The narrativist insight -- From analytic philosophy of history to narrativism -- Three tenets of narrativist philosophy of historiography -- Representationalism and non-representationalism -- Reasoning in historiography -- Colligation -- Underdetermination and epistemic values -- From truth to warranted assertion -- The tri-partite theory of justification in historiography -- Historiography between objectivism and subjectivism -- Postnarrativist philosophy of historiography.

Michel Foucault acknowledged that the Reformation was a pastoral battle and a reorganization of pastoral power. He did not, however, analyze Protestantism much further. This article broadens the scope of critical research on Protestantism, focusing on Lutheranism. Preaching is a fruitful way to overcome overemphasis on confession. In this endeavor I apply Foucault’s concept of “master’s discourse.” I argue that while, in Lutheranism, conversion through comprehensive soul-searching is an individual matter, at the same time it relies on technologies aimed at (...) a collective audience, such as preaching. Since preaching is divine speech, the Lutheran priest wields enormous spiritual power: the preacher is the truth-teller and the subject is required to listen to and internalize the proclaimed truth, instead of confessing their sins. (shrink)

Arthur Lovejoy’s history of unit-ideas and the history of concepts are often criticized for being historically insensitive forms of history-writing. Critics claim that one cannot find invariable ideas or concepts in several contexts or times in history without resorting to some distortion. One popular reaction is to reject the history of ideas and concepts altogether, and take linguistic entities as the main theoretical units. Another reaction is to try to make ideas or concepts context-sensitive and to see their histories as (...) dynamic processes of transformation. The main argument in this paper is that we cannot abandon ideas or concepts as theoretical notions if we want to write an intelligible history of thought. They are needed for the categorization and classification of thinking, and in communication with contemporaries. Further, the criterion needed to subsume historical concepts under a general concept cannot be determined merely on the basis of their family resemblances, which allows variation without an end, since talk of the same concepts implies that they share something in common. I suggest that a concept in history should be seen to be composed of two components: the core of a concept and the margin of a concept. On the basis of this, we can develop a vocabulary for talking about conceptual changes. The main idea is that conceptual continuity requires the stability of the core of the concept, but not necessarily that of the margin, which is something that enables a description of context-specific features. If the core changes, we ought to see it as a conceptual replacement. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars’s suggestion that there are valid material inferences entails that validity is not limited to formal inferences. Because material inferences are expressed in ordinary language and deal with both conceptual and empirical matters, an interesting prospect unfolds: valid reasoning is irreducibly plural. However, it is not clear what the validity of inferences composed of non-logical and descriptive vocabulary means. I argue that it is better to speak of the legitimacy rather than the validity of material inferences. A material inference (...) can be understood as legitimate when one has a pragmatic propriety to infer from an assertion A to an assertion B. Pragmatic propriety designates the social-normative entitlement of inferencing. Because pragmatic proprieties are discipline-specific and local, legitimate reasoning is plural. Nevertheless, the shared general feature of reasoning practices is to preserve and improve the coherence of one’s system of belief. (shrink)

This paper examines how Hayden White and specifically Frank Ankersmit have attempted to develop the representationalist account of historiography. It is notable that both reject the copy theory of representation, but nevertheless commit to the idea that historiography produces representations. I argue that it would have been more advantageous to go yet one step further and reject representationalist language altogether on the level of narratives, as this implies that one is re-presenting a given object in one’s language in some sense. (...) Narratives and other synthesizing expressions, such as colligatory notions, do not have such objects or references in the past itself, and therefore, it would be more appropriate to talk about constructed ‘presentations.’ In the end, I outline a non-representationalist alternative, according to which historiography is a form of discursive and argumentative practice. (shrink)

​Für die Wahrnehmung von Politik und die Beteiligung am politischen Leben einer Gesellschaft ist politisches Wissen notwendig. Der Band bündelt aktuelle Studien zur Bedeutung, zur Messung sowie zu den Bestimmungsfaktoren und Konsequenzen des politischen Wissens. Die Beiträge geben erste Antworten auf drängende Fragen und weisen auf Lücken in der Forschung zum politischen Wissen in Deutschland hin.

In this paper, we give an algebraic completeness theorem for constructive logic with strong negation in terms of finite rough set-based Nelson algebras determined by quasiorders. We show how for a quasiorder R, its rough set-based Nelson algebra can be obtained by applying Sendlewski’s well-known construction. We prove that if the set of all R-closed elements, which may be viewed as the set of completely defined objects, is cofinal, then the rough set-based Nelson algebra determined by the quasiorder R forms (...) an effective lattice, that is, an algebraic model of the logic E 0, which is characterised by a modal operator grasping the notion of “to be classically valid”. We present a necessary and sufficient condition under which a Nelson algebra is isomorphic to a rough set-based effective lattice determined by a quasiorder. (shrink)

Over the past 50 years, Nelson algebras have been extensively studied by distinguished scholars as the algebraic counterpart of Nelson's constructive logic with strong negation. Despite these studies, a comprehensive survey of the topic is currently lacking, and the theory of Nelson algebras remains largely unknown to most logicians. This paper aims to fill this gap by focussing on the essential developments in the field over the past two decades. Additionally, we explore generalisations of Nelson algebras, such as N4-lattices which (...) correspond to the paraconsistent version of Nelson's logic, as well as their applications to other areas of interest to logicians, such as duality and rough set theory. A general representation theorem states that each Nelson algebra is isomorphic to a subalgebra of a rough set-based Nelson algebra induced by a quasiorder. Furthermore, a formula is a theorem of Nelson logic if and only if it is valid in every finite Nelson algebra induced by a quasiorder. (shrink)

This comment discusses Branko Mitrović’s view of historical anti-realism and realism. It identifies several interpretative errors and philosophical infelicities in Mitrović’s account, in particular regarding colligation, and realism itself. It is suggested that the debate between the realist and the anti-realist pertains to the statuses attributed to scientific and historical claims. Provided that anti-realism is not general skepticism about them, the burden of proof to show that such notions as ‘real,’ ‘fact,’ and ‘counterpart’ contribute to the philosophical discussion about the (...) statuses of the claims rests on the shoulders of the realist. Furthermore, the realist should establish that the historian’s colligations can be uniquely correct and yet independent of the historian. This comment also is a plea for a more measured and rigorous philosophy of historiography. (shrink)

Kuhn argued against both the correspondence theory of truth and convergent realism. Although he likely misunderstood the nature of the correspondence theory, which it seems he wrongly believed to be an epistemic theory, Kuhn had an important epistemic point to make. He maintained that any assessment of correspondence between beliefs and reality is not possible, and therefore, the acceptance of beliefs and the presumption of their truthfulness has to be decided on the basis of other criteria. I will show that (...) via Kuhn’s suggested epistemic values, specifically via problem-solving, his philosophy can be incorporated into a coherentist epistemology. Further, coherentism is, in principle, compatible with convergent realism. However, an argument for increasing likeness to truth requires appropriate historical continuity. Kuhn maintained that the history of science is full of discontinuity, and therefore, the historical condition of convergent realism is not satisfied.Keywords: Thomas Kuhn; The correspondence theory of truth; The coherence theory of justification; Convergent realism; Rationalism. (shrink)

Over the past 50 years, Nelson algebras have been extensively studied by distinguished scholars as the algebraic counterpart of Nelson's constructive logic with strong negation. Despite these studies, a comprehensive survey of the topic is currently lacking, and the theory of Nelson algebras remains largely unknown to most logicians. This paper aims to fill this gap by focussing on the essential developments in the field over the past two decades. Additionally, we explore generalisations of Nelson algebras, such as N4-lattices which (...) correspond to the paraconsistent version of Nelson's logic, as well as their applications to other areas of interest to logicians, such as duality and rough set theory. A general representation theorem states that each Nelson algebra is isomorphic to a subalgebra of a rough set-based Nelson algebra induced by a quasiorder. Furthermore, a formula is a theorem of Nelson logic if and only if it is valid in every finite Nelson algebra induced by a quasiorder. (shrink)

This paper attempts to bridge business ethics to corporate social responsibility including the social and environmental dimensions. The objective of the paper is to suggest a conceptual methodology with which ethics of corporate environmental management tools can be considered. The method includes two stages that are required for a shift away from the current dominant unsustainable paradigm and toward a more sustainable paradigm. The first stage is paradigmatic, metaphoric and normative. The second stage is a practical stage, which in turn, (...) is analytic, descriptive and positive. The method is applied to common industrial metabolism tools of ecological footprints (EF), environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) and industrial ecology (IE). The application shows that all three tools can be used in business ethics, in particular, when the first stage of the method is applied to their use. (shrink)

In this work, an intuitionistic propositional logic with a Galois connection is introduced. In addition to the intuitionistic logic axioms and inference rule of modus ponens, the logic contains only two rules of inference mimicking the performance of Galois connections. Both Kripke-style and algebraic semantics are presented for IntGC, and IntGC is proved to be complete with respect to both of these semantics. We show that IntGC has the finite model property and is decidable, but Glivenko's Theorem does not hold. (...) Duality between algebraic and Kripke semantics is presented, and a representation theorem for Heyting algebras with Galois connections is proved. In addition, an application to rough L-valued sets is presented. (shrink)

Denis Noble suggests that biologists who created the Modern Synthesis were taken in by conceptual traps and illusions hidden in the language they used. Rather than blame language itself, my response counters that all writers are responsible for careful attention to the implications of the metaphors they use, and that Richard Dawkins deliberately chose “the selfish gene.” Noble’s concept of biological relativity restores Darwin’s fuller and more nuanced definition of natural selection and shows how it also accounts for Lamarck’s assertion (...) that acquired characteristics can be inherited. Biological relativity is supported by Maurice Merleau- Ponty’s chiasmic ontology. (shrink)

As a way of extending Jacques Derrida’s urging that philosophers think about the findings of recent scientific animal studies, this essay asserts that such attention to ethology, primatology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience makes it necessary to accept a biological continuum between humans and other animals. Countering Heidegger’s claims of abyssal difference and Derrida’s apparent agreement, this discussion examines work by Terrence Deacon and Philip Lieberman on the evolution of human speech, studies in animal communication, genetics, and biosemiotics to demonstrate our (...) kinship with other animals, but also our distinctive abilities. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s Nature lectures provide a theoretical understanding of this strange kinship and an early philosophical engagement with science that anticipated Derrida’s notion of its relevance. Final attention to Derrida’s claims that it would be trop bête to speak of biological continuism reveals the possibility that he intended to undermine such a position and open the way for philosophy to consider primatology and evolutionary genetics. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe narrativist turn of the 1970s and 1980s transformed the discussion of general history. With the rejection of Rankean historical realism, the focus shifted to the historian as a narrator and on narratives as literary products. Oddly, the historiography of science took a turn in the opposite direction at the same time. The social turn in the historiography of science emphasized studying science as a material and practical activity with traceable and documentable traits. This empirization of the field has led (...) to an understanding that history of science could be directly describable from scientific practice alone without acknowledging the role of the historian as a constructor of narratives about these practices. Contemporary historians of science tend to be critical of science's ability to describe its object—nature, as it is—but they often are not similarly skeptical of their own abilities to describe their object: past science, as it is. I will argue that historiography of science can only gain from a belated narrativist turn. (shrink)

The causal theory of reference is often taken to provide a solution to the problems, such as incomparability and referential discontinuity, that the meaning-change thesis raised. I show that Kuhn successfully questioned the causal theory and Putnam's idea that reference is determined via the sameness relation of essences that holds between a sample and other members of a kind in all possible worlds. Putnam's single ‘essential' properties may be necessary but not sufficient to determine membership in a kind category. Kuhn (...) argued that extension is fixed by similarity-dissimilarity relations that are liable to change in taxonomic reorganizations of science. *Received October 2009; revised January 2010. †To contact the author, please write to: Institute of Philosophy, University of Leiden, Martin de Vrieshof 4, 2300 RS Leiden, The Netherlands; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

This article is building the theory for the scientific field of industrial ecology. For this, the industrial ecosystem concept is used. IE uses the model of sustainable ecosystems in unsustainable industrial systems for making progress towards the vision of the industrial ecosystem. Six controversies are revealed and identified as research challenges. I invite all those who are interested in industrial ecology to respond to this contribution.

I argue in this article that an aspect of Imre Lakatos’s philosophy has been largely ignored in previous literature. The key feature of Lakatos’s philosophy of the historiography of science is its non-representationalism, which enables comparisons of alternative ‘historiographic research programmes’ without implying that the interpretations of history re-present or mirror the past. I discuss some problems of this interpretation and show specifically that Lakatos’s philosophy does not distort the history of science despite its normative ambitions. The last section is (...) devoted to updating Lakatos’s programme to answer the needs of contemporary history and philosophy of science. The standard of rationality used in comparative assessments should be understood as a tool for measuring the coherence of an account of history with regard to the ‘actual history’. This standard takes two forms: framework-dependent and framework-independent rationality. The latter is decisive in comparative assessments. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn with his classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most influential and widely read philosophers of the 20th century. Kuhn's claim that the meanings of scientific terms change is often taken to be refuted by recent advances in the philosophy of language. Meaning Changes challenges this interpretation showing that meaning change in Kuhn has multiple aspects: Semantic, mental and historical. The author describes the traditional view with clarity, but demonstrates that Kuhn's idea stems from his (...) studies of history. The book explains how Kuhn's philosophy is supported by cognitive science and why meaning change is relevant to the history of ideas. It argues that Kuhn's case against Hilary Putnam's causal theory of reference constitutes serious criticism of the account. The book concludes by analysing Kuhn's 'historical perspective' in the coherentist epistemological framework, which regards the question of scientific progress ultimately as empirical. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the history and philosophy of science. It also is valuable reading to anybody interested in philosophy or scientific change. (shrink)

A timely and comprehensive survey of recent developments in the philosophy of history that asks pressing questions about where the field is headed in the 21st century.

There are a large number of disciplines that are interested in the theoretical aspects of the history of thought. Their perspectives and subjects may vary, but fundamentally they have a common research interest: the history of human thinking and its products. Despite this, they are studied in relative isolation. I argue that having different subjects as specific objects of research, such as political or scientific thinking, is not a valid justification for the separation. I propose the formation of a new (...) integrated field of study, the philosophy of the history of thought. Its most fundamental questions can be taken to be: 1) What is the basic theoretical unit in the history of thought? 2) How does change take place and how can it be described? 3) What kind of reasons are there for change? Why is there a change in a particular case? The existing confusions around the commitments and basic vocabulary used in contemporary historiography makes the establishment of this field important. Recognizing that there is such a discipline is necessary in order to enable concentration on the fundamental theoretical issues. It is likely that progress on theoretical questions and better awareness of the implicit commitments would have a positive impact on historical practice. (shrink)

This article deals with the problematic concepts of the rational and the social, which have been typically seen as dichotomous in the history and philosophy of science literature. I argue that this view is mistaken and that the social can be seen as something that enables rationality in science, and further, that a scientific community as well as an individual can be taken as an epistemic subject. Furthermore, I consider how scientific communities could be seen as freely acting and choosing (...) agents. Fundamentally, this boils down to the question whether we accept the voluntarist conception of human beings, one consequence of which is that scientists possess, in principle, the capacity for deliberative reflection and choice. If this is accepted, we can talk about the degrees of autonomy that communities possess. I also examine what kinds of decisions an autonomous community should make in order to produce objective knowledge. My suggestion is that objectivity be understood as intersubjectivity: a view is objective when it has been exposed to critical reflection from various points of view, and due to this, transcends subjective idiosyncrasies. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a classic, and it is certainly not forgotten. However, an essential aspect about it has been neglected. That is, Kuhn’s Structure is a book in philosophy of history in the sense that Structure attempts gives an account of historical events, focuses on the whole of the history of science and stipulates a structure of the history of science to explain historical events. Kuhn’s book and its contribution to the debates about the progress (...) of science and the contingency and inevitability of the history of science shows why and how philosophy of history is relevant for the history and philosophy of science. Its successful integration of historical and philosophical aspects in one account makes it worthwhile reading also for philosophers of history in the twentieth-first century. In particular, it raises the question whether the historical record can justify philosophical views and comprehensive syntheses of the past. (shrink)

Šešelja and Straßer’s critique fails to hit its target for two main reasons. First, the argument is not that Kuhn is a rationalist because he is a coherentist. Although Kuhn can be taken as a rationalist because of his commitment to epistemic values, coherence analysis provides a more comprehensive characterisation of cognitive process in scientific change than any of these values alone can offer. Further, we should understand Kuhn as characterising science as the best form of rationality we have outside (...) logic, which rules out algorithmic rationality and allows non-cognitive factors to play a role in theory change. Second, Šešelja and Straßer overemphasise the importance of a priori reasoning in Kuhn, which was only an alternative to his earlier historical-empirical approach. My suggestion is that Kuhn’s neo-Kantian historical cognitivism integrates the earlier empirical and the later a-prioristic orientations. According to it, that any understanding of the world is preconditioned by some kind of mental module that is liable to change, detected as a discontinuity in the historical record of science.Keywords: Thomas S. Kuhn; Rationality; Scientific change; Coherentism; Kantianism; Correspondence theory of truth. (shrink)