In the past two decades, individual explanations of scientific misconduct have increasingly given way to systemic explanations. Where did this interest in systemic factors come from? Given that research ethicists often present their interventions as responses to scientific misconduct, this article tests the hypothesis that these systemic explanations were triggered by high-visibility cases of scientific norm violation. It does so by examining why Dutch scientists in 2011 explained Diederik Stapel’s grand-scale data fabrication largely in systemic terms, whereas only fifteen years (...) earlier, in the René Diekstra affair, such explanations had been close to absent. Drawing on a wealth of historical sources, the article suggests that cases like Stapel’s as such do not explain why early 21st-century commentators exchanged individual explanations for systemic ones. Only against the background of an existing discourse of criticism of the science system, developed in the 1990s and 2000s in response to rapidly increasing competition for research funding, could the Stapel affair achieve notoriety as an example of how systemic factors provoke bad conduct. (shrink)

Historians in the 19th-century were not the first to discover the importance of source materials kept in archival depositories. More than their predecessors, however, scholars working in the historical discipline that the 19th century saw emerge tended to equate professional historical knowledge with knowledge based on primary source research, that is, practically speaking, on knowledge gained from source material that was usually kept in archives. While previous scholarship had paid ample attention to the methods that 19th-century historians employed for the (...) study of such archival material, to the epistemologies they developed in tandem with these methods and to the institutions they created for the study of archival records, this special issue explores the influence that archives, in a classic, institutional sense, exerted on the practices of 19th-century historiography. How did the archival turn affect historians’ working manners? How contested was this archival research imperative, with its underlying autopsy principle? And how did it spread geographically, in and outside Europe? (shrink)

The Dutch historiography of the middle of the 19thcentury was a culture of honour. Disputes over the reputations of historical figures were manifold. This article focuses on one controversy specifically that took place in the 1840s. The subject of debate was the 16th-century nobleman Henry of Brederode, his deeds, his character and his morals. The controversy was not only about content, however. Many suppositions about doing history and being a historian that otherwise remain tacit, were made explicit in the controversy (...) – especially concerning archive-based history. First, the participating historians themselves were judged – somewhat like Brederode himself – on the virtuousness, including the epistemic virtuousness, of their behaviour. Second, it was discussed whether archival documents were fit for use in historiography. To some, the use of these personal letters was ethically unjustifiable. Third, the location from which historical knowledge originated, mainly the archive, came under scrutiny. The singularity of the archive made historians relying on archival material prone to attacks on their trustworthiness. (shrink)

SUMMARYHistorians of historiography have recently adopted the language of ‘epistemic virtues’ to refer to character traits believed to be conducive to good historical scholarship. While ‘epistemic virtues’ is a modern philosophical concept, virtues such as ‘objectivity’, ‘meticulousness’ and ‘carefulness’ historically also served as actors' categories. Especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, historians frequently used virtue language to describe what it took to be a ‘good’, ‘reliable’ or ‘professional’ scholar. Based on three European case studies—the German historian Georg (...) Waitz, his French pupil Gabriel Monod and the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne —this article argues that such virtues cannot neatly be classified as ‘epistemic’ ones. For what is characteristic about virtue language in historical scholarship around 1900 is an overlap or entanglement of epistemic, moral and political connotations. The virtues embodied by, or attributed to, Waitz, Monod and Pirenne were almost invariably aimed at epistemic, moral and political goods at once, though not always to the same degrees. Consequently, if ‘epistemic virtues’ is going to be a helpful category, it must not be interpreted in a strong sense, but in a weak one. (shrink)

Free logic - i.e., logic free of existential presuppositions in general and with respect to singular terms in particular- began to come into its own as a field of research in the 1950s. As is the case with so many developments in Western philosophy, its roots can be traced back to ancient Greek philo sophy. It is only during the last fifty years, however, that it has become well established as a branch of modern logic. The name of Karel Lambert (...) is most closely connected with this development: he gave it its name and its profile as a well defined field of research. After a development of fifty years, it is time to look back and take stock while at the same time scanning for new perspectives. This is the purpose of the papers collected in this volume. The first paper is written by Karel Lambert himself who also comments on all the papers of the other authors. In an introductory essay we give a survey of the present status of and new directions in free logic. (shrink)

Against content theories of slurs, according to which slurs have some kind of derogatory content, Anderson and Lepore have objected that they cannot explain that even slurs under quotation can cause offense. If slurs had some kind of derogatory content, the argument goes, quotation would render this content inert and, thus, quoted slurs should not be offensive. Following this, Anderson and Lepore propose that slurs are offensive because they are prohibited words. In this paper, we will show that, pace Anderson (...) and Lepore, content theories of slurs do provide an explanation of the fact that quoted slurs can cause offense: even under quotation, the explanation goes, the derogatory content of a slur can still be psychologically efficacious. We will go one step further by pointing out that offensiveness is not the only function of slurs, but that slurs can also be used to create and reinforce negative attitudes towards the target group. While content theories can easily explain this by referring to some kind of derogatory content, Anderson and Lepore’s prohibitionism will lack a satisfactory explanation of this second function of slurs. Concluding, we will argue that, unlike uses of slurs, uses of quoted slurs normally do not derogate the target group. This will again speak in favor of content theories. Accordingly, uses of quoted slurs are not derogatory because quotation renders the derogatory content inert. Hence, rather than speaking against content theories, quoted slurs speak in their favor. (shrink)

This volume collects contributions that comprise each view point, and incorporates articles by William Bechtel, Jerry Fodor, Jaegwon Kim, Joėlle Proust, and ...

This volume collects contributions comprising all these topics, including articles by Alexander Bird, Jaakko Hintikka, James Ladyman, Rohit Parikh, Gerhard ...

Philosophers often have tried to either reduce "disagreeable" objects or concepts to (more) acceptable objects or concepts. Reduction is regarded attractive by those who subscribe to an ideal of ontological parsimony. But the topic is not just restricted to traditional metaphysics or ontology. In the philosophy of mathematics, abstraction principles, such as Hume's principle, have been suggested to support a reconstruction of mathematics by logical means only. In the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science, the logical analysis of (...) language has long been regarded to be the dominating paradigm, and liberalized projects of logical reconstruction remain to be driving forces of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Sprache kann auf äußerst destruktive Weise verwendet werden. Ein Beispiel hierfür ist die Verwendung so genannter Slurs. Slurs sind sprachliche Ausdrücke, die Gruppen und deren individuelle Mitglieder aufgrund ihrer Herkunft, Ethnizität, Religion, sexueller Orientierung etc. abwerten. In den letzten 20 Jahren haben sich Sprachphilosoph*innen zunehmend mit den Fragen beschäftigt, wie anhand von Slurs abgewertet und was dadurch bewirkt wird. Die Beschäftigung mit diesen Fragen ist nicht nur theoretisch-sprachphilosophisch relevant. Ein besseres Verständnis davon, wie anhand von Slurs abgewertet wird, ist auch (...) von praktisch-ethischer Relevanz. Wenn wir verstehen, wie Slurs funktionieren, dann können wir auch verstehen, wie wir die negativen Konsequenzen ihrer Verwendung verhindern bzw. zumindest eindämmen können. In diesem Beitrag werden wir die abwertende Kraft von Slurs sowohl von theoretisch-sprachphilosophischer Seite her als auch unter dem Gesichtspunkt ethisch-praktischer Fragen beleuchten. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate two purely syntactical notions ofcircularity, which we call ``self-application'''' and ``self-inclusion.'''' Alanguage containing self-application allows linguistic items to beapplied to themselves. In a language allowing for self-inclusion thereare expressions which include themselves as a proper part. We introduceaxiomatic systems of syntax which include identity criteria andexistence axioms for such expressions. The consistency of these axiomsystems will be shown by providing a variety of different models –these models being our circular languages. Finally we will show what (...) apossible semantics for these circular languages could look like. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of essays presented at the 31st International Wittgenstein Symposium, Kirchberg, in August 2008. It has the character of a high-quality journal issue. There is no introduction, and the papers do not all directly bear on the topic of the original conference, which was "Reduction and Elimination in Philosophy and the Sciences". In what follows, I offer a short description of each paper, and add critical remarks in some cases.