Argument

Philosophers often appeal to Bayesian confirmation theory to render speculative metaphysical arguments more rigorous. But can a probabilistic framework designed for empirical data decide questions of metaphysics? This paper argues that Huemer’s Bayesian “existence → immortality” inference fails on two independent grounds. First, the comparison tacitly shifts the content of the evidence across the competing identity theories: treating “I exist now” as a different event under a restrictive view than under a permissive view. So, the Bayesian evidence is ill-defined. Second, (...) if we hold the evidence fixed as the single indexical proposition E = “I exist now”, the key question is the relative likelihoods of E under each hypothesis. Once standard constraints on background verses evidence and on self-locating information are respected, there is no non-question-begging route to a Bayes factor that favors the permissive view of personal identity. Thus, mere existence does not confirm reincarnation. I remain agnostic on the correct theory of personal identity. (shrink)

The standard definition of “argument” is satisfied by any series of statements in which one (of the statements) is marked as the conclusion of the others. This leads to the counter-intuitive result that “I like cookies, therefore, all swans are white” is an argument, since “therefore” marks “all swans are white” as the conclusion of “I like cookies”. This objection is often disregarded by stating that, although the previous sequence is an argument, it fails to be a good one. However, (...) when we compare our previous argument with a definitely bad argument like “this swan is white, therefore, all swans are white”, we see that there is an important difference between them. Whereas the former fails to fulfil our intuition of what an argument is, the latter does qualify as an argument, but as a bad one. In this talk, I will sketch a definition that better captures this feature of our intuition of what an argument is in three steps. Following Díez and Moulines (1999), I first reduce inductive validity to deductive validity through what we may call the method of deductivisation. Second, through epistemic predicates (cf. Thompson 2002), I introduce a broader concept of validity that accounts not only for deductive and inductive validity, but also for a weaker type of validity that may be called pseudo-validity. I show that these pseudo-valid arguments can also be deductivised with the help of the above-mentioned epistemic predicates. Finally, I re-define the concept of argument as any series of statements that is at least pseudo-valid, which leaves the “cookies argument” outside of this definition. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) contends that the conjunction of naturalism and evolutionary theory generates a “defeater” for the reliability of our cognitive faculties, and thereby for all our beliefs, including naturalism itself. This paper argues that the EAAN fails because it presupposes an epistemological standard—Justified True Belief (JTB)—that is structurally inaccessible to any finite agent. Drawing on a novel dual-warrant epistemological framework, the PIE Syllogism, this paper replaces the classical JTB model with two non-arbitrary warrant structures available (...) to finite agents: Justified Coherent Belief (JCB) for intrinsic claims and Justified Reliable Belief (JRB) for extrinsic claims. The PIE Syllogism—named for its three epistemological anchors of Perception, Inquiry, and Experimentation—grounds warrant in the Law of Non-Contradiction and a fallibilist feedback mechanism, dissolving Plantinga’s defeater by demonstrating that rationality does not require truth-correspondence but rather internal coherence and externally corroborated reliability. Crucially, this critique applies universally: no finite agent—naturalist or theist—can satisfy the JTB standard Plantinga implicitly demands. The EAAN is therefore revealed as a category error, judging finite cognition by a standard proper only to infinite or omniscient minds. (shrink)

This work is aimed at providing an Islamic perspective on few selected informal logical fallacies. It serves an introduction to the theme of critical thinking and opens ways of reflecting on it, which is the main portion of critical thinking as a subject. Informal logical fallacies are numerous in number and for the sake of convenience they are very often categorized under three classifications: relevance, presumption, and ambiguity. This work discusses few fallacies. The methods applied in this research are descriptive, (...) analytical, conceptual, and critical. In short, in the beginning, the background of the subject and the basic concepts such as argument, fallacy, and critical thinking are briefly mentioned. Subsequently, fallacies are defined, conceptually analyzed, and then appraised according to Islamic perspective. (shrink)

For years, the European world saw millions of swans, and all of them without exception were white. If inductive reasoning is valid, one may conclude that all swans are white. However, this would be incorrect: in 1667 Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh observed black swans in Australia, falsifying the hypothesis that all swans are white. While often used as a cautionary tale for the use of induction, such as with Popper’s falsification principle, I want to explore a slightly different idea: (...) does the existence of fabricated or otherwise failed accounts of Black swans give me a reason to ignore future arguments or doubt their existence? I argue that while faulty or fabricated reports do not give us a logical reason to reject a claim, they can give us a practical one for refusing to consider future arguments. This practical vs logical distinction gives an inductive reason for believing that future arguments will be invalid, but keeps one from being able to necessarily deny the claim in question without further argumentation. (shrink)

The burden of proof is widely used in argumentation theory, philosophy of science, and legal reasoning, but its logical basis is often left unclear. It is commonly treated as a dialogical rule, a procedural convention, or a norm of fair debate. Such approaches explain how the burden of proof operates within particular contexts, but they do not explain why it must be allocated asymmetrically in the first place. This paper argues that the asymmetry follows from a simple logical relation between (...) claims, independent of dialogical, procedural, or pragmatic considerations. When one claim is logically stronger than another—by entailing it without being entailed in return—it im- poses additional restrictions on what may be accepted. Accepting these restrictions without justification is therefore logically arbitrary. From this relation it follows that the burden of proof must rest on the logically stronger claim. This result is not proposed as a norm of debate or a procedural rule, but as a minimal logical constraint on non-arbitrary reasoning. Making this constraint explicit helps to clarify why disputes over the burden of proof recur across different domains and why attempts to reverse the burden typically lead to stalemate. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concept of an absolute—understood as an ultimate, self-sufficient, non-relational foundation of truth, knowledge, or reality—cannot be sustained even in principle. The failure is not empirical and does not depend on human cognitive limits. It is structural: the absolute is asked to be both fully independent of all relations and simultaneously capable of grounding truth, justification, or meaning. These demands are incompatible. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, it states minimal conditions under which the notion (...) of truth retains an epistemic function: recognizability in principle, relationality, and distinguishability from error or fiction. Second, it shows that an absolute, defined as non-relational and criterion-free, cannot satisfy these conditions without ceasing to be absolute. Third, it demonstrates that any attempt to rescue absolute closure generates an infinite hierarchy of meta-levels: each claim of finality produces a further claim that must itself be included and justified. This yields a general theorem: no system can be both absolute and epistemically true. The paper concludes with practical implications for domains that repeatedly reintroduce absolutes in new forms, including artificial intelligence, “theory of everything” projects, and solipsistic epistemologies. Formal details and responses to common objections are provided in appendices. (shrink)

The rapid normalization of generative artificial intelligence has produced two distinct epistemic problems that are routinely conflated. The first is a problem of quality: language models can generate false, derivative, vacuous, or stylistically polished but epistemically poor material at enormous scale. The second is a problem of judgment: the causal provenance of a text is increasingly treated as a substitute for evaluating its propositional content. This paper argues that the latter practice, when the label “AI-generated” or “AI-assisted” is used to (...) reject a claim, argument, or intellectual artifact without content-responsive evaluation, instantiates the genetic fallacy at institutional scale. I first distinguish truth, warranted credence, authorship, and policy compliance, showing that provenance may rationally affect prior confidence or trigger additional scrutiny without thereby refuting a proposition. I then analyze AI-text detection and automated content moderation as forms of probabilistic classification that become epistemically illegitimate when converted directly into adverse adjudication. Empirical work on machine-generated-text detectors demonstrates substantial vulnerability to false positives, distribution shift, linguistic bias, and adversarial evasion, while the literature on automation bias and algorithmic accountability shows why nominal “human oversight” is inadequate when humans merely ratify machine outputs. I argue for a principle of human answerability: tools may be causal contributors to error, but responsibility for consequential epistemic decisions remains with the persons and institutions that design, deploy, supervise, and rely upon them. Finally, I propose six norms for legitimate epistemic governance in the age of generative AI: provenance modesty, content-responsive refutation, proportionality, contestability, auditability, and human answerability. The central danger is not that machines can produce bad arguments. Bad arguments can be answered. The deeper danger is that automated systems can acquire authority over which arguments are permitted to receive an answer at all. (shrink)

The human condition in the city, tell by an self-made eremit, houseling toughts and stragenin' domestications.

According to ordinary language philosophy (OLP), philosophical problems can be solved by investigating ordinary language, often because the problems stem from its misuse. According to ideal language philosophy (ILP), on the other hand, philosophical problems exist because ordinary language is flawed and has to be improved or replaced by constructed languages that do not exhibit these flaws. OLP and ILP together make up linguistic philosophy, the view that philosophical problems are problems of language. Linguistic philosophy is opposed to what may (...) be called, for lack of a better word, ‘traditional philosophy’ (TP), the view that philosophical problems can be solved by discovering non-linguistic facts. In the following, OLP, ILP, and TP are taken to be methodologies, that is, frameworks in which to interpret and evaluate different philosophical methods (i.e., argumentative strategies). The two linguistic methodologies are discussed separately with TP as a foil, and then used to interpret the status of different philosophical methods. While each of the methods discussed here finds a plausible interpretation in each methodology, there are other arguments for and against linguistic philosophy in general, and for and against ILP and OLP in particular. As none of these arguments is decisive, I conclude with a superficial moral about peaceful co-existence. (shrink)

The established view about regress problems has it that they, roughly speaking, come in only one variety. This view is mistaken. Two types of problems are typically subsumed under the label of regress problems – stopping problems and starting problems. Both problem types share the same surface structure in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, but their deeper founding structure reveals some key differences. Stopping problems rely on a regress clause, raise the question whether infinite chains are possible, and present (...) terminatism, infinitism, and nihilism as potential solutions. In contrast, standard starting problems, which many regress problems are, rely on a founding clause and not on a regress clause, do not raise questions about the possibility of infinite chains, and offer only two potential solutions, terminatism and nihilism. Non-standard starting problems also allow for infinitism as a viable solution, but nevertheless they differ structurally in various aspects from stopping problems. (shrink)

Normative argumentation theory is a field dedicated to the normative study of argumentation in real-life contexts and to the development of norms meant to guide arguers in the attempt to argue well. Among argumentation theorists, there exist two widespread assumptions. First, the assumption that ideally, arguers ought to explore the reasons relevant to the topic of their interpersonal arguing without constraints. And second, the assumption that the norms of argumentation should be designed to contribute to the realization of this ideal. (...) In this paper, I question those assumptions. I show that argumentative norms meant to realize the ideal of free exploration, freedom-to-explore norms, reliably clash with morally valuable standing norms that protect privacy, autonomy and legitimate authority. When they so clash, they generate epistemic and other morally relevant harms. I argue that normative argumentation theory ought to resolve this problem by acknowledging the potential legitimacy of standing norms even during argumentation. I show how such a change would impact fallacy theory with respect to the ad hominem and poisoning the well fallacies. (shrink)

Philosophical argumentation appears minimally adversarial. The assessment of philosophical evidence and reasons we appeal to in our arguments is carried out by critical, reflective scrutiny via objections, challenges, and counterexamples. This critical feature of philosophy has been criticized by feminist and standpoint epistemologists as structurally conducive to epistemic injustice. To remedy this situation, a stance of default trust toward a marginalized philosopher’s arguments should be adopted. This paper objects to the proposal and offers an alternative account of how epistemic injustice (...) arises in philosophical argumentation. First, we argue that default trust is inapplicable in philosophical practice and argumentation, given the essentially dialogical and adversarial assessment of philosophical reasons. Second, rejecting adversariality altogether itself risks generating epistemic injustice. Default trust precludes earnest engagement with the reasons and arguments of marginalized subjects, preventing them from obtaining full credibility within the philosophical community. It is then argued that epistemic injustice in philosophical argumentation primarily arises when subjects are denied recognition as legitimate participants in philosophical assessment, rather than from minimal adversariality. Furthermore, adversariality itself can function as a weapon of resistance when marginalized subjects confront unfair audiences by denying them recognition as philosophically authoritative. (shrink)

Challenging conventional notions of comfort and safety in philosophical practice, this article argues for the primacy of reason in the work to provoke and exercise thinking. Exercising thinking involves problematization and conceptualization of cherished ideas and attitudes. Consequently, philosophical consultations can be uncomfortable; rather than seeking to alleviate this discomfort, this article examines it directly. Assumptions that discomfort is harmful, consultation is dangerous, philosophers are therapists, or success is mandated are actively problematized. The authors appreciate the growth promoting role of (...) discomfort, see the beauty of exercising the thinking capacity, and respect the thinking competence of all people. The authors propose that the purpose, priority, and goal of philosophical practice is the provocation of thinking, whereas other results are secondary. The authors detail the specific actions philosophers undertake—and refrain from—to be driven by this telos and address how secondary objectives can interfere with and distort this pursuit. By prioritizing reason, the authors advocate for the Socratic spirit, with its aesthetic, performative, and provocative nature. This stands in contrast to contemporary tendencies towards professional codes and generalized safety preoccupations preempting inquiry. Philosophical practice through the application of Socratic methods promotes freedom to develop and use wisdom. (shrink)

This article presents the epistemic or, more precisely, epistemological theory of argument. According to this theory, the standard aim of arguments is to lead an addressee to an epistemologically justified and acceptable belief in the thesis. The article provides an instrumentalist justification of this approach (arguments are good instruments for guided knowledge acquisition), presents other functions of arguments, and offers an analysis of how arguments work. This analysis then serves as the basis for developing criteria for various good types of (...) argument (deductive, probabilistic, practical, etc.) and for general criteria for epistemologically good arguments. A final outlook provides an overview of contributions from epistemological argumentation theorists on standard topics in argumentation theory: interpretation of arguments, (cooperative) argumentative dialogues, critical thinking, argumentation pedagogy. (shrink)

Research-based learning (RBL), promoting an enhanced research-teaching nexus, is a pedagogical approach that has been gaining ground in universities worldwide since the 1990s. What arguments could be used to convince university teachers to RBL into their teaching? In this paper, we try to provide answers by introducing the Cascade Model for justifying RBL, which links RBL to research on epistemic cognition. The model is based on a synthesis of findings from a research network on RBL in the context of higher (...) education reforms in Germany. These findings indicate that a mere focus on teaching formats is not sufficient for the successful implementation of RBL. Rather, the research must be meaningful to those involved - students and faculty alike. The Cascade Model for justifying RBL provides meaningful perspectives on RBL by distinguishing epistemic values that faculty might accept to justify RBL. The model suggests an argumentation cascade of possible references to four epistemic values: scientific, professional, skilled, and social. In this cascade, the link between teaching and scholarly research is progressively decreasing. We applied the Cascade Model to an interview study with 40 university teachers. The model’s categories could be reliably assigned to the responses, with “scientific” being the most frequently cited epistemic value. The ranking of values can be empirically substantiated. As predicted, “higher” levels of justification (i.e., closer to “scientific”) correlate with more RBL teaching. (shrink)

《道德经》是中国哲学史上被误解最深的经典之一。自汉代以来，主流解读多将其视 为宇宙论、政治哲学乃至神秘主义著作，认为老子旨在探讨宇宙本源、天地生成与治 国方略。本文以 “一源多元论”“玄弦论”“三相感”“各归其正” 为原创理论框架，对《道 德经》核心命题进行系统性文本还原与义理重构。研究指出：《道德经》虽大量使用道 生万物、天地、自然、谷神、玄牝等宇宙论表述，但其本质并非研究无情世界的物理 规律，而是以宇宙现象为喻，揭示人心本然之规律与修心路径。老子所言 “道法自 然”，并非道效法自然界，而是人心当遵循自身本然之理，不妄为、不执着、不违逆本 心；“无为” 并非消极不作为，而是不违背规律、不强行造作；“柔弱胜刚强” 并非物理 原理，而是心性修养与处世智慧。后世将老子的 “宇宙语言” 误读为宇宙论，混淆心性 领域与物理领域的存在层次，属于根本性方法错位。本文提出修正路径：心归心（《道 德经》本质为心性论），物归物（物理规律由科学研究），经典解读回归文本还原与义 理贯通。这一分析既还原老子本意，也为道家思想的当代转化提供方法论启示。.

Public debates over the morality of new or emerging technologies tend to devolve into false dichotomies of optimism versus pessimism. Playing God with Emerging Technologies: How to Avoid the Traps of Techno-Optimism and Techno-Pessimism provides a conceptual apparatus for engaging in such debates in a critical manner through the constructive lens of “playing God” arguments. Moti Mizrahi sketches a conceptual framework consisting of an argumentation scheme for “playing God” arguments along with Critical Questions. This framework can be used to analyze (...) and evaluate “playing God” arguments as they are made in debates over the ethical development and deployment of new and emerging technologies, such as solar geoengineering, Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous vehicles, autonomous weapons, and more. Mizrahi argues that “playing God” arguments allow us to assume an intermediate, critical attitude between the extremes of hype and panic as well as to approach the governance of new or emerging technologies in ways that might help to increase our control over, improve our understanding of, and prevent our misuse or abuse of such technologies. (shrink)

I contend that certain non-verbal paintings such as Picasso’s GUERNICA make (simple) arguments. The modern study of visual argument has mostly focused on partially verbal media such as ads, posters, and cartoons, rather than non-verbal, classic art forms like painting. If a painting’s argument is reasonably good, it would be a source of cognitive value. My analogical approach is to show how pertinent features of viable literary cognitivism can be applied to non-verbal painting.

Computational models have shown how polarisation can rise among deliberating agents as they approximate epistemic rationality. This paper provides further support for the thesis that polarisation can rise under condition of epistemic rationality, but it does not depend on limitations that extant models rely on, such as memory restrictions or biased evaluation of other agents’ testimony. Instead, deliberation is modelled through agents’ purposeful introduction of arguments and their rational reactions to introductions of others. This process induces polarisation dynamics on its (...) own. A second result is that the effect size of polarisation dynamics correlates with particular types of argumentative behaviour. Polarisation effects can be soothed when agents take into account the opinions of others as premises, and they are amplified as agents fortify their own beliefs. These results underpin the relevance of argumentation as a factor in social-epistemic processes and indicate that rising issue polarisation is not a reliable indicator of epistemic shortcomings. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to develop precise epistemic rules for good public political arguments, by which political measures in the broad sense are justified. By means of a theory of deliberative democracy, it is substantiated that the justification of a political measure consists in showing argumentatively that this measure most promotes the common good or is morally optimal. It is then discussed which argumentation-theoretical approaches are suitable for providing epistemically sound rules for arguments for such theses and for (...) the associated premises, rules whose compliance implies the truth or acceptability of the thesis. Finally, on the basis of the most suitable approach, namely the epistemological one, such systems of rules for the required types of arguments are presented that fulfil the conditions mentioned. (shrink)

That bootstrapping and Moorean reasoning fail to instantiate persuasive argumentation is an often informally presented but not systematically developed view. In this paper, I will argue that this unpersuasiveness is not determined by principles of justification transmission but by two straightforward principles of rationality, understood as a concept of internal coherence. First, it is rational for S to believe the conclusion of an argument because of the argument, only if S believes sufficiently many premises of the argument. Second, if S (...) doubts that a source O is reliable and believes that information i is delivered by O, then S rationally suspends judgment about the truth of i. This paper aims to accomplish two tasks. First, it provides a thorough analysis of why bootstrapping argumentation is not an instance of rational persuasion. Second, it contains a more general theory about preconditions and limits of persuasive argumentation. (shrink)

[Winner of the American Philosophical Association’s 2024 Journal of Value Inquiry Prize.] My thesis is that certain non-verbal paintings such as Picasso’s GUERNICA make (simple) arguments. If this is correct and the arguments are reasonably good, it would indicate one way that non-literary art can be cognitively valuable, since argument can provide the justification needed for knowledge or understanding. The focus is on painting, but my findings seem applicable to comparable visual art forms (a sculpture is also considered). My approach (...) largely consists of identifying pertinent features of viable literary cognitivism and then showing how they or close analogues can be applied to non-verbal painting. The two main features are the requirements, first, that the relevant knowledge is provided significantly in virtue of the distinctive essential feature of literary fictions, i.e., their fictionality, and second, that the knowledge stems primarily from the content of the work, not from what the auditor brings to the work. Some ways that literary fiction has been taken to be argumentative are explained, and striking similarities are found between argumentative literary fiction and argumentative painting. Potential objections are addressed, and I examine a proposed way to express, in a schematized format, both the power of an argumentative painting and its relatively simple associated propositional content. (shrink)

I contend that certain non-verbal paintings such as Picasso’s GUERNICA make (simple) arguments. The modern study of visual argument has mostly focused on partially verbal media such as ads, posters, and cartoons, rather than non-verbal, classic art forms like painting. If a painting’s argument is reasonably good, it would be a source of cognitive value. My analogical approach is to show how pertinent features of viable literary cognitivism can be applied to non-verbal painting.

This chapter presents a typology of the different kinds of inductive inferences we can draw from our evidence, based on the explanatory relationship between evidence and conclusion. Drawing on the literature on graphical models of explanation, I divide inductive inferences into (a) downwards inferences, which proceed from cause to effect, (b) upwards inferences, which proceed from effect to cause, and (c) sideways inferences, which proceed first from effect to cause and then from that cause to an additional effect. I further (...) distinguish between direct and indirect forms of downwards and upwards inferences. I then show how we can subsume canonical forms of inductive inference mentioned in the literature, such as inference to the best explanation, enumerative induction, and analogical inference, under this typology. Along the way, I explore connections with probability and confirmation, epistemic defeat, the relation between abduction and enumerative induction, the compatibility of IBE and Bayesianism, and theories of epistemic justification. (shrink)

Default positions, predetermined starting points that aid in complex decision-making, are common in clinical medicine. In this article, we identify and critically examine common default positions in clinical ethics practice. Whether default positions ought to be held is an important normative question, but here we are primarily interested in the descriptive, rather than normative, properties of default positions. We argue that default positions in clinical ethics function to protect and promote important values in medicine—respect for persons, utility, and justice. Further, (...) default positions in clinical ethics may also guard against harm. Where default positions exist, there are epistemic burdens to overturn them. The person wishing to reject the default position, rather than the person endorsing it, bears this burden. The person who bears the burden of meeting the epistemic requirements must provide evidence proportional to the degree of harm the default position protects against. Default positions that protect against significant harm impose significant epistemic requirements to overturn. This asymmetry not only makes medical decision-making more economical but also serves to promote and protect certain values. The identification and analysis of common and recognizable default positions can help to identify other default positions and the conditions under which their associated epistemic requirements are met. The article concludes with considerations of potential problems with the use of default positions in clinical ethics. (shrink)

Several important philosophical problems (including the problems of perception, free will, and scepticism) arise from antinomies that are developed through philosophical paradoxes. The critical strand of ordinary language philosophy (OLP), as practiced by J.L. Austin, provides an approach to such ‘antinomic problems’ that proceeds from an examination of ‘ordinary language’ (how people ordinarily talk about the phenomenon of interest) and ‘common sense’ (what they commonly think about it), and deploys findings to show that the problems at issue are artefacts of (...) fallacious reasoning. The approach is capable, and in need of, empirical development. Proceeding from a case-study on Austin’s paradigmatic treatment of the problem of perception, this paper identifies the key empirical assumptions informing the approach, assesses them in the light of empirical findings about default inferences, contextualisation failures, and belief fragmentation, and explores how these findings can be deployed to address the problem of perception. This facilitates a novel resolution of the problem of perception. Proceeding from this paradigm, the paper proposes ‘experimental critical OLP’ as a new research program in experimental philosophy that avoids apparent non-sequiturs of OLP, extends and transforms experimental philosophy’s ‘sources program’, and provides a promising new strategy for deploying empirical findings about how people ordinarily talk and think about phenomena, to address longstanding philosophical problems. (shrink)

This work investigates intuitions' nature, demonstrating how philosophers can best use them in epistemology. First, the author considers several paradigmatic thought experiments in epistemology that depict the appeal to intuition. He then argues that the nature of thought experiment-generated intuitions is not best explained by an a priori Platonism. Second, the book instead develops and argues for a thin conception of epistemic intuitions. The account maintains that intuition is neither a priori nor a posteriori but multi-dimensional. It is an intentional (...) but non-propositional mental state that is also non-conceptual and non-phenomenal in nature. Moreover, this state is individuated by its progenitor, namely, the relevant thought experiment. Third, the author provides an argument for the evidential status of intuitions based on the correct account of the nature of epistemic intuition. The suggestion is the fitting-ness approach: intuition alone has no epistemic status. Rather, intuition has evidentiary value as long as it fits well with other pieces into a whole, namely, the pertinent thought experiment. Finally, the book addresses the key challenges raised by supporters of anti-centrality, according to which philosophers do not regard intuition as central evidence in philosophy. To that end, the author responds to them, showing that they fail to affect the account of intuition developed in this book. This text appeals to students and researchers working in epistemology. (shrink)

This chapter proceeds from the standard picture of the relation between intuitions and experimental philosophy: the alleged evidential role of intuitions about hypothetical cases, and experimental philosophy’s challenge to these judgments, based on their variation with philosophically irrelevant factors. I will survey some of the main defenses of this standard picture against the x-phi challenge, most of which fail. Concerning the most popular defense, the expertise defense, I will draw the bleak conclusion that intuitive expertise of the envisaged kind is (...) largely a myth. Next, I will consider the mischaracterization objection, which has mainly been developed by Deutsch and Cappelen on the basis of textual evidence: that philosophers do not appeal to intuitions as evidence for their case judgments, but instead argue for them. This would render the x-phi challenge mostly irrelevant, due to its focus on intuitions about hypothetical cases. I will then consider a few instructive replies to the mischaracterization objection, which are all unconvincing on further inspection. Finally, I will discuss some potential normative consequences of the mischaracterization objection, and I will argue that it recommends a shift away from the excessive focus on intuitions about cases in metaphilosophy and experimental philosophy, towards more work on the role of argumentation in the method of cases. More speculatively, I claim that philosophers should always argue for their case judgments, even if they have strong intuitions about them, because an argument-based methodology would be more transparent and philosophically fruitful than one that mainly relies on intuition. (shrink)

This paper provides a reinterpretation of some of the most influential skeptical arguments, Agrippa’s trilemma, meta-regress arguments, and Cartesian external world skepticism. These skeptical arguments are reasonably regarded as unsound arguments about the extent of our knowledge. However, reinterpretations of these arguments tell us something significant about the preconditions and limits of persuasive argumentation. These results contribute to the ongoing debates about the nature and resolvability of deep disagreement. The variety of skeptical arguments shows that we must distinguish different types (...) of deep disagreement. Moreover, the reinterpretation of skeptical arguments elucidates that deep disagreement cannot be resolved via argumentation. (shrink)

The discussion about deep disagreement has gained significant momentum in the last several years. This discussion often relies on the intuition that deep disagreement is, in some sense, rationally irresolvable. In this paper, I will provide a theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement. Such a theory is interesting in its own right, since it conflicts with the view that rational attitudes and procedures are paradigmatic tools for resolving disagreement. Moreover, I will suggest replacing discussions about deep disagreement with an analysis of (...) rationally irresolvable disagreement, since this notion can be more clearly defined than deep disagreement and captures the basic intuitions underlying deep disagreement. I will first motivate this project by critically assessing the current debate about deep disagreement. I then detail the notions of rationality and resolvable disagreement which are crucial for a suitable theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement before sketching various instances of rationally irresolvable disagreement. Finally, I argue for replacing theories of deep disagreement with theories of rationally irresolvable disagreement, an approach that has significant advantages over existing theories of deep disagreement which focus on hinge propositions or fundamental epistemic principles. (shrink)

Drawing on the epistemology of logic literature on anti-exceptionalism about logic, we set out to investigate the following metaphilosophical questions empirically: Is philosophy special? Are its methods (dis)continuous with science? More specifically, we test the following metaphilosophical hypotheses empirically: philosophical deductivism, philosophical inductivism, and philosophical abductivism. Using indicator words to classify arguments by type (namely, deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments), we searched through a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database (N = 435,703) to find patterns of (...) argumentation. The results of our quantitative, corpus-based study suggest that deductive arguments are significantly more common than abductive arguments and inductive arguments in philosophical texts overall, but they are gradually and steadily giving way to non-deductive (i.e. inductive and abductive) arguments in academic philosophy. (shrink)

I show that in our theoretical representations of argument, vicious infinite regresses of self-reference may arise with respect to each of the three usual, informal criteria of argument cogency: the premises are to be relevant, sufficient, and acceptable. They arise needlessly, by confusing a cogency criterion with argument content. The three types of regress all are structurally similar to Lewis Carroll’s famous regress, which involves quantitative extravagance with no explanatory power. Most attention is devoted to the sufficiency criterion, including its (...) relation to the view au courant that inferring necessarily involves the thinker taking her premises to support her conclusion. I contend that this view is mistaken and likewise that arguments make no such assumption or inference claim as that the premises support the conclusion. The core of the positive alternative model I propose is that there is commitment to, but not claiming, the proposition that the premises support the conclusion. (shrink)

This paper argues that the proponents of epistemological scientism must take some stand on scientific methodology. The supporters of scientism cannot simply defer to the social organisation of science because the social processes themselves must meet some methodological criteria. Among such criteria is epistemic evaluability, which demands intersubjective access to reasons. We derive twelve theses outlining some implications of epistemic evaluability. Evaluability can support weak and broad variants of epistemological scientism, which state that sciences, broadly construed, are the best sources (...) of knowledge or some other epistemic goods. Since humanities and social sciences produce epistemically evaluable results, narrow types of scientism that take only natural sciences as sources of knowledge require additional argumentation in their support. Strong scientism, which takes sciences as the only source of knowledge, also needs to appeal to some further principles since evaluability is not an all-or-nothing affair. (shrink)

This chapter argues that a virtue-theoretic account of argumentation can enhance our understanding of the phenomenon of populism and offer some lines of response. Virtue theories of argumentation emphasize the role of arguers in the conduct and evaluation of arguments and lay particular stress on arguers’ acquired dispositions of character, otherwise known as intellectual virtues and vices. One variety of argumentation of particular relevance to democratic decision-making is group deliberation. There are both theoretical and empirical reasons for maintaining that intellectual (...) humility is pivotal to the practice of group deliberation. Several factors to which the rise of populism has been attributed may be understood as failures of the virtues of argumentation in general, and intellectual humility in particular. (shrink)

Analytic philosophers have, since the pioneering work of B.K. Matilal, emphasized the contributions of Nyāya philosophers to what contemporary philosophy considers epistemology. More recently, scholarly work demonstrates the relevance of their ideas to argumentation theory, an interdisciplinary area of study drawing on epistemology as well as logic, rhetoric, and linguistics. This paper shows how early Nyāya theorizing about argumentation, from Vātsyāyana to Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, can fruitfully be juxtaposed with the pragma-dialectic approach to argumentation pioneered by Frans van Eemeren. I illustrate (...) the implications of this analysis with a case study from Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s satirical play, Much Ado about Religion (Āgamaḍambara). (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze and discuss Schopenhauer’s n-term diagrams for eristic dialectics from a graph-theoretical perspective. Unlike logic, eristic dialectics does not examine the validity of an isolated argument, but the progression and persuasiveness of an argument in the context of a dialogue or even controversy. To represent these dialogue situations, Schopenhauer created large maps with concepts and Euler-type diagrams, which from today’s perspective are a specific form of graphs. We first present the original method with Euler-type diagrams, then (...) give the most important graph-theoretical definitions, then discuss Schopenhauer’s diagrams graph-theoretically and finally give an example of how the graphs or diagrams can be used to analyze dialogues. (shrink)

The fallacy of ignoring qualifications, or secundum quid et simpliciter, is a deceptive strategy that is pervasive in argumentative dialogues, discourses, and discussions. It consists in misrepresenting an utterance so that its meaning is broadened, narrowed, or simply modified to pursue different goals, such as drawing a specific conclusion, attacking the interlocutor, or generating humorous reactions. The “secundum quid” was described by Aristotle as an interpretative manipulative strategy, based on the contrast between the “proper” sense of a statement and its (...) meaning taken absolutely or in a certain respect. However, how can an “unqualified” statement have a proper meaning different from the qualified one, and vice versa? This “linguistic” fallacy brings to light a complex relationship between pragmatics, argumentation, and interpretation. The secundum quid is described in this paper as a manipulative argument, whose deceptive effect lies in its pragmatic dimension. This fallacy is analyzed as a strategy of decontextualization lying at the interface between pragmatics and argumentation and consisting of the unwarranted passage from an ut-terance to its semantic representation. By ignoring the available evidence and the presumptive interpretation of a statement, the speaker places it in a different context or suppresses textual and contextual evidence to infer a specific meaning different from the presumable one. (shrink)

Douglas Walton’s work is extremely vast, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary. He developed theoretical proposals that have been used in disciplines that are not traditionally related to philosophy, such as law, education, discourse analysis, artificial intelligence, or medical communication. Through his papers and books, Walton redefined the boundaries not only of argumentation theory, but also logic and philosophy. He was a philosopher in the sense that his interest was developing theoretical models that can help explain reality, and more importantly interact with it. (...) For this reason, he proposed methods that have been used for analyzing different types of dialogical interactions, and modeling procedures for regulating them. (shrink)

Neo-positivism is the view that metaphysical questions completely decompose into ordinary empirical questions that can be answered by scientific enquiry (empirical) or ordinary logical or modal questions, which can be answered by appeal to a metaphysically innocent modalism (modal innocence) or questions that are non-factual, that is questions that are such that the world does not provide the question with a determinate answer (nonfactualism). -/- There is much to like about this book. It forcefully, and at times compellingly, presents a (...) new vision of metaphysics. It forces us to re-engage with questions about what we are doing when we do metaphysics, and presents a startling different picture to many that have emerged in recent times. Rather than conceiving of metaphysics as the search for the fundamental joints of reality, or for those things that give rise to the non-fundamental things we see around us, it argues for a quite different approach. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that appeals to intuition in Analytic Philosophy are not compelling arguments because intuitions are not the sort of thing that has the power to rationally persuade other professional analytic philosophers. This conclusion follows from reasonable premises about the goal of Analytic Philosophy, which is rational persuasion by means of arguments, and the requirement that evidence for and/or against philosophical theses used by professional analytic philosophers be public (or transparent) in order to have the power to (...) rationally persuade other professional analytic philosophers. Since intuitions are not public (or transparent) evidence, it follows that appeals to intuition are not compelling arguments for and/or against philosophical theses because they lack the power to rationally persuade other professional analytic philosophers. (shrink)

In this paper, we set out to investigate the following question: if science relies heavily on induction, does philosophy of science rely heavily on induction as well? Using data mining and text analysis methods, we study a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database (n = 14,199) in order to answer this question empirically. If philosophy of science relies heavily on induction, just as science supposedly does, then we would expect to find significantly more inductive arguments than (...) deductive arguments and abductive arguments in the published works of philosophers of science. Using indicator words to classify arguments by type (namely, deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments), we search through our corpus to find patterns of argumentation. Overall, the results of our study suggest that philosophers of science do rely on inductive inference. But induction may not be as foundational to philosophy of science as it is thought to be for science, given that philosophers of science make significantly more deductive arguments than inductive arguments. Interestingly, our results also suggest that philosophers of science do not rely on abductive arguments all that much, even though philosophers of science consider abduction to be a cornerstone of scientific methodology. (shrink)

While the empirical evidence pointing to a gender gap in professional, academic philosophy in the English-speaking world is widely accepted, explanations of this gap are less so. In this paper, we aim to make a modest contribution to the literature on the gender gap in academic philosophy by taking a quantitative, corpus-based empirical approach. Since some philosophers have suggested that it may be the argumentative, “logic-chopping,” and “paradox-mongering” nature of academic philosophy that explains the underrepresentation of women in the discipline, (...) our research questions are the following: Do men and women philosophers make different types of arguments in their published works? If so, which ones and with what frequency? Using data mining and text analysis methods, we study a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database in order to answer these questions empirically. Using indicator words to classify arguments by type, we search through our corpus to find patterns of argumentation. Overall, the results of our empirical study suggest that women philosophers make deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments in their published works just as much as male philosophers do, with no statistically significant differences in the proportions of those arguments relative to each philosopher’s body of work. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been described as a “non-argumentocentric” way of doing philosophy, reflecting that the philosophical focus is on generating adequate descriptions of experience. But it should not be described as an argument-free zone, regardless of whether this is intended as a descriptive claim about the work of the “usual suspects” or a normative claim about how phenomenology ought to be properly practiced. If phenomenology is always at least partly in the business of arguments, then it is worth giving further attention (...) to the role and form of phenomenological argumentation, how it interacts with its more strictly descriptive component, and the status of phenomenological claims regarding conditions for various kinds of experience. I contend that different versions of phenomenological reasoning encroach upon argument forms that are commonly thought to be antithetical to phenomenology, notably abductive reasoning, understood in terms of its role in both hypothesis generation and in terms of justification. This paper identifies two main steps to making this case. The first step takes seriously the consequences of the intrinsically dialectical aspect of phenomenology in intersection with other modes of philosophy, the natural attitude, and non-philosophy. The second step focuses on transcendental reflection and arguments about the conditions/structures they contain. Together, these two steps aim to rescue phenomenology from the objection that it has an “ostrich epistemology” with regard to the ostensible purity of description, the intuition of essences, or the “conditions” ascertained through transcendental reflection. (shrink)

Virtue theories of argumentation (VTA) emphasize the roles arguers play in the conduct and evaluation of arguments, and lay particular stress on arguers’ acquired dispositions of character, that is, virtues and vices. The inspiration for VTA lies in virtue epistemology and virtue ethics, the latter being a modern revival of Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle is also, of course, the father of Western logic and argumentation. This paper asks to what degree Aristotle may thereby be claimed as a forefather by VTA.

In this paper, I study the relation between arguments against the person (aka ad hominem or personal attack arguments) and disqualifications for conflicts of interests. I show that both types of arguments share a similar logical structure and that they can be considered to be acceptable in similar circumstances.

What is the relevance of ideals for determining virtuous argumentative practices? According to Bailin and Battersby (2016), the telos of argumentation is to improve our cognitive systems, and adversariality plays no role in ideally virtuous argumentation. Stevens and Cohen (2019) grant that ideal argumentation is collaborative, but stress that imperfect agents like us should not aim at approximating the ideal of argumentation. Accordingly, it can be virtuous, for imperfect arguers like us, to act as adversaries. Many questions are left unanswered (...) by both camps. First, how do we conceptualize an ideal and its approximation? Second, how can we determine what is the ideal of argumentation? Third, can we extend Stevens and Cohen’s anti-approximation argument beyond virtue theory? In order to respond to these questions, this paper develops a second-best perspective on ideal argumentation. The Theory of the Second Best is a formal contribution to the field of utility (or welfare) optimization. Its main conclusion is that, in non-ideal circumstances, approximating ideals might be suboptimal. (shrink)

Argument mapping is a way of diagramming the logical structure of an argument to explicitly and concisely represent reasoning. The use of argument mapping in critical thinking instruction has increased dramatically in recent decades. This paper overviews the innovation and provides a procedural approach for new teaches wanting to use argument mapping in the classroom. A brief history of argument mapping is provided at the end of this paper.

Metamorphosis as it is represented by some pre-historical artists seems problematic for our occidental point of view. In fact, it seems to be strongly against identity and law of non-contradiction. Becoming in general is also viewed as an error or exception by our classic point of view. This very claim can conduct to theories of non-classical logic. Deleuze and Guattari in their monumental work had tried to offer enormous contributions in order to comprehend the becoming phenomenon. Through a pre-historical representations (...) analysis, with also an intrusion in contemporary art's field, I want to confront with possible metamorphosis representations remain theoretically founded in the deleuzian proposal in dialogue with phenomenological inquiry. New principle of individuation and analysis of expression provide new looks to arisen problems with classical logic and metamorphosis representations, which will be acceptable and comprehensible as art shows. (shrink)

Heute gibt es kaum jemanden mehr, der nicht mit Fake News und Verschwörungstheorien in Berührung gekommen wäre. Mit dem globalen Aufstieg des modernen Populismus und besonders seit Donald Trumps US-Präsidentschaft konnten sie von obskuren Internetfo-ren und dem Rand der Gesellschaft weiter als je zuvor in die öffentliche Debatte vordringen. Mit der zunehmenden Nutzung sozialer Medien und Messenger-Apps wie Telegram oder WhatsApp findet scheinbares Wissen ungehindert Verbreitung und direkten Zugang zu den Smartphones und Köpfen der Menschen. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es (...) nicht verwunderlich, dass Verschwörungstheorien und Fake News auch Einzug ins Klassenzimmer halten. Dabei stehen Lehrer*innen vor vielen offenen Fragen. Wie sind diese Behauptungen im Einzelnen zu bewerten? Was zeichnet Fake News und Verschwörungstheorien aus und was genau macht sie problematisch? Wie, selbst wenn sie klarerweise falsch und unbegründet sind, sollte damit im Klassenzimmer umgegangen werden? Sollte man sie offen diskutieren? Oder sollte man die Diskussion darüber unterbinden? Hier werden grundlegende und komplexe Fragen der freien Meinungsbildung und -äußerung berührt, zu denen Grundgesetz, Beamten- und Schulrecht nur begrenzt Auskunft geben. In diesem Beitrag wollen uns zuerst ein klares Bild davon machen, was Fake News und Verschwörungstheorien eigentlich sind, warum manche Menschen sie für wahr halten und was daran problematisch ist. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll anschließend die Frage diskutiert werden, wie aus demokratie- und bildungstheoretischer Sicht mit Fake News und Verschwörungstheorien im Unterricht umgegangen werden sollte. (shrink)