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18Power, Soft or Deep? An Attempt at Constructive CriticismLas Torres de Lucca. International Journal of Political Philosophy 6 (10): 177-214. 2017.This paper discusses and criticizes Joseph Nye’s account of soft power. First, we set the stage and make some general remarks about the notion of social power. In the main part of this paper we offer a detailed critical discussion of Nye’s conception of soft power. We conclude that it is too unclear and confused to be of much analytical use. However, despite this failure, Nye is aiming at explaining an important but also neglected form of social power: the power to influence the will and not jus…Read more
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551Power, Soft or Deep? An Attempt at Constructive CriticismLas Torres de Lucca: Revista Internacional de Filosofía Política 6 (10): 177-214. 2017.This paper discusses and criticizes Joseph Nye’s account of soft power. First, we set the stage and make some general remarks about the notion of social power. In the main part of this paper we offer a detailed critical discussion of Nye’s conception of soft power. We conclude that it is too unclear and confused to be of much analytical use. However, despite this failure, Nye is aiming at explaining an important but also neglected form of social power: the power to influence the will and not jus…Read more
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219The Case for Contextualism: Knowledge, Skepticism, and Context, Vol. I – Keith DeRosePhilosophical Quarterly 60 (239): 424-427. 2010.A review and discussion of Keith DeRose's "The Case for Contextualism".
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173Was Moore a Moorean? On Moore and ScepticismEuropean Journal of Philosophy 17 (2): 181-200. 2009.One of the most important views in the recent discussion of epistemological scepticism is Neo-Mooreanism. It turns a well-known kind of sceptical argument (the dreaming argument and its different versions) on its head by starting with ordinary knowledge claims and concluding that we know that we are not in a sceptical scenario. This paper argues that George Edward Moore was not a Moorean in this sense. Moore replied to other forms of scepticism than those mostly discussed nowadays. His own anti-…Read more
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23Review of McDowell, John. Mind and World (review)Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 2 (1): 135-144. 1998.Review of McDowell, John. Mind and World.
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25If You Believe, You BelieveLogos and Episteme 8 (4): 389-416. 2017.Can I be wrong about my own beliefs? More precisely: Can I falsely believe that I believe that p? I argue that the answer is negative. This runs against what many philosophers and psychologists have traditionally thought and still think. I use a rather new kind of argument, – one that is based on considerations about Moore's paradox. It shows that if one believes that one believes that p then one believes that p – even though one can believe that p without believing that one believes that p.
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47Is Everything Revisable?Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4. 2017.Over the decades, the claim that everything is revisable (defended by Quine and others) has played an important role in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Some time ago, Katz (1988) argued that this claim is paradoxical. This paper does not discuss this objection but rather argues that the claim of universal revisability allows for two different readings but in each case leads to a contradiction and is false.
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11Davidson on Sharing a Language and Correct Language-UseGrazer Philosophische Studien 52 (1): 137-160. 1996.Donald Davidson has argued against a thesis that is widely shared in the philosophy of language, e.g., by Wittgenstein, Dummett and Kripke: the thesis that successful communication requires that speaker and hearer share a common language. Davidson's arguments, however, are not convincing. Moreover, Davidson's own positive account of communication poses a serious problem: it cannot offer criteria for the correct use of a language, especially in the case of a language that only one speaker speaks.…Read more
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407If You Believe You Believe, You Believe. A Constitutive Account of Knowledge of One’s Own BeliefsLogos and Episteme 389-416. 2017.Can I be wrong about my own beliefs? More precisely: Can I falsely believe that I believe that p? I argue that the answer is negative. This runs against what many philosophers and psychologists have traditionally thought and still think. I use a rather new kind of argument, – one that is based on considerations about Moore's paradox. It shows that if one believes that one believes that p then one believes that p – even though one can believe that p without believing that one believes that p.
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313Is Everything Revisable?Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 4 349-357. 2017.Over the decades, the claim that everything is revisable (defended by Quine and others) has played an important role in Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Some time ago, Katz (1988) argued that this claim is paradoxical. This paper does not discuss this objection but rather argues that the claim of universal revisability allows for two different readings but in each case leads to a contradiction and is false.
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1418Epistemic closureIn Duncan Pritchard & Sven Bernecker (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 597--608. 2011.This article gives an overview over different principles of epistemic closure, their attractions and their problems.
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139Reliabilism—modal, probabilistic or contextualistGrazer Philosophische Studien 79 (1): 77-89. 2009.This paper discusses two versions of reliabilism: modal and probabilistic reliabilism. Modal reliabilism faces the problem of the missing closeness metric for possible worlds while probalistic reliabilism faces the problem of the relevant reference class. Despite the severity of these problems, reliabilism is still very plausible (also for independent reasons). I propose to stick with reliabilism, propose a contextualist (or, alternatively, harmlessly relativist) solution to the above problems a…Read more
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218Involvement and Detachment: A Paradox of Practical ReasoningIn Allen Coates (ed.), Peter Baumann and Monika Betzler, eds., Practical Conflicts, Duke University Press. pp. 244-261. 2007.For each of the many goals of an agent it is true that the agent wants its realization. Given further very plausible assumptions, one can show that there is no good reason for an agent not to want the realization of all of his goals. However, it seems also true that reaching all of one’s goals would be extremely boring; most human beings would consider such a life not worth living. In this respect, leading a life is like playing some game: A game loses its point if one always easily wins. Human …Read more
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277On the Inflation of NecessitiesMetaphysica 13 (1): 51-54. 2012.This brief paper argues that Kripke’s thesis of the necessity of origin has some implausible consequences
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12Die Autonomie der Personmentis. 2000.This book offers a discussion of practical as well as theoretical autonomy.
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61Can reliabilists believe in subjective probability?Philosophical Quarterly 48 (191): 199-200. 1998.According to reliabilist conceptions of knowledge, knowledge implies reliable true belief. Since reliability is an irreducibly probabilistic notion, one's view of knowledge also depends on one's view of probability. If one believes that all probability is subjective probability, knowledge becomes a relativized concept: knowledge is relative to a given body of beliefs of a given person at a given time. Since such a relativized conception of knowledge is extremely implausible and since reliabilism…Read more
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53Mind and World, John McdowellPrincipia: An International Journal of Epistemology 2 (1): 135-144. 1998.A critical discussion of: Mind and World, John Mcdowell
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Zur Entstehung von Herrschaft [comment]Erwägen Wissen Ethik 17 109-11-. 2006.Critical discussion of Maurer's view on power and domination.
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114Is Knowledge Safe?American Philosophical Quarterly 45 (1). 2008.One of the most interesting accounts of knowledge which have been recently proposed is the safety account of knowledge. According to it, one only knows that p if one's true belief that p could not have easily been false: S believes that p ==> p (where "==>" stands for the subjunctive conditional). This paper presents a counter-example and discusses attempts to fix the problem. It turns out that there is a deeper underlying problem which does not allow for a solution that would help the safety th…Read more
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104Theory Choice and the Intransitivity of 'Is a Better Theory Than'Philosophy of Science 72 (1): 231-240. 2005.There is a very plausible principle of the transitivity of justifying reasons. It says that if "p" is better justified than "q" (all things considered) and "q" better than "r", then "p" is better justified than "r" (all things considered). There is a corresponding principle of rational theory choice. Call one theory "a better theory than" another theory if all criteria of theory choice considered (explanatory power, simplicity, empirical adequacy, etc.), the first theory meets the criteria bette…Read more
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Menschenwürde und das Bedürfnis nach RespektIn Ralf Stoecker (ed.), Menschenwürde – Annäherungen an einen Begriff, Öbv&hpt. pp. 19-34. 2003.Human dignity seems very important to us. At the same time, the concept ‘human dignity’ is extraordinarily elusive. A good way to approach the questions “What is it?” and “Why is it important?” is to raise another question first: In virtue of what do human beings have human dignity? Speciesism – the idea that human beings have a particular dignity because they are humans – does not seem very convincing. A better answer says that human beings have dignity because and insofar as they are persons. …Read more
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101Experiencing things together: What is the problem?Erkenntnis 66 (1-2). 2007.Suppose someone hears a loud noise and at the same time sees a yellow flash. It seems hard to deny that the person can experience loudness and yellowness together. However, since loudness is experienced by the auditory sense whereas yellowness is experienced by the visual sense it also seems hard to explain how.
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104The case for contexualismAnalysis 70 (1): 149-160. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation).
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653Knowledge, Practical Reasoning and ActionLogos and Episteme 3 (1): 7-26. 2012.Is knowledge necessary or sufficient or both necessary and sufficient for acceptable practical reasoning and rational action? Several authors (e.g., Williamson, Hawthorne, and Stanley) have recently argued that the answer to these questions is positive. In this paper I present several objections against this view (both in its basic form as well in more developed forms). I also offer a sketch of an alternative view: What matters for the acceptability of practical reasoning in at least many cases …Read more
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496Philosophy Upside Down?Metaphilosophy 44 (5): 579-588. 2013.Philip Kitcher recently argued for a reconstruction in philosophy. According to him, the contemporary mainstream of philosophy has deteriorated into something that is of relevance only to a few specialists who communicate with each other in a language nobody else understands. Kitcher proposes to reconstruct philosophy along two axes: a knowledge axis and a value axis. The present article discusses Kitcher's diagnosis as well as his proposal of a therapy. It argues that there are problems with bo…Read more
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Gibt es Moralische Wahrheiten?In Achim Stephan & Klaus Peter Rippe (eds.), Ethik ohne Dogmen. Aufsätze für Günther Patzig, Mentis. pp. 238-255. 2001.Are there moral truths? Are (at least some) moral statements or beliefs „true“ or „false“ in the sense of a correspondence theory of truth? Are there moral facts that make those statements or beliefs true or false? In this paper I propose an argument against the idea that moral sentences and beliefs have truth-conditions in that sense. The argument focuses on the semantic and epistemic status of those beliefs and sentences. I also argue that all this does not lead to a subjectivist interpretatio…Read more
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25Defending the One Percent?The Harvard Review of Philosophy 21 106-112. 2014.This paper discusses and criticizes Greg Mankiw's recent defense of "the one percent".
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76Necessarily Incompatible Consistent WantsActa Analytica 32 (4): 489-490. 2017.This paper argues that the wants or desires of a person can be consistent with each other and still necessarily incompatible with each other and for interesting reasons. It is argued here that this problem is not rare and that there is no solution in sight.
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Begriffe Analysieren?In Dirk Koppelberg & Stefan Tolksdorf (eds.), Erkenntnistheorie – wie und wozu?, Mentis. pp. 133-151. 2015.This article discusses the very limited definability of philosophically interesting concepts as well as the prospects for the project of conceptual analysis.
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |