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 On “Defundamentalizing” Fundamentalists

Solomon Schimmel

in The Tenacity of Unreasonable Beliefs: Fundamentalism and the Fear of Truth

This concluding chapter points out some of the negative consequences of scriptural fundamentalisms such as homophobia, gender inequality; religious intolerance; self‐righteousness; intellectual ... More

This concluding chapter points out some of the negative consequences of scriptural fundamentalisms such as homophobia, gender inequality; religious intolerance; self‐righteousness; intellectual dishonesty; deprivation of children from important scientific knowledge, and in some cases, advocacy of violence against ‘non‐believers.’ It also discusses positive aspects of fundamentalist communities, and their legitimate criticism of and disdain for certain vapid or decadent aspects of American and Western culture, values, and behaviors. The chapter discusses the ethics of undermining the religious beliefs of scriptural fundamentalists. When, why, and where is it appropriate or even obligatory to attempt to do so, and when is it wrong to do so? It concludes that there are times when combating fundamentalism and defending freedom of speech and of thought is essential for the good and welfare of American society and notes his intention to develop a detailed plan for how to ‘defundamentalize fundamentalists.’Less

Fallible A Priori Justification

Albert Casullo

in A Priori Justification

This chapter articulates the requirements of fallible a priori justification. It distinguishes two senses of fallibility: c-fallibility, justification that does not guarantee truth; and ... More

This chapter articulates the requirements of fallible a priori justification. It distinguishes two senses of fallibility: c-fallibility, justification that does not guarantee truth; and p-fallibility, justification that is defeasible. It argues that although these senses are logically independent of one another, there are some significant relations between them mediated by the concepts of self-revision, overriding defeater, and undermining defeater. It is shown that several alternative fallibilist accounts of a priori justification face difficulties that are avoided by the account defended in Chapter 2.Less

How to Disagree about How to Disagree

Adam Elga

in Disagreement

This chapter argues for the incoherence of unrestricted conciliatory views according to which one ought always to modify one's view in the direction of one's peer in cases of peer disagreement. It ... More

This chapter argues for the incoherence of unrestricted conciliatory views according to which one ought always to modify one's view in the direction of one's peer in cases of peer disagreement. It contends that such views face incoherence when applied to themselves, and goes on to defend a partly-conciliatory view, recommending conciliation on topics other than disagreement itself.Less

Are Supervaluational and Revision Theories Self‐Undermining?

Hartry Field

in Saving Truth From Paradox

This chapter is concerned with the extent to which supervaluation and revision theories can declare that their rules all preserve truth. The extent varies from one such theory to another, but none ... More

This chapter is concerned with the extent to which supervaluation and revision theories can declare that their rules all preserve truth. The extent varies from one such theory to another, but none can do so entirely, and many actually declare some of their rules not to be truth-preserving. The question is raised whether this makes the theories ‘self-undermining’, and a reason is given why it doesn't. Connections to Gödel's second incompleteness theorem are drawn.Less

Determinateness, Stratification, and Revenge

Hartry Field

in Saving Truth From Paradox

Does the presence of a transfinitely iterable determinacy operator re-create the difficulties with stratified truth theories? This chapter argues that it does not. It begins by pointing out the many ... More

Does the presence of a transfinitely iterable determinacy operator re-create the difficulties with stratified truth theories? This chapter argues that it does not. It begins by pointing out the many clear differences between what we have for determinacy and what we have with stratified truth theories. It goes on to consider some genuine costs, but argues that we can live with them. It ends by considering and rebutting some remaining worries about how revenge paradoxes might arise.Less

Humour Directed at the Persona

Maria Plaza

in The Function of Humour in Roman Verse Satire: Laughing and Lying

This chapter on persona-oriented humour argues that while it is a valuable insight that the persona is not identical with the author, the gap created between author and persona by humorous ... More

This chapter on persona-oriented humour argues that while it is a valuable insight that the persona is not identical with the author, the gap created between author and persona by humorous undercutting of the latter’s authority must not be exaggerated. By analysing the play of authority, sympathy, and distance enacted around the satiric persona, it is shown that the satirist has an aesthetic interest in a fierce struggle between persona and butt, where the outcome is not obvious. Similarly, a complex, ambivalent persona running the gamut from quasi-object to quasi-author helps in shaping a racy narrative while responsibility remains pending. Humour emerges as the ideal tool for this simultaneous subverting of the speaker and keeping him as the subject who appears to shape most of the text. The chapter explores Horace’s well-calculated self-irony, together with the rougher undermining of the speaker in Persius and Juvenal as examples.Less

Introduction

Christensen David and Lackey Christensen Jennifer

in The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays

The introduction by David Christensen and Jennifer Lackey briefly explains some of the main themes that have surfaced in the literature on disagreement. It sketches the distinction between ... More

The introduction by David Christensen and Jennifer Lackey briefly explains some of the main themes that have surfaced in the literature on disagreement. It sketches the distinction between “conciliatory/conformist” views and “steadfast/non-conformist” views about the extent to which disagreement with peers should undermine rational confidence in one's opinions. It raises the issue of how one is to evaluate the epistemic credentials of those with whom one disagrees (in particular, whether this needs to be done in a way independent of the relevant dispute), and indicates how this issue interacts with the debate between conciliatory and steadfast views. Finally, it gives a brief tour of the papers in the volume. It divides them into three categories: those focusing on the conciliatory/steadfast dispute, those that concentrate on disagreement about philosophy, and those that address more general theoretical issues that bear on the disagreement debate.Less

Reactive Sequences in Global Health Governance

Tine Hanrieder and Michael Zürn

in International Politics and Institutions in Time

Historical institutionalism (HI) is criticized for over-emphasizing stability and linearity in global institutions. The authors argue that both institutional stability and change can be due to ... More

Historical institutionalism (HI) is criticized for over-emphasizing stability and linearity in global institutions. The authors argue that both institutional stability and change can be due to path-dependent processes. Yet, while self-reinforcing mechanisms are amply discussed in the HI literature, the self-undermining effects of institutions are less frequently theorized in HI, especially in International Relations. Against this background, the authors develop a set of propositions about path-dependent reactive sequences, first by delineating the concept of reactive sequences from self-reinforcing processes, second by suggesting two archetypes of reactive sequences in IR (power–outcome decoupling and the authority–legitimation link), and third by illustrating this argument with developments in global health governance.Less

Introduction

Meijer Roel and Edwin Bakker

in The Muslim Brotherhood in Europe

The introduction deals especially with prejudices against the Muslim Brotherhood, which is often seen as a threat to European values, and with the accusation that the organisation is inherently ... More

The introduction deals especially with prejudices against the Muslim Brotherhood, which is often seen as a threat to European values, and with the accusation that the organisation is inherently malevolent. It delves into the many debates that have been held on the Brotherhood in France, Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands.Less

Self-undermining chances

Richard Pettigrew

in Accuracy and the Laws of Credence

In the previous chapters in this part of the book, it has been assumed that the objective chances are not self-undermining—that is, they assign maximal probability to the hypothesis that says that ... More

In the previous chapters in this part of the book, it has been assumed that the objective chances are not self-undermining—that is, they assign maximal probability to the hypothesis that says that they themselves are the chances. This chapter explores what happens to the arguments when this assumption is dropped. The chapter discusses the New Principle as well as Jenann Ismael’s General Recipe.Less

Nonintervention

Michael W. Doyle

in The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect

This chapter identifies the direct and indirect reasons that support the norm of nonintervention. Directly, nonintervention harms the self determination of peoples and it tends to produce one or more ... More

This chapter identifies the direct and indirect reasons that support the norm of nonintervention. Directly, nonintervention harms the self determination of peoples and it tends to produce one or more of three harmful consequences: renewed civil war, renewed autocracy, or imperial rule. Indirectly, nonintervention undermines the international rule of law. These themes are explored through an exposition of the jus ad bellum standards of international law and confirmed in the empirical record of the consequences of actual armed interventions.Less

Tolerance and Chance

Cian Dorr, John Hawthorne, and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri

in The Bounds of Possibility: Puzzles of Modal Variation

This chapter explores Tolerance Puzzles in which the operative modality is that of objective chance. We show that a principle of ‘Chance Fixity’, according to which facts about the chances at a given ... More

This chapter explores Tolerance Puzzles in which the operative modality is that of objective chance. We show that a principle of ‘Chance Fixity’, according to which facts about the chances at a given time are not themselves matters of chance at that time, is deeply embedded in ordinary and scientific reasoning about chance and rules out Iteration-denial for the relevant chance operators. We also develop a new ‘Robustness Puzzle’ in which the analogue of Hypertolerance completely untenable. This puzzle turns on strengthenings of Tolerance claims to claims about high (conditional) chance, as opposed to mere positive chance.Less

On the (In)Significance of Moral Disagreement for Moral Knowledge 1

Jason Decker and Daniel Groll

in Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 8

This chapter considers an epistemological argument from disagreement which concludes that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge (even if there are moral facts of the matter ... More

This chapter considers an epistemological argument from disagreement which concludes that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge (even if there are moral facts of the matter and some people are tracking them). Various ways of understanding the argument are considered and it is argued that each relies on an epistemic principle that is under-motivated, overgeneralizes, and is indeed self-incriminating. These problems, it is suggested, infect many conciliationist theses in the epistemology of disagreement. Knowledge, it is argued, can withstand not only acknowledged peer disagreement, but also disagreement with the acknowledged experts. If this is right, then the sort of epistemic principle that is required to move from moral disagreement to the conclusion that many of most people’s moral beliefs do not amount to knowledge has landed well off the mark.Less

Knowledge versus Truth

John Gibbons

in The Norm of Belief

Part IV is an attempt to make my version of subjectivism work. One thing we need to do is to replace the teleological picture that sees rationality as a means to our more objective doxastic aims. We ... More

Part IV is an attempt to make my version of subjectivism work. One thing we need to do is to replace the teleological picture that sees rationality as a means to our more objective doxastic aims. We should replace the idea of aiming, or trying to get it right, with the notion of what you commit yourself to when you believe that p. If you believe that p, then you’re committed to p’s being true. This seems obvious. It’s just not all that obvious what it comes to. But does believing that p commit you to knowing that p? Chapter 8 is the beginning of the attempt to spell out the relevant notion of commitment and argues that belief does commit you to knowledge and not just truth.Less

Woodenness–The (Palm) Heart of the Matter

Timothy Morton

Sten Pultz Moslund, Marlene Karlsson Marcussen, and Martin Karlsson Pedersen (eds)

in How Literature Comes to Matter: Post-Anthropocentric Approaches to Fiction

This afterword comments on the articles in the book and amasses a host of diverse and connected things into critical reflection, from phenomena and objects such as the automatization of society, ... More

This afterword comments on the articles in the book and amasses a host of diverse and connected things into critical reflection, from phenomena and objects such as the automatization of society, racism as baked into recognition software, scientism, correlationism and all kinds of anthropocentrism, to late capitalism’s externalization of everything outside human economic relations. Referencing Graham Harman’s concepts of undermining and overmining, it criticizes all kinds of default ideas about what exists and reductions of the reality of objects in the natural sciences and physics, on the one hand, and in metaphysical, discursive, economic and phenomenological studies of things on the other. Against such reductionisms the afterword sees ‘new materialism’ as a broad field of many varied emphases on the thingliness of things and their interpenetration. It connects this change in thinking with aesthetic forms, such as literature, as sites of ambiguity and surprise where matter comes alive, where meaning emerges and collapses, resisting any static and reductionist ontology, but creating instead a quivering between matter and mattering.Less

Problems for Credulism

James Pryor

in Seemings and Justification: New Essays on Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism

The recent rise of dogmatism has been challenged by Bayesian epistemology on various grounds. Here I use the notion of undermining defeat as a way to evaluate the problems Bayesians offers to ... More

The recent rise of dogmatism has been challenged by Bayesian epistemology on various grounds. Here I use the notion of undermining defeat as a way to evaluate the problems Bayesians offers to dogmatism. I identify the target of Bayesian criticisms to be ‘credulism’, which holds that your justification for believing something is vulnerable to being undermined in ways you didn’t need to antecedently rule out. Credulism includes dogmatism and many other contemporary epistemologies. All of them want to say things about undermining that are awkward to represent in Bayesian terms. Having set up the contrast, I critically examine the assumptions necessary to make the case against credulism. Finally, I identify some options for the dogmatist to take which may sidestep the problems raised by Bayesians.Less

Epistemic Modesty Defended 1

David Christensen

in The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays

It has often been noticed that conciliatory views of disagreement are “self-undermining” in a certain way: advocates of such views cannot consistently maintain them when other philosophers disagree. ... More

It has often been noticed that conciliatory views of disagreement are “self-undermining” in a certain way: advocates of such views cannot consistently maintain them when other philosophers disagree. This leads to apparent problems of instability and even inconsistency. Does self-undermining, then, show conciliationism to be untenable? If so, the untenability would extend not only to almost all views of disagreement, but to a wide range of other views supporting what one might call epistemic modesty: roughly, the idea that getting evidence that one has made an epistemic error in arriving at one's opinion may require adjusting that opinion. In this paper David Christensen argues that the phenomenon of self-undermining does not disclose any defect in views mandating epistemic modesty. Instead, it highlights an uncomfortable but natural consequence of reflecting on one's own possible epistemic imperfections, a sort of reflection that tends to cause epistemic ideals to conflict.Less

The crisis of party management

Lewis Minkin

in The Blair Supremacy: A study in the politics of Labour's party management

This chapter addresses the extraordinary sense of crisis that arose around 2000-1 as awareness grew of ‘New Labour’ politics losing public support. Special attention is paid to some of the mistaken ... More

This chapter addresses the extraordinary sense of crisis that arose around 2000-1 as awareness grew of ‘New Labour’ politics losing public support. Special attention is paid to some of the mistaken assumptions and detrimental behaviour of party management, especially the use of party controls to override party and public opinion, and the damage that ‘control freakery’ caused to Blair’s reputation. Also covered here is that the spin on the 2001 election manifesto, about bringing the private sector into the public services, added to deep concern in the PLP and the unions. Later, however, there was a clever deflection of some of this damage through the spin that there had now been ‘the end of control freakery’. Behind it a remarkable success story, uncovered in this chapter, involved extending the rolling coup in ways explained, building a renewed influence of the Leader over the party headquarters, undermining the party influence of other senior leaders particularly Brown and Prescott, and restricting the agreed policy role of the PLP.Less

Evaluation and perspectives

Lewis Minkin

in The Blair Supremacy: A study in the politics of Labour's party management

This chapter evaluates Blair’s form of management in relation to the goals covered in Chapter 4 and a realist’s view of its controlling organisational successes. It is argued here that these ... More

This chapter evaluates Blair’s form of management in relation to the goals covered in Chapter 4 and a realist’s view of its controlling organisational successes. It is argued here that these successes, although considerable, obscure the problems of this form of management involving a variety of faulty judgments, a propensity to self-deceit, and a partial blindness to collateral and consequential damage. It shows this management to be a threat to party cohesion, a major generator of costly pervasive distrust and an encouragement to the very conservatism that ‘New Labour’ sought to overcome. In operation it undermined organisational vitality and grass roots electoral capacity. It was also very costly in terms of the party’s ethical renewal, its reputation and its contribution to confidence in politicians and British political life.Less

Restrained action, 1940–5

Gavin Wilk

in Transatlantic defiance: The militant Irish republican movement in America, 1923-45

The outbreak of the Second World War severely debilitated the transnational networks related to militant republicanism. In Ireland, the Irish Republican Army was outlawed and lengthy internment was ... More

The outbreak of the Second World War severely debilitated the transnational networks related to militant republicanism. In Ireland, the Irish Republican Army was outlawed and lengthy internment was imposed on suspected republicans. In the US, the Clan na Gael was forced to contend with surveillance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation which affected highly influential republicans. This chapter reveals the Clan’s public and underground activities during this highly restrictive period. Also included are details related to the actions undertaken by the US government to infiltrate and undermine the transatlantic republican networks.Less