Abstract Must you respect basic logical laws (BLL) – such as the law of non-contradiction – in order to think? Frege wrote that one must “acknowledge” BLL in order not to “abandon judgement altogether”. Some have argued that Frege therefore thought of logic as somehow ‘constitutive’ of thinking. However, some interpreters contend, due to his strong commitment to logic’s normative status, that Frege held the opposite view, namely the non-constitutivist view that (systematic) ‘illogical’ thinking is possible and that one need not accept or follow BLL in order to think as such, although one must do so in order to think correctly. The aim of this paper is to investigate the interpretative landscape regarding Frege’s view on logic’s constitutive role for thinking and suggest, against the non-constitutivist readings, that he indeed was committed to some version of the constitutivity thesis, but that this commitment is not, as some constitutivist interpretations suggest, inconsistent with the idea that logic is normative for thinking. I will, instead, propose to read his view in a soft and agent-relative sense, according to which it is a necessary condition for the possibility of thinking that the agent in question is sensitive to and acknowledges BLL.
{"title":"Do Logical Aliens Think? Frege’s Agent-Relative View of Logic’s Constitutive Role for Thinking","authors":"Kristoffer Willert","doi":"10.1515/sats-2024-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2024-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Must you respect basic logical laws (BLL) – such as the law of non-contradiction – in order to think? Frege wrote that one must “acknowledge” BLL in order not to “abandon judgement altogether”. Some have argued that Frege therefore thought of logic as somehow ‘constitutive’ of thinking. However, some interpreters contend, due to his strong commitment to logic’s normative status, that Frege held the opposite view, namely the non-constitutivist view that (systematic) ‘illogical’ thinking is possible and that one need not accept or follow BLL in order to think as such, although one must do so in order to think correctly. The aim of this paper is to investigate the interpretative landscape regarding Frege’s view on logic’s constitutive role for thinking and suggest, against the non-constitutivist readings, that he indeed was committed to some version of the constitutivity thesis, but that this commitment is not, as some constitutivist interpretations suggest, inconsistent with the idea that logic is normative for thinking. I will, instead, propose to read his view in a soft and agent-relative sense, according to which it is a necessary condition for the possibility of thinking that the agent in question is sensitive to and acknowledges BLL.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141334999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The analytical model of political ideologies offered in this article describes the connection between rising levels of distrust towards societal institutions in modern democracies and how such developments has challenged traditional and long-standing political parties in the Western world, such as the Danish political party Radikale Venstre [the Danish Social-Liberal Party]. Through use of a tripartite model of trust developed by Arman Teymouri Niknam during his interpretation of Mary Wollstonecraft’s attitudes towards trust brought together with different aspects of Axel Honneth’s social-philosophical framework, Teymouri Niknam and Leif Hemming Pedersen show how distrust may be able to act as a progressive tool in the creation of a more just, diverse and equal future and also how a virtuous and healthy form of democracy is an ideal that can be challenging to realise in practice. Teymouri Niknam and Hemming Pedersen are thus able to point to the ways in which a healthy democracy needs a balance of virtuous trust and distrust in order to achieve a good amount of both stability and progress, thus pointing to a difficult balancing act that many traditional political parties find themselves struggling with especially at this point in time in many contemporary democracies.
{"title":"Between Virtuous Trust and Distrust: A Model of Political Ideologies in Times of Challenged Political Parties","authors":"Arman Teymouri Niknam, Leif Hemming Pedersen","doi":"10.1515/sats-2024-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2024-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The analytical model of political ideologies offered in this article describes the connection between rising levels of distrust towards societal institutions in modern democracies and how such developments has challenged traditional and long-standing political parties in the Western world, such as the Danish political party Radikale Venstre [the Danish Social-Liberal Party]. Through use of a tripartite model of trust developed by Arman Teymouri Niknam during his interpretation of Mary Wollstonecraft’s attitudes towards trust brought together with different aspects of Axel Honneth’s social-philosophical framework, Teymouri Niknam and Leif Hemming Pedersen show how distrust may be able to act as a progressive tool in the creation of a more just, diverse and equal future and also how a virtuous and healthy form of democracy is an ideal that can be challenging to realise in practice. Teymouri Niknam and Hemming Pedersen are thus able to point to the ways in which a healthy democracy needs a balance of virtuous trust and distrust in order to achieve a good amount of both stability and progress, thus pointing to a difficult balancing act that many traditional political parties find themselves struggling with especially at this point in time in many contemporary democracies.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141350317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Carnap described ways to test scientific hypotheses. However, Carnap acknowledged that confirmation can never be definite. This left open the issue about the criteria to accept hypotheses. On the other hand, Wang has developed a computer program working without sufficient knowledge or resources, which makes the action of the program akin to the manner the human mind thinks. Wang’s program includes quantitative indicators that can be assigned to the frequency and the confidence of sentences. The present paper tries to link both approaches. The goal is to show how quantitative indicators such as those in Wang’s program can also be attributed to scientific hypotheses. Those indicators can help make decisions about the acceptance of the hypotheses. All of this allows proposing general characteristics for a possible algorithm to decide whether a particular hypothesis is admissible.
{"title":"Scientific Testability Following the Assumption of Insufficient Knowledge and Resources","authors":"Miguel López-Astorga","doi":"10.1515/sats-2023-0020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2023-0020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Carnap described ways to test scientific hypotheses. However, Carnap acknowledged that confirmation can never be definite. This left open the issue about the criteria to accept hypotheses. On the other hand, Wang has developed a computer program working without sufficient knowledge or resources, which makes the action of the program akin to the manner the human mind thinks. Wang’s program includes quantitative indicators that can be assigned to the frequency and the confidence of sentences. The present paper tries to link both approaches. The goal is to show how quantitative indicators such as those in Wang’s program can also be attributed to scientific hypotheses. Those indicators can help make decisions about the acceptance of the hypotheses. All of this allows proposing general characteristics for a possible algorithm to decide whether a particular hypothesis is admissible.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141363273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journalists depend on two vectors of trust: the trust invested in them by their sources, and the trust invested in them by their end-users. For many years, trust has become a key issue in the articulation of the journalistic profession. This paper distinguishes between two traditional approaches to earn public trust: either through an emphasis on the ideal of objectivity, or by a sort of showing one’s cards: an explicit declaration of one’s subjectivity. Through a reading of Løgstrup, Derrida, and Deleuze, we argue that both positions are inadequate solutions to the problem of trust. In as much as subjectivity is continuously negotiated in interaction with the unknown and the uncontrollable, the poles of objectivity and subjectivity cannot define the narrative event without each supplementing the other. To escape from this impasse, we suggest a third approach: a hospitable journalism characterized by a hospitable attitude towards the uncontrollable and the strange, or unknown, which operates to make the individual more aware of herself and her place in the world. This invitation happens through a silencing of the self.
{"title":"Journalists Gaining Trust Through Silencing of the Self","authors":"Ejvind Hansen","doi":"10.1515/sats-2023-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2023-0002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Journalists depend on two vectors of trust: the trust invested in them by their sources, and the trust invested in them by their end-users. For many years, trust has become a key issue in the articulation of the journalistic profession. This paper distinguishes between two traditional approaches to earn public trust: either through an emphasis on the ideal of objectivity, or by a sort of showing one’s cards: an explicit declaration of one’s subjectivity. Through a reading of Løgstrup, Derrida, and Deleuze, we argue that both positions are inadequate solutions to the problem of trust. In as much as subjectivity is continuously negotiated in interaction with the unknown and the uncontrollable, the poles of objectivity and subjectivity cannot define the narrative event without each supplementing the other. To escape from this impasse, we suggest a third approach: a hospitable journalism characterized by a hospitable attitude towards the uncontrollable and the strange, or unknown, which operates to make the individual more aware of herself and her place in the world. This invitation happens through a silencing of the self.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141115478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In the 1787 Transcendental Deduction of the Categories Kant indicates the only possible ways by which one can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects (B166), using analogies between modes of explanation and biological theories about the origin of life. He endorses epigenesis as a model for his system of pure reason (B167). This paper examines various interpretive claims about the meaning of this theory of generation and its significance for Kant’s philosophy (Section 1), showing that, after his Critical shift in perspective, in 1775/77 Kant already combined preformed elements and their purposively oriented formation by natural forces (Section 2). Contrary to the standard view, Kant’s theory of race appears to constitute the background to assess Blumenbach’s later (1799/1781) shift to epigenesis after supporting Haller’s preformism (Section 3). In Section 4, I argue that the ground of affinity between epigenesis and formal idealism rests in tracing the first origin of these conformities: external a posteriori climate conditions and predisposed germs and dispositions within the generative power of the human body; and external a posteriori experience and spontaneous a priori concepts of its objects, within pure sensory intuiting and pure thinking. In both cases the external empirical conditions would function as occasioning propelling factors affecting internal pre-established forms of generation.
{"title":"The Epigenesis of Germs and Dispositions in Logic and Life: Kant’s System of Pure Reason and His Concept of Race","authors":"Cinzia Ferrini","doi":"10.1515/sats-2023-0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2023-0013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the 1787 Transcendental Deduction of the Categories Kant indicates the only possible ways by which one can account for a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects (B166), using analogies between modes of explanation and biological theories about the origin of life. He endorses epigenesis as a model for his system of pure reason (B167). This paper examines various interpretive claims about the meaning of this theory of generation and its significance for Kant’s philosophy (Section 1), showing that, after his Critical shift in perspective, in 1775/77 Kant already combined preformed elements and their purposively oriented formation by natural forces (Section 2). Contrary to the standard view, Kant’s theory of race appears to constitute the background to assess Blumenbach’s later (1799/1781) shift to epigenesis after supporting Haller’s preformism (Section 3). In Section 4, I argue that the ground of affinity between epigenesis and formal idealism rests in tracing the first origin of these conformities: external a posteriori climate conditions and predisposed germs and dispositions within the generative power of the human body; and external a posteriori experience and spontaneous a priori concepts of its objects, within pure sensory intuiting and pure thinking. In both cases the external empirical conditions would function as occasioning propelling factors affecting internal pre-established forms of generation.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136018760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Is it possible to measure a people’s capacity for containing the ambitions of any regime at its helm—its ability to resist the power of a tyrant? We begin here from the premise that this power has to be in proportion to individuals’ capacity (both individually and in groups) for communicating, at least among themselves, dissatisfaction with the regime. As the paper subsequently shows, by articulating an ontology of information diffusion on a communication network structure, it is possible to take some stock of the features of a communications network that facilitate resistance to tyranny (among other things), and so to begin answering questions about the sort of power that people living within them might be able to mobilize, while not yet answering outright the question of how to measure the power to resist.
{"title":"Powers that Reside in Communication","authors":"M. Thalos","doi":"10.1515/sats-2023-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2023-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Is it possible to measure a people’s capacity for containing the ambitions of any regime at its helm—its ability to resist the power of a tyrant? We begin here from the premise that this power has to be in proportion to individuals’ capacity (both individually and in groups) for communicating, at least among themselves, dissatisfaction with the regime. As the paper subsequently shows, by articulating an ontology of information diffusion on a communication network structure, it is possible to take some stock of the features of a communications network that facilitate resistance to tyranny (among other things), and so to begin answering questions about the sort of power that people living within them might be able to mobilize, while not yet answering outright the question of how to measure the power to resist.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84733874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"McGinn, Marie. 2022. Wittgenstein, Scepticism and Naturalism: Essays on the Later Philosophy. Anthem Press","authors":"H. Strandberg","doi":"10.1515/sats-2023-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2023-0009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75083853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper addresses the responsibilities of philosophers. It distinguishes philosophers by profession, philosophers as a type of person playing a social role by doing philosophy, and philosophers without any professional or social role as a philosopher. It criticizes and rejects the internal goods view of philosophers’ responsibilities, according to which a philosopher’s only responsibility as a philosopher is to do ‘good’ philosophy. It examines the responsibilities of philosophy professors and the role of philosophy teaching in liberal education, criticizing the implications of the internal goods view for university missions and commenting on related deficiencies of the Code of Conduct of the American Philosophical Association. The central conclusions are that philosophers should accept responsibilities to do philosophy in the public interest and to adopt a cross-disciplinary and collaborative stance toward their role in educating students in the forms of understanding and judgment that will best equip them for life and citizenship.
{"title":"Ethics for Philosophers: An Introduction","authors":"R. Curren","doi":"10.1515/sats-2023-0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2023-0003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper addresses the responsibilities of philosophers. It distinguishes philosophers by profession, philosophers as a type of person playing a social role by doing philosophy, and philosophers without any professional or social role as a philosopher. It criticizes and rejects the internal goods view of philosophers’ responsibilities, according to which a philosopher’s only responsibility as a philosopher is to do ‘good’ philosophy. It examines the responsibilities of philosophy professors and the role of philosophy teaching in liberal education, criticizing the implications of the internal goods view for university missions and commenting on related deficiencies of the Code of Conduct of the American Philosophical Association. The central conclusions are that philosophers should accept responsibilities to do philosophy in the public interest and to adopt a cross-disciplinary and collaborative stance toward their role in educating students in the forms of understanding and judgment that will best equip them for life and citizenship.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79035682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Perpetuating the discipline of philosophy is not the main educational responsibility of philosophers. Instead, it is to equip students with those distinctively philosophical intellectual resources that will serve students in serving the public good through participation in the economy (broadly conceived) and democratic life. Given this responsibility philosophers, individually and collectively, have a duty to take teaching and learning more seriously than they do. The paper offers some confident ideas about what this means when it comes to approaching training and professional development and some more tentative ideas about what it means, specifically, for the Philosophy curriculum and the pedagogical strategies philosophers should adopt in the classroom.
{"title":"The Educational Responsibilities of Philosophers","authors":"Harry Brighouse","doi":"10.1515/sats-2023-0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/sats-2023-0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Perpetuating the discipline of philosophy is not the main educational responsibility of philosophers. Instead, it is to equip students with those distinctively philosophical intellectual resources that will serve students in serving the public good through participation in the economy (broadly conceived) and democratic life. Given this responsibility philosophers, individually and collectively, have a duty to take teaching and learning more seriously than they do. The paper offers some confident ideas about what this means when it comes to approaching training and professional development and some more tentative ideas about what it means, specifically, for the Philosophy curriculum and the pedagogical strategies philosophers should adopt in the classroom.","PeriodicalId":38824,"journal":{"name":"SATS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83824308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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