“Putting the linguistic method in its place”: Mackie’s distinction between conceptual and factual analysis

Early in his career and in critical engagement with ordinary language philosophy, John Mackie developed the roots of a methodology that would be fundamental to his thinking: Mackie argues that we need to clearly separate the conceptual analysis which determines the meaning of an ordinary term and the factual analysis which is concerned with the question what, if anything, our language corresponds to in the world. I discuss how Mackie came to develop this distinction and how central ideas of his philosophy are based on it. Using the examples of Mackie’s moral skepticism and his work on Locke’s theory of perception I show how his methodology opens the door to error theories but can also support more positive claims. Finally, I put Mackie’s methodology in a historical perspective and argue that in cases like the Gettier debate, we can use it to cast light on the vagueness of the underlying methodology in some philosophical debates

The Basis-Access Dilemma for Epistemological Disjunctivism

Epistemological disjunctivists such as Duncan Pritchard claim that in paradigmatic cases of knowledge the rational support for the known propositions is both factive and reflectively accessible. This position faces some problems, including the basis problem – how can our knowledge be based on such strong reasons that seem to leave no room for non-knowledge and therefore presuppose knowledge? – and the access problem – can disjunctivists avoid the implausible claim that we can achieve knowledge through inference from our introspective awareness of those reasons? I argue that disjunctivists cannot solve both of these problems at the same time by posing the dilemma question whether we can have factive and reflectively accessible reasons without knowledge. While I focus on Pritchard throughout most of the paper, I argue in the last section that other anti-skeptical versions of disjunctivism face the same dilemma

Three things to do with knowledge ascriptions

Any good theory of knowledge ascriptions should explain and predict our judgments about their felicity. I argue that any such explanation must take into account a distinction between three ways of using knowledge ascriptions: to suggest acceptance of the embedded proposition, to explain or predict a subject's behavior or attitudes, or to understand the relation of knowledge as such. The contextual effects on our judgments about felicity systematically differ between these three types of uses. Using such a distinction is, in principle, open to both contextualist and pragmatic invariantist accounts of knowledge ascriptions. However, there are some implications pertaining to the use of the “method of cases” in the debate about knowledge ascriptions

Knowledge and cancelability

Keith DeRose and Stewart Cohen object to the fallibilist strand of pragmatic invariantism regarding knowledge ascriptions that it is committed to non-cancelable pragmatic implications. I show that this objection points us to an asymmetry about which aspects of the conveyed content of knowledge ascriptions can be canceled: we can cancel those aspects that ascribe a lesser epistemic standing to the subject but not those that ascribe a better or perfect epistemic standing. This situation supports the infallibilist strand of pragmatic invariantism according to which knowledge semantically requires absolute certainty but this claim is often pragmatically weakened: it turns out that exactly those aspects of the conveyed content are cancelable that this view claims are pragmatic. I also argue that attributor contextualism and relativism do not have an alternative explanation of this phenomenon

Exploring the academic invisible web

Purpose: To provide a critical review of Bergman's 2001 study on the Deep Web. In addition, we bring a new concept into the discussion, the Academic Invisible Web (AIW). We define the Academic Invisible Web as consisting of all databases and collections relevant to academia but not searchable by the general-purpose internet search engines. Indexing this part of the Invisible Web is central to scientific search engines. We provide an overview of approaches followed thus far. Design/methodology/approach: Discussion of measures and calculations, estimation based on informetric laws. Literature review on approaches for uncovering information from the Invisible Web. Findings: Bergman's size estimate of the Invisible Web is highly questionable. We demonstrate some major errors in the conceptual design of the Bergman paper. A new (raw) size estimate is given. Research limitations/implications: The precision of our estimate is limited due to a small sample size and lack of reliable data. Practical implications: We can show that no single library alone will be able to index the Academic Invisible Web. We suggest collaboration to accomplish this task. Originality/value: Provides library managers and those interested in developing academic search engines with data on the size and attributes of the Academic Invisible Web.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

The body, the gaze and the theorist: remarks on a strategic distinction

While emotions have become a relevant, even fashionable topic in Anglo-American geography in recent years, German-speaking scholars are more reluctant to take on board the lessons of emotional and sensual perception. This reluctance became especially obvious in 2001, when the German-speaking realm witnessed an unusually fierce debate over the value of the aesthetic for the discipline’s system of thought. While the protagonists of emotional and aesthetic thinking celebrated an increasing significance of the ‘softer’ and more bodily aspects of knowledge, the antagonists criticized what they regard as a return to the traditional paradigm of Landschaftsgeographie and its conservative ideology. While fully sympathetic to the critique of an allegedly aesthetic ‘geomantic geography’, this paper demonstrates that considering questions of aesthetics does not necessarily imply a revitalization of ancient paradigms, but can lead instead to a challenging of formerly taken-for-granted epistemological foundations. To achieve this goal, this paper summarizes the German debate, highlighting the antagonists’ distinction between a cognitive and scientific realm, on the one hand, and an aesthetic, pre-scientific or everyday realm, on the other. The deconstruction of this distinction leads to a more complex notion of the relations between aesthetic and cognitive spheres, or between the body and the gaze. The acknowledgement of this complexity can, in turn, be regarded as a point of departure for ways of thinking between the body and the gaze. Broadening the perspective towards such an in-between point of view does not only reveal certain absences within the dominant approaches to German-speaking geography, but provides a critical appraisal of some lines of argument within the Anglo-American preoccupation with the emotions

Was Heisst "Sich Vorstellen, Eine Andere Person zu Sein"?

Talking about “being another person”, many different things may be meant. I make use of Wollheim’s distinction between three different modes of imagination and invoke four different kinds of possible content of what may be imagined. In effect, I aim at a hopefully complete overview of the possible imaginative projects of “imagining being another person”. I try to keep an eye on the role of numerical identity in each case

E(nhanced)-research and the future role and tasks of research libraries

Ettekanne TÜ raamatukogus Saksa-Eesti akadeemilise nädala Academica raames 04.11.2008

Journal digitalisation in Europe

Diaporama d\u27une intervention au 32e congrès LIBER qui s\u27est tenu à Rome du 17 au 20 juin 2003. Un état des lieux de la numérisation des périodiques en Europe : intérêt et attractivité de ce type de documentation, rôle des bibliothèques, programmes de numérisation en cours, problèmes de droit d\u27auteur et droits voisins, problèmes techniques