Critical thinking is a complex, dynamic process formed by attitudes and strategic skills, with the aim of achieving a specific goal or objective. The attitudes, including the critical thinking attitudes, constitute an important part of the idea of good care, of the good professional. It could be said that they become a virtue of the nursing profession. In this context, the ethics of virtue is a theoretical framework that becomes essential for analyse the critical thinking concept in (...) nursing care and nursing science. Because the ethics of virtue consider how cultivating virtues are necessary to understand and justify the decisions and guide the actions. Based on selective analysis of the descriptive and empirical literature that addresses conceptual review of critical thinking, we conducted an analysis of this topic in the settings of clinical practice, training and research from the virtue ethical framework. Following JBI critical appraisal checklist for text and opinion papers, we argue the need for critical thinking as an essential element for true excellence in care and that it should be encouraged among professionals. The importance of developing critical thinking skills in education is well substantiated; however, greater efforts are required to implement educational strategies directed at developing critical thinking in students and professionals undergoing training, along with measures that demonstrate their success. Lastly, we show that critical thinking constitutes a fundamental component in the research process, and can improve research competencies in nursing. We conclude that future research and actions must go further in the search for new evidence and open new horizons, to ensure a positive effect on clinical practice, patient health, student education and the growth of nursing science. (shrink)

Thinking on Screen: Film as Philosophy is an accessible and thought-provoking examination of the way films raise and explore complex philosophical ideas. Written in a clear and engaging style, Thomas Wartenberg examines films' ability to discuss, and even criticize ideas that have intrigued and puzzled philosophers over the centuries such as the nature of personhood, the basis of morality, and epistemological skepticism. Beginning with a demonstration of how specific forms of philosophical discourse are presented cinematically, Wartenberg moves on to (...) offer a systematic account of the ways in which specific films undertake the task of philosophy. Focusing on the films The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Modern Times, The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Third Man, The Flicker, and Empire, Wartenberg shows how these films express meaningful and pertinent philosophical ideas. This book is essential reading for students of philosophy with an interest in film, aesthetics, and film theory. It will also be of interest to film enthusiasts intrigued by the philosophical implications of film. (shrink)

In the opening paragraph of “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” Alan Turing famously notes that “if the meaning of the words ‘machine’ and ‘think’ are to be found by examining how they are commonly used it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the meaning and the answer to the question, ‘Can machines think?’ is to be sought in a statistical survey such as a Gallup poll.” He then immediately responds, “But this is absurd.” But why is this absurd, if indeed (...) it is? We think that the suggested method is absurd because the answer to the question might not follow from the meaning of the words alone—it might critically depend on what machines can be built to do. Further, the ordinary use of the terms might display shallow biases or superstitions that we want to set aside, or overcome, in pursuing a science or philosophy of mind. However, we do not think that the method is absurd insofar as we are interested in getting clear on “the normal use of the words,” as Turing puts it. And we believe that getting clear on the normal use of words like “machine” and “think” is relevant even if we then want to move beyond the ordinary usage in our theorizing. But the best way to figure out how ordinary people use language is via empirical investigation. (shrink)

Spirituality is rarely researched within an academic setting; where it is, it is typically understood as a dependent variable that is measured or assessed via questionnaires or behavioural forms of observation (e.g. spirituality as a mediator of life-satisfaction). In the current article, by contrast, I introduce the concept of processual (or meditative) thinking as an instrument to explore spiritual activity as a mode of research rather than a dependent variable. An empirical access route to this manner of processual (...) thinking will be described and I will illustrate how such processual thinking can complement the standard repertoire of scientific enquiry. (shrink)

How do managers think about the relationship between the pursuit of economic success and ethical demands? This paper presents the main results of a qualitative-empirical study (Ulrich and Thielemann, 1992). The range of thinking patterns displayed by Swiss managers in this field of tension is elucidated and typologized. The results are then compared with those yielded by other studies on managerial ethics. Although the comparisons reveal essential parallels, the findings of previous investigations are interpreted in a considerably different (...) manner. In particular it is shown that, on the strength of a systematic conception of the fundamental problem of business ethics, the frequently heard assertion that the vast majority of managers are ethical opportunists must be revised. The internationally prevailing thinking pattern among managers does not prove to be ethical opportunism or even cynicism buteconomism, i.e. theethical conviction that economically appropriate actionin itself is ethically good as such. (shrink)

This is a review of the book by E.G. Dragalina-Chyornaya “Informal notes on logical form". The review discusses the structure and the main ideas of the book. The review focuses on the author's arguments in favor of the dynamic regulatory model of logic and provides a critical analysis of them.

What is going on under the hood in philosophical analysis, that familiar process that attempts to uncover the nature of such philosophically interesting kinds as knowledge, causation, and justice by the method of posit and counterexample? How, in particular, do intuitions tell us about philosophical reality? The standard, if unappealing, answer is that philosophical analysis is conceptual analysis—that what we learn about when we do philosophy is in the first instance facts about our own minds. Drawing on recent work on (...) the psychology of concepts, this book proposes a new understanding of philosophical analysis, which I call inductive analysis. The thesis that philosophical analysis is inductive analysis explains how novel, substantive philosophical knowledge can be generated in the armchair. It also explains why attempts at philosophical analysis tend to fall short of providing a complete and uncontroversial definition, and supplies reasons not to lament this apparent shortcoming. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic: Critical AssessmentsDaniel BreazealeGideon Freudenthal, editor. Salomon Maimon: Rational Dogmatist, Empirical Skeptic: Critical Assessments. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003. pp vii + 304. Cloth, $135.00.This collection of previously unpublished essays on one of the more idiosyncratic and complex figures in the history of philosophy begins with a splendid introductory essay by the editor, "A Philosopher between Two Cultures," emphasizing the "inter-cultural" character of (...) Maimon's achievement and his position as an outsider with respect to both the traditional Jewish community and that of modern German philosophy, a position reflected in Maimon's strategy of advancing his systematic philosophy by means of eccentric "commentaries" on such authors as Maimonides, Newton, and Kant.Maimon's "dual cultural project" is also the theme of a fine essay by Yossif Schwartz, "Causa materialis: Solomon Maimon, Moses ben Maimon and the Possibility of Philosophical Transmission," which compares Maimon's effort to introduce his Hebrew readers to Kantian philosophy (in his commentary on The Guide of the Perplexed) and his German-language readers to Maimonides (in his Autobiography), in an effort to legitimize modern philosophy to his fellow Jews and Maimonides and the tradition of Jewish thought to his fellow philosophers. Schwartz illustrates this point with reference to the specific issue of God as "material cause" of the world.Several of the essays deal with the difficult but important theme of predication and with Maimon's central notion of the "principle of determinability," understood as the highest principle of all (real) synthetic judgments. Oded Schechter's "The Logic of Speculative Philosophy and Skepticism in Maimon's Philosophy: Satz der Bestimmbarkeit and the Role of Synthesis" analyzes this theme in considerable technical detail and relates it to Maimon's philosophy as a whole, and indeed to the "speculative logic" of Hegel and others. This is certainly one of the richest (as well as one of the more challenging) essays in the collection, containing illuminating discussions not only of the principle of determinability, but also of Maimon's highly original notions of "synthesis" and "construction." More accessible is Elhanan Yakira's "From Kant to Leibniz? Salomon Maimon and the Question of Predication," which not only clearly explains the principle in question but convincingly disputes the widespread view that this represents a return to Leibnizian rationalism on the part of Maimon.Maimon's poorly understood theory of "the differential" is the theme of the contribution by Michael Roubach, "Salomon Maimon's Philosophy and its Place in the Enlightenment: Wandering in the Land of Difference," which interprets this notion in the context of the difference between the finite and the infinite intellect and stresses the difference between Maimon's position and that of pre-Kantian rationalism. Unfortunately, Roubach's effort to clarify Maimon's position by comparing it to that of Giles Deleuze is too brief and obscure to be helpful.Though Maimon's relationship to Kant is at least touched on in almost every essay in this collection, it is the explicit theme of four of them, three of which dwell on Maimon's [End Page 119] so-called "quid facti" challenge to Kant's deduction of the categories. Peter Thielke's "Intuition and Diversity: Kant and Maimon on Space and Time" is a very long and philosophically sophisticated examination of Maimon's direct challenge to Kant's "discursivity thesis" regarding the heterogeneity of the faculties of sensibility and understanding. Thielke focuses on Kant's account of space and time as pure forms of intuition and contrasts this with what he calls Maimon's "neglected alternative," viz.: that space and time are not forms of intuition at all, but rather "forms of diversity" and hence features of the function of thinking. In order to explicate this difficult theory, Thielke offers an impressive reconstruction of Maimon's fiendishly obscure idea of the "differentials of pereption" and hence of the fundamentally productive character of the understanding. This provides the theoretical foundation for Maimon's non-dualistic account of the cognitive faculties and his non-causal account of the mind's passivity. Thielke concludes that Maimon's objections, if not sufficient to overturn the discursivity thesis, still undermine the evidence for the same... (shrink)

Those sympathetic to the naturalistic side of James hope that his critique of ‘philosophical materialism’ can be separated from those elements of his thinking that are essential to his pragmatism. Such a separation is possible once we see that James’s critique of materialism grows out of his views about its incompatibility with the existence of objective values. Objective values (as James understands them) are incompatible, however, not with materialism in its most general form, but rather with materialism that (...) understood the ‘material world’ in terms of the sciences of the late nineteen hundreds. In particular, one could not defend the potential objectivity of value in the way that James hoped if one endorsed the particular ‘pessimistic’ cosmology characteristic of the sciences at the turn of the last century. Consequently, if one rejects certain ‘empirical assumptions’ associated with the science of James’s day, the possibility of a type of ‘melioristic materialism’ opens up, and this sort of materialist could still understand value in the way that James proposes. (shrink)

Husserl has often stood accused of Eurocentrism given his disquieting coupling of philosophy as universal science with Europe. And yet, however much this accusation has clouded the appeal of transcendental phenomenology, the nature of this charge remains obscure: whether Husserl’s chauvinism is merely a personal opinion punctuating his writing or is instead closely connected to the methods of phenomenology has been left unexplored. This paper offers itself as a corrective, looking to get a clearer picture of how precisely Eurocentrism afflicts (...) transcendental phenomenology. The overarching aim of doing so is to chart the possibilities for the development of a non-Eurocentric, decolonial phenomenological thinking which exploits the enduring appeal of Husserl’s commitment to presuppositionlessness. The first part of the paper considers the relationship between the phenomenological reduction and eidetic variation, showing that, by Husserl’s own lights, phenomenological science seeks to expel all forms of prejudice. Part two, however, shows that the entrance of Eurocentrism into phenomenology is not simply accidental, in two distinct senses. The first, which takes off from Merleau-Ponty’s (implicit) critique of Husserl, argues that Husserl in his late work is insufficiently attentive to the empirical dimension: Eurocentrism thus stems from the overly transcendental emphases of this project and its inability to engage with concrete human diversity. The second draws on Derrida’s (explicit) critique of Husserl, arguing that it is precisely the admission of concrete historico-cultural facts into phenomenology that compromises the universal by identifying it with the particularities of Europe. I thus show that Eurocentrism does indeed insinuate itself in Husserl’s methods—_not_, however, in a manner that renders transcendental phenomenology irredeemable. Given the opposition between these two insightful criticisms, however, I argue that the challenge for a decolonial vision of phenomenology is formidable. (shrink)

Departing from the sociological dual process model that divides thoughts into automatic and unconscious, or deliberate and conscious occurrences, this book draws on empirical cases to demonstrate the existence of 'automatic deliberation'. Through research into the ways in which people address difficult subjects, such as death and dying, paedophilia, and career decision-making, the author sheds light on a mode of thinking which is both habitual and effortful, displaying a combination of habituated understandings and conscious deliberation. Advancing a blended (...) view of cognition by which individuals draw on schemas and frames to think through complex topics, this volume will appeal to sociologists and psychologists with interests in cognition and the ways in which we make decisions. (shrink)

Based on a review of several “anomalies” in research using implicit measures, Machery (2021) dismisses the modal interpretation of participant responses on implicit measures and, by extension, the value of implicit measures. We argue that the reviewed findings are anomalies only for specific—influential but long-contested—accounts that treat responses on implicit measures as uncontaminated indicators of trait-like unconscious representations that coexist with functionally independent conscious representations. However, the reviewed findings are to-be-expected “normalities” when viewed from the perspective of long-standing alternative frameworks (...) that treat responses on implicit measures as the product of dynamic processes that operate on momentarily activated, consciously accessible information. Thus, although we agree with Machery that the modal view is empirically unsupported, we argue that implicit measures can make a valuable contribution to understanding the complexities of human behavior if they are used wisely in a way that acknowledges what they can and cannot do. (shrink)

This study presents the results of an empirical analysis of the relationship between managerial thinking style and ethical decision-making. Data from 200 managers across multiple organizations and industries demonstrated that managers predominantly adopt a utilitarian perspective when forming ethical intent across a series of business ethics vignettes. Consistent with expectations, managers utilizing a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style demonstrated a greater overall willingness to provide ethical decisions across ethics vignettes compared to managers with a predominantly linear thinking (...) style. However, results comparing the ethical decision-making of balanced thinking managers and nonlinear thinking managers were generally inconsistent across the ethics vignettes. Unexpectedly, managers utilizing a balanced linear/nonlinear thinking style were least likely to adopt an act utilitarian rationale for ethical decision-making across the vignettes, suggesting that balanced thinkers may be more likely to produce ethical decisions by considering a wider range of alternatives and ruling out those that are justified solely on the basis of their outcomes. Implications are discussed for future research and practice related to management education and development, and ethical decision-making theory. (shrink)

This article explores the surprisingly decisive role that Kant’s “incongruity theory” of laughter plays in his aesthetic and broader critical philosophy. First, laughter constitutes a highly specific form of aesthetic judgment in Kant. Laughter involves a discordant relation between the cognitive faculties characteristic of the sublime, but this relation obtains between the understanding and the imagination, the two faculties at play in judgments of taste on the beautiful. Second, laughter is the transcendental condition of possibility for both the beautiful (...) and the sublime. While most commentators dismiss laughter as an afterthought of Kant’s aesthetics, laughter in fact constitutes the most basic aesthetic judgment in Kant. Third, an account of aesthetic judgment that begins with laughter transforms how we understand Kant’s argument that judgment unites nature and freedom. Namely, it reveals how an empirical world at odds with the subject’s purposes can nevertheless advance the subject’s rational vocation to think and act beyond the empirical. I conclude by arguing that Kantian critical philosophy is itself a philosophy of laughter. (shrink)

Our current work seeks to provide direct empirical evidence on whether Chinese international students’ experiences studying abroad promote dialectical thinking. We collected behavioral data from 258 Chinese international students studying in multiple regions. We found that there was a main effect among the four conditions. More specifically, when primed with studying abroad or typical day, participants were more likely to show tolerance for contradiction by deeming both sides of contradictory scientific statements as convincing and rating them more favorably. (...) Therefore, it is plausible that Chinese international students’ experiences studying abroad promote their dialectical thinking. More work is needed to further this line of research by extending these effects with other measures of dialectical thinking such as perception of interconnectedness and prediction of change, adopting differing paradigms to provide more robust findings, and probing the underlying processes as to why experiences studying abroad promote dialectical thinking. (shrink)

Can AI systems such as ChatGPT think? We present an argument from rationality for the negative answer to this question. The argument is founded on two central ideas. The first is that if ChatGPT thinks, it is not rational, in the sense that it does not respond correctly to its evidence. The second idea, which appears in several different forms in philosophical literature, is that thinkers are by their nature rational. Putting the two ideas together yields the result that ChatGPT (...) is not a thinker. The paper sets out the argument in detail and shows how it can withstand numerous objections. We end the paper by contrasting the argument from rationality with a more well-known argument often taken to show that ChatGPT doesn’t think, due to Bender and Koller. (shrink)

According to the thinking parts problem, any part sufficient for thought—e.g. a head—is a good candidate for being a thinker, and therefore being us. So we can’t assume that we—thinkers—are human beings rather than their proper parts. Many solutions to this problem have been proposed. However, I will show that the views currently on the market all face serious problems. I will then offer a new solution that avoids these problems. The thinking parts problem arises from considerations that (...) seem to be empirically substantiated. One virtue of my solution is that in addition to its theoretical apparatus it appeals to empirically substantiated considerations. (shrink)

In recent decades, cognitive and behavioral scientists have learned a great deal about how people think and behave. On the most general level, there is a basic consensus that many judgments, including ethical judgments, are made by intuitive, even unconscious, impulses. This basic insight has opened the door to a wide variety of more particular studies that investigate how judgments are influenced by group identity, self-conception, emotions, perceptions of risk, and many other factors. When these forms of research engage ethical (...) issues, they are sometimes called empirical ethics. This essay argues that the field of religious ethics would benefit from a more robust engagement with empirical ethics than it has thus far undertaken. In doing so, it offers a brief account of how issues of moral psychology and moral anthropology have been treated in religious ethics, and it highlights ways that the scientific findings challenge some prevailing norms in religious ethics. It ends by suggesting avenues by which religious ethics research could productively engage empirical ethics. (shrink)

This paper explores the deep dualism, metaphysical and epistemological, between Forms and particulars in Plato’s work. It both argues that the dualism exists and offers a hypothesis, concerning Plato’s view of the criteria for thinking of an object, to explain it. The paper concludes that while these criteria are indeed stringent, they nonetheless allow the possibility that we can still think of, and know, individuals.

1. Object of this note . In his lively essay, “Between Analytic and Empirical,” , Mr. J. W. N. Watkins challenges the empiricist identification of synthetic statements with empirical ones by arguing that there exists an important class of statements which are synthetic, i.e. not analytically true or false, and yet not empirical. I find Mr. Watkins's arguments very stimulating, but I do not think they provide a sound basis for his contention. In the present note, I (...) wish to indicate what seem to me the principal flaws in Mr. Watkins's reasoning, and to make some additional comments on the issues raised by his discussion. (shrink)

We provide empirical evidence that people who believe in dualism are more likely to be uncomfortable with Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and to view it as threatening to their identity, humanity, or self. It is (neurocentric) materialists—who think the mind just is the brain—that are less inclined to fear DBS or to see it as threatening. We suggest various possible reasons for this connection. The inspiration for this brief report is a target article that addresses this issue from a (...) theoretical perspective. (shrink)

Religious disagreement is an emerging topic of interest in social epistemology. Little is known about how philosophers react to religious disagreements in a professional context, or how they think one should respond to disagreement. This paper presents results of an empirical study on religious disagreement among philosophers. Results indicate that personal religious beliefs, philosophical training, and recent changes in religious outlook have a significant impact on philosophers' assessments of religious disagreement. They regard peer disagreement about religion as common, and (...) most surveyed participants assume one should accord weight to the other's opinion. Theists and agnostics are less likely to assume they are in a better epistemic position than their interlocutors about religious questions compared with atheists, but this pattern only holds for participants who are not philosophers of religion. Continental philosophers think religious beliefs are more like preferences than analytic philosophers, who regard religious beliefs as fact-like. (shrink)

This article pivots around the work of early modern legal scholar Hugo Grotius to consider the political stakes of ontological assessments of the sea and water in the context of Dutch imperialism. It draws on links with land reclamation projects in the Netherlands, while at the same time ties these to urgent questions within contemporary critical water and ocean studies around water, ontology, and race. Suggesting a rethinking of Grotius’s understanding of the ocean as perpetual res nullius – perpetually ownerless (...) property – it destabilizes renditions of Grotius’s free sea as free from ownership. The ocean remains firmly within the orbit of property, the property of mankind, thereby excluding those considered non-human, including racialized, gendered, and more-than-human life forms. Grotius’s mare liberum as perpetual res nullius does not form an exception from territorial, personal, and national conceptualizations of property, but rather preconditions it – preparing the world for its thingification. I examine how this understanding of the ocean and of water has colonized our thinking of the ocean, law, being, and belonging. At the same time, the ocean’s very materiality seems to resist Grotius’s legal narrative. Although Grotius’s conquest of maritime imagination continues to justify global models of capital accumulation, the ocean always already shores up against and spills out of such reductive imaginaries. (shrink)

This is the paperback edition of Dr Reeves’ valuable book: in the four years since its original publication it has received merited attention and praise for correlating, in substantial detail, the old ‘inspectionist’, ‘picture’ view of thinking with the contemporary ‘action’, ‘process’ conceptions. ‘In the empirical tradition at any rate, and in this tradition much early systematic psychologizing was rooted, interest tended to be focused on the content of thinking, sensation was considered a fundamental source of that (...) content, and thinking, so far as it was an activity, approximated to some form of visual inspection. Ideas, images, their permutations and combinations constituted that which came under this conscious scrutiny’. Excellent chapters on Locke, Spinoza, Freud, Gestalt Psychology and Binet detail the breakdown and rejection of this simple associationist treatment of thought. However ‘in assimilating thinking to action and moving away from the inspectionist viewpoint, we must be careful not to throw away key processes such as recognition, without which it seems impossible to derive constructive, realistic and logical thinking from that which is governed by immediate stimulus and motive’. (shrink)

There are empirical grounds to doubt the effectiveness of a common and intuitive approach to teaching debiasing strategies in critical thinking courses. We summarize some of the grounds before suggesting a broader taxonomy of debiasing strategies. This four-level taxonomy enables a useful diagnosis of biasing factors and situations, and illuminates more strategies for more effective bias mitigation located in the shaping of situational factors and reasoning infrastructure—sometimes called “nudges” in the literature. The question, we contend, then becomes how (...) best to teach the construction and use of such infrastructures. (shrink)

John McDowell and Bill Brewer famously defend the view that one can only have empirical beliefs if one’s perceptual experiences serve as reasons for such beliefs, where reasons are understood in terms of subject’s reasons. In this paper I show, first, that it is a consequence of the adoption of such a requirement for one to have empirical beliefs that children as old as 3 years of age have to considered as not having genuine empirical beliefs at (...) all. But we have strong reasons to think that 3-year-old children have empirical beliefs, or so I argue. If this is the case, McDowell and Brewer’s requirement for one to have empirical beliefs faces a strong challenge. After showing this, I propose an alternative requirement for one to have empirical beliefs, and argue that it should be favoured over McDowell and Brewer’s requirement. (shrink)

Many philosophers think that a necessary condition on moral blameworthiness is that the wrongdoer can reasonably be expected to avoid the action for which she is blamed. Those who think so assume as a matter of course that the expectations at issue here are normative expectations that contrast with the non-normative or predictive expectations we form concerning the probable conduct of others, and they believe, or at least assume, that there is a clear-cut distinction between the two. In this (...) paper I put this widespread assumption under scrutiny and argue that it’s mistaken: although predictive and normative expectations are indeed distinct, there is no sharp separation between them. On the contrary, predictive expectations can have a substantial bearing on normative expectations in two related ways: they can recalibrate what is reasonable to expect of agents when responsibility attributions are at stake and they can help to uncover previously undetected excusing conditions. I illustrate my claims with the famous bystander effect from social psychology and show that it yields predictive expectations that affect normative expectations in these two ways. (shrink)

This article proposes an empirical approach to understanding the life of an organism that overcomes reductionist and dualist approaches. The approach is based on Immanuel Kant’s analysis of the cognitive conditions required for the recognition of an organism: the concept of teleology and the assumption of a formative power of self-generation. It is analyzed how these two criteria are applied in the cognition of a developing organism. Using the example of a developmental series of a plant leaf, an active (...) and relational process between observer and developing organism is shown, within which the teleology and self-generating power of the organism can be empirically observed through the mental faculties of understanding and will. Furthermore, it is emphasized that, according to Kant, even physical objects are not readily given, but are actively constituted through the unification of sense perceptions with concepts. This Kantian mode of objectification facilitates cognition of the physical properties of an organism. It can be supplemented with a participatory and co-constitutive mode of realization, in which the life of the organism (its teleologically organizing and self-generating power) can become an object of empirical research. Furthermore, it is argued that the participatory mode also facilitates an expanded conception of nature that allows for the existence of living beings within it. Finally, an analogy to Goethe’s approach to the living organism is highlighted. In summary, it is stated that to understand life, one must consciously participate in it. (shrink)

Cian Dorr has argued that non-cognitivists must think of reasoning from moral premises to empirical conclusions as akin to wishful thinking. Defenders of non-cognitivism have responded that an adequate solution to the Frege-Geach problem would explain relations of entailment and implication between moral and nonmoral claims and thereby also handle Dorr’s objection. This paper offers a new, more specific, interpretation of Dorr’s objection and one that makes it distinct from worries about Frege-Geach. The paper also explains why non-cognitivists (...) might still reasonably be optimistic that they can allay this version of the worry. Still, successfully undercutting the worry also undercuts one of the prime reasons offered on behalf of non-cognitivism—arguments based on the Humean Theory of Motivation purporting to show that moral judgments cannot be beliefs. (shrink)

In this chapter, it is suggested that our epistemic access to metaphysical modality generally involves rationalist, a priori elements. However, these a priori elements are much more subtle than ‘traditional’ modal rationalism assumes. In fact, some might even question the ‘apriority’ of these elements, but I should stress that I consider a priori and a posteriori elements especially in our modal inquiry to be so deeply intertwined that it is not easy to tell them apart. Supposed metaphysically necessary identity statements (...) involving natural kind terms are a good example: the fact that empirical input is crucial in establishing their necessity has clouded the role and content of the a priori input, as I have previously argued. For instance, the supposed metaphysically necessary identity statement involving water and its microstructure can only be established with the help of a controversial a priori principle concerning the determination of chemical properties by microstructure. The Kripke-Putnam framework of modal epistemology fails precisely because it is unclear whether the required a priori element is present. My positive proposal builds on E. J. Lowe’s work. Lowe holds that our knowledge of metaphysical modality is based on our knowledge of essence. Lowe’s account strives to offer a uniform picture of modal epistemology: essence is the basis of all our modal knowledge. This is the basis of Lowe’s modal rationalism. I believe that Lowe’s proposal is on the right lines in the case of abstract objects, but I doubt that it can be successfully applied to the case of natural kinds. Accordingly, the case of natural kinds will be my main focus and I will suggest that modal rationalism, at least as it is traditionally understood, falls short of explaining modal knowledge concerning natural kinds. Yet, I think that Lowe has identified something of crucial importance for modal epistemology, namely the essentialist, a priori elements present in our modal inquiry. The upshot is that rather than moving all the way from modal rationalism to modal empiricism, a type of hybrid approach, ‘empirically-informed modal rationalism ’, can be developed. (shrink)

This article considers Dworkin's influential argument against legislative intent in chapter 9 of Law's Empire. The argument proves much less than is often assumed for it fails to address the possibility that the institution of the legislature may form and act on intentions. Indeed, analysis of Dworkin's argument lends support to that possibility. Dworkin aims to refute legislative intent in order to elucidate his own theory of statutory interpretation. That theory fails to explain plausibly legislative action. Dworkin's argument does (...) not refute legislative intent but instead suggests there is reason to think that the legislature is capable of intentional action. (shrink)

Structural realism has been proposed as an epistemological position interpolating between realism and sceptical anti-realism about scientific theories. The structural realist who accepts a scientific theory thinks that is empirically correct, and furthermore is a realist about the ‘structural content’ of . But what exactly is ‘structural content’? One proposal is that the ‘structural content’ of a scientific theory may be associated with its Ramsey sentence (). However, Demopoulos and Friedman have argued, using ideas drawn from Newman's earlier criticism of (...) Russell's structuralism, that this move fails to achieve an interesting intermediate position between realism and anti-realism. Rather, () adds little content beyond the instrumentalistically acceptable claim that the theory is empirically adequate. Here, I formulate carefully the crucial claim of Demopoulos and Friedman, and show that the Ramsey sentence () is true just in case possesses a full model which is empirically correct and satisfies a certain cardinality condition on its theoretical domain. This suggests that structural realism is not a position significantly different from the anti-realism it attempts to distinguish itself from. Introduction Technical framework Ramsification Empirical adequacy Ramsification empirical adequacy + cardinality constraint Conclusion. (shrink)

The paper briefly summarises and critiques Tomasello’s A Natural History of Human Thinking. After offering an overview of the book, the paper focusses on one particular part of Tomasello’s proposal on the evolution of uniquely human thinking and raises two points of criticism against it. One of them concerns his notion of thinking. The other pertains to empirical findings on egocentric biases in communication.

Analyses of the dynamics of change present in Europe are not complete without taking into account the role and function of the critical approach as a founding element of European culture. An appreciation of critical thinking must go hand-in-hand with reflection on its essence, forms, and centuries-long tradition. The European philosophical tradition has thematized the problem of criticism since its appearance. This book contains articles on the history of philosophical criticism and ways that it has been understood in European (...) thought. Individual chapters contain both historical-philosophical and problem-oriented analyses, indicating the relationships between philosophical criticism and rationalism, logic, scepticism, atheism, dialectic procedure, and philosophical counseling, among others. Philosophical reflection on critical thinking allows for an acknowledgment of its significance in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of politics, aesthetics, methodology, philosophy of language, and cultural theory. The book should interest not only humanities scholars, but also scholars in other fields, as the development of an anti-dogmatic critical approach is a lasting and indispensible challenge for all disciplines. (shrink)

Think theory is thoroughly removed from explaining international crises such as Bosnia, Rwanda, and Korea? Think again! James Rosenau and Mary Durfee have teamed up to show how the same events take on different coloration depending on the theory used to explain them. In order to better understand world politics, the authors maintain, theory does make a difference. Thinking Theory Thoroughly is a primer for all kinds of readers who want to begin theorizing about international relations (IR). In this (...) second edition, realism (the dominant theoretical perspective in IR), postinternationalism (Rosenau’s famed turbulence paradigm), and liberalism are treated together in a chapter that compares them along various analytic dimensions, which makes the book even more useful.In this new edition, the order and content of case chapters have been changed to better reflect the ways theory can be used to organize empirical material. The chapter on crises, which is now at the beginning, shows how systemic theories might cope with problems and evidence of a more local and temporally constrained nature. A chapter on the U.N. illustrates how systemic theories can cope with institutions, and the last chapter, on Antarctica, delineates how systemic theories can be used to generate hypotheses that then demand different kinds of evidence. (shrink)

A dominant claim in the philosophical literature on trust is that we should stop thinking in terms of group trustworthiness or appropriate trust in groups. In this paper, we push back against this claim by arguing that philosophical work on trust would benefit from being brought into closer contact with empirical work on the nature of trust. We consider data on reactive attitudes and moral responsibility to adjudicate on different positions in the philosophical literature on trust. An implication (...) of our argument is that the distinction between different kinds of groups—mere groups versus institutional groups—deserves more attention than is currently recognized in the philosophical literature on trust.In the first section of the paper, we draw some basic philosophical distinctions concerning the nature and kinds of trust. In section two, we present the positions taken by Hawley (2017), who argues against trust in groups, and Faulkner (2018), who argues in favor of trust in groups. In section three, we introduce some empirical data and suggest that, albeit tentatively, this looks to undermine Hawley's position and is compatible with Faulkner's approach. We thus suggest, on the basis of the evidence that we have available, that we have reasons to prefer the position taken by Faulkner (2018) over that taken by Hawley (2017). We end by discussing some implications for distinctions between different kinds of groups relevant for future philosophical work on trust. (shrink)

A society and scholarly culture united in its use of one language dominates the general view of Late Imperial China’s sciences. Recent studies have suggested, however, that in the past, as in the present, multilingual practices might have been the norm. Asian-language historians have shown that Chinese script embraced many tongues, intonating the characters in different dialects and giving them new meanings in Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese. Rather than assuming that a hegemonic approach to language was a given in historical (...) China, this essay suggests that we should ask why—or even if—this was the case, given that scientific knowledge was continuously transmitted to China from other learned traditions (Persian, Indian, European) and that new objects and practices entered Chinese learned discourse from diverse vernacular cultures that flourished on the local level throughout the empire. The essay discusses how to understand scientific and technological developments against changing views of Late Imperial China as a culture enmeshed in plurilingual practices. (shrink)

The paper suggests an interpretation of section 106 of wittgenstein's "zettel", Where it is said that 'the concept of thinking is formed on the model of an imaginary auxiliary activity'. The suggestion is that when we complain that someone was not thinking, We don't mean that a familiar activity called thinking was not performed, But we make as if there was an activity, The performance of which saves people from doing stupid things, And it was not performed, (...) As a way of saying that the other person acted foolishly. (shrink)

The dispute between Schlick and Neurath over het foundations of empirical knowledge illustrates the difficulties m trymg to draw epistemological conclusions from a verificationist theory of meaning. It also shows how assummg the general correctness of science does not automatically avoid, or provide an easy answer to, skepticism. But while neither Schlick nor Neurath arrived at a satisfactory account of empüical knowledge, there are promising hmts of a better theory m their writmgs. Following up these hints, and drawing on (...) further ideas m Hempel, Carnap and particularly Quine, I suggest the direction I think a naturalistic epistemology should take. (shrink)

Thinking in Education Research examines the resources available from philosophy and theory that can be practically applied to any educational research project. Nick Peim argues that the current well-established divide between theory and the empirical in research methods is unhelpful to students. Instead, Thinking in Education Research looks at major lines of thinking in modern European philosophy, from Kant to Freud and Derrida to Malabou, and how they provide a rich resource for every stage of conducting (...) research. By getting students engaged in 'how to think' and 'how to do', Peim illustrates that thinking is in fact a vital part of how you do research and is not an aside. Essential aspects of the research endeavour are re-examined in the light of key philosophical positions to offer constructive potential, including: defining the object; giving an account of the field; the relation to truth; the process of writing and constructing a case; and the value attributed to formal knowledge. Thinking in Education Research does not try to resolve the unresolved issues of research thinking but rather encourages readers to productively engage with them so that we can enhance the possibilities of research practice and find opportunities for its expansion and refinement. Throughout the chapters, clear and concise summaries of key philosophical positions and ideas are complemented with boxed accounts of how the philosophical debates discussed can be applied to real research projects. These features encourage the reader to consider how they can develop thinking and apply theory at every stage of their own research. This is essential reading for any educational research methods student or practicing researcher for important ways of thinking afresh about research methodology"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Jeff McLaughlin’s _How to Think Critically_ begins with the premise that we are all, every day, engaged in critical thinking. But as we may develop bad habits in daily life if we don’t scrutinize our practices, so we are apt to develop bad habits in critical thinking if we are careless in our reasoning. This book exists to instill good thinking habits: attentiveness to word choice, avoidance of fallacies, and effective construction and assessment of arguments. With relatable (...) and often amusing examples included throughout, the book adopts a degree of technical sophistication that is rigorous and yet still easily applied to ordinary situations. Readers are presented with a traditional step-by-step method for analysis that can be applied to all argument forms. Hundreds of exercises are included, as are several random statement generators which can be used to create thousands of additional examples. Venn diagrams, truth tables, and other essential concepts are presented not as definitions for academic study but as tools for better thinking and living. (shrink)

This essay proposes a design perspective on argumentation, intended as complementary to empirical and critical scholarship. In any substantive domain, design can provide insights that differ from those provided by scientific or humanistic perspectives. For argumentation, the key advantage of a design perspective is the recognition that humanity’s natural capacity for reason and reasonableness can be extended through inventions that improve on unaided human intellect. Historically, these inventions have fallen into three broad classes: logical systems, scientific methods, and disputation (...) frameworks. Behind each such invention is a specifiable “design hypothesis”: an idea about how to decrease error or how to increase the quality of outcomes from reasoning. As problems in contemporary argumentation practice become more complex, design thinking rises in relevance and importance. A design research agenda in argumentation would focus on theorizing design innovations and on evaluating design hypotheses. (shrink)

This paper concerns design thinking (Lawson, 1980), system thinking (systems theory) (von Bertalanffy, 1968), and system dynamics modeling as methodological platforms for analyzing large amounts of qualitative data and transforming it into quantitative mode. The aims of this article are to present an integral (mixed) research process including the design thinking process—a solution oriented approach applicable in the social sciences and humanities which enables to reveal causality in research on societal and behavioral issues. This integral approach is (...) illustrated by an empirical pilot study from art/design-educational environment. (shrink)

I distinguish two types of reduction within the context of quantum-classical relations, which I designate “formal” and “empirical”. Formal reduction holds or fails to hold solely by virtue of the mathematical relationship between two theories; it is therefore a two-place, a priori relation between theories. Empirical reduction requires one theory to encompass the range of physical behaviors that are well-modeled in another theory; in a certain sense, it is a three-place, a posteriori relation connecting the theories and the (...) domain of physical reality that both serve to describe. Focusing on the relationship between classical and quantum mechanics, I argue that while certain formal results concerning singular \ limits have been taken to preclude the possibility of reduction between these theories, such results at most provide support for the claim that singular limits block reduction in the formal sense; little if any reason has been given for thinking that they block reduction in the empirical sense. I then briefly outline a strategy for empirical reduction that is suggested by work on decoherence theory, arguing that this sort of account remains a fully viable route to the empirical reduction of classical to quantum mechanics and is unaffected by such singular limits. (shrink)