TRUTH, REALISM, RELATIVISM: INTERCONNECTION AND RECIPROCAL DEFINABILITY

In the contemporary English-language philosophy the problems of truth, realism, and relativism appear actual and interconnected; this evidences reciprocal complementarity and definability between metaphysics, epistemology and methodologies of philosophical investigations. In the article relevant views of prominent today philosophers – Paul Boghossian, Crispin Wright, JC Beall – are comparatively analyzed. In the considered articles the ordinary view on dispute of inclinations is analyzed in competition with other possible interpretations. For example, one person likes stewed rhubarb, another – doesn’t. This is a case of true disagreement: each person maintains the position that another denies. Such disagreement Wright calls the dispute of inclinations; ordinary view on dispute of inclinations involves: really incompatible attitudes (contradiction), the faultlessness of each side, rational maintaining of the view in spite of obvious unresolved disagreement (sustainability). According to Boghossian the attitude of relativism involves tree components: metaphysical – denying of “absolute” facts of a certain type (from some specific investigative domain) in favor of relative; recommendational – permission to accept only appropriate relative propositions; limiting – about meanings which allow unexpected parameters that relativize. Beall advocates “Polarity View” and fruitfully applies it to analyze the ordinary view. Modeling of the former involves: concepts of truthmakers, positive and negative polarity, atomic facts, situational semantics. The formal modeling and philosophical explanation coincide. Each of the authors defends realism and correspondence understanding of truth (in particular truth as relation of proposition’s correspondence to a fact); and also opposes relativism. At the same time, relativism turns out to be an inevitable (at least implicitly inherent to all three authors) tendency, which testifies to at least the contextual (Boghossian) relativity of non-cognitive concepts or competencies (Wright); functional fixation of facts in their application (Beall).

Schlussfolgern

Schlussfolgern setzt voraus, dass die schlussfolgernde Person sieht, dass ihre Konklusion aus den Prämissen folgt und sie sie deswegen aus den Prämissen herleitet. Dies hat Paul Boghossian jüngst als eine Bedingung für eine adäquate Erklärung des Schlussfolgerns formuliert. Der Autor entwickelt eine Erklärung, die sich diese Bedingung zum Maßstab setzt. Zugleich greift er kritisch in die neuere Debatte zum Thema ein, in der der Vollzug einer Schlussfolgerung zumeist als kausale Abfolge mentaler Einstellungen verstanden wird. Indem er auf Immanuel Kants Verständnis von Urteil und Schluss zurückgreift, weist der Autor diese Annahme zurück und entwickelt einen alternativen Erklärungsansatz. Der systematische Anspruch des Buches wird so zugleich historisch verortet und untermauert.

Sobre a natureza da inferência em Boghossian

Se crer com base em razões é algo que aparentemente envolve passos e toma tempo o que nos previne de considerar o julgamento inferencial ou o raciocínio de um modo geral como uma atividade, o produto de um tipo especial de agência? A ideia de que há atividade genuína quando realizamos uma inferência está implícita em vários autores. Neste artigo analiso uma defesa explicita desta concepção: a tese desenvolvida por Paul Boghossian de que a inferência é uma forma de ação cognitiva. Argumento que há um contraste na estrutura das razões e de causação entre crer por razões e agir por razões. E concluo que o que parece ser ativo no caso especifico de raciocínio, que é fazer uma inferência, deve-se a sua conexão conceitual com o estado de crença. Quando cremos que p com base em q, cremos por uma razão que nos é dada por uma outra crença.

Le problème de la justification des lois logiques de base

Cet article porte, de façon générale, sur le problème de la justification des lois logiques de base. Il s’agit en premier lieu de montrer, en prenant comme point de départ la régression à l’infini de Lewis Carroll, que les approches contemporaines les plus en vue en épistémologie de la logique sont incapables de rendre compte de la légitimité de notre pratique inférentielle de base. Cet échec des perspectives traditionnelles motive la recherche d’une nouvelle approche. Je suggère, dans la dernière portion de l’article, qu’il serait profitable de suivre une proposition faite par Paul Boghossian et d’examiner attentivement la conception primitiviste d’Aristote concernant les fondements de la logique.

Textos y glosas nº 10

Reseñas Bibliográficas correspondientes al número 10 de Barataria. Para visualizar/descargar la reseña correspondiente diríjase al apartado texto completo (pdf). ÍNDICE de las reseñas: Autor: A. Martín Cabello, pp. 225-226 Texto: Paul BOGHOSSIAN El miedo al conocimiento. Contra el relativismo y el constructivismo Madrid: Alianza. 2009, [2006].187 pp. Autora: M.I. Morán Morán, pp. 226-228 Texto: Francisco MARCOS-MARÍN y Amando DE MIGUEL Se habla español Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva. 2009. 279 pp. Autor: E. Díaz Cano, pp. 228-229 Texto: Lorenzo CACHÓN RODRÍGUEZ La España «inmigrante»: marco discriminatorio, mercado de trabajo y políticas de integración Barcelona: Anthropos. 2009. 351 pp. Autor: G. Tardivo, pp. 229-231 Texto: Roland TERBORG y Laura G. GARCÍA LANDA (Coords.) Los retos de la planificación del lenguaje México: UNAM - México. 2006. 2 vols. 630 pp. Autora: A. García Manso, pp. 231-232 Texto: María GÓMEZ ESCARDA e Isidro SEPÚLVEDA MUÑOZ (Eds.) Las mujeres militares en España Madrid: Instituto Universitario General Gutiérrez Mellado. 2009. 322 pp. Autor: E. Díaz Cano, pp. 233-234 Texto: Antonio MARTÍN CABELLO Perspectivas teóricas en torno a la sociología de la cultura Madrid: Dykinson S.L. 2009. 134 pp. Autora: A. García Manso, p. 234 Texto: Juan MAESTRE ALFONSO Guatemala. Entre volcanes y poetas Córdoba: Almuzara, Colección Sotavento. 2008. 192 pp. Autor: G. Tardivo, pp. 234-235 Texto: Abel HERNÁNDEZ Historias de la Alcarama Madrid: Gadir. 2008. 244 p. Autora: M. I. Morán Morán, pp. 236-237 Texto: Ángel VALERO LUMBRERAS El giro político de la epistemología Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva. 2008. 316 pp. Autor: E. Díaz Cano, pp. 238-239 Texto: Vicente J. BENITO GIL, José M. CANALES ALIENDE y María Erley ORJUELA RAMÍREZ (Coords.) Estado del bienestar y políticas sociales: una aproximación a la situación española y colombiana Alicante: Editorial Club Universitario. 2008. 294 pp. Autor: F. Ruiz de Pablos, pp. 239-241 Texto: Maximiliano FERNÁNDEZ FERNÁNDEZ Larra, en las elecciones de 1836, cómplices y adversarios Segovia: Junta de Castilla y León. 2009. 231 pp.

Why Privileged Self-Knowledge and Content Externalism are Compatible

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2015v19n2p197In the last twenty-five years, several authors have raised problems to the thesis that privileged self-knowledge is compatible with content externalism. In particular, the ‘slow-switching’ argument, which was originally put forth by Paul Boghossian (1989), aims to show that there is no satisfactory account of how we can have privileged knowledge about our own thoughts given content externalism. Though many philosophers have found ways to block the argument, no one has worried to address a major worry that Boghossian had when he presented the argument, which is to understand under which conditions privileged self-knowledge is possible given content externalism. In this paper, I offer a diagnosis of why the ‘slow-switching’ argument fails and I show how the diagnosis enables us to provide a partial response to Boghossian’s worry.

Metaethical expressivism and deflationary concept of truth

In order to solve the Frege-Geach problem, most proponents of metaethical expressivism accept deflationary concept of truth. Yet, Paul Boghossian and Ronald Dworkin argue that those two theories are incompatible because deflationism subverts expressivism by making it too easy for ethical sentences to be truth-apt. Taking the tension between expressivism and deflationism to be the indicator of their conflict in theoretical motivations - revisionist and antirevisionist - I will try to show that they indeed are incompatible, but not for reasons that Boghossian and Dworkin point out. Namely, although expressivist can use deflationism to globalise his view on the whole of language, motivational conflict breaks out anew in an unexpected way - once deflationism and expressivism are fully integrated, expressivist is no longer able to explain what sets him apart from methaethical realist.