to identity). Or direct reference theorists must incorporate a view that was rejected in pretty much our first lesson about identity—namely, that Hesperus at twilight is not identical to Hesperus at dawn. One way of the other, the direct reference theory is thus inconsistent with basic principles concerning the logic of identity, which nearly everyone, including direct reference theorists, take as starting points. (shrink)

Tarski’s assessment that natural language is inconsistent on account of the Liar Paradox is shown to be incorrect: what Tarski’s theorem in fact shows is that Truth is not a property of sentences but of propositions. By using propositions rather than sentences as the bearers of Truth, semantic closure within the same language is easily obtained. Tarski’s contrary assessment was partly based on confusions about propositions and their grammatical expression. But more centrally it arose through blindness to pragmatic factors (...) in language — a blindness that was common in his time, and it has continued to the present day, in discussions of ‘Open Pairs’, and Yablo-type paradoxes, for instance. For completeness, it is also shown that the Fixed Point Theorem does not apply to propositions, because of categorical differences between sentences and propositions — also predicates and properties. (shrink)

I explain how Karl Popper resolved the problem of induction but not the pragmatic problem of induction. I show that Popper’s solution to the pragmatic problem of induction is inconsistent with his solution to the problem of induction. I explain how Popper’s falsificationist epistemology can solve the pragmatic problem of induction in the same negative way that it solves the problem of induction.

One of the crucial debates within pragmatism concerns the import of Charles S. Peirce’s “pragmatic maxim.” The aim of this article is to show that Peirce maintains a twofold attitude toward his maxim. I would call this twofold approach ‘problematical,’ not because it is the origin of inconsistencies within Peirce’s thought, but because the collocation and use of the pragmatic maxim constitutes a genuine problem upon which Peirce continued to reflect throughout his life.1 This problem concerns the relationship (...) among semantics, metaphysics, and what Peirce called the “Normative Sciences,” i.e., the inquiry into the correct normative criteria for human self-control.On the one hand, Peirce stresses repeatedly that his.. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce believed that his pragmatic philosophy could reconcile religion and science and that this reconciliation involves a religious ethics creating a real community with the cosmos and God. After some rival pragmatic approaches to God and religious belief inconsistent with Peirce's philosophy are set aside, his metaphysical plan for a reconciliation of religion and science is outlined. A panentheistic God makes the best match with his desired conclusions from the Neglected Argument for the reality of God, (...) and this God is also capable of fulfilling the pragmatic role demanded by Peirce's ethical expectations for the intelligent functioning of religion. The discussion proceeds to an elaboration of the aesthetic, metaphysical, and ethical elements of Peirce's philosophical system, which indicate why Peirce's religious ethics is best categorized as akin to Stoicism, with some Christian elements. For Peirce, religious ethics proceeds from the (potentially universal) agapic community's cooperation with God's loving creativity of the universe. (shrink)

The ‘tobacco-free generation’ policy, which bans cigarette sales based on birth year, presents a bold public health initiative but raises significant ethical and practical concerns. As behaviours like drug use become legal and criminal penalties are reduced, singling out smoking for generational restriction appears inconsistent within an increasingly permissive society. Kniess1 critiques this approach for creating inequities by selectively limiting freedoms, conflicting with principles of fairness and adult autonomy. A more balanced public health strategy could involve uniform restrictions on harmful (...) substances or prioritising informed personal choice, supported by harm reduction and education to encourage healthier alternatives. The generational smoking ban targets specific birth cohorts, prohibiting tobacco sales to those born after a certain year. Unlike universal bans, it creates two distinct adult classes—those permitted to smoke and those who are not—resulting in an apparently arbitrary division. Critics, including Schmidt,2 point to the ethical inconsistency of restricting liberties for some while leaving others untouched. This policy design has been defended as a pragmatic compromise, aiming to protect future generations without infringing on the established habits of current smokers (Grill and Voigt).3 Kniess1 evaluates this selective restriction through relational egalitarianism which emphasises the importance of equal social relationships. The cut-off, …. (shrink)

The programmatic statement put forward in von Wright's last works on deontic logic introduces the perspective of logical pragmatics, which has been formally explicated here and extended so to include the role of norm-recipient as well as the role of norm-giver. Using the translation function from the language of deontic logic to the language of set-theoretical approach, the connection has been established between the deontic postulates, on one side, and the perfection properties of the norm-set and the counter-set, on the (...) other side. In the study of conditions of rational norm-related activities it has been shown that diverse dynamic second-order norms related to the concept of the consistency norm-system hold: -- the norm-giver ought to restore ``classical'' consistency by revising an inconsistent system, -- the norm-recipient ought to preserve an inconsistent system by revision of its logic so that inconsistency does not imply destruction of the system. Dialetheic deontic logic of Priest is a suitable logic for the purpose since it preserves other perfection properties of the system. (shrink)

I argue that fallibilism, single-premise epistemic closure, and one formulation of the “knowledge-action principle” are inconsistent. I will consider a possible way to avoid this incompatibility, by advocating a pragmatic constraint on belief in general, rather than just knowledge. But I will conclude that this is not a promising option for defusing the problem. I do not argue here for any one way of resolving the inconsistency.

Hurford’s Constraint (Hurford, Foundations of Language, 11, 409–411, 1974) states that a disjunction is infelicitous if its disjuncts stand in an entailment relation: #John was born in Paris or in France. Gazdar (Pragmatics, Academic Press, NY, 1979) observed that scalar implicatures can obviate the constraint. For instance, sentences of the form (A or B) or (Both Aand B) are felicitous due to the exclusivity implicature of the first disjunct: A or B implicates ‘not (A and B)’. Chierchia, Fox, and Spector (...) (Handbook of semantics, 2008) use the obviation of Hurford’s Constraint in these cases to argue for a theory of local implicature. I present evidence indicating that the constraint needs to be modified in two ways. First, implicatures can obviate Hurford’s Constraint only in earlier disjuncts, not later ones: #(Both A and B) or (A or B). Second, the constraint rules out not only disjuncts that stand in an entailment relation, but also disjuncts that are even mutually consistent: #John is from Russia or Asia. I propose to make sense of these facts by providing an incremental evaluation procedure which checks that each new disjunct to the right is inconsistent with the information to its left, before the disjunct can be strengthened by local implicature. (shrink)

Central to Paul K. Feyerabend's philosophy of science are two theses: (1) there is no standard observation language available to science; instead, observability is to be viewed as a pragmatic matter; and (2) when considering questions of empirical significance and experimental test, the methodological unit of science is a set of inconsistent theories. I argue that the pragmatic theory of observation by itself decides neither for nor against any particular specification of meaning for an observation language; and that (...) Feyerabend's position provides no decision procedure when two contending theories share no terms having the same meaning, and thus cannot be said to be logically incompatible. Also, Feyerabend's insistence upon falsification will force him to admit that there are relatively permanent facts available to all theories, or to abandon the idea of test as falsification and to conclude that scientific theories can only be accepted or rejected on the basis of non-evidential considerations. (shrink)

Peirce trod a fine line between the extremes of nominalism and realism, tough-minded pragmatism and metaphysical speculation. As Peter Skagestad makes clear, Peirce's system of thought was fragmented, incomplete, and sometimes inconsistent.

In this paper I undertake to resolve a main pragmatic puzzle triggered by Bank-type cases. After accepting ‘sanitized’ intuitions about Truth-Values, as reflected in x-phi experiments, the pragmatic puzzle about whether the husband is inconsistent remains, and if he isn’t, which intuitively is the case, how are we to explain it. The context in such cases is pragmatic, with awareness of high risks, and the treatment I propose is pragmatic as well, but not Gricean. I offer (...) a new Pragmatics whose main tools are Steering Thrust and Posting. It focuses on what I call Action-Directed Pragmatics. An overall view of Pragmatics centers on the primary resort to Sayability rather than to Truth-Values, and to the Pragmatic phenomenon of co-present operative norm-types, which can conflict in some cases vis-à-vis particular actions and about what subjects can say. The very satisfactory explanation of the above puzzle that I offer is in such terms. In particular, attention is focused on the phenomenon of Negative-Polarity Pragmatic Functors. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a new approach to the foundation of mathematics: non-monotonic set theory. I present two completely different methods to develop set theories based on adaptive logics. For both theories there is a finitistic non-triviality proof and both theories contain (a subtle version of) the comprehension axiom schema. The first theory contains only a maximal selection of instances of the comprehension schema that do not lead to inconsistencies. The second allows for all the instances, also the inconsistent (...) ones, but restricts the conclusions one can draw from them in order to avoid triviality. The theories have enough expressive power to form a justification/explication for most of the established results of classical mathematics. They are therefore not limited by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. This remarkable result is possible because of the non-recursive character of the final proofs of theorems of non-monotonic theories. I shall argue that, precisely because of the computational complexity of these final proofs, we cannot claim that non-monotonic theories are ideal foundations for mathematics. Nevertheless, thanks to their strength, first order language and the recursive dynamic (defeasible) proofs of theorems of the theory, the non-monotonic theories form (what I call) interesting pragmatic foundations. (shrink)

Nicholas Rescher tackles the major questions of philosophical inquiry, pondering the nature of truth and existence. In the authoritative voice and calculated manner that we’ve come to expect from this distinguished philosopher, Rescher argues that the development of knowledge is a practice, pursued by humans because we have a need for its products. This pragmatic approach satisfies our innate urge as humans to make sense of our surroundings. Taking his discussion down to the level of particular details, and addressing (...) such topics as inductive validation, hypostatization fallacies, and counterfactual reasoning, Rescher abandons abstract generalities in favor of concrete specifics. For example, philosophers usually insist that to reason logically from a counterfactual, we must imagine a possible world in which the statement is fact. But Rescher argues that there’s no need to attempt to accept the facts of a world outside our cognition in order to reason from them. He shows us how we can use our own natural system of prioritizing, our own understanding of the fundamental, to resolve the inconsistencies in such statements as, “If the Eiffel Tower were in Manhattan, then it would be in New York State.” In using dozens of real-world examples such as these, and in arguing in his characteristically succinct style, Rescher casts light on a wide variety of concrete issues in the classical theory of knowledge, and reassures us along the way that the inherent limitations on our knowledge are no cause for distress. In pragmatic theory and inquiry, we must accept that the best we can do is good enough, because we only have a certain set of tools and conceptualizations available to us. A unique synthesis, this endeavor into pragmatic epistemology will be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

In the January 2020 issue of this journal, Rory Misiewicz penned an excellent review of Brandon Daniel-Hughes's book. His one complaint is that Daniel-Hughes appeals to my theory that the Ultimate is "entirely indeterminate and absolute nothingness that contextualizes all things." This he claims to be inconsistent with Peirce. I do not want to defend Daniel-Hughes's use of my idea, although I surely congratulate him. I do want to correct Misiewicz's understanding of it, however.My idea is that all thought is (...) determinate, at least in part, and is therefore consequent to its creation. I give long, convoluted, but utterly persuasive arguments that the existence of any determinate things is the... (shrink)

[[[ (Here only the chapters 3 – 8, see *** ) First I argue that the prohibition of linguistic self-reference as a solution to the antinomy problem contains a pragmatic contradiction and is thus not only too restrictive, but just inconsistent (chap.1). Furthermore, the possibilities of non-restrictive strategies for antinomy avoidance are discussed, whereby the explicit inclusion of the – pragmatically presuposed – consistency requirement proves to be the optimal strategy (chap.2). ]]] The central question here is that about (...) the actual reason for antinomic structures. It turns out to be a form of negative self-conditioning (chap.3). This makes it necessary to clarify the status of negative concepts (chap.4). The generalization of these considerations (chap.5) leads to the actual analysis of the antinomic basic structure (chap.6): Decisively for the pragmatics of the concept is that it positively owns a meaning, so that positivity is always constituted by the concept qua concept. Thus a negative concept is characterized by a fundamental ambivalence: From a semantic point of view it has negative character, in its pragmatic status as a concept, however, it has positive character. If the meaning is especially that of a negative self-reference, the ambivalence leads to the antinomic constellation of a negative self-condition – that is the crux of the matter here! The concept thus possesses the property defined by it exactly when it does not possess it and vice versa. A closer analysis shows that the function of reflective structures for the occurrence of antinomies has to be judged much more differentiated than previous opinions suggest. Not only are four forms of reflectivity to be distinguished in this context – ontic, semantic, pragmatic reflectivity, and especially the form of negative self-condition; but it is also apparent that these are intertwined with each other in a way that is difficult to be understood. The astonishing variety of relationships associated with this makes the irritation that has always emanated from the antinomy problem appear more comprehensible. In the developed pragmatic perspective furtheron parallels to the structure of self-consciousness become visible (chap.7). I conclude with considerations about the significance of the antinomic structure for the problem of dialectics, especially for the synthesis formation of mutually exclusive terms (chap.8). (shrink)

A few years ago, I found myself sitting next to a renowned Language poet at a poetry reading in a crowded downtown Manhattan venue. A longtime fan, I introduced myself and shared with him that I had just taught some of his infamously challenging poems in a poetry class at Tel Aviv University and that students were very responsive. When I mentioned that it was hard to get hold of some of his books but that we had found the poems (...) online, he told me how glad he was that, thanks to the internet, his work is accessible in Tel Aviv and everywhere else. Unable to resist the temptation to play language games with a Language poet, I responded by saying that his work was actually far from accessible. This pun/paradox seems to me to apply as well to the online archive UbuWeb—a “pirate library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts.” Founded in 1996, UbuWeb provides access to cultural artifacts in the form of video, text, and sound, works that are difficult to access not just because they are obscure, forgotten, unknown, rare, out of print, or otherwise hard to find, but because, as avant-garde, part of their operation involves, let us say, problematizing accessibility.UbuWeb's story is the subject of Duchamp Is My Lawyer, an accessible memoir/manifesto, deftly written by its founder and near-sole operator, the luminary conceptual artist Kenneth Goldsmith (“UbuWeb is mostly just me”). Its title, which Goldsmith takes from Virgil Abloh, raises at least two questions: Why does Ubu need a metaphorical lawyer, and why would Duchamp fill the bill? The first question has to do with the precarious legality of the website, which, as Goldsmith tells us in detail, almost never asks for permission from copyright holders, uploading materials first and dealing with consequences later. Much of the book deals with the maneuvering involved with “hiding in plain sight”—interpreting “fair use” broadly, and standing up to scary-sounding cease-and-desist letters that sometimes come from parties who are not even the actual rights holders of the material. Instead of playing the game of compliance, Ubu partakes in an anti-capitalist, free-for-all gift economy, never paying or asking for payment for the priceless treasures it houses. The democratic vision seeps into the selection and organization of the material on the website, which throughout the book Goldsmith describes as boundary-blurring, jumbled, unstable, biased, subjective, incomplete, fluid, idiosyncratic, and nonhierarchical.But again, why Duchamp? Ushering in an entire avant-garde tradition that Ubu celebrates, archives, and manifests in its own rebellious, outlaw spirit of operation, Duchamp, a hero in the book and, presumably, for its author, functions as both precedent and justification. After all, Ubu duplicates what Duchamp did in his most famous artistic intervention: the repurposing of found objects. In that sense, as Goldsmith writes, “UbuWeb can be considered one enormous appropriative artwork, a giant collage, which appropriates not a single object but rather the entire history of the avant-garde.” While the word entire is perhaps a stretch (and inconsistent with Goldsmith's many descriptions of the site's collection as inevitably partial and subjective), UbuWeb is best appreciated, I think, as a giant work of art made of works of art (some of which are themselves, in the tradition of “found art” and collage, made of works of art), a creative noncreation and akin to Goldsmith's own notion of “uncreative writing.” The radical accessibility it offers, from which so many users around the world continue to benefit, has thankfully not curtailed the equally radical inaccessibility of the material within. (shrink)

Meinongian 'objects' are evoked in an effort to critique and expand upon traditional theories of reference. The argument stems from an account of Peirce's categories of meaning in light of vague, contradictory, inconsistent, general, incomplete, and incompleteable signs. In addition to signs as either 'true', 'false', or meaningless, the function of imaginary numbers reveals the possibility of a sign's being both 'true' and 'false' or neither 'true' nor 'false', over time, and dialogically speaking. This demands a tolerance for vagueness, ambiguity, (...) contradiction, and incessantly changing meaning. (shrink)

This article outlines criteria for the evaluation of the argumentum ad hominem (argument against the person, or personal attack in argument) that is traditionally a part of the curriculum in informal logic. The argument is shown to be a kind of criticism which works by shifting the burden of proof in dialogue through citing a pragmatic inconsistency in an arguer's position. Several specific cases of ad hominem argumentation which pose interesting problems in analyzing this type of criticism are (...) studied. (shrink)

I defend traditional aesthetics against sociological criticism. I argue that “historicist” approaches are not supported by arguments and are intrinsically implausible. Hence the traditional ahistorical philosophical approach to the judgment of taste is justified. Many Marxist, feminist and postmodernist writers either eliminate aesthetic value or reduce it to their favourite political value. Others say that they merely want to give a historical explanation of the culturally local phenomenon of thinking in terms of the aesthetic. As a preliminary, I point out (...) that the conception of the aesthetic these theorists operate with is a straw man. In particular, Kant would have rejected it. I then point out that the empirical evidence does not support their historicist views. Most sociological theorists adduce no evidence, thinking their view obviously correct. Where evidence is adduced, the evidence has little connection with their general historicist conclusions. Lastly, I put pressure on the historicist view, first by appealing to the enormity of the error attributed to ordinary people, and second by appealing to the inevitability of pragmatic inconsistency by those who assert the view. I conclude that traditional philosophical aesthetics was right to be ahistorical. (shrink)

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2008v12n2p203 The preface paradox is the apparent pragmatic inconsistency that occurs when the author of a book declares in its preface that despite believing that it is highly probable that everything the book maintains is true it is also highly probable that the book contains at least some errors. The preface paradox has often been presented as an example of a logically inconsistent belief that it is nevertheless rational to accept, supporting the suggestion that rationality has nothing immediately (...) to do with avoiding formal logical inconsistency in one’s beliefs. In contrast with complicated received solutions, I explain a simple method of avoiding inconsistency in preface paradox assertions by indexing the two claims to distinct probability or justification sources, referencing in the first case the conscientious efforts to eliminate errors and in the second case the chagrin of past experience in discovering previously unsuspected errors in published writings. The solution thereby helps preserve the concept of rationality as logical consistency of belief, and avoids the conclusion that the preface paradox proves that it is sometimes rational to accept logically inconsistent beliefs. (shrink)

This book reconstructs the history of skepticism ranging from ancient to contemporary times, from Pyrrho to Kripke. The main skeptical stances and the historical reconstruction of the concept of skepticism are connected with an analysis of their recurrent inconsistency. The author reveals that this inconsistency is not a logical contradiction but a pragmatic one. She shows that it is a contradiction between the content of the skeptical position and the implicit presumption of the act of its assertion. (...) The thesis of global skepticism cannot be accepted as true without falling into the pragmatic inconsistency. The author explains, how skepticism was important for exposing the limits of human knowledge and inspired its development. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is commonly characterized as the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. Little has been said, however, on how best to construe these representational devices—in other words, on what conceptual engineering should be all about. This paper tackles this problem with a basic strategy: First, by presenting a taxonomy of the different possible subject matters for conceptual engineering; then, by comparatively assessing them and selecting the most conducive one with a view to making conceptual engineering an actionable (...) method, that is, a method that can be applied effectively and consistently to specific case studies. The outcome is that conceptual engineering should be all about concepts on pain of pragmatic inconsistencies otherwise. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering is commonly characterized as the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. Little has been said, however, on how best to construe these representational devices—in other words, on what conceptual engineering should be all about. This paper tackles this problem with a basic strategy: First, by presenting a taxonomy of the different possible subject matters for conceptual engineering; then, by comparatively assessing them and selecting the most conducive one with a view to making conceptual engineering an actionable (...) method, that is, a method that can be applied effectively and consistently to specific case studies. The outcome is that conceptual engineering should be all about concepts on pain of pragmatic inconsistencies otherwise. (shrink)

Quasi-truth (a.k.a. pragmatic truth or partial truth) is typically advanced as a framework accounting for incompleteness and uncertainty in the actual practices of science. Also, it is said to be useful for accommodating cases of inconsistency in science without leading to triviality. In this paper, we argue that the formalism available does not deliver all that is promised. We examine the standard account of quasi-truth in the literature, advanced by da Costa and collaborators in many places, and argue (...) that it cannot legitimately account for incompleteness in science. We shall claim that it conflates paraconsistency and paracompleteness. It also cannot properly account for inconsistencies, because no direct contradiction of the form S ∧ ¬S can be quasi-true according to the framework; contradictions simply have no place in the formalism. Finally, we advance an alternative interpretation of the formalism in terms of dealing with distinct contexts where incompatible information is dealt with. This does not save the original program, but seems to make better sense of the apparatus. (shrink)

Where do the rules of critical discussion get their normative force? What kinds of norms are involved? Unreasonable behaviour in the critical discussion - e.g., continuing to assert the contradictory of a proven standpoint, performing some action pragmatically inconsistent with a proven standpoint, or the same with regard to the starting-points agreed to in the opening stage - is liable to moral sanction. Thus, a moral/ethical norm is involved and the rules must have a moral force. Pragma-dialectics as it stands (...) does not seem to account for this moral force. I will attempt to fill this gap in pragma-dialectical theory. (shrink)

This paper discusses a set of observations, many of which are novel, concerning differences between the adjectival modals _certain_ and _possible_ and their adverbial counterparts _certainly_ and _possibly_. It argues that the observations can be derived from a standard interpretation of _certain_/_certainly_ as universal and _possible_/_possibly_ as existential quantifiers over possible worlds, in conjunction with the hypothesis that the adjectives quantify over knowledge and the adverbs quantify over belief. The claims on which the argument relies include the following: (i) knowledge (...) implies belief, (ii) agents have epistemic access to their belief, (iii) relevance is closed under speakers’ belief, and (iv) commitment is pragmatically inconsistent with explicit denial of belief. (shrink)

The paper's focus is on pragmatic arguments for various ‘rationality constraints’ on a decision maker’s state of mind: on his beliefs or preferences. An argument of this kind purports to show that a violator of a given constraint can be exposed to a decision problem in which he will act to his guaranteed disadvantage. Dramatically put, he can be exploited by a clever bookie who doesn’t know more than the agent himself. Examples of pragmatic arguments of this kind (...) are synchronic Dutch Books, for the standard probability axioms, diachronic Dutch Books, for the more controversial principles of reflection and conditionalization, and Money Pumps, for the transitivity requirement on preferences. The proposed exploitation set-ups share a common feature. If the violator of a given constraint is logically and mathematically competent, he can be exploited only if he is disunified in his decision-making. Exploitation is possible only if the agent makes decisions on various issues he confronts one by one, rather than on all of them together. Unity in decision making may be quite costly and is often inconvenient, especially when it concerns opportunity packages that are spread over time. Therefore, pragmatic arguments should be seen as delivering conditional conclusions: “To afford being disunified as a decision maker, you’d better satisfy these constraints.” Arguments of this kind fail to establish the inherent rationality of the constraints under consideration. Levi’s view of the status of pragmatic arguments (cf. Levi 2002) is diametrally opposed. According to him, only synchronic pragmatic arguments are valid (indeed, categorically valid). The diachronic ones, he argues, lack any validity at all. This line of reasoning is questioned in the paper. (shrink)

The situationally disqualifying ad hominem attack is an argumentative move in critical dialogue whereby one participant points out certain features in his adversary's personal situation that are claimed to make it inappropriate for this adversary to take a particular point of view, to argue in a particular way, or to launch certain criticisms. In this paper, we discuss some examples of this way of arguing. Other types of ad hominem argumentation are discussed as well and compared with the situationally disqualifying (...) type. The socalled Houtlosser Dilemma highlights the danger of unconditionally condoning ad hominem arguments. We propose a classification of ad hominem, and a more restrictive use of the term 'circumstantial'. Finally, we discuss whether ad hominem arguments are (always?) to be rejected as fallacious. (shrink)

Russellianism is characterized as the view that ‘that’-clauses refer to Russellian propositions, familiar set-theoretic pairings of objects and properties. Two belief-reporting sentences, S and S*, possessing the same Russellian content, but differing in their intuitive truthvalue, are provided. It is argued that no Russellian explanation of the difference in apparent truthvalue is available, with the upshot that the Russellian fails to explain how a speaker who asserts S but rejects S* can be innocent of inconsistency, either in what she (...) says or, at least, in what she implicates. Yet, while there is no semantic or pragmatic explanation of the substitution failure consistent with Russellianism, there remains the possibility of a purely psychological explanation that is, nonetheless, Russellian. This is an attractive option. It comes at a cost, however, since, in abandoning the project of providing a semantic or pragmatic explanation of anti-substitutivity intuitions, the Russellian is no longer in the business of explaining how a rational, well-informed speaker, with no incentive to mislead, can avoid inconsistency in reporting the facts as they appear. (shrink)

Philosophers have not resisted temptation to transgress against the logic of their own conceptual structures. Self-undermining position-taking is an occupational hazard. Philosophy stands in need of conceptual therapy. The author describes three conceptions of philosophy: the narcissistic, disputatious, and therapeutic. (i) Narcissistic philosophy is hermetic, believing itself to contain all evidence that can possibly be relevant to it. Philosophy undertaken in this spirit has led to defensive, monadically isolated positions. (ii) Disputatious philosophies are fundamentally question-begging, animated by assumptions that philosophical (...) adversaries reject. (iii) The intention of therapeutic philosophy is to study philosophical positions from the standpoint of their internal consistency, or lack of it. In particular, its interest is in positions that either compel assent, because they cannot be rejected without self-referential inconsistency, or self-destruct because self-referential inconsistency cannot be avoided. The article's focus is on the latter. Several examples of self-undermining positions are drawn from the history of philosophy, exemplifying two main varieties of self-referential inconsistency: pragmatical and projective. (shrink)

In Beyond Rigidity, Soames attempts to defend Millianism by articulating a novel account of the semantics and pragmatics of sentences containing names. Soames uses this account both to respond to the objection that Millianism unintuitively allows the unrestricted substitution of coreferential names in propositional attitude contexts, and to generate a positive argument for Millianism. I argue that the positive argument fails, and that Soames’s account of the semantics and pragmatics of sentences containing names is inconsistent with Millianism.

By distinguishing between pragmatic and semantic aspects of emotivism, and by distinguishing between inflationary and deflationary conceptions of truth conditions, this paper defends emotivism against a series of objections. First, it is not the case (as Blackburn has argued) that emotivism must explain the appearance that moral sentences have truth conditions. Second, it is not the case (as Boghossian has argued) that emotivism presupposes that non-moral sentences have inflationary truth conditions. Finally, it is not the case (as Geach and (...) Blackburn have argued) that emotivism is inconsistent with the validity of certain simple arguments. (shrink)