Philosophie in der Welt und für die Welt – Realitätsbezüge einer Disziplin zweiter Ordnung

According to a widely accepted conception, philosophy is essentially a second-order discipline raising second-order questions about the procedures and products of first-order reasonings (concepts; principles; theories etc.). While this conception has considerable prima facie plausibility and, carefully put, contains a grain of truth, it also invites serious misunderstandings that may be detrimental to an adequate understanding and public image of philosophy. To work out the grain of truth while avoiding the misunderstandings, I begin by asking: What is philosophical understanding? In answering this question, understanding in philosophy is compared and contrasted with everyday understanding, on the one hand, and scientific understanding, on the other hand. While philosophy itself is a scientific practice in a wide sense, in contrast to normal understanding within a special scientific discipline (physics; chemistry; biology; psychology; etc.) philosophical understanding is characterized by a particular critical attitude and particular principles of rational acceptability.

Plantinga on warrant and acceptability of Christian Belief

Alvin Plantinga wants to answer the following question: Is Christian belief intellectualy or rationaly acceptable? We will present the answer John Locke gives, based on his evidentialism, to the aforementioned question, as well as Plantinga?s critique of Locke?s evidentialist approach. Plantinga thinks that the question ?Is Christian belief intellectualy or rationaly acceptable?? is best understood as meaning ?Is Christian belief warranted??. We will analyze Plantinga?s argument for the claim that Christian belief probably has warrant if it is true, which implies that we first have to show that Christian belief (probably) is false in order to show that it (probably) has no warrant. But than that means that we have to show that Christian belief is false in order to show that it is unacceptable, making it very hard, if not impossible, to show that Christian belief is unacceptable. We will then present one objection to Plantinga?s argument, ?the Great Pumpkin Objection?. Relying on Linda Zagzebski?s analysis, we will claim that the Great Pupmpkin objection shows that Plantinga?s notion of ?warrant? does not adequately capture the meaning of the relevant notion of ?intellectual or rational acceptability? of beliefs, and that, hence, his conclusion about warrant of Christian belief are not necessary relevant for the claims about intellectual or rational acceptability of Christian belief. We will also analyze a solution given by Kyle Scott. He thinks that if we have, in addition to Plantinga?s argument showing that Christian belief is warranted if true, favouring evidence in support of Christian belief, which he thinks we obviously have, than Christian belief is acceptable. We will point out that Scott does not elaborate what makes adequate favouring evidence in support of some belief, and we will calim that adequate understanding of favouring evidence will, in some respects, be very similar to Locke?s evidentialism. If so, than Scott proposal will reintroduce some elements of Locke?s evidentialism, and the question of whether there is favouring evidence in support of Christian belief will not have an obvious and easy answer.

For Better or Worse

A striking feature of the life of practical agency is the substantial latitude it includes. One suggestion for how to explain this latitude is that such latitude points to pluralism in the very way that reasons favor: some reasons favor deontically, and other reasons only commend. However, there is a critical question about the comparative lives of such reasons. They presumably admit of different strengths, and are thus capable of ordering options. While one might agree that we have latitude to decline following the direction of a reason that merely commends, it seems that once we face two or more such reasons that offer competing recommendations, only the action supported by the better reason is a candidate for action. Against this challenge, this chapter argues that commendatory reasons have the ability to defend, in the cases we care about, the moral and rational acceptability of doing the less worthy.

Resolving Quine's Confict: A Neo-Quinean View of the Rational Revisability of Logic

There is an apparent conflict in Quine’s work between, on the one hand, his clear commitment to the rational revisability of logic and, on the other, his principle of charitable translation and ‘change of logic, change of subject’ argument. I argue that the apparent conflict is mostly resolved under close exegesis, but that the translation argument normatively rules out collaborative revision and allows only revision by individuals. However, I articulate a Neo-Quinean view that preserves the rational acceptability of collaborative revision. On that view, everything is rationally revisable in some manner or other — it’s just that the logical principles that laypersons find (actually or potentially) obvious and tacitly use to govern their everyday inferences can’t be rationally revised quickly and all at once. Since, in Quine’s view, what most people find obvious resists change, rational changes to laymen’s logic must be gradual.

Another look at Hume's treatment of the argument from design in the Natural History of Religion

This article argues that Hume's seemingly peculiar treatment of the argument from design in his Natural History of Religion is not indicative of a radical, or even modest, shift in his overall epistemic evaluation of it. His focus is on the argument's impact on the psychology of religious believers, and not its rational acceptability. Hume never strays far from his stated intention for the work, to engage in a socio-psychological analysis of the nature of religious belief, including a thorough assessment of the role of the argument from design. Hume concludes that the argument is inconsequential to religious belief formation.

Truth, Pragmatism and Morality

Abstract1. Hilary Putnam's conception of ethics is not best understood as a form of ‘moral realism’, but as a position consequent upon the pragmatist understanding of the relation between truth and rational acceptability – ideas that Putnam argues are not confined to laboratory science. Just as our conception of the visible world is founded in reason as informed by sense perception, why cannot our moral notions appear to reason itself as that is shaped or informed by our situation and our nature, our vital needs and our capacity to respond to those needs through the invention and refinement of ethical notions? In following out this proposal, I try to show how well Putnam's conception of rational acceptability can consist and cohere with the constraint upon enquiry that C. S. Peirce calls ‘secondness’. 2. Putnam writes ‘we invent moral words for morally relevant features of situations, which lead to further refinements of our moral notions’. Enlarging on this claim, the paper reconstructs some of the ways in which human beings can arrive through a practical reason of the unforsakeable at an ethos – a shared way of living – and at what Putnam calls ‘a moral image of the world’. 3. The paper then sets out some of Putnam's conclusions concerning agreement and disagreement, the supposed dichotomy of fact and value, the supposed problem of the perception of value, and the implausibility of Lionel Robbins's claim that economics and ethics can have no closer relation than mere juxtaposition. 4. In conclusion, the paper touches upon the merits or demerits of the very idea of a ‘moral reality’.

Beyond Predictability – Reflections on Legal Certainty and the Discourse Theory of Law in the EU Legal Order

Legal certainty requires a balance between stability and flexibility. Following the hermeneutical footsteps of legal theorists such as Aulis Aarnio and Alexander Peczenik, a distinction can be made between formal and substantive legal certainty; between predictability and acceptability of legal decision-making. Formal legal certainty implies that laws and, in particular, adjudication must be predictable: laws must satisfy requirements of clarity, stability, and intelligibility so that those concerned can with relative accuracy calculate the legal consequences of their actions as well as the outcome of legal proceedings. Substantive legal certainty, then, is related to the rational acceptability of legal decision-making. In this sense, it is not sufficient that laws and adjudication are predictable: they must also be accepted by the legal community in question.