Was meinen wir, wenn wir soziale Konstellationen als »möglich« bezeichnen? Diese Frage wurde allzu oft nur randständig beleuchtet, obwohl »Möglichkeit« seit Aristoteles zum grundbegrifflichen Repertoire der praktischen Philosophie zählt. Umso unverständlicher wirkt die Zurückhaltung von Horkheimer und Adorno, den Begriff gesellschaftstheoretisch zu explizieren. Gösta Gantner zeigt, inwiefern die Vorstellungen des »Andersseinkönnens« und der »Potentialität« die Kritische Theorie nahezu unbemerkt dominieren. Als Schlüsselbegriff trägt »Möglichkeit« dazu bei, aktuelle Varianten kritischen Denkens in ihrem leitenden Erkenntnisinteresse und ihrer praktischen Ausrichtung zu schärfen: Im (...) Lichte der Kritik des Gegebenen geht es um das, was anders sein kann. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 60, Issue 1, pp 60 - 87 Aristotle invokes a specifically human desire, namely wish, to provide a teleological explanation of the pursuit of the specifically human good in terms of virtuous activity. Wish is a basic, unreasoned desire which, independently of other desires, or evaluative attitudes, motivates the pursuit of the human good. Even a person who pursues what she mistakenly believes to be good is motivated by wish for what in fact is good, although she (...) is oblivious of it. (shrink)

In thesophist (263e10–264b4), Plato distinguishes between two kinds of belief. On the one hand, there is a kind of belief that occurs “according to thinking” (κατὰ διάνοιαν), being “the completion of thinking” (διανοίας ἀποτελεύτησις). This kind is called ‘doxa.’ On the other hand, there is another kind of belief that occurs “through sense perception” (δι᾽ αἰσθήσεως). This kind is called ‘phantasia,’ perhaps best rendered as “appearing.”1 The purpose of this paper is to uncover the distinction between these two different kinds (...) of belief.2 What distinguishes these two kinds of belief is the believer’s understanding of the thing the belief is about, as a result of the way in which each kind of belief is .. (shrink)

Epistemic consequentialists maintain that the epistemically right (e.g., the justified) is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to the epistemic good (e.g., true belief). Given the wide variety of epistemological approaches that assume some form of epistemic consequentialism, and the controversies surrounding consequentialism in ethics, it is surprising that epistemic consequentialism remains largely uncontested. However, in a recent paper, Selim Berker has provided arguments that allegedly lead to a ‘rejection’ of epistemic consequentialism. In the present paper, it is shown (...) that reliabilism—the most prominent form of epistemic consequentialism, and one of Berker’s main targets—survives Berker’s arguments unscathed. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics (= Eth. Nic.) 10.2, Aristotle addresses Eudoxus’ argument that pleasure is the chief good in his characteristically dialectical manner. The argument is that pleasure is the chief good, since all creatures, rational (ἔλλογα) and non-rational (ἄλογα) alike, are perceived to aim at pleasure (1172b9–11).1 At 1172b35–1173a5, Aristotle turns to an objection against Eudoxus’ argument. For some object (οἱ δ᾽ἐνιστάμενοι) to the argument by questioning one of its premisses, namely that what all creatures aim at is the good (...) (1172b12–15). Instead, they claim that what all creatures aim at is not good (ὡς οὐκ γαθὸν οὗ πάντ᾽ ἐφίεται, 1172b36). This claim is reasonably taken to mean that not everything that all creatures aim at is good. But, as we shall shortly see, Aristotle dismisses it in a way suggesting a less charitable interpretation. At any rate, the significance of this objection is that it challenges the strong claim that what all creatures aim at is the good with an argument against the weaker claim that what all creatures aim at is good (or a good). For if the weaker claim is refuted, then the strong claim is refuted as well. Aristotle takes issue with the argument against the weaker claim, but without committing himself to the strong claim. (shrink)

An important issue in epistemology concerns the source of epistemic normativity. Epistemic consequentialism maintains that epistemic norms are genuine norms in virtue of the way in which they are conducive to epistemic value, whatever epistemic value may be. So, for example, the epistemic consequentialist might say that it is a norm that beliefs should be consistent, in that holding consistent beliefs is the best way to achieve the epistemic value of accuracy. Thus epistemic consequentialism is structurally similar to the family (...) of consequentialist views in ethics. Recently, philosophers from both formal epistemology and traditional epistemology have shown interest in such a view. In formal epistemology, there has been particular interest in thinking of epistemology as a kind of decision theory where instead of maximizing expected utility one maximizes expected epistemic utility. In traditional epistemology, there has been particular interest in various forms of reliabilism about justification and whether such views are analogous to—and so face similar problems to—versions of consequentialism in ethics. This volume presents some of the most recent work on these topics as well as others related to epistemic consequentialism, by authors that are sympathetic to the view and those who are critical of it. (shrink)

The question raised in this chapter is why Aristotle portrays the bad person as being in a miserable state. It is argued that the bad person suffers from a mental conflict, which consists of a clash between two different kinds of desire, and that fulfilling one of the desires violates values that she also desires. But in contrast to the akratic person, the bad person has no proper conception of the good. Nevertheless, although the bad person may succeed in achieving (...) what she thinks is good, she feels miserable not only on account of failing to fulfil her desire for the truly good life, but also on account of doing things that she finds degrading for her. (shrink)

Recently, veritistic value monism, i.e. the idea that true belief is unique in being of fundamental epistemic value, has come under attack by pluralist philosophers arguing that it cannot account fully for the domain of epistemic value. However, the relevant arguments fail to establish any such thing. For one thing, there is a presumption of monism due to considerations about axiological parsimony. While such a presumption would be defeated by evidence that the relevant kind of monism cannot account fully for (...) the domain of epistemic value, an examination of the most promising pluralist counterexamples casts serious doubt upon the claim that there is any such evidence. (shrink)

Epistemic consequentialists maintain that the epistemically right is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to the epistemic good. Given the wide variety of epistemological approaches that assume some form of epistemic consequentialism, and the controversies surrounding consequentialism in ethics, it is surprising that epistemic consequentialism remains largely uncontested. However, in a recent paper, Selim Berker has provided arguments that allegedly lead to a?rejection? of epistemic consequentialism. In the present paper, it is shown that reliabilism—the most prominent form of epistemic (...) consequentialism, and one of Berker?s main targets—survives Berker?s arguments unscathed. (shrink)

The fact that most of us are ignorant on politically relevant matters presents a problem for democracy. In light of this, some have suggested that we should impose epistemic constraints on democratic participation, and specifically that the franchise be restricted along competency lines – a suggestion that in turn runs the risk of violating a long-standing condition on political legitimacy to the effect that legitimate political arrangements cannot be open to reasonable objections. The present paper therefore outlines a way to (...) solve the problem of public ignorance without restricting the franchise. The proposal involves filtering the electoral input of a universal franchise through a statistical model that simulates what the public's political preferences would have been, had they been informed on politically relevant matters. The result is modelled democracy. A case is made that such democracy both solves the problem of public ignorance and satisfies the aforementioned condition on legitimacy. (shrink)

Truth monism is the idea that only true beliefs are of fundamental epistemic value. The present paper considers three objections to truth monism, and argues that, while the truth monist has plausible responses to the first two objections, the third objection suggests that truth monism should be reformulated. On this reformulation, which we refer to as accuracy monism, the fundamental epistemic goal is accuracy, where accuracy is a matter of “getting it right.” The idea then developed is that accuracy is (...) a genus with several species. Believing truly is a prominent species, but it is not the only one. Finally, it is argued that accuracy monism is equally good or better than both traditional truth monism and its main dialectical rival, value pluralism, when it comes to satisfying three important axiological desiderata. (shrink)

The aim of the study is to spell out and consider Plato' s views on perceptual cog­nition. It is argued that Plato is cornrnitted to the view that perceptual cognition can be rational, and that beliefs about the sensible world need not be confused or ill-founded. Plato' s interest in the matter arises from worries over the way in which his fore­runners and contemporaries conceived of perceptual cognition. They conceived of cognitive processes in terms of corporeal changes and attempted to (...) explain perceptual cognition in causal terms. The problem with such accounts, according to Plato, is that they make perceptual cognition an entirely passive process, and seem incapable of accommodating the freedom of reason. Plato's main target is Protagoras' view on cognition and he accuses him of con­flating different cognitive phenomena that ought to be kept apart. More particularly, he suggests that Protagoras' 'man the measure' thesis is based on the conflation of sen se perception, belief and appearing, and that Protagoras is cornmitted to the view that beliefs are arrived at in a non-rational way. It is shown how Plato takes issue with Protagoras by disentangling these three cognitive phenomena. It is argued that Plato' s way of understanding these notions leaves room for the possibility that reason plays apart in perceptual cognition and that we arrive at beliefs in a rational way. In the course of spelling out the argument, Plato' s views on a number of topics are scrutinised: the perceptual mechanism; the objects of sense perception; perceptual content; the nature of belief; the eon trast between belief and appearing; the nation of reason. (shrink)

There is something very appealing about the idea that we are epistemic agents. One reason—if not the main reason—is that, while we are undoubtedly fallible creatures, us being epistemic agents that do things means that it might just be within our power to improve and thereby do better. One important way in which we would want to improve is in relation to our well-established tendency for cognitive bias. Still, the proper role of epistemic agency in us avoiding or correcting for (...) cognitive bias is highly limited. In fact, what we know from empirical psychology—particularly with respect to our tendencies for overconfidence—suggests that we cannot rely on ourselves for epistemic improvement, and have good reason to impose significant constraints on our ability to exercise such agency in ameliorative contexts. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to describe nurses' conceptions of decision making with regard to life-sustaining treatment for dialysis patients. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 nurses caring for such patients at three hospitals. The interview material was subjected to qualitative content analysis. The nurses saw decision making as being characterized by uncertainty and by lack of communication and collaboration among all concerned. They described different ways of handling decision making, as well as insufficiency of physician—nurse collaboration, lack of (...) confidence in physicians, hindrances to patient participation, and ambivalence about the role of patients' next of kin. Future research should test models for facilitating communication and decision making so that decisions will emerge from collaboration of all concerned. Nurses' role in decision making also needs to be discussed. (shrink)

A common objection to deliberative democracy is that available evidence on public ignorance makes it unlikely that social deliberation among the public is a process likely to yield accurate outputs. The present paper considers—and ultimately rejects—two responses to this objection. The first response is that the correct conclusion to draw from the evidence is simply that we must work harder to ensure that the deliberative process improves the deliberators’ epistemic situation. The main problem for this response is that there are (...) non-deliberative alternatives—most prominently information markets—available that do a better job from an epistemic point of view than does social deliberation. So why keep bothering with deliberation? The second response attempts to answer this question by arguing that only socially deliberative practices can confer legitimacy on the resulting policies. In response to this, it is argued that information markets actually carry more promise than does social deliberation when it comes to offering the kinds of justifications that are relevant to legitimacy. (shrink)

The present paper argues that there are at least two equally plausible yet mutually incompatible answers to the question of what is of non-instrumental epistemic value. The hypothesis invoked to explain how this can be so—moderate epistemic expressivism—holds that (a) claims about epistemic value express nothing but commitments to particular goals of inquiry, and (b) there are at least two viable conceptions of those goals. It is shown that such expressivism survives recent arguments against a more radical form of epistemic (...) expressivism, as well as two further arguments, framed in terms of the two most promising attempts to ground claims about epistemic value in something other than commitments to particular conceptions of inquiry. While this does not establish that moderate epistemic expressivism is true, its ability to explain a significant but puzzling axiological datum, as well as withstand strong counterarguments, makes clear that it is a theory to be reckoned with. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic (TA), Kant is typically held to make negative assertations about “things in themselves,” namely that they are not spatial or temporal. These negative assertions stand behind the “neglected alternative” problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism. According to this problem, Kant may be entitled to assert that spatio-temporality is a subjective element of our cognition, but he cannot rule out that it may also be a feature of the objective world. In this paper, I show in a new (...) way how Kant’s view (focusing on his conclusions about space) is not subject to this objection, by showing that he does not make the denial about mind-independent reality that he is typically held to make. The argument develops consequences of a new reading of Kant’s expression “an sich selbst” (‘in itself’; ‘in themselves’). I argue that “an sich selbst” or “per se” has a special, judgment-level role, so that this expression does not form new noun-terms adjectivally. It follows that the conceptual unit of Kant’s “Conclusions” in the TA is simply “things” (Dinge), since “things in themselves” is not a nominal expression; Kant adopts the Wolffian ontological use of “thing” as the basic kind-term for any existent. The arguments that things per se are not in space are arguments that space cannot be a necessary property or relations of things as a kind. I show that this does not involve the positive claim about mind-independent reality that inspires the neglected alternative objection. (shrink)

Recently, it has become popular to account for knowledge and other epistemic states in terms of epistemic virtues. The present paper focuses on an epistemic virtue relevant when deferring to others in testimonial contexts. It is argued that, while many virtue epistemologists will accept that epistemic virtue can be exhibited in cases involving epistemically motivated hearers, carefully vetting their testimonial sources for signs of untrustworthiness prior to deferring, anyone who accepts that also has to accept that an agent may exhibit (...) epistemic virtue in certain cases of blind deference, involving someone soaking up everything he or she is told without any hesitation. Moreover, in order to account for the kind of virtue involved in the relevant cases of blind deference, virtue epistemologists need to abandon a widespread commitment to personalism, i.e., the idea that virtue is possessed primarily on account of features internal to the psychology of the person, and accept that some virtues are social virtues, possessed in whole or in large part on account of the person being embedded in a reliable social environment. (shrink)