Nominalism in formal ontology is still the thesis that the only acceptable domain of quantification is the first-order domain of particulars. Nominalists may assert that second-order well-formed formulas can be fully and completely interpreted within the first-order domain, thereby avoiding any ontological commitment to second-order entities, by means of an appropriate semantics called “substitutional”. In this paper I argue that the success of this strategy depends on the ability of Nominalists to maintain that identity, and equivalence relations more in general, (...) is first-order and invariant. Firstly, I explain why Nominalists are formally bound to this first-order concept of identity. Secondly, I show that the resources needed to justify identity, a certain conception of identity invariance, are out of the Nominalist’s reach. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has two central aims in his celebrated paper ‘Mental Events.’ First, he argues for the impossibility of ‘strict … laws on the basis of which mental events can be predicted and explained’. I shall call the resulting view ‘mental anomalism.’ Second, he argues, based partially on this impossibility, for a version of monism which holds that every mental event is token-identical with some physical event. This second aim puts constraints on how the argument for mental anomalism can (...) plausibly proceed. That argument cannot assume anything that presupposes monism or adversely affects the argument for it. When elaborated, this constraint by itself rules out otherwise attractive conceptions of how the argument for mental anomalism works. More generally, in order to be compelling, the overall argument for anomalous monism ought not to incorporate excessively controversial presuppositions even if they do not themselves beg any questions about monism. The argument needs to be built upon relatively intuitive premises. (shrink)

Most opposition to abortion turns on the claim that human fetuses are full moral agents from conception. Critics argue that antiabortion theorists act hypocritically when they neglect spontaneous abortions—valuing some fetal lives and not others. Many philosophers draw a distinction between killing and letting die, with the former being morally impermissible and latter acceptable. Henrick Friberg-Fernros appeals to this distinction with his Two Tragedies Argument, contending that anti-abortion theorists are justified in prioritising preventing induced abortions over spontaneous ones, as (...) the former involves two tragedies—a death and a killing. However, induced abortion can involve either killing or letting die, and thus this view is incompatible with the traditional anti-abortion view. Furthermore, Friberg-Fernros appears to value preventing killing attempts more than preventing actual deaths. (shrink)

The problem of temporary intrinsics is the problem of how persisting objects can have different intrinsic properties at different times. The relativizer responds to this problem by replacing ordinary intrinsic properties with relations to times. In this note, I identify and respond to three different objections to the relativizer's proposal, each of which can be traced to the work of David Lewis.

I argue that the rationale behind the fine-tuning argument for design is self-undermining, refuting the argument’s own premise that fine-tuning is to be expected given design. In (Weisberg 2010) I argued on informal grounds that this premise is unsupported. White (2011) countered that it can be derived from three plausible assumptions. But White’s third assumption is based on a fallacious rationale, and is even objectionable by the design theorist’s own lights. The argument that shows this, the (...) class='Hi'>argument from divine indifference, simultaneously exposes the fine-tuning argument’s self-undermining character. The same argument also answers Bradley’s (forthcoming) reply to my earlier objection. (shrink)

What I have tried to do is elicit and disarm the motivations most likely to give rise to the [counterexamples to the principle crucial to Williams' argument]. Only one of these motivations is still viable: the instrumentalist theory of practical reasoning. But because internalism and instrumentalism are, as it has turned out, so very tightly linked, in disarming the motivations for the objection, I have also inventoried, and given reason to reject, what I have found to be the most (...) common conversationally adduced defences of instrumentalism: the appeals to imagination, to dispositional desires, and so on. The issue remaining from the debate over internalism turns out to be whether [instrumentalism is false---i.e. whether] there are patterns of practical inference that are not directed toward the satisfaction of desire. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Inspired by legal reasoning, this paper presents a semantics and proof theory of a system for defeasible argumentation. Arguments are expressed in a logic-programming language with both weak and strong negation, conflicts between arguments are decided with the help of priorities on the rules. An important feature of the system is that these priorities are not fixed, but are themselves defeasibly derived as conclusions within the system. Thus debates on the choice between conflicting arguments can also be modelled. The (...) semantics of the system is given with a fixpoint definition, while its proof theory is stated in dialectical style, where a proof takes the form of a dialogue between a proponent and an opponent of an argument: an argument is shown to be justified if the proponent can make the opponent run out of moves in whatever way the opponent attacks. (shrink)

This paper develops an argument against causal decision theory. I formulate a principle of preference, which I call the Guaranteed Principle. I argue that the preferences of rational agents satisfy the Guaranteed Principle, that the preferences of agents who embody causal decision theory do not, and hence that causal decision theory is false.

Peter Klein has taken Aristotle’s regress argument for foundationalism as a point of departure for developing a view he calls ‘infinitism’. In this paper, I offer a critique of Klein’s view. I argue for three main conclusions. First, Klein’s response to the regress argument for foundationalism is neither infinitism nor foundationalism but a distinct position I call the “unjustified foundations” view. Second, Klein’s “unjustified foundations” view is subject to some serious problems that make it inferior to foundationalism. Third, (...) Klein’s objections to foundationalism fail to knock it from its place of superiority over the “unjustified foundations” view. Before defending these three conclusions in sections 3-5, I begin with an account of the regress argument for foundationalism in section 1 and with a brief presentation of Klein’s views in section 2. (shrink)

The nature and value of what might be called formalism constitutes one of the recurrent themes in the history of logic. In each of the great ages of logic much the same pattern of events occurs. There is a period of discovery and development during which the formal element in logical relations is isolated and analysed for itself, and a science of logic is established. Although there may be doubt about the fringes of the subject, logicians at least are then (...) fairly well agreed on what constitutes formal logic. Someone next arises who compares this science of logic with the use of argument in every–day life and, finding it of little relevance, protests against what he considers its vain and useless formalism. Such in substance is the attitude of Cicero towards the ancient formal logic of Aristotle and the Stoics, and of the literary humanists of the Renaissance towards the logic of the late Middle Ages. Such, in brief, is the position of Prof. Toulmin towards the mathematical form of modern logic. (shrink)

Does the way authors treat their own works tell us something about how these works are to be understood? Not necessarily. But then a standard argument against the “New Wittgenstein” comes under question. The argument is: the undogmatic interpretation of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus cannot be correct, since Wittgenstein himself later treats it as a work that holds certain positions. My response is: the argument is only correct if the answer to four specific questions is “yes.” The main purpose (...) of the paper is to bring issues of philosophical authorship more into focus within Wittgensteinian interpretation. (shrink)

The strategy I adopt in this paper is as follows. First I seek to show that the authors’ formulation of the notion of "determinism" is defective because it elides some important distinctions. Second, I go on to argue that these defects vitiate some of the contentions made in the paper and alert us to the inadequacy of the self-referential argument developed in it.

This paper compares two kinds of epistemic principles---an underdetermination principle and a deductive closure principle. It argues that each principle provides the basis for an independently motivated skeptical argument. It examines the logical relations between the premises of the two kinds of skeptical argument and concludes that the deductive closure argument cannot be refuted without refuting the underdetermination argument. The underdetermination argument, however, can be refuted without refuting the deductive closure argument. In this respect, (...) the deductive closure argument is the stronger of the two. (shrink)

This important volume will be of great interest to scholars of early modern philosophy.

Considerations upon the nature of properties and laws have led some philosophers to claim that the correct epistemic attitude with regards to the intrinsic properties of particulars is scepticism. I examine one particularly clear version of this line of argument, and contend that a serious form of scepticism is not established. However, I argue that the theories of properties and laws underlying the argument have unwanted metaphysical implications. These provide a stronger reason to jettison the analyses. I end (...) by sketching an alternative view that avoids these difficulties. -/- . (shrink)

This innovative text reinvigorates argumentation studies by exploring the experience of argument across cultures, introducing an anthropological perspective into the domains of rhetoric, communication, and philosophy. The Anthropology of Argument fills an important gap in contemporary argumentation theory by shifting the focus away from the purely propositional element of arguments and onto how they emerge from the experiences of peoples with diverse backgrounds, demonstrating how argumentation can be understood as a means of expression and a gathering place of (...) ideas and styles. Confronting the limitations of the Western tradition of logic and searching out the argumentative roles of place, orality, myth, narrative, and audience, it examines the nature of multi-modal argumentation. Tindale analyzes the impacts of colonialism on the field and addresses both optimistic and cynical assessments of contextual difference. The results have implications for our understanding of contemporary argumentative discourse in areas marked by deep disagreement, like politics, law and social policy. The book will interest scholars and upper-level students in communication, philosophy, argumentation theory, anthropology, rhetoric, linguistics, and cultural studies. (shrink)

인식을 등불에 비유하는 것에 관한 해석 논쟁이란 실재론자들과 유식학파 사이에서 등불이 주위의 대상을 비추듯이 스스로도 비출 수 있는가에 관한 것이다. 실재론자들은 등불은 스스로를 비출 수 없다는 입장이고, 유식학파는 등불은 스스로도 비출 수 있다는 입장이다. 바꾸어 말하면, 지식이 스스로를 대상으로 인식할 경우, 실재론자들은 다른 인식수단이 필요하다고 주장하지만, 유식학파는 스스로가 인식수단이 되기 때문에 다른 인식수단이 필요하지 않다고 주장한다. 실재론자들은 기본적으로 두 가지 실재들 사이의 연기관계를 부정하기 때문에 하나의 실재를 증인으로 다른 실재를 추리하는 것은 불가능하다. 이와 같은 불합리를 해결하기 위해서 그들은 추리는 하나의 (...) 실재에 있어서능증과 소증이 내속 관계에 의해서 성립한다고 말한다. 가령 연기를 보고 불을 추리할 경우, 이미 알려진 눈앞의 피어오르는 연기의 속성을 증인으로, 아직 알려지지 않는 연기의 또 다른 속성으로서 불을 추리하는 것이 가능하다. 반면에 유식학파는 외계 실재란 본질적으로 개념적 구상에 불과한 것이기 때문에, 연기와 불이 서로 다른 분별일지라도 변충의 종류 중에서 인과성에 의해서 추리가 가능하다. 인식의 등불 비유, 즉 지식이 인식대상일 경우 그것을 인식하는 수단에 관해서 실재론자들은 기본적으로 마나스에 의한 이해가 인식수단이 된다. 나아가 소증과 능증은 하나의 실재에 있어 불가리의 내속을 기반으로 한다. 그러나 유식학파는 지식이 스스로가 대상에 대한 이해를 동반한다는 점에서 인식결과, 즉 자기인식이고, 이 자기인식은 소증과 능증이 변충의 동일성에 기반을 둔다. (shrink)

It is argued that there are good reasons for believing that commercial surrogacy is often exploitative. However, even if we accept this, the exploitation argument for prohibiting (or otherwise legislatively discouraging) commercial surrogacy remains quite weak. One reason for this is that prohibition may well 'backfire' and lead to potential surrogates having to do other things that are more exploitative and/or more harmful than paid surrogacy. It is concluded, therefore, that those who oppose exploitation should concentrate on: (a) improving (...) the conditions under which paid surrogates 'work'; and (b) changing the background conditions (in particular, the unequal distribution of power and wealth) which generate exploitative relationships. (edited). (shrink)

A growing number of theorists have launched an epistemic challenge against retributive punishment. This challenge involves the core claim that it is wrong (intentionally) to inflict serious harm on someone unless the moral argument for doing so has been established to a high standard of credibility. Proponents of this challenge typically argue that retributivism fails to meet the required epistemic standard, because retributivism relies on a contentious conception of free will, about whose existence we cannot be sufficiently certain. However, (...) the scope of the epistemic challenge should not be limited to doubts about free will or retributivism. In this article, I argue that the epistemic challenge should be expanded beyond the original focus on justifications of punishment. By “expanding the epistemic challenge” I mean demanding that other purported justifications for serious (intentional) harm be held to a high standard of credibility. To provide a focus for the argument, I will concentrate on the “Public Health Quarantine Model” defended by Gregg Caruso, but my arguments have wider implications beyond this model. A growing number of “abolitionist” theorists believe that punishment is wrong in principle. If retributive punishment, or punishment in general, were abandoned, we would need to ask, “how else should we respond to crime?”. My arguments suggest that all such abolitionists will have to face the same epistemic standard as penal theorists if they wish to replace punishment with the intentional imposition of non-punitive severe coercive measures. (shrink)

In this article we take the use of examples as a means to explore the processes of persuasion and consensus-construction involved in the legitimation of popular management knowledge. Examples, as concrete instances or events used to substantiate a wider argument, have been variedly regarded in different research traditions. Classical logic and rhetoric have considered them an inferior form of argument, useful for pedagogic or public debate but inadequate for higher forms of thought. This spirit still permeates much psychological (...) research on communication, where the great persuasive import of examples has been contrasted with more scientific and formal resources for argumentation. Considered in this light, the contingent and episodic nature of examples seems to make them cognitively inferior to explicit statements of general rules. However, various strands of research on the nature of scientific knowledge have shown that implicit forms of knowledge are an integral part of scientific expertise. Examples may thus be more central to disciplinary thought than the conventional normative view seems to allow. In this spirit, we explore the use of examples in a hotly contested field, that of popular discourse on business and management. The profusion of examples in this kind of writing has been often noted, and almost as often criticized. We seek to explore more fully how these examples are deployed, examining the discursive devices that mark examples within the development of the text, their function as rhetorical moves, and their role in presenting arguments that are never otherwise made explicit. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the ultimate argument for Scientific Realism, also known as the No-Miracles Argument (NMA), ultimately fails as an abductive defence of Epistemic Scientific Realism (ESR), where (ESR) is the thesis that successful theories of mature sciences are approximately true. The NMA is supposed to be an Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) that purports to explain the success of science. However, the explanation offered as the best explanation for success, namely (ESR), fails to (...) yield independently testable predictions that alternative explanations for success do not yield. If this is correct, then there seems to be no good reason to prefer (ESR) over alternative explanations for success. (shrink)

W artykule analizuję pewną odmianę kosmologicznej argumentacji za istnieniem Boga – „dowód ze skończoności”. W punkcie wyjścia opieram się na intuicjach Georga W.F. Hegla, które rozwijam. W swoich heglowskich inspiracjach ograniczam się do Wykładów z filozofii religii. W konkluzji wskazuję na niebezpieczeństwo pomieszania porządku poznawczego z porządkiem ontycznym. --------------- Zgłoszono: 30/10/2020. Zrecenzowano: 17/12/2020. Zaakceptowano do publikacji: 24/04/2021.

The formalisation of Natural Language arguments in a formal language close to it in syntax has been a central aim of Moss’s Natural Logic. I examine how the Quantified Argument Calculus (Quarc) can handle the inferences Moss has considered. I show that they can be incorporated in existing versions of Quarc or in straightforward extensions of it, all within sound and complete systems. Moreover, Quarc is closer in some respects to Natural Language than are Moss’s systems – for instance, (...) is does not use negative nouns. The process also sheds light on formal properties and presuppositions of some inferences it formalises. Directions for future work are outlined. (shrink)

The notion of social progress is not much in favour in these sophisticated times of scepticism, cynicism, relativism and political correctness; at least in the West. Most people might admit that some indubitable advances have occurred, primarily in terms of this or that useful technological innovation. But any wider claim about ‘social progress’ is often met by overwhelming doubt and suspicion, if not outright derision. I provide a short argument for belief in progress.

Argument schemes are abstractions substantiating the inferential connection between premise(s) and conclusion in argumentative communication. Identifying such conventional patterns of reasoning is essential to the interpretation and evaluation of argumentation. Whether studying argumentation from a theory-driven or data-driven perspective, insight into the actual use of argumentation in communicative practice is essential. Large and reliably annotated corpora of argumentative discourse to quantitatively provide such insight are few and far between. This is all the more true for argument scheme corpora, (...) which tend to suffer from a combination of limited size, poor validation, and the use of ad hoc restricted typologies. In the current paper, we describe the annotation of schemes on the basis of two distinct classifications: Walton’s taxonomy of argument schemes, and Wagemans’ Periodic Table of Arguments. We describe the annotation procedure for each, and the quantitative characteristics of the resulting annotated text corpora. In doing so, we extend the annotation of the preexisting US2016 corpus of televised election debates, resulting in, to the best of our knowledge, the two largest consistently annotated corpora of schemes in argumentative dialogue publicly available. Based on evaluation in terms of inter-annotator agreement, we propose further improvements to the guidelines for annotating schemes: the argument scheme key, and the Argument Type Identification Procedure. (shrink)