Currently, one of the most important points of contention in defining contemporary pragmatistm arises from the challenge posed to pragmatism's traditional naturalist orientation by Robert Brandom's rationalist pragmatism. This paper compares the two positions, suggesting that the argument between them revolves around the role of language (rather than experience, as is frequently asserted)—more specifically

People have various desires, but it is a contested moral issue when a desire becomes of such importance that it legitimizes a moral claim on others. This paper explores how the normative significance of desire satisfaction can be assessed and argues that a normatively significant desire can constitute a pro tanto obligation to help satisfy it. The paper presents a framework that relates the normative

For ancient philosophers, philosophy was not only a theory about the big questions but also a way of life, yet it was not only a way of life but also a theory. Pierre Hadot showed the importance of philosophy as a way of life in antiquity. Moreover, he defended, as this paper demonstrates, the view that ancient philosophy was primarily a way of life and that philosophical discourse or theory played

This paper addresses the recent rise of the use of alternative medicine in Western countries, and it offers a novel explanation of that phenomenon in terms of cognitive and economic factors related to the free-market and patient-centric approach to medicine that is currently in place in those countries, in contrast to some alternative explanations of this phenomenon. Moreover, the paper addresses this

This paper defends the use of imaginary cases in normative theorizing. Imaginary cases are used as a part of an argument and should be assessed in terms of the role they play within arguments. The paper identifies five ways in which they are used and then uses some of the best examples to bring out how they contribute to debates. While not directly akin to empirical experiments, criticisms of imaginary

This paper presents and defends a novel meta-epistemological thesis, epistemic isomorphism, according to which our relations to others and to ourselves have the same pattern of relevance to our rationality. This means that correct epistemological theorizing will give formal parity to interpersonal and intrapersonal epistemic norms, such that what holds interpersonally also holds, mutatis mutandis,

Some have argued that Indigenous and European Americans learned much from each other along the border. This paper examines the fate of the influence of Indigenous philosophy by considering the work of Henry David Thoreau. First, it summarizes the argument of Native Pragmatism: Rethinking the Roots of American Philosophy about the influence of Indigenous thought on American philosophy. In the second

Crispin Wright is widely known for having introduced epistemic entitlement, a species of non-evidential warrant, as a response to certain skeptical challenges. This paper investigates a fundamental issue concerning entitlement: it appears to be quite generous, as it appears to apply indiscriminately to anti-skepticial hypotheses as well as a range of radically different—indeed, even incompatible—propositions

The concepts of philosophy and imaginative literature have unclear boundaries and blurred edges; they can hardly be defined essentially in any fruitful manner. But we can talk of indicators of a text being philosophical or literary. The concepts of philosophy and literature are contestable. Further, there are no clear-cut signs of cognitive progress in philosophy and literature. It is also far from

That one person's modus ponens is another's modus tollens is the bane of philosophy because it strips many philosophical arguments of their persuasive force. The problem is that philosophical arguments become mere pantomemes: arguments that are reasonable to resist simply by denying the conclusion. Appeals to proof, intuition, evidence, and truth fail to alleviate the problem. Two broad strategies

Can someone who suspends judgement about a certain proposition be in a relational state of disagreement with someone who believes as well as with someone who disbelieves ? This paper argues for an affirmative answer. It develops an account of the notions of suspended judgement and disagreement that explains how and why the suspender is in a relational state of disagreement with both the believer and

While we now have an increasingly detailed understanding of the varied goals and methods that constitute the sciences and mathematics, our understanding of logic as a research area lags behind. A significant reason for this deficiency is that, unlike in the philosophies of science and mathematics, philosophers of logic have yet to embrace a practice-based approach to their field, re-orientating their

Recently there has been an increasing interest in metaphilosphy. The aim of philosophy has been examined, and the development of philosophy has been scrutinised. With the development of new approaches and methods, new problems arise. This paper introduces a collection that revisits some of the metaphilosophical issues, including philosophical progress and the aim of philosophy. The collection sheds

Many think a respectable metaphysics ought to be in some way continuous with science. This paper identifies three broad and overlapping ways this idea has been developed: first, that science and metaphysics are methodologically continuous; second, that metaphysics is an attempt to synthesise scientific and non-scientific knowledge; and, third, that metaphysics is the project of interpreting our best

This paper proposes an analysis of the discursive dynamics of high-impact concepts in the humanities. These are concepts whose formation and development have a lasting and wide-ranging effect on research and our understanding of discursive reality in general. The notion of a conceptual practice, based on a normative conception of practice, is introduced, and practices are identified, on this perspective

What role does ordinary language play in philosophical theorizing today? One might think: little. After all, analytic philosophy has moved past its “ordinary language” phase; in metaphysics, for example, few would think that attending to “time” and related words has anything to teach us about the nature of, and how we persist through, time. The aim of this paper, however, is to argue that contemporary

Epistemological accounts that make use of a safety condition on knowledge, historically, face serious problems regarding beliefs that are necessarily true. This is because necessary truths are true in all possible worlds, and so such beliefs can be safe even when the bases for the beliefs are epistemically problematic. The existence of such problematically safe beliefs would undermine a major motivation

For all that digital methods—including network visualization, text analysis, and others—have begun to show extensive promise in philosophical contexts, a tension remains between two uses of those tools that have often been taken to be incompatible, or at least to engage in a kind of trade-off: the discovery of new hypotheses and the testing of already-formulated positions. This paper presents this

In a recent book, T. J. Mawson has carefully argued, in opposition to the majority of philosophers, that the question “What is the meaning of life?” has more than one interpretation, and so more than one answer. He is anxious, however, that this question not be attributed too many interpretations, on pain of vacuity. This article aims to show that Mawson's attempts to restrict the number of interpretations

There is a long-standing debate about whether poetry can make a substantive contribution to philosophy with compelling arguments to show that poetry and philosophy involve distinct modes of thought and aims, albeit with similar concerns. This paper argues that reading lyric poetry can play a substantive role in philosophy by helping the philosopher understand how to forge connections with the perspectives

Philosophers have recently highlighted substantial affinities between causation and grounding, which have inclined some to import the conceptual and formal resources of causal interventionism into the metaphysics of grounding. The prospect of grounding interventionism raises two important questions: What exactly are grounding interventions, and why should we think they enable knowledge of grounding

This paper evaluates the case Paul Horwich makes in his book Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy against so-called T-philosophy—the traditional conception of philosophy as a theoretical enterprise that seeks to analyse concepts, solve problems, and explain phenomena in a unified and systematic way. Different forms of T-philosophy are identified in the paper, but it is argued that Horwich’s multi-pronged

Does conceptual engineering as a philosophical method deserve all the attention that it has been getting recently? The important philosophical questions, one might say, are about the world, not about what our concepts are or should be like. This paper fleshes out one way in which conceptual engineering can contribute to philosophical progress. The suspicion that conceptual engineering is getting too

Metaphysics faces a threat from apparently metaphysics-friendly non-epistemic forms of semantics, on which sentences express “worldly” propositions—for example, functions from worlds to truth-values. The threat goes back to Wittgenstein”s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and is pressed in different forms by various contemporary philosophers. It is that metaphysical claims turn out either trivially true

From climate change to potentially disruptive technologies to the COVID-19 pandemic, our era is characterised by unprecedented complexity and uncertainty. Philosophy has always been a promising tool for facing puzzling scenarios. Yet, contemporary philosophy may not be able to successfully face our era’s unprecedented complexity and uncertainty. On the one hand, contemporary philosophy results from

Should philosophy of race be taught as part of a philosophy degree? This paper argues that it should. After surveying 1,166 modules on offer in 2019–2020, across forty-seven philosophy departments in the United Kingdom, however, the authors identified only one module devoted to philosophy of race. The paper presents this as a challenge to philosophy departments. It investigates one possible reason

The purpose of this paper is to reflect back on, and respond again to, the 2005 Ethics and International Affairs symposium entitled “World Poverty and Human Rights.” The paper identifies and further explores the ideals of combatting poverty versus the realities of poverty as we move into the final ten years of the Sustainable Development Goals. The paper focusses on a moral and philosophical approach

This paper explores philosophy in its relation to other disciplines and practices that also seek to understand the distinctive nature of human persons. It begins with a consideration of the nature of philosophy, arguing for a pluralistic conception reflecting different ends, and relating these to art, politics, religion, and science. It illustrates this via connections between the thought and work

The Argument from Inductive Risk (AIR) is taken to show that values are inevitably involved in making judgments or forming beliefs. After reviewing this conclusion, this paper poses cases that are prima facie counterexamples: the unreflective application of conventions, use of black-boxed instruments, reliance on opaque algorithms, and unskilled observation reports. These cases are counterexamples

Concepts are central in applied ethics as points of reference for moral deliberation. Applied ethicists generally rely on shared methodological standards for the justification of the use of concepts, such as standards of coherence and of relevance; concepts that are incoherent or irrelevant for the purposes of any particular moral inquiry are not justified as points of reference in that inquiry. This

Reflectivists consider reflective reasoning crucial for good judgment and action. Anti-reflectivists deny that reflection delivers what reflectivists seek. Alas, the evidence is mixed. So, does reflection confer normative value or not? This paper argues for a middle way: reflection can confer normative value, but its ability to do this is bound by factors such as what we might call epistemic identity:

Can rationality serve as the basis of respect for people who do not have this capacity? This paper starts from the assumption that rationality is both the norm for the human species and the basis of respect. The paper considers whether the species norm determines the nature of those profoundly disabled people who do not themselves possess the norm-related characteristics, and if it does, whether this

Some of our most prominent metaphysicians have argued for a notion of naturalness that combines the roles of joint-carving, fundamentality, and perfect similarity. This paper argues that it is a mistake to think that there are select properties fulfilling all these roles. Toward this end, epistemologically tractable diagnostic markers for naturalness are presented. From these it follows that there

Doctoral graduates in philosophy are an excellent source of information about the discipline: they are at the cutting edge of research trends, have an inside view of research-focused departments, and their employment prospects provide early insights on the future health of the discipline. This report details the results of a survey sent in 2021 to recent Ph.D. graduates and current students, as well

Research on moral disgust suffers from a methodological bias. The bulk of such investigation focuses almost exclusively on the operation of moral disgust within the psychology of a single individual, or as involving an interaction between two people. This leads to certain questions being salient, while other phenomena, which emerge only at the level of an entire community or society, are largely hidden

The debate over the grounds of full moral status relies heavily on the “method of cases.” In the method of cases intuitions about particular cases are taken as evidence for philosophical theories. Much in the debate over the grounds of full moral status turns on our intuitions regarding the moral status of individuals with intellectual disability. This paper argues that the intuitions of those in close

Ancient philosophy is often distinguished from modern philosophy regarding its affinity to spirituality. In antiquity, philosophy meant a way of life rather than a body of knowledge. Yet according to Michel Foucault, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit constitutes an important exception to modern philosophy’s break with spirituality, as it integrates structures of spirituality into modern forms and ideals

We often read Plato’s cave allegory for its trajectory: out of darkness into light. The back of the cave—where imagination projects fantasies onto shadows—is a place to flee. This part of the allegory reduces reality testing to thought or imagining, ignoring action and the people or things engaged. Yet thinkers prominent in our time—Immanuel Kant and W. V. O. Quine—suppose that our experience of the

Philosophy is often divided into two traditions: analytic and continental philosophy. Characterizing the analytic-continental divide, however, is no easy task. Some philosophers explain the divide in terms of the place of argument in these traditions. This raises the following questions: Is analytic philosophy rife with arguments while continental philosophy is devoid of arguments? Or can different

The Gettier dilemma facing reductive analyses of knowledge has not been properly appreciated by virtue epistemologists or even virtue epistemology’s most vocal critics. This paper starts by considering how recent critics of virtue epistemology understand the Gettier problem facing virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge. The paper highlights how the dilemma facing virtue-theoretic analyses of knowledge

Philosophical progress is one of the most controversial topics in metaphilosophy. It has been widely debated whether philosophy makes any progress in history. This paper revisits the concept of philosophical progress. It first identifies two criteria of an ideal concept of philosophical progress. It then argues that our accounts of philosophical progress fail to provide such an ideal concept. Finally

This article introduces Metaphilosophy's special issue on metatheories of disagreement, with the aim of promoting discussion on the nature of disagreement on a metatheoretical level. The contributions to this issue cover the following key topics related to disagreement: faultless disagreement, metaontological disagreement, metalinguistic disagreement, responses to peer disagreement in philosophy, hinge

This essay presents an argument, which it calls the Bias Argument, with the dismaying conclusion that (almost) everyone should significantly reduce her confidence in (too many) philosophical beliefs. More precisely, the argument attempts to show that the most precious philosophical beliefs are biased, as the pervasive and permanent disagreement among the leading experts in philosophy cannot be explained

Hinge epistemology has to dispel the worry that disagreeing over hinges is rationally inert. Building on a companion piece (Coliva and Palmira 2020), this paper offers a constitutivist solution to the problem of rational inertia by maintaining that a Humean sceptic and a hinge epistemologist disagree over the correct explication of the concept of epistemic rationality. The paper explores the implications

We call systematic disputes that are particularly hard to resolve deep disagreements. We can divide most theories of deep disagreements in analytic epistemology into two camps: the Wittgensteinian view and the fundamental epistemic principles view. This essay analyzes how both views deal with two of the most pressing issues a theory of deep disagreement must address: their source and their resolution

One of the most important “folk” anti-realist thoughts about certain areas of our thought and discourse—basic taste, for instance, or comedy—is that their lack of objectivity crystallises in the possibility of “faultless disagreements”: situations where one party accepts P, another rejects P, and neither is guilty of any kind of mistake of substance or shortcoming of cognitive process. On close inspection

Disagreements about what we owe to each other and about how to live pervade different dimensions of human interaction. We communicate our different moral and normative views in discourse. These disputes have features that are challenging to some semantic theories. This paper assesses recent Stalnakerian views of communication in moral and normative domains. These views model conversational context

Theodore Sider has argued that while there are some philosophical debates about which there is no fact of the matter, debates in normative ethics are likely not among them. This essay investigates a possible counterexample: the debate about so-called dirty hands. The essay first surveys several cases where No-Fact-of-the-Matter (NFM) claims have been made. Taking its cue from these cases, it then outlines

It is fundamental that, in philosophy, we make sure that we are not mistaking merely verbal disputes, or “conceptual” disputes, for substantive ones. This essay presents a tripartite framework that is useful for clarifying cases where it is difficult to tell whether we are engaged in substantive or non-substantive disputes. For this purpose, the essay offers some combinatorial possibilities between

When theorising about disagreement, it is tempting to begin with a person's belief that p and ask what mental state one must have in order to disagree with it. This is the wrong way to go; the paper argues that people may also disagree with attitudes that are not beliefs. It then examines whether several existing theories of disagreement can account for this phenomenon. It argues that its own normative

This paper examines epistemic injustice in knowledge production concerning autism. Its aim is to further our understanding of the distinctive shapes of the kinds of epistemic injustices against autists. The paper shows how Ian Hacking’s work on autistic autobiography brings into view a form of hermeneutical injustice that autists endure with respect to their firsthand accounts of their experiences

This paper aims to contribute to debates about the nature of philosophical inquiry and its relation to science. The starting point is the Discontinuity View (DV), which holds that philosophy is discontinuous with science. Upon critically engaging two lines of argument in favor of DV, the paper presents and defends the Continuity View (CV), according to which philosophy and science are continuous forms

According to one prominent form of moral individualism, how an individual is to be treated is determined, not by considering her group membership, but by considering her own particular characteristics. On this view, so this paper argues, it is not possible to provide an account of why people with profound cognitive disabilities are owed respect. This conclusion is not new, but it has been challenged

Recent writing on the expression of emotion has explored the idea that there is a symbolic dimension to many “expressive actions.” This paper aims to situate and better understand the “symbolic expression” account by exploring its position in a framework of views from the history of philosophy regarding emotion, action out of emotion, and their place in the good human life. The paper discusses a number

This paper critiques philosophical efforts to biologize race as racial projects (Omi and Winant, Racial Formation in the United States). The paper argues that the deeply social phenomenon of race defies the analytic schema employed by biologizing philosophers. The very (social) act of theorizing race is already in an involuted relationship with its target concept: analyzing race must be seen as a racial

If, as Hegel claims, all philosophy is idealism, then defining his philosophy in these terms makes his idealism a metaphilosophy. This most obvious fact about his definition is the most overlooked. It is the key to a definitive, comprehensive and clear-cut interpretation of Hegel’s idealism. If Hegel defines all philosophy as idealism and thus his own idealism as a metaphilosophy, then his own idealism

In this paper, a number of lines of argument buttress and support the contention that Dirty Hands is a comparatively undervalued part of the Sartrean oeuvre. Using commentary from Bell and Pellauer, and employing categories relevant also to the work of Beauvoir and Camus, the paper comes to the conclusion that Hugo, as the central character of the play, is an exemplary Sartrean protagonist, and that

This article explains and defends a novel idea about how people can be misled by a discussion topic, even if the discussion itself does not explicitly involve the making of false claims. The crucial aspect of this idea is that people are liable to infer, from the fact that a particular topic is being discussed, that this topic is important. As a result, they may then be led to accept certain beliefs