Meta-arguments are arguments about one or more arguments, or argumentation in general. They contrast to ground-level arguments, which are about natural phenomena, historical events, human actions, abstract entities, etc. Although meta-arguments are common in all areas of human cognitive practice, and although implicit studies of them are found in many works, and although a few explicit scholarly contributions exist, meta-argumentation has never been examined explicitly, directly, and systematically in book-length treatment. This lacuna is especially unfortunate because such treatment can offer (...) not only an understanding of a special class of arguments, but also a promising way of doing logic and argumentation theory. This is the first book that attempts a systematic treatment of meta-arguments, providing both an illustration of the meta-argumentational approach to logical theory, and an analysis of an especially rich collection of meta-arguments. First, it elaborates an empirical methodology derived partly from a critical appreciation of Stephen Toulmin's applied-logic approach, and partly from a novel application of the author's historical-textual approach. Then it examines theoretical meta-arguments, by such scholars as Tony Blair, Robert Fogelin, Alvin Goldman, Trudy Govier, David Hitchcock, Ralph Johnson, Henry Johnstone, Erik Krabbe, Frans van Eemeren, Carl Wellman, and John Woods, on such topics as defining argument, methods of criticism, deep disagreements, and conductive or pro-and-con arguments. Thirdly, it studies famous meta-arguments by such classics as John Stuart Mill, David Hume, and Galileo Galilei, on such topics as freedom of discussion, women's liberation, the existence of God and intelligent design, and the motion of the earth. (shrink)

Winner of the 1974 National Book Award The product of many years of reflection on phenomenology, this book is a comprehensive and creative introduction to the philosophy of Edmund Husserl. Natanson uses Husserl's later work as a clue to the meaning of his entire intellectual career, showing how his earlier methodological work evolved into the search for transcendental roots and developed into a philosophy of the life-world. Phenomenology, for Natanson, emerges as a philosophy of origin, a transcendental discipline concerned with (...) consciousness, history, and world rather than with introspection and traditional metaphysical warfare. (shrink)

This paper examines the views of Fogelin, Woods, Johnstone, etc., concerning deep disa-greements, force-five standoffs, philosophical controversies, etc. My approach is to reconstruct their views and critiques of them as meta-arguments, and to elaborate the meta-argumentative aspects of radical disa-greements. It turns out that deep disagreements are resolvable to a greater degree than usually thought, but only by using special principles and practices, such as meta-argumentation, ad hominem argumentation, Ramsey’s principle, etc.

Care Ethics and Political Theory is a collection of fifteen original essays that explore the implications and applications of care to social and political policies, practices, and theories.

This paper assumes that human choices are determined, and distinguishes among the views of some classical modern philosophers regarding what determines choice.Hobbes and Hume are taken as representatives of choice as determined by subjective propensities; the differences between their views is discussed. Descartes is taken as a major representative of the view that choice is determined by an apprehension of that which is objectively good, and Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibniz are discussed insofar as they share that view. It is then (...) shown that interpretations of Locke and Mill whieh assimilate their views to those of Hobbes and Hume are mistaken.As a third alternative, the self-determinist positions of Green and Dewey are discussed. The views of James, in which attention and effort are key concepts, are traced, and that aspect of his view whieh stresses attention is accepted, while his emphasis on effort is rejected. (shrink)

Although the fallacy of composition is little studied and trivially illustrated, some view it as ubiquitous and paramount. Furthermore, although definitions regard the concept as unproblematic, it contains three distinct elements, often confused. And although some scholars apparently claim that fallacies are figments of a critic’s imagination, they are really proposing to study fallacies in the context of meta-argumentation. Guided by these ideas, I discuss the important historical example of Michels’s iron law of oligarchy.

In this chapter I explore, in some cases for the first time, the significance of the ethical, liberatory dimension of Spinoza’s thought among a number of women philosophers across the long nineteenth century’s German tradition. I begin with brief discussions of Elise Reimarus and Charlotte von Stein. I then proceed to more in-depth treatments of Caroline Michaelis- Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling and Karoline von Günderrode, stressing not only that we may learn about both in drawing out a link to Spinoza or Spinozism, but (...) likewise that we can deepen our understanding of Spinoza in bringing him into dialogue with each (in particular regarding, respectively, the importance of others for self-expression, as well as the metaphysical and ethical status of death, especially suicide). I conclude with a discussion of the turn-of-the-century thinkers Lou Salomé as well as Resa von Schirnhofer, Anna Tumarkin, and especially Elisabeth Schmitt—some of the first academic women philosophers in the German-language context, all closely engaged with Spinoza’s writings—before presenting final remarks concerning the status of Spinoza’s thought in the present context. (shrink)

Judith Butler is one of the most influential late 20th and early 21st century philosophers in regard to left wing politics, as well as an active campaigner for social justice within the United States and worldwide. Her academic work has been foundational to the academic discipline of queer theory and has been extensively critiqued and applied across a hugely wide range of disciplines. In addition, Butler's work itself is extensive covering topics such as gender, sexuality, race, literary theory, and warfare. (...) This article can only serve as a taster for the potential application of her work in relation to nursing, which is in its infancy. This introduction covers three of the potentially most productive themes in Butler's work, namely power, performativity, and ethics. Each of these themes are critically explored in turn, sometimes in relation to their actual application in nursing literature, but also in relation to their potential for producing novel critiques of nursing practice. Suggestions are made about how Butler's work can develop nursing research and practice. The article concludes with a short summary of Butler's key works as well as suggested reading for people interested in examining how her theories have been applied across different academic settings. (shrink)

"I believe," André Breton said, "in the future resolution of the states of dream and reality--in appearance so contradictory--in a sort of absolute reality, or surréalité." The Surrealist movement, born in the 1920s out of the ferment of Dada, committed to revolution against bourgeois rationalism, and inspired by Freudian exploration of the unconscious, has reverberated more widely and deeply than perhaps any other art movement in our century. Its automatism, biomorphic shapes, visionary mode, and manipulation of found objects mark the (...) work of artists as different as Ernst, Miró, Magritte, and Dali. Maurice Nadeau's History of Surrealism, first published in French in 1944 and in English in 1965, has become a classic. It is both lucid and authoritative--by far the best overall account of this complex movement. Nadeau traces the evolution of Surrealism, bringing to life its many internal debates about politics and art. He relates the movement to its intellectual and artistic environment. And he provides the statements and manifestos of Breton, Aragon, Tzara, and others. (shrink)

Chapter 2 of Mill’s On Liberty is reconstructed as a complex argument for freedom of discussion; it consists of three subarguments, each possessing illative and dialectical components. The illative component is this: freedom of discussion is desirable because it enables us to determine whether an opinion is true, whereas its denial amounts to an assumption of infallibility; it improves our understanding and appreciation of the supporting reasons of true opinions, and our understanding and appreciation of their practical or emotional meaning; (...) it enables us to understand and appreciate every side of the truth, given that opinions tend to be partly true and partly false and people tend to be one-sided. The dialectical component consists of replies to ten objections, five in the first subargument, three in the second, one in the third, and one general. An analysis of Mill’s argument suggests that it is a contribution to argumentation theory; it advocates and practices a dialectical approach; its reconstruction and analysis are a contribution to argumentation theory; and it raises in a striking manner the issue of the relationship between epistemology and argumentation theory. (shrink)

Elwyn Richardson’s experimental approach to teaching and learning and Oruaiti was officially sanctioned, but the history of education in Aotearoa/new Zealand shows that teachers have been typically conformist. In this article, I suggest that positivist paradigms from the industrial age continue to shape classroom teaching, partly because of norms of individualism, and partly because neoliberal understandings have become central in the functioning of our schools and society. Teaching is an activity that promotes the ethics of a community or society by (...) promulgating some ideas and marginalising others. In Aotearoa/new Zealand, many of our students struggle with the collective orientation of their community traditions and the societal emphasis on individualism. Modernist beliefs in social progress through technology still permeate education policy. Promoting communitarian understandings requires more open-ended approaches to teaching such as Richardson demonstrated. With digital technologies gaining progressively greater influence in schools, the opportunities for social connectedness have been enhanced alongside an increasing emphasis on individual devices. This article briefly explores interconnections between experimentation, context and community. (shrink)

Although Hume’s critique of the design argument is a powerful non-inductive meta-argument, the main line of critical reasoning is not analogical but rather a complex meta-argument. It consists of two parts, one interpretive, the other evaluative. The critical meta-argument advances twelve criticisms: that the design argument is weak because two of its three premises are justified by inadequate subarguments; because its main inference embodies four flaws; and because the conclusion is in itself problematic for four reasons. Such complexity is quite (...) manageable in a meta-argumentation approach. (shrink)

This chapter considers Nietzsche's and Spinoza's views on freedom – a theme of central interest to both thinkers. It draws from Yonover in order to provide an outline of their rejections of one conception of freedom: freedom of the will. The chapter also considers their positive visions of a very different kind of freedom, which rather consists in self‐determination. Nietzsche's naturalism surely plays a major role in his rejection of freedom of the will, too. Nietzsche and Spinoza praise a comparable (...) kind of freedom characterized especially by the primary elements. Spinoza writes in the first appendix of the Ethics that at least one portion of the foremost “prejudice” to undermine is the idea that God “directs all things to some certain end”. (shrink)

A commentary on the Case Study “Bad Words,” in the March‐April 2014 issue.

Ce travail a pour but de fournir des repères permettant d’évaluer dans quelles circonstances une séparation judiciaire parents-enfant doit être décidée. L’auteur, chef de service en psychiatrie de l’enfant au CHU de Saint-Étienne (hôpital Bellevue), décrit quatre profils à haut risque, qui montrent bien comment, quand une séparation est mise en place trop tardivement, ou alors quand elle est mal gérée, avec notamment des contacts parents-enfant insuffisamment protégés, on aboutit à des résultats dont le coût humain, financier, et social est (...) catastrophique : déficience intellectuelle (77 % des enfants adressés au service), échec scolaire, troubles graves du comportement avec violence, etc. Pour aider à y voir plus clair, il propose avec son équipe trois sortes de jalons : les premiers concernent la structuration psychique des parents, les deuxièmes la manière dont la pathologie parentale se manifeste dans l’interaction parents-enfant, et les troisièmes la manière dont l’enfant réagit face à la pathologie parentale. Enfin, il décrit les facteurs qui empêchent l’utilisation de ces jalons, principalement l’ancienneté de la loi de 1970 sur « l’assistance éducative », l’idéologie du lien familial, l’absence d’évaluation des actions menées, et la peur face à certains parents très violents. (shrink)

Pour un pédopsychiatre, le concept de médiation est indissociable de celui d’intérêt de l’enfant, ce terme étant défini comme la protection de la sécurité et du développement affectif et intellectuel de l’enfant. Dans les situations de divorce concernant des enfants petits, il est donc indispensable que les professionnels impliqués aient des connaissances précises concernant les besoins d’un nourrisson, et en particulier qu’ils soient familiers avec la théorie et la clinique de l’attachement. Quant aux visites médiatisées qui sont nécessaires dans certaines (...) situations complexes en protection de l’enfance, elles sont clairement hors du champ de la médiation familiale. (shrink)

Au Québec, la formation des professionnels qui travaillent en protection de l’enfance s’appuie fortement sur la théorie et la clinique de l’attachement. Le but général de cette formation est d’éviter que les enfants concernés évoluent à l’âge adulte vers une situation d’exclusion sociale, d’errance, d’internement psychiatrique, ou de violence. Les outils utilisés pour l’évaluation initiale et l’intervention qui peut s’en suivre, reposent sur la même théorie. Une comparaison est effectuée avec le dispositif français.

Reprenant les principales dimensions psychopathologiques participant à la compréhension des conduites addictives alimentaires, et les articulant avec les mécanismes neurobiologiques générant et entretenant une véritable addiction, nous privilégions une approche psychosomatique qui permette d’éclairer certaines données cliniques, d’affiner nos attitudes thérapeutiques et d’ouvrir notre réflexion à des perspectives de recherche nouvelle. Dans une approche étiopathogénique, transnosographique, intégrant l’impact de l’environnement socioculturel et des dimensions transgénérationnelles, nous avons évoqué, dans le dysfonctionnement des interrelations précoces et ses conséquences sur le développement de (...) l’enfant et le processus d’adolescence, une hypothèse centrale dans les conduites addictives alimentaires : la défaillance du maternel chez les mères des patientes, en particulier dans l’investissement du corps autonome, vivant et érotique de l’enfant. Cette défaillance ne favoriserait pas une bonne intégration du féminin chez le sujet et participerait à l’avènement d’une organisation sadomasochiste qui le fixe à ses objets infantiles. Sur la base de ces modalités de construction identitaire, nous avons abordé la génèse de ces conduites en soulignant successivement le développement, du fait du défaut de contenant maternel (pare-excitant, organisateur et liant des motions pulsionnelles de l’enfant), d’une organisation dépressiveantidépressive (dépressivité), témoin d’une rupture du développement; celui d’une inactivation partielle, et dans certains domaines, des processus de mentalisation défensive du rapproché relationnel vécu comme emprise (alexithymie). L’organisation symptomatique évolue, selon nous, vers une modalité corporelle et comportementale de régulation de l’équilibre du sujet afin de parer à un risque dépressif ou de désorganisation. Ce processus de régulation touche le système plaisir-déplaisir avec la génèse d’un autosadisme et d’un masochisme moral, source d’une jouissance endogène « à défaut ». Ces dimensions ouvrent la voie à un frayage psychosomatique d’autant que les « solutions » névrotiques et perverses sont en échec, et qu’une pathologie organique secondaire à la conduite constitue un point d’appel de substitution d’une invalidité physique à une invalidité psychique. (shrink)