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7Experiencing 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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65Philosophy 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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80Necessarily 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.
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3Coercion and the Varieties of Free ActionIdeas Y Valores 52 (122): 31-49. 2003.Are we free? What does "freedom" mean here? In the following, I shall only focus with freedom of action. My main thesis is that there is not just one basic type of free action but more. Philosophers, however, tend to assume that there is just one way to act freely. Hence, a more detailed analysis of free action is being called for. I will distinguish between different kinds of free action and discuss the relations between them. The analysis of different types of coercion will lead to a different…Read more
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1Schmutzige Hände? Zum Verhältnis von Moral und PolitikLogos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 7 187-215. 2001.According to the idea of "dirty hands in politics" politicians sometimes have to do what is morally wrong. I discuss the two main versions of this thesis: the "difference-thesis" and the "dilemma-thesis". I argue that there are no convincing arguments for neither of them. Politics, too, lies inside the scope of morality.
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8Knowledge and DogmatismPhilosophical Quarterly 63 (250): 1-19. 2013.There is a sceptical puzzle according to which knowledge appears to license an unacceptable kind of dogmatism. Here is a version of the corresponding sceptical argument: (1) If a subject S knows a proposition p, then it is OK for S to ignore all evidence against p as misleading; (2) It is never OK for any subject to ignore any evidence against their beliefs as misleading; (3) Hence, nobody knows anything.I distinguish between different versions of the puzzle (mainly a ‘permissibility’ version an…Read more
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16WAMs: Why Worry?Philosophical Papers 40 (2). 2011.Abstract One of the most popular objections against epistemic contextualism is the so-called ?warranted assertability? objection. The objection is based on the possibility of a ?warranted assertability manoeuvre?, also known as a WAM. I argue here that WAMs are of very limited scope and importance. An important class of cases cannot be dealt with by WAMs. No analogue of WAMs is available for these cases. One should thus not take WAMs too seriously in the debate about epistemic contextualism.
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Motivationsmacht - die ethische Herausforderung an die MächtigenIn Ulrich Arnswald & Jens Kertscher (eds.), Die Autonomie des Politischen und die Instrumentalisierung der Ethik, Manutius. pp. 127-147. 2002.A discussion of the ethical problems posed by a form of social power which is directed at other persons' volitional attitudes.
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253Information, Closure, And Knowledge: On Jäger’s Objection To DretskeErkenntnis 64 (3): 403-408. 2006.Christoph Jäger (2004) argues that Dretske's information theory of knowledge raises a serious problem for his denial of closure of knowledge under known entailment: Information is closed under known entailment (even under entailment simpliciter); given that Dretske explains the concept of knowledge in terms of "information", it is hard to stick with his denial of closure for knowledge. Thus, one of the two basic claims of Dretske would have to go. Since giving up the denial of closure would comm…Read more
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12 sides of the Kantian justification of property and stateKant Studien 85 (2): 147-159. 1994.Kant's political philosophy in general is characterized by two aspects which sometimes compete with each other and sometimes supplement each other: an individualist element on the one hand and a social or "communitarian" element on the other hand. This paper deals with Kant's theory of private property. It attempts to show something that is usually overlooked in the secondary literature: that Kant has two, not just one argument for property. One is based on his theory of freedom and expresses th…Read more
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Im Auge des Betrachters. Über Wissen, Rechtfertigung und KontextIn Thomas Grundmann (ed.), Erkenntnistheorie. Positionen zwischen Tradition und Gegenwart, Mentis. pp. 72-89. 2001.Defense of a contextualist (in a very broad sense of the term) view of knowledge.
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80Epistemic Contextualism: A DefenseOxford University Press UK. 2016.Peter Baumann develops and defends a distinctive version of epistemic contextualism, the view that the truth conditions or the meaning of knowledge attributions of the form "S knows that p" can vary with the context of the attributor. The first part of the book examines arguments for contextualism and develops Baumann's version. It begins by dealing with the argument from cases and ordinary usage, and then addresses "theoretical" arguments, from reliability and from luck. The second part of the …Read more
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8On the Subtleties of Reidian Pragmatism: A Reply to MagnusJournal of Scottish Philosophy 2 (1): 73-77. 2004.In this paper I respond to P.D. Magnus’ critique of an earlier paper of mine on Thomas Reid’s theory of common sense. In the earlier paper (The Scottish Pragmatist? The Dilemma of Common Sense and the Pragmatist Way Out, Reid Studies 2, 1999, 47-57) I argued that Reid faces a dilemma between dogmatism and scepticism but that there are also hints in his work towards a pragmatist way out of the problem. P.D. Magnus, in a response to this paper (Reid’s Dilemma and the Uses of Pragmatism, Journal of…Read more
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Die Motive des Gehorsams bei Max Weber: eine RekonstruktionZeitschrift für Soziologie 22 355-370. 1993.This article is concerned with a central but neglected aspect of Weber's theory of authority: the distinction between different motives of obedience. Weber's list of motives of "Fügsamkeit" raises an important problem: it seems to be incoherent. Since Weber was a very systematic author this is rather astonishing. More important: this problem questions the special status of the belief in legitimacy and the important role this belief in supporting and stabilizing authority. In other words, the pro…Read more
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217Contrastivism Rather than Something Else? On the Limits of Epistemic ContrastivismErkenntnis 69 (2): 189-200. 2008.One of the most recent trends in epistemology is contrastivism. It can be characterized as the thesis that knowledge is a ternary relation between a subject, a proposition known and a contrast proposition. According to contrastivism, knowledge attributions have the form “S knows that p, rather than q”. In this paper I raise several problems for contrastivism: it lacks plausibility for many cases of knowledge, is too relaxed concerning the third relatum, and overlooks a further relativity of the …Read more
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202IntroductionIn Peter Baumann (ed.), Epistemic Contextualism: A Defense, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 1-5. 2016.Introduction to and overview over my book "Epistemic Contextualism. A Defense" (OUP 2016)
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5The Wittgenstein ArchivePhilosophy Now 58 26-27. 2006.Something in the way of a parody of iconography...
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7906“Part of that force that always wills the evil and always produces the good”. On a Devilish IncoherenceS.Ph. Essays and Explorations 1 (2): 25-33. 2016.This paper analyzes and discusses Mephisto's famous remark in Goethe's FAUST. It turns out that he is being incoherent in interesting ways.
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2Influencing the Will of Another PersonSocial Philosophy Today 12 25-40. 1996.Social power does not just consist in an actor's ability to use sticks or carrots (negative or positive sanctions) in order to influence other persons. There is also a much more subtle and less "visible" form of power which consists in the ability to influence the underlying preferences and goals of a person. The main task of this paper is to analyze this important and hidden form of social power.
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13Three Doors, Two Players, and Single-Case ProbabilitiesAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 42 (1). 2005.The well known Monty Hall-problem has a clear solution if one deals with a long enough series of individual games. However, the situation is different if one switches to probabilities in a single case. This paper presents an argument for Monty Hall situations with two players (not just one, as is usual). It leads to a quite general conclusion: One cannot apply probabilistic considerations (for or against any of the strategies) to isolated single cases. If one does that, one cannot but violate a …Read more
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3Kant's Two Perspectives on PropertyIn Justyna Miklaszewska & Przemyslaw Sprysak (eds.), Kant and the Problem of the Contemporary World / Kant Wobec Problemów Wspólczesnego Swiata, . pp. 121-128. 2006.Kant's political philosophy in general is characterized by two aspects which sometimes compete with each other and sometimes supplement each other: an individualist element on the one hand and a social or "communitarian" element on the other hand. This paper deals with Kant's theory of private property. It attempts to show something that is usually overlooked in the secondary literature: that Kant has two, not just one argument for property. One is based on his theory of freedom and expresses th…Read more
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12Factivity and contextualismAnalysis 70 (1): 82-89. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation).
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Gettier, Wissen, ZufallIn Gerhard Ernst & Lisa Marani (eds.), Das Gettierproblem. Eine Bilanz nach 50 Jahren, Mentis. pp. 9-27. 2013.This is a discussion of the Gettier problem and its relation to epistemic luck.
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17Epistemologische Aspekte in Kants MoralphilosophieIn Ralph Schumacher, Rolf-Peter Horstmann & Volker Gerhardt (eds.), Kant Und Die Berliner Aufklärung: Akten des Ix. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Bd. I: Hauptvorträge. Bd. Ii: Sektionen I-V. Bd. Iii: Sektionen Vi-X: Bd. Iv: Sektionen Xi-Xiv. Bd. V: Sektionen Xv-Xviii, De Gruyter. pp. 3-12. 2001.This paper discusses the close and complicated relation between 3 dimensions of Kant's theory of the pure will: the epistemological aspect (morality is a priori), the motivational aspect (moral motivation is free of sensual inclinations), the content-aspect (the categorical imperative as the supreme moral principle). Kant runs these 3 aspects together at times and it is necessary to consider them as independent parts of a complex theory.
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19No Luck With Knowledge? On a Dogma of EpistemologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (3): 523-551. 2012.Current epistemological orthodoxy has it that knowledge is incompatible with luck. More precisely: Knowledge is incompatible with epistemic luck . This is often treated as a truism which is not even in need of argumentative support. In this paper, I argue that there is lucky knowledge. In the first part, I use an intuitive and not very developed notion of luck to show that there are cases of knowledge which are “lucky” in that sense. In the second part, I look at philosophical conceptions of luc…Read more
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 |