This chapter contains sections titled: Philosophers' fallacies and historians' fallacies Five Historical Fallacies Historical Fallacies of Philosophers and the Relationship of Philosophy to its History Bibliography Further Reading.

What are the historical origins of the argumentum ad consequentiam, the argument from consequences, sometimes featured as an informal fallacy in logic textbooks? As shown in this paper, knowledge of the argument can be traced back to Aristotle. And this type of argument shows a spotty history of recognition in logic texts and manuals over the centuries. But how it got into the modern logic textbooks as a fallacy remains somewhat obscure. Its modern genesis is traced to (...) the logic text of James McCosh. (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.

Proteins are targeted to plastids by N‐terminal transit peptides, which are recognized by protein import complexes in the organelle membranes. Historically, transit peptide properties have been defined from vascular plant sequences, but recent large‐scale genome sequencing from the many plastid‐containing lineages across the tree of life has provided a much broader representation of targeted proteins. This includes the three lineages containing primary plastids (plants and green algae, rhodophytes and glaucophytes) and also the seven major lineages that contain secondary plastids, “secondhand” (...) plastids derived through eukaryotic endosymbiosis. Despite this extensive spread of plastids throughout Eukaryota, an N‐terminal transit peptide has been maintained as an essential plastid‐targeting motif. This article provides the first global comparison of transit peptide composition and summarizes conservation of some features, the loss of an ancestral motif from the green lineages including plants, and modifications to transit peptides that have occurred in secondary and even tertiary plastids. BioEssays 29:1048–1058, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Frecuentemente se ha señalado a la fenomenología de Husserl como una "filosofía de la fundación última y radical auto-responsabilidad." Aquí, sin embargo, examinaremos qué sentido puede tener hablar de "fundación última" y "auto-responsabilidad radical" en filosofía. La "idea de la filosofía" que propone Husserl como una "ciencia universal y rigurosa" de "fundación última" ha sido malinterpretada por sus críticos contemporáneos, que no han prestado atención a su aclaración que esta idea "ha de ser realizada sólo mediante valideces relativas y temporales (...) en un proceso histórico infinito", ni tampoco al hecho que él ya ha replanteado la noción moderna de razón. Que la filosofía ha de proveer una fundación última a toda efectuación de la razón, así como su propia justificación sólo significa que es últimamente responsable de todo sentido y validez en general, así como de sí misma. Empero, el ego consciente activo, con sus efectuaciones racionales –cognitivas, volitivas y emotivas– como el "fundamento absoluto de todas mis validaciones", es precedido por un estrato más profundo, pre-consciente, irracional y pasivo de tendencias emotivas y desiderativas, impulsos e instintos hacia la conciencia y la racionalidad. Así, todo "evidenciar" y Geltungsfundierung se ve finalmente absorbido en una Genesisfundierung. En última instancia, ninguna "evidencia" racional puede ser "adecuada", sino que es esencialmente abierta e inadecuada. La tan criticada "conciencia absoluta" de Husserl está en efecto enraizada en un "absoluto más definitivo y verdadero", a saber, la identidad y diferencia del presente viviente estático-fluyente que pertenece a un ser finito, temporal, perspectivista, encarnado e intersubjetivo. La defensa de la razón y del "discurso fundacional" es para Husserl una cuestión de la "supervivencia de la humanidad" y su preservación de la barbarie. Pero no es una "adquisición permanente" sino la responsabilidad de una "tarea infinita". Así, la filosofía es una "ciencia todo-abarcadora fundada en un fundamento absoluto [...] aunque por cierto bajo la forma de un programa sin fin".Husserl’s phenomenology has been frequently referred to as a “philosophy of ultimate foundation and radical self-responsibility.” Yet here we will examine philosophy’s notion of “ultimate foundation” as “radical self-responsibility.” The “idea of philosophy” that Husserl proposes as a “universal and rigorous science” of “ultimate foundation” has been grossly misinterpreted by his contemporary critics, who have not paid heed to his clarifica-tion that this idea is “to be realized only by way of relative and temporary validities and in an infinite historical process,” nor to the fact that he has already recasted the traditional Modern notion of reason. That philosophy is called upon to provide an ultimate foundation to every accomplishment of reason, as well as its own justification, means that it is ultimately responsible for every sense and validity in general, and for itself. However, the active conscious ego, with its rational –cognitive, volitional and emotional– accomplishments, as the “absolute foundation of all my validations,” is preceded by a deeper, pre-conscious, irrational, and passive stratum of emotional and desiderative tendencies, impulses, instincts and strivings towards consciousness and rationality. Thus every “evidencing” and Geltungsfundierung is finally absorbed within Genesisfundierung. Ultimately no rational “evidence” can ever be “adequate,” but is essentially openended, and inadequate. Husserl’s much criticized “absolute consciousness” is in fact an “absolute” rooted in a “more definite and true absolute,” namely, the identity and difference of the static-fluent living present belonging to a finite, temporal, perspectivist, incarnate and intersubjective being. The defense of reason and of “foundational discourse” is for Husserl a question of “humanity’s survival” and its preservation from barbarity. Yet it is not a “permanent acquisition” but the responsibility of an “infinite task.” Thus philosophy is an “all-embracing science grounded on an absolute foundation [...] though of course in the form of an endless program.". (shrink)

Chris Arthur's approach aims at a systematic re-ordering of Marx's categories. This article argues that his approach is actually a different ordering of different categories that are positioned within a specific theoretical whole, a Hegelian re-interpretation of Marx and especially of abstract labour, which distances itself from Marx. While the debate has focused mainly on the philosophical aspects of Arthur's work, its economic features have not been the object of a systematic analysis. Yet, a full assessment of the 'New Dialectics' (...) should include explicitly a systematic internal critique of its economic dimensions. The aim of this article is to assess the internal consistency of the economic ramifications of the 'New Dialectics'. The focus is on the notions of abstract labour, concrete labour, and exploitation. Arthur's faithfulness to Marx, or correspondence to Marx's quotations, is not the criterion used to assess the 'New Dialectics'. Rather, the criterion is whether it discovers logical inconsistencies in Capital and is itself free from inconsistencies. The answer is negative in both cases. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin's (1909-97) standing in twentieth-century intellectual history rests primarily upon his post-Second World War writings in political theory and the history of ideas. Berlin's investigations into the antagonistic traditions of Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment thought, and his advocacy of liberal responses to the conflicts between values, which, he believed, were an unavoidable feature of the human condition, have been the subject of extensive discussion. Less has been written, however, about Berlin's formative experiences of analytic philosophy during the 1930s and late (...) 1940s. It is often assumed that Berlin 'abandoned' philosophy after the war in favour of the history of ideas. As such, there is a tendency in much of the existing literature to underestimate the influence of Berlin's early analytical work on his later historical and political writings. Indeed, Berlin's work is regularly thought to be marked by a fracture at which point the study of philosophy is relinquished for that of history and political theory. The present article will aim to challenge this reading of Berlin's work. The article will advance two main claims. Firstly, it will be argued that not only is Berlin's early work in analytic philosophy of interest to those concerned with the development of his thought as a whole but also that it is highly edifying for any understanding of the nature of the outlook contained in his later writings. Secondly, the article will maintain that there exists a degree of continuity in Berlin's thought that connects his earlier and later work in a manner reflecting a greater level of coherence than is generally assumed. The main theme of continuity emphasized in the article is represented by Berlin's critique of what he terms the 'fallacy of reduction'. (shrink)

Nearly all current attempts at environmental impact analysis and technology assessment fall victim to an ethical and methodological assumption that Keniston termed “the fallacy of unfinished business.” Related to one version of the naturalistic fallacy, this assumption is that technological and environmental problems have only technical, but not social, ethical, or political solutions. After using several impact analyses to illustrate the policy consequences of the fallacy of unfinished business, I suggest how it might be overcome. Next I (...) present three standard arguments, repeatedly used in technology and environmental impact assessments, by those who subscribe to this “fallacy.” I briefty examine the logical, consequentialist, and historical reasons for rejecting all three arguments in favor of this assumption. If my suggestions are correct, then environmental impact analysis is not only a matter of discovering how to finish our technological business, but also a question of learning how to recognize the ethical and epistemological dimensions of our assessment tasks. (shrink)

This essay begins with a brief description of my approach to the study of argumentation and fallacies which is empirical, historical-textual, dialectical, and meta-argumentational. It then focuses on the fallacy of composition and elaborates a number of conceptual definitions and distinctions: argument of composition; fallacy of composition; arguments and fallacies of division; arguments that confuse the distributive and collective meaning of terms; arguments from a property belonging to members of a group to its belonging to the entire (...) group; several nuanced schemes for arguments of composition; and several principles for the evaluation of such arguments. I then call attention to the fact that some scholars have claimed that the basic argument for global warming commits the fallacy of composition, and undertake a critical analysis of this claim. I show that the global-warming argument is not a fallacy of composition, but is rather a deductively valid argument of composition from the temperature of the parts to the temperature of the whole earth; moreover, I criticize the meta-argumentation of these scholars by showing that the global-warming argument is not similar to the one for global pollution, which is indeed fallacious; finally, I argue that these scholars confuse the global-warming argument with the argument claiming that all effects of global warming are harmful, which is indeed incorrect as a hasty generalization. (shrink)

The city of Puebla was put on the UNESCO list of Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 1987; its history dates back to the sixteenth century allowing for the preservation of various important buildings, such as churches with baroque and neoclassical facades, buildings from the period known as Novo Hispanics, when some of its historic neighbourhoods were founded, including the Barrio el Refugio, hereinafter referred to as BR, where indigenous people employed in the lime manufacture used to live. Since those times, (...) however, the neighbourhood has become a place with bad reputation, “a den of thieves”. The traditional, religious commemoration, the “Fiesta Patronal de la Virgen del Refugio,” is the most important celebration in the neighbourhood. In the Church of La Virgen del Refugio, built in the seventeenth century after an inhabitant painted a mural with the image of the virgin, the “mañanitas” are sung with the Mariachi. During the patronal feast, the “El Refugio Cultural Festival” is held with more than a hundred artists taking part and creating about a thousand murals according to the organiser’s estimation. This happens in the city where a project “Puebla Ciudad Mural” was started, as an initiative of the “Colectivo Tomate,” which sought to regenerate the neighbourhood through art, in alliance with the government and private companies. However, these policies are more tourist oriented rather than benefit the neighbourhood. For this reason, the graffiti movement “Festival Cultural el Refugio” is becoming a meeting point for urban artists from Mexico and Puebla, accustomed to taking up public or private space, as they demand space where they can live and express themselves. For ten years the festival has realised more than one thousand pieces of urban art, including Wild Style graffiti, bombs, stickers, stencil, and murals. All this is done under the patronage of the artists themselves, as three hundred of them come from all over the country to take part in every edition of the festival that does not receive any government support or other form of sponsorship. (shrink)

What was the fate of personalistic vitalism in later Indian thought? That question is too large to be considered here, but it is certain that the doctrine did reemerge, and has remained influential. Nonetheless, there is some reason to believe that Śātarak $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ita critique of personalistic vitalism did have an immediate impact on philosophers within the Nyāya tradition: Vācaspatimiśra, Uddyotakara's sub-commentator, whom we know to have been familiar with Śātarak $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ita Tattvasa $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{m}$$ graha simply passes over Uddyotakara's already (...) equivocal argument without making any effort to defend it. Certainly, he had concluded that Uddyotakara's weak assertion of personalistic vitalism was either not important, or else a lost cause. Is it too much to suppose that he might have let himself be convinced, in this case, by a Buddhist?The ancient debate between ātmavādin and anātmavādin was at the heart of a conflict between opposing systems of salvation. To construe this, however, in accordance with our contemporary categorical schemes involves a fundamental error, for “systems of salvation” in ancient India were concerned with human nature and the human world, in a rich and full sense. What I have tried to indicate here is that one strand of the debate in question can be isolated and shown to involve progressive developments in the conceptual analysis of a basic biological doctrine. Other strands that might similarly be analyzed bear upon the theories of agency and causation, and rational and empirical psychology. To study these and many other topics in classical Indian thought from the perspective here advocated does not require our losing sight of the essential religious interests which motivated and informed the Indian discussions with which we are concerned; what it does require is an involvement in the history of ideas quite broadly conceived. In this context we should recall that it is now possible to treat much of classical Indian thought from a truly historical, and not merely doxographical, vantage-point. By focusing less upon belief and doctrine within single systems, and more upon the dynamic tension that arose where competing systems came into conflict, we discover that there was indeed historical progress, and that it is characterized in part by the application of methodological refinements in the areas of logic and epistemology to problems that had been defined in antiquity. This sounds very much like the history of philosophy in other settings; what must be done is to fill in the details with respect to the splendid array of questions which Indian thinkers posed and the answers about which they argued. (shrink)

Historically, the fallacies have been neglected as objects of systematic study. Yet, since Hamblin's famous criticism of the state of fallacy theory, a substantial literature has been produced. A large portion of this literature is the work of Douglas Walton and John Woods. This paper will deal directly with the criticism of that work which has been advanced by van Eemeren and Grootendorst, particularly the complaints found in their writings of 1992, concerning the disunification of the fallacies and the (...) exemplaristic approach of Woods and Walton's theories. It proposes a unification of the theories of Woods and Walton with that of van Eemeren and Grootendorst, and suggests that such a unification could be advantageous to both theories, and highly interesting for fallacy theory in general. (shrink)

The resolution of the UN was adopted on 10 December in 1948(A/RES/217). The research’ route of the article analyses the historical conditions where the UDHR was drafted. And intends to analyse and to debate if the political speech that crossed the cold war and emerged again, in the context of geostrategy conflicts, respects the substance of the original document. This research pathway determines and debate five fundamental questions: The connection between the articles of UDHR agreement and labour rights, economic (...) democracy, and, on the other hand, political liberty, the right of nations to decide from themselves and the imperative of universal peace. If the articles of UDHR are compatible or not with the political nature and evolution of liberal democracies and socialist regimes. If propaganda of the Cold War and the geopolitical confrontation, they subvert and distort the principles of the original UN Human Rights or defend those principles. If people around the world really know and are conscientious of UDHR principles and articles, or those propaganda created a phenomenon of global alienation. At last, what means a new generation of human rights. That methodology will be supported by the case study of the United States of America and People Republic of China. Keywords: origen and historical context of UDRH, J. P. Humphrey, P.C. Chang, Eleanor Roosevelt, UDHR, preamble and 30 articles, China and UDHR, clean, healthy, sustainable environment as human righ. (shrink)

This book explores the logic and historical origins of a strange taboo that has haunted literary critics since the 1940s, keeping them from referring to the intentions of authors without apology. The taboo was enforced by a seminal article, "The Intentional Fallacy," and it deepened during the era of poststructuralist theory. Even now, when the vocabulary of "critique" that has dominated the literary field is under sweeping revision, the matter of authorial intention has yet to be reconsidered. This (...) work explains how "The Intentional Fallacy" confused different kinds of authorial intentions and how literary critics can benefit from a more up-to-date understanding of intentionality in language. The result is a challenging inventory of the resources of literary theory, including implied readers, poetic speakers, omniscient narrators, interpretive communities, linguistic indeterminacy, unconscious meaning, literary value, and the nature of literature itself. (shrink)

I argue that biographical information is akin to other non-aesthetic, social, historical, or political information. As such, artist’s biographies are always relevant and important when interpreting art. While the meaning and value of a piece of art is not determined by any single piece of contextual information, neither is its meaning and value ever entirely separated from context. In some cases, however, a piece of art that is technically magnificent may be experienced as repugnant when the artist has committed (...) egregious acts. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called the historian's fallacy (HF). In HF, the writing of a historical event has been skewed by way of biased hindsight on the author's part. The historian has written the details of the event down in such a way that the facts of the event, only seen after the event has occurred, cause the initial event to become distorted. HF should not be confused with a method (...) historians use in the present day when documenting the past. This is called presentism, a mode of historical analysis in which present‐day ideas are projected into the past. Another issue to address is that HF should not be confused with historical fallacy. One commits the historical fallacy when one reads into a process the results that occur because of that process. (shrink)

Over the past decade, a group of prolific and innovative evolutionary biologists has sought to reinvent historical linguistics through the use of phylogenetic and phylogeographical analysis, treating cognates like genes and conceptualizing the spread of languages in terms of the diffusion of viruses. Using these techniques, researchers claim to have located the origin of the Indo-European language family in Neolithic Anatolia, challenging the near-consensus view that it emerged in the grasslands north of the Black Sea thousands of years later. (...) But despite its widespread celebration in the global media, this new approach fails to withstand scrutiny. As languages do not evolve like biological species and do not spread like viruses, the model produces incoherent results, contradicted by the empirical record at every turn. This book asserts that the origin and spread of languages must be examined primarily through the time-tested techniques of linguistic analysis, rather than those of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

How can the philosopher use history of science to assess normative methodologies? This paper distinguishes the "intuitionist" meta-methodologies from the "rationability" meta-methodology. The rationability approach is defended by showing that it does not lead to anarchistic conclusions drawn by Feyerabend, Lakatos, and Kuhn; rather, these conclusions are the result of auxiliary assumptions about the nature of rational norms. By freeing the rationability meta-method from these assumptions, the specter of anarchism can be exorcised from it.

Excerpt from How the Mind Falls Into Error: A Brief Treatment of Fallacies for the General Reader I will not be afraid of death and bane Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the (...) aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

A spoonful of oil can ruin a barrel of honey. One footnote can destroy the coherence of a 262 page article.

Este texto tiene por objetivo investigar los orígenes del movimiento ideológico anarco-feminista en el Río de la Plata, examinando las circunstancias históricas que propiciaron su surgimiento y que lo caracterizaron. Analizando sus posturas y opiniones contenidas en su principal medio impreso de difusión: el periódico La Voz de la Mujer, las bases de su pensamiento crítico, libertario y emancipatorio respecto a la condición de la mujer, contenidos en su consigna: ni dios, ni patrón, ni marido. Así como sus repercusiones en (...) las transformaciones sociales que se gestaron a finales del siglo XIX.Palabras clave: Feminismo. Anarquismo. Río de la Plata. La Voz de la Mujer. AbstractThis text aims to investigate the origins of the anarcho-feminist ideological movement in the Río de la Plata, examining the historical circumstances that led to its emergence and characterized it. Analyzing their positions and opinions contained in their main print media: the newspaper La Voz de la Mujer, the bases of their critical, libertarian and emancipatory thinking regarding the condition of the women, contained in their slogan: neither god, nor boss, nor husband. As well as its repercussions in the social transformations that took place at the end of the 19th century.Keywords: Feminism. Anarchism. Río de la Plata. La Voz de la Mujer. (shrink)

At the turn of the twentieth century, G.E. Moore contemptuously dismissed most previous 'ethical systems' for committing the 'Naturalistic Fallacy'. This fallacy – which has been variously understood, but has almost always been seen as something to avoid – was perhaps the greatest structuring force on subsequent ethical theorising. To a large extent, to understand the Fallacy is to understand contemporary ethics. This volume aims to provide that understanding. Its thematic chapters – written by a range of (...) distinguished contributors – introduce the history, text and philosophy behind Moore's charge of fallacy and its supporting 'open question' argument. They detail how the Fallacy influenced multiple traditions in ethics, its connections to supposed dichotomies between 'is'/'ought' and facts/values, and its continuing relevance to our understanding of normativity. Together, the chapters provide a historical and opinionated introduction to contemporary ethics that will be essential for students, teachers and researchers. (shrink)

Cultural competence literature and training aim to equip healthcare workers to better understand patients of different cultures and value systems, in an effort to ensure effective and equitable healthcare services for diverse patient populations. However, without nuanced awareness and contextual knowledge, the values embedded within cultural competence practice may cripple rather than empower the very people they mean to respect. A narrow cultural view can lessen cultural understanding rather than grow it. In its first part, this paper argues that a (...) hasty, unrestrained, and uneducated willingness to accept something as a cultural good, despite being well intentioned, can still cause significant harms—particularly when based on false, misinformed, and stereotypical conceptions—including the minimization of issues, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the impediment of cultural change. The second part of this paper examines medical autonomy within the context of Saudi Arabian women. It pushes back on the common perception that Saudi women, by virtue of culture and religion, view dependency on and deference to male relatives as a cultural good. Through a historical examination and a presentation of the current women’s movement in Saudi Arabia, it is argued that the continued assumption that personal agency is a value external to Saudi women is false, misguided, and ethically problematic. Lastly, this paper considers some approaches to help providers navigate the narrow grounds between paternalism and patronization when caring for patients. (shrink)

I begin by formulating the problem of the nature of fallacy in terms of the logic of the negative evaluation of argument, that is, in terms of a theory of logical criticism; here I discuss several features of my approach and several advantages vis-à-vis other approaches; a main feature of my approach is the concern to avoid both formalist and empiricist excesses. I then define six types of fallaciousness, labeled formal, explanatory, presuppositional, positive, semantical, and persuasive; they all involve (...) arguments whose conclusion may be said not to follow from the premises, that is, they involve the logical evaluation of relationships among propositions. I also provide a set of data consisting of four historical cases or nine specific instances of fallacious arguments; these all pertain to the Copernican controversy about the earth's motion in the seventeenth century. I end with a discussion of further problems and inquiries that deserve attention. (shrink)

The naturalistic fallacy appears to be ubiquitous and irresistible. The avant-garde and the rearguard, the devout and the secular, the learned elite and the lay public all seem to want to enlist nature on their side, everywhere and always. Yet a closer look at the history of the term “naturalistic fallacy” and its associated arguments suggests that this way of understanding appeals to nature’s authority in human affairs is of relatively modern origin. To apply this category cross-historically masks (...) considerable variability and naturalizes our own assumptions about the natural and the human. (shrink)

I argue that biographical information is akin to other non-aesthetic, social, historical, or political information. As such, artist’s biographies are always relevant and important when interpreting art. While the meaning and value of a piece of art is not determined by any single piece of contextual information, neither is its meaning and value ever entirely separated from context. In some cases, however, a piece of art that is technically magnificent may be experienced as repugnant when the artist has committed (...) egregious acts. (shrink)

Since its inception in the work on fallacies of Charles Hamblin, formal dialectic has been the object of an unparalleled level of optimism concerning the potential of its analytical contribution to fallacy inquiry. This optimism has taken the form of a rapid proliferation of formal dialectical studies of arguments in general and fallacious arguments in particular under the auspices of theorists such as Jim Mackenzie and John Woods and Douglas Walton, to name but a few. Notwithstanding the interest in, (...) and the hopes for, a formal dialectical analysis of the fallacies, such an analysis, I will demonstrate subsequently, leads to much unintelligibility in fallacy inquiry. The context of my argument will be the philosophical views of Hilary Putnam, particularly Putnam's claim that when we theorise in relation to rationality, the unintelligibility of the conception of rationality to emerge from this theoretical process can be traced to the circumscription of rationality within this theoretical process. I charge formal dialectic with effecting a similar circumscription of argumentative rationality, a circumscription that, I will claim, is generative of unintelligibility in formal dialectical analyses of the fallacies. In this case, the context for my claims will be the formal dialectical analyses of Walton and Batten, Rescher, Hamblin, Mackenzie and Hintikka, primarily in relation to the petitio principii fallacy. My conclusion examines a number of the reasons, both historical and conceptual, which have made it seem that it is possible to fully circumscribe the notion of argumentative rationality. (shrink)

The “fallacy of negative evidence” in historical scholarship is well exemplified by the assumption that In agro dominico, John XXII's bull condemning the errors of Meister Eckhart, was published only in the ecclesiastical province of Cologne. Scholarship on the subject has taken the limited publication of In agro dominico for granted on the grounds that nothing has been known to show that the bull was sent elsewhere. Seeing “nobody on the road,” some experts have even been able to (...) see wording in papal legislation that normal eyesight cannot find, namely, an explicit statement limiting the publication of the bull against Eckhart to the city, diocese, and province of Cologne. Were it true that John XXII restricted the publication of In agro dominico, then it might follow, as some recent scholars have maintained, that John wished to minimize the significance of Eckhart's trial and its outcome. But is it true? (shrink)

Rejection of the philosophical relevance of history of philosophy remains pronounced within contemporary analytic philosophy. The two main reasons for this rejection presuppose that strict deduction is both necessary and sufficient for rational justification. However, this justificatory ideal of scientia holds only within strictly formal domains. This is confirmed by a neglected non-sequitur in van Fraassen’s original defence of ‘Constructive Empiricism’. Conversely, strict deduction is insufficient for rational justification in non-formal, substantive domains of inquiry. In non-formal, substantive domains, rational justification (...) is also, in part, ineliminably social and historical, for sound reasons Hegel was the first to articulate. Demonstrating this involves considering closely two key reasons many analytic philosophers (still) reject the philosophical relevance of historical philosophy (§2). As specific example of presumed, though fallacious, deductivism about justification in the non-formal domain of empirical knowledge is found in van Fraassen’s (1980) defence of ‘Constructive Empiricism’ (§3). These first two sections contend that philosophical consideration of historical philosophy is required to properly formulate key issues in non-formal domains. I next consider the further issues involved rational justification in non-formal domains, issues quintessentially posed by the Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion (§4). Finally I consider what kind of history of philosophy is required for cogent philosophy in non-formal domains (§5). (shrink)

A brief overview is provided of sociological and historical critiques of Western psychiatry before focusing on pre-empirical, non-empirical and empirical aspects of psychiatric diagnosis. These are then discussed using the analytical devices of the ontic fallacy, the epistemic fallacy and generative mechanisms. It is concluded that mental disorders do not really exist but particular presenting problems of unintelligibility, interpersonal dysfunction and common human misery, in particular social contexts, recur in modern life and thus constitute real problems for (...) those intimately implicated and for social order. These require new ways of understanding, beyond the option of deconstruction, which could displace categorical reasoning and be sensitive to causes, meanings and their situated social contexts. The paper concludes with an outline of an alternative future for research into mental health problems, which could be informed by critical realism. (shrink)

This is the first critical edition of the literary and historical writings of John Locke : poems, orations, a plan for a play, a guide to compiling a commonplace book, rules for societies, writings on the liberty of the press, and a memoir of Locke's patron, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, all framed by general and textual introductions.

UMI Number: 3319553 This study is a historical ethnography of religious diversity in post-revolutionary Nicaragua from the vantage point of Catholics who live in the city of Masaya located on the Pacific side of Nicaragua at the end of the twentieth century. My overarching research question is: How may ethnographically observed patterns in Catholic religious practices in contemporary Nicaragua be understood in historical context? Utilizing anthropological theory and method grounded in Weberian historical theory, I explore Catholic ritual (...) as contested politico-religious cultural terrain. The patron saint celebration of Masaya becomes a contested symbol in 1999 as those who carry Saint Jerome in street procession refuse to honor a sitting president, challenging his right to rule. The deep Marian devotion of the Nicaraguan people is reflected in the household and neighborhood celebrations of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, while nation-building elites have a long history of claiming the Virgin as patron saint of the nation. While these traditional Catholic saint celebrations figure in imagining a nation, three "new" Catholic movements also compete for attention, while the polity is increasingly exposed to Protestant and Pentecostal groups. When Anastasio Somoza Debayle was overthrown in 1979, ending the 40-year family dictatorship, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) ruled for a decade with the attention of the world placed on its religion of revolution, the Christian base community and liberation theology. At the same time, however, two other movements began growing quietly. They, like liberation theology, draw their justification from the second Vatican Council. In Masaya, Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Neocatechumenal Way are "exemplary" prophetic movements gaining ground within the Catholic Church in competition with the "ethical" prophets of the Christian base community. Selectively adopting "protestant-like" forms of worship through these modern movements, the Nicaraguan Roman Catholic Church reacts to the challenge to its cultural hegemony coming from evangelical competitors. New history is continuously being made as people in this part of Nicaragua struggle over the direction of their country within a complex terrain of religious competition. (shrink)

In 1990 Robert Lickliter and Thomas Berry identified the phylogeny fallacy, an empirically untenable dichotomy between proximate and evolutionary causation, which locates proximate causes in the decoding of ‘ genetic programs’, and evolutionary causes in the historical events that shaped these programs. More recently, Lickliter and Hunter Honeycutt argued that Evolutionary Psychologists commit this fallacy, and they proposed an alternative research program for evolutionary psychology. For these authors the phylogeny fallacy is the proximate/evolutionary distinction itself, which (...) they argue constitutes a misunderstanding of development, and its role in the evolutionary process. In this article I argue that the phylogeny fallacy should be relocated to an error of reasoning that this causal framework sustains: the conflation of proximate and evolutionary explanation. Having identified this empirically neutral form of the phylogeny fallacy, I identify its mirror image, the ontogeny fallacy. Through the lens of these fallacies I attempt to solve several outstanding problems in the debate that ensued from Lickliter and Honeycutt’s provocative article. (shrink)

This contribution to feminist studies provides a new decoding of the imagery in the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux. I propose layered readings, registering a modern woman's critical perceptions, informed by knowledge of the historical context, to reconstruct the impression these images might have made on the original female owner.

In this article, I argue that arguments from the history of science against scientific realism, like the arguments advanced by P. Kyle Stanford and Peter Vickers, are fallacious. The so-called Old Induction, like Vickers's, and New Induction, like Stanford's, are both guilty of confirmation bias—specifically, of cherry-picking evidence that allegedly challenges scientific realism while ignoring evidence to the contrary. I also show that the historical episodes that Stanford adduces in support of his New Induction are indeterminate between a pessimistic (...) and an optimistic interpretation. For these reasons, these arguments are fallacious, and thus do not pose a serious challenge to scientific realism. (shrink)

Abstract: The use of evolutionary explanations to account for proximate phenomena has been labeled by various authors as an explanatory error, the so-called phylogeny fallacy. In this paper, this fallacy will be analyzed in the context of teleosemantics. I will discuss whether teleosemantics projects that rely on the Selected-Effect Theory of Functions (i.e., mainstream teleosemantics) generally commit the fallacy. To frame the discussion, I will present two desiderata that, as argued here, every teleosemantic project must fulfill. The (...) actuality desideratum, motivated by Brentano’s problem, demands for a proximate analysis of the properties that make a system intentional. The historical desideratum, on the other hand, says that a teleological view of intentionality requires a historical dimension in order to understand the causal basis of teleological explanations. While I give some reasons why mainstream teleosemantics might be implicated in the phylogeny fallacy, my main argument aims to highlight an explanatory gap in mainstream teleosemantics: the population perspective on teleofunctions is inadequate to explain the proximate properties of intentional systems. In other words, the account of the historical desideratum in population-evolutionary terms prevents an adequate solution to the actuality desideratum. This is related to two central goals of teleosemantics: The goal of explaining content determination by recourse to natural selection processes makes it impossible to solve another goal of teleosemantics, the so-called problem of representational status. I analyze this situation and argue that inherited information (sometimes interpreted in a teleosemantic sense) plays the role of closing the gap. This leads teleosemantics into a complex situation: in order to close the gap, it must commit the fallacy. At the end of the article, I propose an alternative to fulfill both desiderata, motivated by an evo-devo perspective. I state that lineage explanations have the property of providing historical explanations based on proximate causes. (shrink)

In this book Hintikka brings together some of his most important historical studies. While all the papers have appeared earlier, he has expanded or revised several of these with the result that they exemplify common themes. However, the themes themselves find unity in the central aim of the book. Instead of doing analytical and critical studies of some issues in the history of epistemology, Hintikka is engaged in investigating historical perspectives in epistemology. He contends that to understand a (...) thinker properly "it is vital to know the conceptual landscape in which moving". It is only through a thorough understanding of the "conceptual topography" of a philosopher’s "intellectual landscape" that one can have a proper grasp of what the philosopher says. Once these assumptions are delineated, one can see the large scale differences between Plato and Frege, for example. An important feature of Hintikka’s approach is the rejection of what he calls "the fallacy of monolithic concepts". This is the assumption that a philosopher’s concepts exhibit solid uniformity and one harmonious pattern throughout. Rather, a careful analysis of a philosopher’s intellectual terrain reveals several different features running together in it. No uniform interpretation is possible! Thus, Hintikka attempts a partial but revealing interpretation of the position being studied. As he approaches the thought of each philosopher, he attempts to analyze and clarify one or more important features of the conceptual landscape which gives shape and point to the philosopher’s work. Who does Hintikka investigate in this book? (shrink)

Among the niftiest arguments for scientific anti-realism is the ‘pessimistic induction’ (also sometimes called ‘the disastrous historical meta-induction’). Although various versions of this argument differ in their details (see, for example, Poincare 1952: 160, Putnam 1978: 25, and Laudan 1981), the argument generally begins by recalling the many scientific theories that posit unobservable entities and that at one time or another were widely accepted. The anti-realist then argues that when these old theories were accepted, the evidence for them was (...) quite persuasive – roughly as compelling as our current evidence is for our best scientific theories positing various unobservable entities. Nevertheless, the anti-realist argues, most of these old theories turned out to be incorrect in the unobservables they posited. Therefore, the anti-realist concludes that with regard to the theories we currently accept, we should believe that probably, most of them are likewise incorrect in the unobservable entities they posit. (This argument appeals to what our best current theories say about unobservables in order to show that the entities posited by some earlier theory are not real. So the argument takes the form of a reductio of the view that the apparent success of some scientific theory justifies our believing in its accuracy regarding unobservables.) Of course, this argument has been criticized on many grounds. Some have argued, for instance, that the scientific theories we currently accept are much better supported than were earlier scientific theories at the time they were accepted. In addition, some have argued that many scientific theories accepted justly in the past were in fact accurate.. (shrink)

Critics, then, who label theories such as objectivism or deconstructionism as “authoritarian” or “subversive” are committing a fallacy of overspecificity. To call Hirsch’s theory authoritarian is to assume that such a theory lends itself to one and only one kind of political use and that that use can be determined a priori. To refute such an assumption, one need only stand back from the present in order to recall that today’s authoritarian ideology is often yesterday’s progressive one, and vice (...) versa. Indeed, there’s considerable historical irony in the fact that objectivism has now acquired the status of a right-wing idea, while Nietzsche and Heidegger have emerged as heroes of literary leftism. As recently as a few decades ago, these alignments were different. George Orwell, for instance, thought that the tendency to deny the possibility of objective truth reflected a totalitarian mentality. “Totalitarianism,” he wrote, “in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the existence of objective truth.” He added that “the friends of totalitarianism in this country tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big lie is no worse than a little lie. It is pointed out that all historical records are biased and inaccurate, or, on the other hand, that modern physics has proved that what seems to us the real world is an illusion, so that to believe in the evidence of the senses is simply vulgar philistinism.”10It’s not that it hadn’t occurred to Orwell that the notion of objective truth could easily be used to justify the actions of tyrants and oppressors. But Orwell’s experience of Fascist and Communist falsification of history showed how the denial of the possibility of objectivity could also justify oppressive actions, perhaps in a more disarming way. For various historical reasons, Orwell’s insight is easily lost today. His is one of those Enlightenment concepts of truth which have been compromised in usage. As the Enlightenment has come to be associated not with progress, democracy, and equality but with the ideological exploitation of those concepts in the interests of social control, a great moral and political transvaluation of the epistemological vocabulary has occurred. Enlightenment thinking is frequently associated with the bourgeois complacency or the menacing technology of Western democracies or is identified with the totalitarian regimentation of the Soviet Union. Thus the concepts of objective truth, nature, essence, identity, and teleology have come to be viewed as conservative or reactionary ideas, as if these ideas had never operated, and never could operate, in quite other ways.11 10. George orwell, “The Prevention of Literature,” The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, 4 vols. , 4: 63-64.11. As Frederic Jameson has noted, “it is certainly the case that a belief in the natural is ideological and that much of bourgeois art has worked to perpetuate such a belief…. Yet in different historical circumstances the idea of nature was once a subversive concept with a genuinely revolutionary function, and only the analysis of the concrete historical and cultural conjuncture can tell us whether, in the post-natural world of late capitalism, the categories of nature may not have acquired such a critical charge again”. (shrink)

Recent literature in the scientific realism debate has been concerned with a particular species of statistical fallacy concerning base-rates, and the worry that no matter how predictively successful our contemporary scientific theories may be, this will tell us absolutely nothing about the likelihood of their truth if our overall sample space contains enough empirically adequate theories that are nevertheless false. In response, both realists and anti-realists have switched their focus from general arguments concerning the reliability and historical track-records (...) of our scientific methodology, to a series of specific arguments and case-studies concerning our reasons to believe individual scientific theories to be true. Such a development however sits in tension with the usual understanding of the scientific realism debate as offering a second-order assessment of our first-order scientific practices, and threatens to undermine the possibility of a distinctive philosophical debate over the approximate truth of our scientific theories. I illustrate this concern with three recent attempts to offer a more localised understanding of the scientific realism debate—due to Stathis Psillos, Juha Saatsi, and Kyle Stanford—and argue that none of these alternatives offer a satisfactory response to the problem. (shrink)

John Locke, long associated with the “standard” approach to fallacies and the “logical” approach to valid inference, had both logical and dialectical reasons for favoring certain proofs and denigrating others. While the logical approach to argumentation stands forth in Locke’s philosophical writings, a dialectical approach can be found in his contributions to public controversies regarding religion and toleration. Understanding Locke’s dialectical approach to argumentation not only makes his work more relevant to the contemporary discipline of informal logic, but this understanding (...) also prompts a reconsideration of Locke’s rhetorical purpose. He approached argumentation dialectically because he wanted to appeal to a universal audience of free rational subjects, people not unlike the real historical audience whom Locke addressed: radical Whigs, latitudinarian Anglicans, early-Enlightenment philosophes. (shrink)

One of the most irritating habits of analytic philosophers when they show a passing interest in the work of philosophers from the past is the professed ignorance of textual and philological detail. This used to be worse than it is in current analytical philosophy. Many detailed scholarly readings that roughly can be categorised as belonging to the analytic school of philosophy are published now that show great care for exegesis and philosophical argument in equal measure. But wilful exegetical ignorance of (...) historical philosophical texts is still ubiquitous among philosophers who technically don’t work in the history of philosophy. It’s often seen as a badge of honour to be merely interested in the philosophical argument that can be based on Kant, say, rather than in an exegesis of Kant’s text. This is often also portrayed in terms of the difference between offering Kantian style arguments and engaging in Kant scholarship. Kantianism is not the same as Kant scholarship, it is argued, and the former can be wholly detached from the latter, as if one could indeed judge what is Kantian without having studied Kant. One can of course legitimately pursue Kantian philosophy without at the same time engaging in Kant scholarship, but Kantian philosophy worthy of the name cannot not be informed by solid scholarship. ... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Transformed Lives: Making Sense of Atonement Today by Cynthia S. W. CrysdaleVirginia W. LandgrafTransformed Lives: Making Sense of Atonement Today Cynthia S. W. Crysdale new york: seabury books, 2016. 192 pp. $16.00Cynthia Crysdale aims to show how atonement can have meaning for modern and postmodern Christians who reject the idea that God wills Jesus's violent death. She starts with stories of people who were estranged from God but (...) have been given grace to love God anew. Their subsequent lives are not perfect and involve multiple deaths of the old self and resurrections into the new. Yet there is a reconciliation not present beforehand: not a change in God, who has always loved us, but a change in us. Crysdale seeks to navigate between two undesirable positions: a penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement, which she thinks posits a violent God, or a rejection of the idea of atonement altogether. She sees atonement as not only moral influence showing an example but a relationship that involves our whole being.Crysdale then presents a historical overview to show that this understanding of atonement is a plausible interpretation of scripture and tradition. Biblical sacrifices were not intended to propitiate an angry deity but to expiate human sin. New Testament writers who saw Jesus's death on the cross in continuity with these sacrifices were not implying that God was punishing Jesus. Jesus's statements about giving his life as a ransom prophesied the subversion of patron–client power relations rather than predicting a transaction whereby Jesus would pay for sin. Subsequent writers who saw Jesus as gaining victory over the devil saw God and Jesus as united against the powers and Jesus as attaining justice by love. Even Anselm, sometimes blamed for the penal substitutionary view, intended to avoid the idea of the crucifixion as God's punishment of Jesus. In the honor code of the time, either satisfaction or punishment was required. Therefore, Jesus's act of making satisfaction is precisely not punishment. Crysdale sees subsequent conflations of satisfaction and punishment as distorting Anselm's original intent and implying that God requires violent punishment of sin. [End Page 208]Crysdale then takes readers on a tour of changes in scientific, historical, and epistemological consciousness in the modern era to ask how theology might be done today. Drawing on Bernard Lonergan, she describes multiple dimensions of conversion that are all instances of grace when they occur. She then interprets the incarnation as indicating God's offer of friendship with humanity and Jesus's death and resurrection as indicating the transformation of power and oppression. Believing that an abstract atonement over the heads of human beings does not exist, she concludes with further stories of lives transformed by an encounter with God, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day.This book is suitable for educated lay adults, advanced undergraduates, or introductory seminary courses. Protestant audiences may find it typically Catholic, even though Crysdale is an Anglican, because it emphasizes changed lives rather than God's act of justification prior to any change in us. Theologically, it does not deal with every possible objection to its thesis. Those concerned with cultures of impunity, where malevolent lawlessness gets its way, may think that rejecting any sense of punishment of sin in the crucifixion throws the baby out with the bathwater. Recently, Fleming Rutledge (in The Crucifixion), drawing on Karl Barth, has made a point of retaining punishment as one meaning of the atonement even while emphasizing that God's wrath is always in the service of God's love. Transformed Lives does not have the last word on the atonement and would not claim to, since Crysdale wants to invite readers to do theology befitting their changing context. However, readers at many levels will benefit from its accessible treatment of its topic and invitation to reflection that befits a loving, reconciling, evil-opposing God.Virginia W. LandgrafAmerican Theological Library AssociationCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

​Authors, Factions, and Courts in Angevin England: A Literature of Personal Ambition (12th-13th Century) advances a model for historical study of courtly literature by foregrounding the personal aims, networks, and careers as the impetus for much of the period’s literature. The book takes two authors as case studies – Gerald of Wales and Walter Map – to show how authors not only built their own stories but also used popular narratives and the tools of propaganda to achieve their own, (...) personal goals. The purpose of this study is to overturn the top-down model of political patronage, in which patrons – and particularly royal patrons – set the cultural agenda and dictate literary tastes. Rather, Fabrizio De Falco argues that authors were often representative of many different interests expressed by local groups. To pursue those interests, they targeted specific political factions in the changeable political scenario of Angevin England. Their texts reveal a polycentric view of cultural production and its reception. The study aims to model a heuristic process which is applicable to other courtly texts besides the chosen case-studies. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that (...) depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)