The Russellian argument against the possibility of absolutely unrestricted quantification can be answered by the partisan of that quantification in an apparently easy way, namely, arguing that the objects used in the argument do not exist because they are defined in a viciously circular fashion. We show that taking this contention along as a premise and relying on an extremely intuitive Principle of Determinacy, it is possible to devise a reductio of the possibility of absolutely unrestricted quantification. Therefore, (...) there are intuitive reasons to believe that the counter-argument fails to support the possibility of absolutely unrestricted quantification. (shrink)

In der ersten Erwiderung Eichners wurde der induktive Charakter der 'starken Falsifikation' nicht beachtet. Nunmehr bringen Eichner und Habermehl empirische Gesichtspunkte und den kategorischen Charakter der 'starken Falsifikation' ins Spiel. Dabei ignorieren sie die hier allein relevante normative Rechtfertigungsproblematik und den konditionalen Charakter der induktiven Generalisierung. Ihre Argumente können meine Symmetriethese nicht widerlegen.

According to Bird’s Naïve Dispositional Monism, all properties are powers, and are individuated by their manifestations. Lowe has famously challenged the position with an individuation regress or circularity argument. Bird has then offered a structuralist side-step in the form of Structuralist Dispositional Monism, according to which powers are individuated through the unique position they occupy in an asymmetric power-structure. However, Structuralist Dispositional Monism has been argued to be just as problematic as Naïve Dispositional Monism, if not more so.I (...) argue that the debate is severely flawed to the extent that it relies on Lowe’s standard characterization of metaphysical individuation as a binary relation between objects. I will argue against this characterization in favor of a different one, either as a standard or sui generis explanatory relation of individuality facts. In the former case, Naïve Dispositional Monism is clear of all charges previously raised against it; whereas in the latter case, Structuralist Dispositional Monism works just fine; Structuralist Dispositional Monism may ultimately be argued to the be the superior option. Either way, the status of Dispositional Monism, vis à vis individuation circularities, is not as compromised as some have claimed—and Lowe’s intended way out (viz., allow for some non-power to eventually break the circularity) loses much of its appeal. (shrink)

In a theoretical first part we attempt to articulate the notions of concession, refutation and negation for monological linguistic activity, on the basis among other things of Mœschler's work on conversation. We distinguish the illocutionary act of refutation and the complex intervention of refutation, concession-invention, concession-repetition and concession-quotation. In a second part we analyze the place and role of (descriptive) negation in counter-argumentative texts written by 8- to 12-year-old pupils and adults in an artificial situation. We consider phenomena observed (...) by certain “contradictory” properties of negation in the context of the task in question: namely potential help in generating content by mechanisms of the argumentative law of negation extended to predicates, negation takes the risk polyphonically of argumentative drift. This may explain the fact that it is so rare. (shrink)

Disagreement and debunking arguments threaten religious belief. In this paper, I draw attention to two types of propositions and show how they reveal new ways to respond to debunking arguments and disagreement. The first type of proposition is the epistemically self-promoting proposition, which, when justifiedly believed, gives one a reason to think that one reliably believes it. Such a proposition plays a key role in my argument that some religious believers can permissibly wield an epistemically circular argument in (...) response to certain debunking arguments. The second type of proposition is the epistemically others-demoting proposition, which, when justifiedly believed, gives one a reason to think that others are unreliable with respect to it. Such a proposition plays a key role in my argument that some religious believers can permissibly wield a question-begging argument to respond to certain types of disagreement. (shrink)

It is increasingly recognized that as artificial intelligence becomes more powerful and pervasive in society and creates risks and ethical issues that cross borders, a global approach is needed for the governance of these risks. But why, exactly, do we need this and what does that mean? In this Open Forum paper, author argues for global governance of AI for moral reasons but also outlines the governance challenges that this project raises.

This paper criticizes the circularity reading of Frege's argument for the indefinability of truth. According to this reading, Frege is appealing to a sort of circularity in the argument. I argue that the circularity reading is interpretatively incorrect, or makes Frege's argument a non‐starter.

Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple realization (...) of pain without running into a circular argument. Second, opponents to consciousness in fish cannot be provided with reasons to believe in the multiple realizability of pain. I conclude that the debate on the existence of pain in fish is impossible to settle by relying on the multiple realization argument. (shrink)

In this paper, an argumentative pattern that is prototypical for the communicative practice of over-the-counter medicine advertisements will be discussed. First, a basic argumentative pattern for this type of advertisement will be identified. In addition, an overview of various types of extensions of this basic pattern will be presented. Finally, it will be made clear how combinations of the basic pattern and specific extensions can be analysed as the result of strategic choices made by the advertisers concerning the type (...) of arguments that are advanced, the argumentation structure and the presentation of their arguments. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider an evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) that purports to undermine the epistemic justification of the belief in the reliability of our belief-forming processes, and an evolutionary vindicating argument (EVA) that seeks to establish that such a belief is epistemically justified. Whereas the EDA in question seems to fall prey to crippling self-defeat, the EVA under consideration seems to fall prey to vicious circularity. My interest in those arguments and the problems they face lies (...) in what they might tell us about the possibly aporetic nature of reason. For, if we take the EDA and the EVA in question to consist of true or plausible premises and valid inferences at which we arrive through a meticulous use of reason, then their falling victim to either crippling self-defeat or vicious circularity might be regarded as a sign that, when we push rational reflection on the reliability, or lack thereof, of our belief-forming capacities to the limit, we end up in a situation of aporia from which there seems to be no escape. (shrink)

Since the demise of the Sense-Datum independent objects or events to be objects Theory and Phenomenalism in the last cenof perception; however, unlike Direct Retury, Direct Realism in the philosophy of alists, Indirect Realists take this percepperception has enjoyed a resurgence of tion to be indirect by involving a prior popularity.1 Curiously, however, although awareness of some tertium quid between there have been attempts in the literature the mind and external objects or events.3 to refute some of the arguments against (...) Idealists and Phenomenalists agree with Direct Realism, there has been, as of yet, the Indirect Realists. (shrink)

Ātman (soul) and Nairātmya (no soul) are, for the Brahmanical schools and the Buddhists respectively, equally fundamental tenets which neither side can concede to the other. Among the 16 formulations presented by Uddyotakara, the fifteenth, which is a proof of Ātman and is originally an indirect proof ( avīta/āvīta ), is presented in a prasaṅga -style, and contains double negation ( na nairātmyam ) in the thesis. However, it is perhaps Dharmakīrti who first transformed it into a normal style ( (...) sātmakam ). He is well aware of the law of excluded middle, and insisits that the negation is paryudāsa . On the Nyāya side, Uddyotakara at least seems to be unaware of the law of the logical equivalence of contraposition concerning pervasion ( vyāpti ). After Uddyotakara, however, Vyoman (Vyomaśiva), Bhāsarvajña and Vācaspatimiśra, all seem to be well aware of it. Dharmakīrti, in his conter-argument against the proof of ātman , discusses the negative expressions ‘‘ nairātmya ” and ‘‘ a-nairātmya ” Dharmakīrti here uses two logical arguments skillfully and tactically. As a critic of both the authenticity of the Veda and the existence of ātman , he insists on the theory of dichotomy and the equivalence of anvaya and vyatireka , whereas as an apologist he denies the application of these theories to the relation between the existence of ātman and the concept of nairātmya , because for him as a Buddhist the latter is not a negative but essentially positive state of affairs. (shrink)

Sometimes pernicious circularities appear in definitions of fundamental concepts of argumentation theory. For instance, in pragma-dialectical theory, the concept of a fallacy and that of a critical discussion aiming at resolving a difference of opinion mutually presuppose one another. A similar relationship obtains, in argumentation theory at large, between the concept of argumentation and that of rationality. Again, the concept of an argumentative dialogue presupposes a concept of statement. Yet, statementhood is sometimes claimed to be determined by a locution’s function (...) in dialogue. Similarly, for the concepts of proof and argument. Are these circularities really objectionable? Are they resolvable? If they are not, how can we live with them? It will be argued that some of these problems can be neglected some of the time, but not all of them all of the time. Though there may be no royal road towards resolution, several strategies can be applied. But sometimes patience is what is needed. (shrink)

This paper criticizes Kent Wilson's (`Circular Arguments', 1988) arguments against the analysis of the fallacy of begging the question in epistemic terms and against the division of the fallacy into equivalence and dependency types. It is argued that Wilson does not succeed in showing that the epistemic attitude to the fallacy analysis should be given up. Further, it is argued that Wilson's arguments against the division of the fallacy into two types can be overcome by altering the accounts he criticizes (...) (David Sanford (1971, 1984, 1988) and John Biro (1977, 1984)): fallacy analysis should concentrate on externalized arguments, but this does not mean that either the epistemic attitude or the dependency conception should be given up. (shrink)

This book offers a new theory of begging the question as an informal fallacy, within a pragmatic framework of reasoned dialogue as a normative theory of critical argumentation. The fallacy of begging the question is analyzed as a systematic tactic to evade fulfillment of a legitimate burden of proof by the proponent of an argument. The technique uses a circular structure of argument to block the further progress of dialogue and, in particular, the capability of the respondent to (...) ask legitimate critical questions in reply to the argument. Walton analyzes the concept of burden of proof in argument, and provides chapters on the use of argument diagramming as a technique of argument reconstruction. This powerful method of argument analysis developed therein is then applied to more than 100 case studies of circular argumentation where the charge of begging the question is or has been thought to be an appropriate criticism. Throughout this work, Walton throws light on the relationship between the problem of circular reasoning and broader issues in the critical analysis of argumentation. Ground-breaking use is made of the pragmatic theory of argument as interactive dialogue. Rules for several kinds of dialogue framework provide standards of good reasoning to validate or to refute the criticism that a particular argument begs the question. This book is directed to students and professionals in the fields of speech communication, philosophy, linguistics, logic, dispute mediation, and education. (shrink)

This paper investigates in how far a theory of dialectical structures sheds new light on the old problem of giving a satisfying account of the fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question. It defends that (i) circular argumentation on the one hand and petitio principii on the other hand are two distinct features of complex argumentation, and that (ii) it is impossible to make general statements about the defectiveness of an argumentation that exhibits these features. Such an argumentation, in (...) contrast, has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. “Petitio principii”, this paper thence suggests, is one name for, in fact, a multitude of different and quite complex dialectical situations which require specific analysis and evaluation. (shrink)

An argument whose conclusion C is essential evidence for one of its premises can provide its target audience with justification for believing C. This is possible because we can enhance our justification for believing a proposition C by integrating it into an explanatory network of beliefs for which C itself provides essential evidence. I argue for this in light of relevant features of doxastic circularity, epistemic circularity, and explanatory inferences. Finally, I confirm my argument with an (...) example and respond to objections. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Seventeenth-Century Catholic Polemic and the Rise of Cultural Rationalism: An Example from the EmpireSusan RosaIn Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Sagre-do, an intelligent, cultivated, and well-traveled young man who is persuaded of the truth of arguments in favor of the Copernican opinion presented by the philosopher Salviati, dismisses the counter-arguments of the Aristotelian Simplicio with sympathetic condescension: “I pity him,” he proclaims,no less than I (...) should some fine gentleman who, having built a magnificent palace at great trouble and expense, employing hundreds and hundreds of artisans, and then beholding it threatened with ruin because of poor foundations, should attempt, in order to avoid the grief of seeing the walls destroyed, adorned as they are with so many lovely murals; or the columns fall, which sustain the superb galleries, or the gilded beams, or the doors spoiled, or the pediments and the marble cornices, brought in at so much cost—should attempt, I say, to prevent the collapse with chains, props, iron buttresses, and shores. 1 [End Page 87]This elegant simile, which suggests that the fine gentleman can only preserve his palace by destroying its beauty, is meant to evoke the dilemma of the scholastic philosopher who is confronted by the evident disintegration of his intellectual home. Like the desperate owner who seeks to shore up his real palace, he must rebuild a philosophical edifice whose apparent beauty and coherence have been achieved at the expense of substance and can only be preserved by recourse to means so ugly and inadequate that they destroy even the illusion of credibility.Such a dilemma, I would argue, was the legacy bequeathed to many defenders of traditional religion in the seventeenth century by more than one hundred years of confessional rivalry. To simplify a complex process, this lengthy period of controversy and apologetic, to say nothing of warfare and mutual persecution, had generated a discourse which objectified and prob-lematized religion, making it something to think about rather than to think with. 2 In other words, the formal statements of conviction issued in the wake of the Reformation by competing denominations within Christendom, like the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Augsburg Confession, the Genevan Confession, or the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England had encouraged the development of the notion of religion as adherence to a set of propositions. As Peter Harrison has explained, this creation of a propositional religion in turnenabled discussion of the merits of other “religions” conceived to exist similarly as sets of beliefs. The truth or falsity of a religion had become a function of the truth or falsity of the propositions which constituted it. True religion... [had become]... a body of certain knowledge. 3Harrison’s remarks are significant because they suggest that the origins of rationalized discourse about religion and its consequent transformation from a way of thinking to an object of thought are to be found squarely within orthodoxy itself. 4To be specific, the competing content of official doctrinal pronouncements led not only to the comparison of the religions but implicitly to their emergence as subjects of a discourse which proposed reason as the norm, a [End Page 88] development clearly reflected in the wave of pamphlets, broadsides, printed disputations, and formal polemical treatises written in both Latin and the vernacular languages which poured from the presses of Catholic and mainstream Protestant denominations in England and on the continent throughout the seventeenth century. In this literature, Protestants accused Catholics of “superstition” and “idolatry,” while Catholics urged potential converts to compare the religions with a view to discovering their “marks of truth,” argued for the compatibility of Catholic faith and “natural light,” and identified heresy, on the contrary, with unreason, passion, lust, and self-contradiction. On both sides of the confessional fence, polemicists frequently insisted that religious discussion conform to the rules of logic, accusing one another of failing to argue from incontrovertible first principles, and of succumbing to the fatal dangers of petitio principii and circular reasoning. In other words, they claimed that in religious matters poor argumentation is a sure sign of error, and it would not be... (shrink)

Within the context of the Quine–Putnam indispensability argument, one discussion about the status of mathematics is concerned with the ‘Enhanced Indispensability Argument’, which makes explicit in what way mathematics is supposed to be indispensable in science, namely explanatory. If there are genuine mathematical explanations of empirical phenomena, an argument for mathematical platonism could be extracted by using inference to the best explanation. The best explanation of the primeness of the life cycles of Periodical Cicadas is genuinely mathematical, (...) according to Baker :223–238, 2005; Br J Philos Sci 60:611–633, 2009). Furthermore, the result is then also used to strengthen the platonist position :779–793, 2017a). We pick up the circularity problem brought up by Leng Mathematical reasoning, heuristics and the development of mathematics, King’s College Publications, London, pp 167–189, 2005) and Bangu :13–20, 2008). We will argue that Baker’s attempt to solve this problem fails, if Hume’s Principle is analytic. We will also provide the opponent of the Enhanced Indispensability Argument with the so-called ‘interpretability strategy’, which can be used to come up with alternative explanations in case Hume’s Principle is non-analytic. (shrink)

Perhaps the most popular and historically important way of responding to skepticism is by an appeal to non-inferential justification. A problem with this sort of response is that while it may constitute a response to skepticism, it does not constitute a response to the skeptic. At some point, the anti-skeptic must simply fall silent, resigned to the fact that his or her non-inferential justification for the belief challenged by the skeptic is not communicable. I want to point out a possible (...) solution to this problem. I will argue that, in certain circumstances, it is possible to adduce circular arguments which are nevertheless rationally persuasive, and that the anti-skeptic may employ these arguments in lieu of simply falling silent when a non-inferentially justified belief is challenged. The almost universal assumption among philosophers that epistemically circular arguments are rationally useless is mistaken, and this fact can be utilized by the clever anti-skeptic. (shrink)

David Miller claims that every valid deductive argument begs the question. Other philosophers and logicians have made similar claims. I show that the claim is false. Its appeal depends on the existence of logical terminology, particularly concerning what a proposition 'contains' or its 'logical content,' that is best understood as metaphoric and that, given its aptness to mislead, would be better eschewed. I show how the terminology appears to derive from early modern theories of the nature of mind, ideas (...) and reasoning that have since been rejected. (shrink)

Hasker’s claim that my modal argument for substance dualism is epistemically circular is implausible. Someone can accept Premise 2 (which, Hasker claims, is the premise which generates the circularity) without ever understanding the conclusion, or without accepting Premise 3.

In the second chapter of his Modality, Probability and Rationality, James Sennett argues that Plantinga’s famed S5 Modal Argument (hereafter “MA”) for the existence of an unsurpassably great being is objectionably circular since it’s impossible for one to understand the premises of Plantinga’s MA without understanding these premises to logically entail its conclusion. That is to say, Sennett’s charge is that Plantinga’s MA is circular since there is no understanding of the premises of Plantinga’s MA that is independent of (...) its conclusion. In this paper I argue that Sennett has shown no such thing and that, contrary to strong prima facie appearances, there is an understanding of the premises of Plantinga’s MA that is independent of its conclusion. Consequently, Plantinga’s MA is not circular inthe way that Sennett alleges. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a model that allows the representation and analysis of circularity in ethotic structures, i.e. in communication structures related to the speaker’s character and in particular, his credibility. The paper studies three types of cycles: in self-referential sentences, embedded testimony and ethotic begging the question. It is shown that standard models allow the reconstruction of the circularities only if those circular utterances are interpreted as ethotic arguments. Their alternative, assertive interpretation requires enriching (...) the existing models with a purely ethotic component related to the credibility of the performer of any (not necessarily argumentative) speech act. (shrink)

Good informal arguments offer justification for their conclusions. They go wrong if the justifications double back, rendering the arguments circular. Circularity, however, is not necessarily a single property of an argument, but may depend on (a) whether the argument repeats an earlier claim, (b) whether the repetition occurs within the same line of justification, and (c) whether the claim is properly grounded in agreed‐upon information. The experiments reported here examine whether people take these factors into account in (...) their judgments of whether arguments are circular and whether they are reasonable. The results suggest that direct judgments of circularity depend heavily on repetition and structural role of claims, but only minimally on grounding. Judgments of reasonableness take repetition and grounding into account, but are relatively insensitive to structural role. (shrink)

Persuasive technologies can adopt several strategies to change the attitudes and behaviors of their users. In this work I synthesize the lessons learned from three empirical case studies on automated persuasion that have been carried out in the last decade in the contexts of: persuasive news recommendations, social robotics, and e-commerce, respectively. In particular, such studies have assessed, in the technological domain, the effects of nudging techniques relying on well known persuasive argumentation schemas and on framing strategies. In discussing the (...) main findings, I will argue that the obtained persuasive effects are due to the fact that such techniques leverage on cognitive mechanisms that refer to the “system 1” types of automatic processes hypothesized in the context of the dual process theory of reasoning. As a consequence of this state of affairs, any automated persuasive systems (used for ethical purposes: e.g. suggesting good health habits) should be able to re-use these types of system 1 strategies in order to gradually take the users in an argumentation territory where system 2 processes can take place. -/- . (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that philosophers are often too hasty in rejecting justifications because the argument that yields the justification is circular. Circularity is distinguished from vicious circularity and several examples are examined in which a proposed justification is circular in a precise sense, but not viciously circular. These include an observational procedure which could yield a velocity in excess of the velocity of light even though the impossibility of such velocities is assumed at a (...) key step in analyzing the data, and an argument that uses a specific argument form to show that that form is invalid. (shrink)

Epistemically circular arguments have been receiving quite a bit of attention in the literature for the past decade or so. Often the goal is to determine whether reliabilists (or other foundationalists) are committed to the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. It is often assumed that epistemic circularity is objectionable, though sometimes reliabilists accept that their position entails the legitimacy of some epistemically circular arguments, and then go on to affirm that such arguments really are good ones. My goal in (...) this paper is to argue against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. My strategy is to give a direct argument against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments, which rests on a principle of basis-relative safety, and then to argue that reliabilists do not have the resources to resist the argument. I argue that even if the premises of an epistemically circular argument enjoy reliabilist justification, the argument does not transmit that justification to its conclusion. The main goal of my argument is to show that epistemic circularity is always a bad thing, but it also has the positive consequence that reliabilists are freed from an awkward commitment to the legitimacy of some intuitively bad arguments. (shrink)

Humean accounts of natural lawhood have often been criticized as unable to account for the laws’ characteristic explanatory power in science. Loewer has replied that these criticisms fail to distinguish grounding explanations from scientific explanations. Lange has replied by arguing that grounding explanations and scientific explanations are linked by a transitivity principle, which can be used to argue that Humean accounts of natural law violate the prohibition on self-explanation. Lange’s argument has been sharply criticized by Hicks and van Elswyk, (...) Marshall, and Miller. This paper shows how Lange’s argument can withstand these criticisms once the transitivity principle and the prohibition on self-explanation are properly refined. The transitivity principle should be refined to accommodate contrasts in the explanans and explanandum. The prohibition on self-explanation should be refined so that it precludes a given fact p from helping to explain why some other fact q helps to explain why p. In this way, the transitivity principle avoids having counterintuitive consequences in cases involving macrostates having multiple possible microrealizations. The transitivity principle is perfectly compatible with the irreducibility of macroexplanations to microexplanations and with the diversity of the relations that can underwrite scientific explanations. (shrink)

To counter a general belief that all the paradoxes stem from a kind of circularity (or involve some self--reference, or use a diagonal argument) Stephen Yablo designed a paradox in 1993 that seemingly avoided self--reference. We turn Yablo's paradox, the most challenging paradox in the recent years, into a genuine mathematical theorem in Linear Temporal Logic (LTL). Indeed, Yablo's paradox comes in several varieties; and he showed in 2004 that there are other versions that are equally paradoxical. (...) Formalizing these versions of Yablo's paradox, we prove some theorems in LTL. This is the first time that Yablo's paradox(es) become new(ly discovered) theorems in mathematics and logic. (shrink)

RésuméLa critique kantienne de la psychologie rationnelle est une expérience de pensée visant ni un individu ni une école, mais une tendance de la raison humaine à « hypostasier » la condition intellectuelle suprême d'une connaissance quelconque (le « Je pense ») en connaissance du « moi ». Cette tendance implique une circularité qui est également la cible des critiques transcendantales bien plus familières qui visent Locke et Hume. De même qu'un nouveau type de cercle (dit « de niveau »), (...) cet article propose une conception des arguments transcendantaux différente de celle présupposée dans la plupart des débats contemporains sur l'empirisme, le naturalisme et le fondationnalisme cartésien. (shrink)

Robert Stern investigates how scepticism can be countered by using transcendental arguments concerning the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience, language, or thought. He shows that the most damaging sceptical questions concern neither the certainty of our beliefs nor the reliability of our belief-forming methods, but rather how we can justify our beliefs.

In this paper, I propose a critique of the naturalist version of the Desire-Based Reasons Model. I first set the scene by spelling out the connection between naturalism and the Model. After this, I introduce Christine Korsgaard’s circularity argument against what she calls the instrumental principle. Since Korsgaard’s targets, officially, were non-naturalist advocates of the principle, I show why and how the circularity charge can be extended to cover the naturalist Model. Once this is done, I go (...) on to investigate in some detail the different ways of responding to the circularity challenge. I argue that none of these responses succeed, at least not without serious costs to their advocates. I then end the paper with a brief summary and some concluding remarks. (shrink)