In this book two of the leading figures in argumentation theory present a view of argumentation as a means of resolving differences of opinion by testing the acceptability of the disputed positions. Their model of a 'critical discussion' serves as a theoretical tool for analysing, evaluating and producing argumentative discourse. They develop a method for the reconstruction of argumentative discourse that takes into account all aspects that are relevant to a critical assessment. They also propose a practical code of behaviour (...) for discussants who want to resolve their differences in a reasonable way. This is a major contribution to the study of argumentation and will be of particular value to professionals and graduate students in speech communication, informal logic, rhetoric, critical thinking, linguistics, and philosophy. (shrink)

The issues addressed in philosophical papers on quotation generally concern only a particular type of quotation, which I call 'closed quotation'. The other main type, 'open quotation', is ignored, and this neglect leads to bad theorizing. Not only is a general theory of quotation out of reach: the specific phenomenon of closed quotation itself cannot be properly understood if it is not appropriately situated within the kind to which it belongs. Once the distinction between open and closed quotation has been (...) drawn and properly appreciated, it is tempting to consider that only closed quotation is relevant to semantics. Open quotation is more a matter of pragmatics: it is a matter of what people do with words, rather than a matter of content and truth-conditions. In this way one can provide the beginning of a justification for the neglect of open quotation in current semantic theorizing. There is some truth in this view, yet the phenomenon of 'mixed quotation', investigated at length in this paper, is interesting precisely because it shows that things are not so simple. Important issues concerning the interface between semantics and pragmatics will thus be raised. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We outline a number of ethical objections to genetic technologies aimed at enhancing human capacities and traits. We then argue that, despite the persuasiveness of some of these objections, they are insufficient to stop the development and use of genetic enhancement technologies. We contend that the inevitability of the technologies results from a particular guiding worldview of humans as masters of the human evolutionary future, and conclude that recognising this worldview points to new directions for ethical thinking about genetic (...) enhancement technologies. (shrink)

In the pragma-dialectical approach, fallacies are considered incorrect moves in a discussion for which the goal is successful resolution of a dispute. Ten rules are given for effective conduct at the various stages of such a critical discussion (confrontation, opening, argumentation, concluding). Fallacies are discussed as violations of these rules, taking into account all speech acts which are traditionally recognized as fallacies. Special attention is paid to the role played by implicitness in fallacies in everyday language use. It is stressed (...) that identifying and acknowledging fallacies in ordinary discussions always has a conditional character. Differences between the pragma-dialectical perspective, the Standard Treatment, and the formal logic approach to fallacy analysis are discussed. (shrink)

As a continuation of our studies regarding the use of rhetoric in the thought of Thomas Hobbes, the present study deals with the relation between eloquence, passions and rebellion in The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. Thus, it is explained how the leaders of sedition and rebellion are necessarily, according to Hobbes, “eloquent men”. The aim is not only to separate the rhetorical tradition from the foundation of political sciences, but also to point out the supposed damages caused by (...) orators in civil life. Therefore, the conflicting and often contradictory relation between demonstration and persuasion in the politics of the 17th century is questioned, as well as the binding and constitutive role of passions. (shrink)

This commentator has no argument with the explanations given by Soltis. Yet a different approach to the phenomenon of crying might be fruitful. Neonates elicit care. It is hypothesized that non-neonates evolved to mimic, when in need, the appearance of the neonate by crying and by shedding tears, thus inducing helping behavior by the spectator.

BackgroundThe emphasis on impact factors and the quantity of publications intensifies competition between researchers. This competition was traditionally considered an incentive to produce high-quality work, but there are unwanted side-effects of this competition like publication pressure. To measure the effect of publication pressure on researchers, the Publication Pressure Questionnaire (PPQ) was developed. Upon using the PPQ, some issues came to light that motivated a revision.MethodWe constructed two new subscales based on work stress models using the facet method. We administered the (...) revised PPQ (PPQr) to a convenience sample together with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ). To assess which items best measured publication pressure, we carried out a principal component analysis (PCA). Reliability was sufficient when Cronbach’s alpha > 0.7. Finally, we administered the PPQr in a larger, independent sample of researchers to check the reliability of the revised version.ResultsThree components were identified as ‘stress’, ‘attitude’, and ‘resources’. We selected 3 × 6 = 18 items with high loadings in the three-component solution. Based on the convenience sample, Cronbach’s alphas were 0.83 for stress, 0.80 for attitude, and 0.76 for resources. We checked the validity of the PPQr by inspecting the correlations with the MBI and the WDQ. Stress correlated 0.62 with MBI’s emotional exhaustion. Resources correlated 0.50 with relevant WDQ subscales. To assess the internal structure of the PPQr in the independent reliability sample, we conducted the principal component analysis. The three-component solution explains 50% of the variance. Cronbach’s alphas were 0.80, 0.78, and 0.75 for stress, attitude, and resources, respectively.ConclusionWe conclude that the PPQr is a valid and reliable instrument to measure publication pressure in academic researchers from all disciplinary fields. The PPQr strongly relates to burnout and could also be beneficial for policy makers and research institutions to assess the degree of publication pressure in their institute. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In Waartoe Wetenschap? onderzoekt Frans W. Saris de wetenschap in evolutionair perspectief en hij bepleit een radical enlightenment in een dertiental essays en een toneeltekst waarin zulke uiteenlopende wetenschappers verschijnen als ...

Leading scholars address the ethical and practical dimensions of Heidegger's thought.

BackgroundConcerns about research misbehavior in academic science have sparked interest in the factors that may explain research misbehavior. Often three clusters of factors are distinguished: individual factors, climate factors and publication factors. Our research question was: to what extent can individual, climate and publication factors explain the variance in frequently perceived research misbehaviors?MethodsFrom May 2017 until July 2017, we conducted a survey study among academic researchers in Amsterdam. The survey included three measurement instruments that we previously reported individual results of (...) and here we integrate these findings.ResultsOne thousand two hundred ninety-eight researchers completed the survey. Results showed that individual, climate and publication factors combined explained 34% of variance in perceived frequency of research misbehavior. Individual factors explained 7%, climate factors explained 22% and publication factors 16%.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the perceptions of the research climate play a substantial role in explaining variance in research misbehavior. This suggests that efforts to improve departmental norms might have a salutary effect on behavior. (shrink)

The construction of creative identity from a Vygotskian perspective is explored in this paper. A theoretical link is made between Vygotsky’s (Smolucha, 1992) claims about the development of creativity and Penuet and Wertsch’s (1995) use of Vygotskian theory to address identity formation. Narrative is suggested as the link between culturally organized activities, mediated mental functioning, and the storied self. Data from semi-structured interviews about creativity conducted with a second grade child and his parents illustrate how discourses from home and school (...) come together during the development of imagination and are used to construct identity. (shrink)

The ceremony of Rambu Solo ’, a traditional Torajan funeral ritual, is often met with scepticism by Christians, particularly within the Pentecostal community, due to perceived spiritistic elements conflicting with Christian doctrines. Despite this, the deep-rooted cultural significance of Rambu Solo ’ persists among the Torajan people, including Pentecostals. This necessitates exploring aspects of the ceremony that align with Pentecostal values of spirituality and character education. Therefore, studies are needed that show the dimensions of spirituality and character education that Pentecostal (...) believers can accept. The research method used in this article was qualitative ethnography, and the analysis used was the theological triad in Steven Jack Land’s Pentecostal spirituality, namely orthodoxy, orthopathy and orthopraxy. Findings revealed a divergence between Rambu Solo’s orthodoxy and Christian tenets. Nonetheless, aspects of orthopathy and orthopraxy within the Rambu Solo ’ ceremony align with Pentecostal spirituality, mainly through its emphasis on character education. Contribution: Using triad theology in assessing local culture in Indonesia provides a more comprehensive meaning of cultural values for constructing spirituality and character education. (shrink)

Attention is given to a background idea that is often invoked in discussions about reasonable partiality: the idea of a moral division of labour. It is not only a right, but also a duty for professionals to attend (almost) exclusively to the interests of their own clients, because their partial activities are part of an impartial scheme providing for an allocation of professional help to all clients. To clarify that idea, a difference is made between two kinds of division of (...) labour, a technical one and a social one. In order to assess the applicability of the idea of a moral division of labour to professional ethics, journalism is contrasted with other professions. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose and defend a particular desire-based theory of what makes a person’s life meaningful. Desire-based theories avoid the problems facing other theories of meaning in life: in contrast to objectivist theories (both consequentialist and non-consequentialist ones), they succeed in providing a necessary link between what makes a person’s life meaningful and the person’s own set of attitudes or concerns; in contrast to hybrid theories (or subjectivist theories with a value requirement), they avoid the elitism or exclusivism (...) inherent in the former; and in contrast to mental-state theories, they avoid the problem of not taking the state of the world properly into account when determining whether someone’s life is meaningful. However, meaningfulness does not plausibly depend on the satisfaction of just any desires—perhaps especially not on the satisfaction of desires that we experience as alien to ourselves. I therefore suggest that the meaning in your life depends on the extent to which your categorical desires (i.e. those desires that are partly constitutive of your practical identity) are satisfied or fulfilled. In the final section of the paper, I respond to at least four possible objections to this view. (shrink)

The central notion in this article is ‘pluriform accommodation,’ a term that we have coined to defend two lines of thought. The first is a plea for inclusive and consequential neutrality; the second is a closely linked plea for reasonable accommodation. With ‘pluriform accommodation’ we emphasize that the multicultural recognition scope should be expanded. The need for inclusive and accommodative rules, laws, and practices is a matter of principle and as such cannot be reduced to the inclusion of people with (...) an immigration background who bring with them all kinds of ethnocultural and religious practices, convictions, and traditions. Furthermore, the enshrined freedom of religion does not provide the needed protection for the multiplicity of conscientious identifications, convictions, and strong allegiances that might be central to one’s sense of self. We argue that we should not engage in (top down) debates about the rights of individuals and groups of different types and think in terms of identity hierarchies, but instead should consider the various claims being made (bottom up), aiming for common standards and criteria to assess the validity of these claims and the reasonableness of the associated accommodations. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the exceptional severity of the Spanish flu, one of the most deadly events in recorded human history, is an unsolved mystery. However, even detailed aspects such as its W-shaped mortality curve are well explained by Paul Ewald’s theory of the evolution of virulence. Understanding the causes of the Spanish flu will help to prevent future epidemics.

The little francophone community of Port-au-Port Peninsula in Newfoundland is particularly representative of non-standard French spoken in North America. This paper tries to elaborate a grammatical analysis in order to justify the transcriptions of verb forms in the Dictionnaire des régionalismes de Terre-Neuve. In the sentence “I passait les maisons, [bladʒe] ac le monde”, for instance, [bladʒe] could be interpreted as “blaguait” or “blaguer.” In standard French, the same sentence could be translated as “il allait de porte en porte parler (...) avec les gens” or “il allait de porte en porte, parlait avec les gens.” The omission of the subject pronoun seems to allow the transition toward a unmarked verb form either under a short form, limited to the radical of the verb, without any flexional mark like an imperative form, or a full form, like what Remacle calls “infinitif substitut.” The last stade of this evolution is the nominal phrase, whose use is widely spread in popular French, where it often follows a verb phrase. (shrink)

Leibniz verwendet viele Bilder, urn die Eigenschaften und Aktivitäten Gottes zu erklären, denn verstehen können Menschen seine Vollkommenheiten nicht. Durch eine Analyse der Gottesbilder aus einigen zentralen Werken wird gezeigt, daß Leibniz für die Vernunftwahrheiten Gottes mehrere Metaphern gebraucht, hauptsächlich nach dem Modell von Naturereignissen. Für die Glaubenswahrheiten Gottes werden dagegen viele Analogien aufgeführt, die vor allem an menschlichen Modellen ausgerichtet sind. Trotzdem bleiben diese Bilder deterministisch.

This theoretical expose explores the complex notion of argumentative style, which has so far been largely neglected in argumentation theory. After an introduction of the problems involved, the theoretical tools for identifying the properties of the discourse in which an argumentative style manifests itself are explained from a pragma-dialectical perspective and a theoretical definition of argumentative style is provided that does full justice to its role in argumentative discourse. The article concludes with a short reflection upon the next steps that (...) need to be taken in argumentation theory in further substantiating the notion of argumentative style. (shrink)

The turn of the millennium has been marked by new developments in the study of early modern philosophy. In particular, the philosophy of René Descartes has been reinterpreted in a number of important and exciting ways, specifically concerning his work on the mind-body union, the connection between objective and formal reality, and his status as a moral philosopher. These fresh interpretations have coincided with a renewed interest in overlooked parts of the Cartesian corpus and a sustained focus on the similarities (...) between Descartes' thought and the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Mind, Body, and Moralityconsists of fifteen chapters written by scholars who have contributed significantly to the new turn in Descartes and Spinoza scholarship. The volume is divided into three parts. The first group of chapters examines different metaphysical and epistemological problems raised by the Cartesian mind-body union. Part II investigates Descartes' and Spinoza's understanding of the relations between ideas, knowledge, and reality. Special emphasis is put on Spinoza's conception of the relation between activity and passivity. Finally, the last part explores different aspects of Descartes' moral philosophy, connecting his views to important predecessors, Augustine and Abelard, and comparing them to Spinoza. nd Spinoza's understanding of the relations between ideas, knowledge, and reality. Special emphasis is put on Spinoza's conception of the relation between activity and passivity. Finally, the last part explores different aspects of Descartes' moral philosophy, connecting his views to important predecessors, Augustine and Abelard, and comparing them to Spinoza. (shrink)

Although there is a consensus among philosophers of mathematics and mathematicians that mathematical explanations exist, only a few authors have proposed accounts of explanation in mathematics. These accounts fit into the unificationist or top-down approach to explanation. We argue that these models can be complemented by a bottom-up approach to explanation in mathematics. We introduce the mechanistic model of explanation in science and discuss the possibility of using this model in mathematics, arguing that using it does not presuppose a Platonist (...) view of mathematics and allows one to gain insight into why a theorem is true by answering what-if-things-had-been-different questions. (shrink)

Interviews met wijsgeren en andere wetenschapsmensen over de reden waarom zij zich met de persoon en het werk van de Oostenrijks-Engelse filosoof (1889-1951) bezighouden.

In one of the essays in his recent book on Christianity, La déclosion (2005), Nancy discusses the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Nancy opens this discussion with a reference to Lyotard’s book on this relationship: Un trait d’union (1993). Both Lyotard and Nancy examine a very early figure in the emergence of Christianity from Judaism—whereas Lyotard focuses on the epistles of Paul, Nancy reads the epistle of James. Lyotard concludes that the hyphen in the expression ‘Judeo-Christian’ actually conceals ‘the most (...) impenetrable abyss within Western thought’. With this abyss, Lyotard refers to the point of departure of Judaism: the event in which a Voice has left behind letters, inaugurating an interminable work of interpretation. For Nancy, however, it is rather Christianity, and therefore, Western culture, which is deconstructive in nature. Its composition is co-original with a decomposition, and therefore, with an openness. In James, Nancy finds an emphasis on praxis, in such a way that existence is to be understood as transcendent within itself. With this reading of James, Nancy seems to deny that there is a fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity. In order to clarify the differences between Lyotard and Nancy, it is shown that, in Lyotard’s view, an unsublatable alterity comes with aisthèsis, whereas in Nancy’s view, alterity comes with existence as such. (shrink)