Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
The author or concept searched is found in the following 4 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neutrality | Dworkin | Gaus I 92 Political neutrality/liberalism/Dworkin/Waldron: Problem: It does not seem to have occurred to Locke, Kant, and Mill that [the] foundational positions would pose a problem for the politics of liberalism in a society whose members disagreed about the existence of God, the nature of reason, and the destiny of the human individual. The difficulty (...) came to the fore in discussions of ‘liberal neutrality’ in the 1970s and 1980s. A number of theorists attempted to sum up the essence of liberalism in terms of a principle requiring the state to refrain from taking sides on disputed ethical and religious questions. Dworkin: Ronald Dworkin suggested the liberal commitment to treating people as equals meant that political decisions must be, so far as possible, independent of any particular conception of the good life or of what gives value to life. Since the citizens of a society differ in their conceptions, the government does not treat them as equals if it prefers one conception to another, either because the officials believe that one is intrinsically superior, or because one is held by the more numerous or more powerful group. (1985(1): 191) Waldron: Dworkin did not suppose that neutrality was a general moral requirement, one that everyone should strive to satisfy. Neutrality was proposed as a principle of specifically political morality. It is not wrong for someone to favour a particular conception of what gives value to life, but it is wrong for him to do so in his capacity as a legislator or as a judge. >Neutrality/Larmore. 1. Dworkin, Ronald (1985) A Matter of Principle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Waldron, Jeremy 2004. „Liberalism, Political and Comprehensive“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. |
Dworkin I Ronald Dworkin Taking Rights Seriously Cambridge, MA 1978 Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Neutrality | Policy of the United States | Gaus I 92 Neutrality/Policy of the United States/Waldron: It is not wrong for a church or a firm to pursue some particular spiritual or ethical religion, but it is wrong for the state to do so (Larmore, 1987(1): 45). The idea had a lot in common with American constitutional doctrines of state action: action: the First Amendment makes it unconstitutional for the state or the law to favour a religion and the Fourteenth Amendment makes it unconstitutional for the state or the law to discriminate, but neither provision is read as prohibiting religious choice or even racial discrimination by individuals, firms, churches, or clubs (except in cases where their private actions can plausibly be imputed to the state). >Liberal neutrality/Waldron. 1. Larmore, Charles E. (1987) Patterns of Moral Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waldron, Jeremy 2004. „Liberalism, Political and Comprehensive“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. |
Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Neutrality | Waldron | Gaus I 92 Liberal neutrality/liberalism/Waldron: Problem: it does not seem to have occurred to Locke, Kant, and Mill that [the] foundational positions would pose a problem for the politics of liberalism in a society whose members disagreed about the existence of God, the nature of reason, and the destiny of the human individual. >Liberalism/Mill, >Community/Humboldt, >State/Humboldt, >Categorical Imperative. Neutrality: The difficulty (...) came to the fore in discussions of ‘liberal neutrality’ in the 1970s and 1980s. A number of theorists attempted to sum up the essence of liberalism in terms of a principle requiring the state to refrain from taking sides on disputed ethical and religious questions. >Neurality/Dworkin, >Neutrality/United States. Problems:: Liberal neutrality may be seen as a generalization of religious toleration into the realm of ethical choice generally. But therein lay the position’s vulnerability. So long as liberalism was read as a principle about religious neutrality, its defence could be rooted in moral ideas. Once it expanded into the ethical realm, it was not clear what it could rest on. It couldn’t be based on scepticism about values, for it seemed to represent a particular commitment in the realm of value (Dworkin, 1985(1): 203). Liberal theorists scrambled to define a distinction within the realm of values between political morality (e.g. moral principles of justice and right, like the neutrality principle itself), on which the state was permitted to act, and ethics (and perhaps the rest of morality besides justice and right), on which it was not permitted to act (Waldron, 1993(2): 156–63). Gaus I 93 But it was always a fine line, and the wider world tended to blur the distinction between ethics and morality and talk generally about the liberal commitment to value neutrality. A similar dilemma confronted those who tried to use neutrality as a meta-principle of political justification. Bruce Ackerman (1980) developed a theory of justice in the form of a contractarian dialogue, for which it was laid down as a ground rule that no reason (adduced in conversation to justify any particular distribution of power) ‘is a good reason if it requires the power holder to assert - that his conception of the good is better than that asserted by any of his fellow citizens’ (1980(3): 11). WaldronVsAckerman:Could this strategy work? It might, but only if we were certain that the different paths to neutrality did not make a difference to the meaning or character of the destination. But this seems unlikely. Moral principles are characteristically dependent for their interpretation on some understanding of the point or purpose for which they are imposed. 1. Dworkin, Ronald (1985) A Matter of Principle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2. Waldron, Jeremy (1993) Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. Ackerman, Bruce (1980) Social Justice in the Liberal State. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Waldron, Jeremy 2004. „Liberalism, Political and Comprehensive“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. |
Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
| Neutrality | Larmore | Gaus I 92 Neutrality/Larmore/Waldron: It is not wrong for someone to favour a particular conception of what gives value to life, but it is wrong for him to do so in his capacity as a legislator or as a judge. It is not wrong for a church or a firm to pursue some particular spiritual or ethical religion, but it is wrong for the state to do so (Larmore, 1987(1): 45). The idea had a lot in common with American constitutional doctrines of state action. >Neutrality/United States, >Neutrality/Waldron. 1. Larmore, Charles E. (1987) Patterns of Moral Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waldron, Jeremy 2004. „Liberalism, Political and Comprehensive“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. Waldron, Jeremy 2004. „Liberalism, Political and Comprehensive“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications. |
Gaus I Gerald F. Gaus Chandran Kukathas Handbook of Political Theory London 2004 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bacon, F. | Black Vs Bacon, F. | III 89 Science/Neutrality/Black: classic trend: "not interest-driven". III 90 Idyllic picture: the results are only shared with a small illustrious circle of insiders. That is outdated. Instead: Science/Bacon:> Rule over nature. Scientists: USA 1978: 1.223 million practicing, social scientists:. 190.000. BlackVsBacon: the military-industrial complex casts a shadow over its ideal to use science for the benefit of mankind. |
Black I Max Black "Meaning and Intention: An Examination of Grice’s Views", New Literary History 4, (1972-1973), pp. 257-279 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, G. Meggle (Hg) Frankfurt/M 1979 Black II M. Black The Labyrinth of Language, New York/London 1978 German Edition: Sprache. Eine Einführung in die Linguistik München 1973 Black III M. Black The Prevalence of Humbug Ithaca/London 1983 Black IV Max Black "The Semantic Definition of Truth", Analysis 8 (1948) pp. 49-63 In Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
| Boyd, R. | Putnam Vs Boyd, R. | Williams II 492 Scientific Realism/Richard Boyd/M. Williams: Boyd's defense of scientific realism is much more complex than what we have considered so far: Williams II 493 Is a substantial (explanatory) truth concept necessary? Boyd: more indirect approach than Putnam: the (approximate) truth of our theories explains the instrumental reliability of our methods. Method/Boyd: is not theory neutral! On the contrary, because they are formed by our theories, it is their truth that explains the success of the methods. Boyd/M. Williams: thus it turns a well-known argument on its head: BoydVsPositivism. Positivism/Theory: Thesis: the observing language must be theory neutral. The methodological principles likewise. IdealismVsPositivism: VsTheory Neutrality. E.g. Kuhn: the scientific community determines the "facts". Boyd/M. Williams: Boyd turns the >theory ladenness of our methodological judgments very cleverly into the base of his realism. Thesis: Methods that are as theory-laden as ours would not work if the corresponding theories were not "approximately true in a relevant way". Point: thus he cannot be blamed of making an unacceptably rigid separation between theory and observation. Ad. 1) Vs: this invalidates the first objection Ad. 2) Vs: Boyd: it would be a miracle if our theory-laden methods functioned even though the theories proved to be false. For scientific realism, there is nothing to explain here. Ad. 3) Vs: Williams II 494 M. Williams: this is not VsScientific Realism, but VsPutnam: PutnamVsBoyd: arguments like that of Boyd do not establish a causal explanatory role for the truth concept. BoydVsPutnam: they don't do that: "true" is only a conventional expression which adds no explanatory power to the scientific realism. Truth/Explanation/Realism/Boyd/M. Williams: explaining the success of our methods with the truth of our theories boils down to saying that the methods by which we examine particles work, because the world is composed of such particles that are more or less the way we think. Conclusion: but it makes no difference whether we explain this success (of our methods) by the truth of the theories or by the theories themselves! M. Williams pro Deflationism: so we do not need a substantial truth concept. Putnam I (c) 80 Convergence/Putnam: there is something to the convergence of scientific knowledge! Science/Theory/Richard Boyd: Thesis: from the usual positivist philosophy of science merely follows that later theories imply many observation sentences of earlier ones, but not that later theories must imply the approximate truth of the earlier ones! (1976). Science/Boyd: (1) terms of a mature science typically refer (2) The laws of a theory that belongs to a mature science are typically approximately true. (Boyd needs more premises). I (c) 81 Boyd/Putnam: the most important thing about these findings is that the concepts of "truth" and "reference" play a causally explanatory role in epistemology. When replacing them in Boyd with operationalist concept, for example, "is simple and leads to true predictions", the explanation is not maintained. Truth/Theory/Putnam: I do not only want to have theories that are "approximately true", but those that have the chance to be true. Then the later theories must contain the laws of the earlier ones as a borderline case. PutnamVsBoyd: according to him, I only know that T2 should imply most of my observation sentences that T1 implies. It does not follow that it must imply the truth of the laws of T1! I (c) 82 Then there is also no reason why T2 should have the property that we can assign reference objects to the terms of T1 from the position of T2. E.g. Yet it is a fact that from the standpoint of the RT we can assign a reference object to the concept "gravity" in the Newtonian theory, but not to others: for example, phlogiston or ether. With concepts such as "is easy" or "leads to true predictions" no analogue is given to the demand of reference. I (c) 85/86 Truth/Boyd: what about truth if none of the expressions or predicates refers? Then the concept "truth value" becomes uninteresting for sentences containing theoretical concepts. So truth will also collapse. PutnamVsBoyd: this is perhaps not quite what would happen, but for that we need a detour via the following considerations: I (c) 86 Intuitionism/Logic/Connectives/Putnam: the meaning of the classical connectives is reinterpreted in intuitionism: statements: p p is asserted p is asserted to be provable "~p" it is provable that a proof of p would imply the provability of 1 = 0. "~p" states the absurdity of the provability of p (and not the typical "falsity" of p). "p u q" there is proof for p and there is proof for q "p > q" there is a method that applied to any proof of p produces proof of q (and proof that this method does this). I (c) 87 Special contrast to classical logic: "p v ~p" classical: means decidability of every statement. Intuitionistically: there is no theorem here at all. We now want to reinterpret the classical connectives intuitionistically: ~(classical) is identical with ~(intuitionist) u (classical) is identified with u (intuitionist) p v q (classical) is identified with ~(~p u ~q)(intuitionist) p > q (classical) is identified with ~(p u ~q) (intuitionist) So this is a translation of one calculus into the other, but not in the sense that the classical meanings of the connectives were presented using the intuitionistic concepts, but in the sense that the classical theorems are generated. ((s) Not translation, but generation.) The meanings of the connectives are still not classical, because these meanings are explained by means of provability and not of truth or falsity (according to the reinterpretation)). E.g. Classical means p v ~p: every statement is true or false. Intuitionistically formulated: ~(~p u ~~p) means: it is absurd that a statement and its negation are both absurd. (Nothing of true or false!). |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 Putnam I (a) Hilary Putnam Explanation and Reference, In: Glenn Pearce & Patrick Maynard (eds.), Conceptual Change. D. Reidel. pp. 196--214 (1973) In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (b) Hilary Putnam Language and Reality, in: Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 272-90 (1995 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (c) Hilary Putnam What is Realism? in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1975):pp. 177 - 194. In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (d) Hilary Putnam Models and Reality, Journal of Symbolic Logic 45 (3), 1980:pp. 464-482. In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (e) Hilary Putnam Reference and Truth In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (f) Hilary Putnam How to Be an Internal Realist and a Transcendental Idealist (at the Same Time) in: R. Haller/W. Grassl (eds): Sprache, Logik und Philosophie, Akten des 4. Internationalen Wittgenstein-Symposiums, 1979 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (g) Hilary Putnam Why there isn’t a ready-made world, Synthese 51 (2):205--228 (1982) In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (h) Hilary Putnam Pourqui les Philosophes? in: A: Jacob (ed.) L’Encyclopédie PHilosophieque Universelle, Paris 1986 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (i) Hilary Putnam Realism with a Human Face, Cambridge/MA 1990 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (k) Hilary Putnam "Irrealism and Deconstruction", 6. Giford Lecture, St. Andrews 1990, in: H. Putnam, Renewing Philosophy (The Gifford Lectures), Cambridge/MA 1992, pp. 108-133 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam II Hilary Putnam Representation and Reality, Cambridge/MA 1988 German Edition: Repräsentation und Realität Frankfurt 1999 Putnam III Hilary Putnam Renewing Philosophy (The Gifford Lectures), Cambridge/MA 1992 German Edition: Für eine Erneuerung der Philosophie Stuttgart 1997 Putnam IV Hilary Putnam "Minds and Machines", in: Sidney Hook (ed.) Dimensions of Mind, New York 1960, pp. 138-164 In Künstliche Intelligenz, Walther Ch. Zimmerli/Stefan Wolf Stuttgart 1994 Putnam V Hilary Putnam Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge/MA 1981 German Edition: Vernunft, Wahrheit und Geschichte Frankfurt 1990 Putnam VI Hilary Putnam "Realism and Reason", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association (1976) pp. 483-98 In Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 Putnam VII Hilary Putnam "A Defense of Internal Realism" in: James Conant (ed.)Realism with a Human Face, Cambridge/MA 1990 pp. 30-43 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 WilliamsB I Bernard Williams Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy London 2011 WilliamsM I Michael Williams Problems of Knowledge: A Critical Introduction to Epistemology Oxford 2001 WilliamsM II Michael Williams "Do We (Epistemologists) Need A Theory of Truth?", Philosophical Topics, 14 (1986) pp. 223-42 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
| Deflationism | Wright Vs Deflationism | I 26 Truth: is there a concept of truth that is free of metaphysical obligations and yet assertoric? Deflation/Deflationism/Deflationary Approach: Ramsey was the first here. (Recently: Horwich: "Minimalism"): Truth assertoric (asserting, but not supported by assumption of metaphysical objects or facts). Tarski's quoting is sufficient. Truth is not a substantial property of sentences. True sentences like "snow is white" and "grass is green" have nothing in common! Important: you can use the disquotation scheme without understanding the content! You can "approach" the predicate "true". (Goldbach's conjecture). Deflationism Thesis: the content of the predicate of truth is the same as the claim its assertoric use makes. WrightVsDeflationism: instead "minimal truth ability", "minimal truth" here "minimalism": core existence of recognized standards. I 35 Legitimate Assertiveness/Assertibility/Negation: Example "It is not the case that "P" is T then and only if it is not the case that "P" is T. This is not valid for legitimate assertiveness from right to left! Namely, if the level of information is neutral (undecidable). (But for truth)(neutrality, >undecidability). It is then correct to claim that it is not the case that P is assertible, but incorrect to claim that the negation of P is justifiably assertible. Therefore, we must distinguish between "T" and "assertible". "("assertible": from now on for "legitimate assertible"). (VsDeflationism that recognizes only one norm.) I 47 VsDeflationism: not a theory, but a "potpourri". There is no unambiguous thesis at all. I 48 InflationismVsDeflationism: (uncertain) DS' "P" is true(E!P)("P" says that P & P) (! = that which exists enough for P) I 53 Minimalism/Wright: recognizes, in contrast to deflationism, that truth is a real property. The possession of this property is normatively different from legitimate assertiveness. (VsDeflationism). I 97 WrightVsDeflationism Thesis: the classical deflationary view of truth is in itself unstable. No norm of the predicate of truth can state that it differs from legitimate assertiveness. With this consequence, however, the central role ascribed to the quotation scheme - and thus also to negation equivalence - is not compatible. The normative power of "true" and "justifiably claimable" coincides, but can potentially diverge extensionally. |
WrightCr I Crispin Wright Truth and Objectivity, Cambridge 1992 German Edition: Wahrheit und Objektivität Frankfurt 2001 WrightCr II Crispin Wright "Language-Mastery and Sorites Paradox" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 WrightGH I Georg Henrik von Wright Explanation and Understanding, New York 1971 German Edition: Erklären und Verstehen Hamburg 2008 |
| Functionalism | Dennett Vs Functionalism | II 87 Functionalism/Dennett: widely spread in everyday life. Basic idea: E.g. "noble is who does nobly", "Not what it is made of makes a mind (or a belief, a pain, a fear), but what it can do." In common linguistic use of functionalism, such entities defined by their function allow multiple realizations. Why can an artificial mind not be made like an artificial heart with almost any material? II 88 DennettVsFunctionalism: he deliberately abstracts from the inscrutable details of performance and focuses on the work that is actually done. But he simplifies too much. II 95 Information Processing/DennettVsFunctionalism: one thing was always clear: as soon as there are transducers and effectors in an information system, its "media neutrality" or multiple realization disappears. (VsPutnam, VsTuring). E.g. To receive light something light-sensitive is needed. E.g. Controls for ships or factories are media-neutral, as long as they fulfill their task in the time available. But to the nervous system applies that much less time is available. The realization of the nervous system is not a media-neutral. And that is not because it would need to have a certain aura of a particular material or of living being, but because it originated in evolution as the central control system of living beings who’ve been abundantly equipped with very decentralized control systems. The new systems had to be set up above them, but in very close collaboration with them. There was an astronomical number of conversion points. |
Dennett I D. Dennett Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, New York 1995 German Edition: Darwins gefährliches Erbe Hamburg 1997 Dennett II D. Dennett Kinds of Minds, New York 1996 German Edition: Spielarten des Geistes Gütersloh 1999 Dennett III Daniel Dennett "COG: Steps towards consciousness in robots" In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Dennett IV Daniel Dennett "Animal Consciousness. What Matters and Why?", in: D. C. Dennett, Brainchildren. Essays on Designing Minds, Cambridge/MA 1998, pp. 337-350 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
| Hume, D. | Black Vs Hume, D. | III 80 Deduction/Hume/Naturalistic fallacy/Black: the core of the argument is that in a deduction nothing can follow that is not already contained in the premises. Naturalistic fallacy/BlackVsHume: but there is a way how new evaluative or normative material can appear in a valid conclusion: E.g. premise: you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs. (This can be seen as factual) But it follows now: Conclusion: if you want to make an omelet, eggs should be broken. Hume/Black: What he means is that no categorical or unconditional "should" follows. BlackVsHume: that seems convincing at first glance. But: Problem: the absence of the word "should" is not a reliable criterion. E.g. the fact that murder is a sin implies the conclusion that you should not kill. But how are we to judge based on the mere linguistic form that the premise is non-normative. Now one could say that the sentence about murder is unverifiable. III 81 Behind this are difficult questions about how we are to understand the objectives and procedures of science. Science/Black: should we see it as a special way of approaching truth, or as a discipline that shares the objectives of the whole spectrum of activities which are after the truth? BlackVsHume: his argument is circular: Thesis: I believe that certain categorical sentences with "should" have a truth value! I.e. they can be recognized as true without reference to hopes and wishes. Then Hume is mistaken if he assumes them to be different from scientific principles. Knowledge/Values/Standards/Black: Thesis: in a broader sense (beyond the narrow sense of science) knowledge can be understood in a way that some normative and evaluative sentences can be known to be true. If that is the case, Hume’s argument caves in. Then moral and practical questions can no longer be easily separated logically from scientific truths. Naturalistic fallacy/BlackVsHume/VsHume: many contemporary authors reject his argument (of the separation of science from moral sentences). III 81 Ethics/Morals/Values/Standards/Black: Thesis: regardless of whether Hume’s criticism of the naturalistic fallacy is valid, we are entitled to assume that human beings can agree on certain fundamental ethical principles regardless of their religious background. We must assume that in order for a rational discourse becoming possible at all. III 82 BlackVsNaturalistic fallacy: Then even in the case of a logical separation of factual and normative or evaluative sentences it is the introduction of certain generally acceptable non-factual premises that would enable the derivation of normative conclusions. In addition: (see below): every representation that regards scientific propositions as isolated, is one-sided. The biggest problems of neutrality are not affected by the assumed gap between the factual and the normative. If we look at science as something concrete, things look different. BlackVsNaturalistic fallacy: is one of the great half-truths or popular mistakes of Western culture. We should be wary of the following syllogism: 1) Science is a good thing 2) Science is necessarily neutral 3) Therefore scientific neutrality is a good thing. This might well be true for "bad" instead of "good". |
Black IV Max Black "The Semantic Definition of Truth", Analysis 8 (1948) pp. 49-63 In Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
| Mackie, J. L. | Putnam Vs Mackie, J. L. | V 276 Ethics/Mackie thesis: the good is ontologically "strange": one cannot know that something is good, without having a "Pro" attitude with regard to this something. This boils down to that one presupposes the emotivism to prove it. It also presupposes that there is ONE TRUE THEORY. PutnamVsMackie: but that does not mean that the linguistic use is not correct, there are also cases of conscious infringement. Philippa Foot: you may even intend to be a bad person. V 277 The difference between prescriptive and descriptive use is not a bad feature of the vocabulary. From the fact that "good" is used for recommendations, it does not follow that it is not a property. V 278 Properties/Mackie: thesis: there is no property like "to be justified", but only "justification settings". PutnamVsMackie: thus we fall into total relativism. For the "dedicated physicalists" there is even the problem that the reference (reference) is "ontologically strange". There are simply too many "candidates" (relations) for this post. Namely endlessly many. Nature/Putnam: a priority would really be strange because we have built a certain neutrality, a certain blankness into our concept of nature. Nature should neither have interests nor intentions, nor a position. Would a physicalist property be identical with moral correctness, that would be really weird. As if nature itself had intentions of reference. V 279 Insofar, Moore was right. But that does not schow that the good, the right, etc. do not exist. It only shows that the monistic naturalism (or "physicalism") represents an inadequate theory. --- I (g) 201 Causality/Mackie: is something epistemic and nothing at all in the world. However, there can be "mechanical causality" next to it in the world. (> G. Vollmer: nowadays causality is traced back to energy transfer,). I (g) 202 PutnamVsMackie: but this is difficult to see without counterfactual sentences. E.g. Putnam: then my practical frictionless operation of a switch does not represent a "mechanical cause". PutnamVsMackie/PutnamVsVollmer: such a narrow term may be physically useful, but it is not useful for explaining reference. On the other hand, when the circuit is mechanical causality, how do we characterizes it then without the counterfactual sentence: "The current would not have flown through the wire if the switch had not been moved"? |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 |
| Neutrality | Black Vs Neutrality | III 84 Neutrality/Science/BlackVsNeutrality/BlackVsValue freedom: if science is considered to be rational in the sense of neutral, it runs the risk of becoming inhuman. It must instead be regarded as a human action. III 84 Neutrality/Robert L. Heilbroner: (sociologist, NY Times Magazine, 19 Jan 1975 p. 14f.): Brings an example by Adam Smith: Adam Smith: E.g. why would a person with a humanistic background, when facing the choice of seinding one million Chinese to death in order to save his little finger, let the Chinese live? (BlackVsSmith: Actually, why Chinese, why not Scots?) Heilbroner/Black: remains remarkably neutral! He believes that there is "no rational answer" to that! One cannot apply a logical calculus to it. BlackVsHeilbroner: Apparently, he did not read the very differentiated magazine in which he had the opportunity to publish carefully. Could anyone be in doubt about giving a human life for the salvation of a little finger?. |
Black IV Max Black "The Semantic Definition of Truth", Analysis 8 (1948) pp. 49-63 In Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
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The author or concept searched is found in the following theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
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| Idealism | Kuhn, Th. | Horwich I 492 Positivism / theory: the observation language must be theory-neutral. Likewise, the methodological principles. IdealismVsPositivism: VsTheory-neutrality. e.g. Kuhn: the scientific community fixes the "facts". |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
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