•  77
    Farewell to Feyerabend
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 32 (3). 1989.
    It is with some trepidation that I offer this critical review of Feyerabend's new book. I do not relish the prospect of getting involved in one of the nasty little fights Feyerabend picks with those who criticize his work. Nevertheless, Feyerabend's work cries out for critical attention. Of particular interest is the degree to which this new work deepens or enhances Feyerabend's earlier castigations of Reason. Fans of Feyerabend will be disappointed to learn that Feyerabend's philosophy is not d…Read more
  •  76
    Laudan's normative naturalism
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 21 (2): 295-313. 1990.
    Unlike more standard non-normative naturalizations of epistemology and philosophy of science, Larry Laudan's naturalized philosophy of science explicitly maintains a normative dimension. This paper critically assesses Laudan's normative naturalism. After summarizing Laudan's position, the paper examines (1) Laudan's construal of methodological rules as 'instrumentalities' connecting methodological means and cognitive ends; (2) Laudan's instrumental conception of scientific rationality; (3) Lauda…Read more
  •  73
    Tarski a Relativist?
    Analysis 45 (2). 1985.
  •  67
    Epistemological relativism in its latest form
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 23 (1). 1980.
    Gerald Doppelt's recent ?Kuhn's Epistemological Relativism: An Interpretation and Defense? (Inquiry, Vol. 21 [1978], pp. 33?86) offers a reconstruction of Thomas Kuhn's views concerning theory choice in science in which Kuhn's ?incommensurability thesis?, and his epistemological relativism, are defended. It is argued that Doppelt's reconstruction fails to provide an adequate defense, and that both Kuhn's incommensurability thesis, and his epistemological relativism, as reconstructed by Doppelt, …Read more
  •  65
    Goodmanian Relativism
    The Monist 67 (3): 359-375. 1984.
    Nelson Goodman’s work is universally regarded as pioneering and fundamental, and his attempts to clarify the nature of induction, symbol systems, art, theorizing and understanding have received and continue to receive great attention. Central to that work is a view Goodman describes as “radically relativist.” Goodman’s unusual brand of relativism, however, while basic to the entire Goodman corpus, has yet to be carefully delineated and studied. I hope in this paper to begin such a study. I will …Read more
  •  65
    How should we think about the interrelationships that obtain among Philosophy, Education, and Culture? In this paper I explore the contours of one such interrelationship: namely, the way in which educational and (other) philosophical ideals transcend individual cultures. I do so by considering the contemporary educational and philosophical commitment to multiculturalism. Consideration of multiculturalism, I argue, reveals important aspects of the character of both educational and philosophical i…Read more
  •  64
    Objectivity, rationality, incommensurability, and more (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31 (4): 359-375. 1980.
  •  64
    Is confirmation differential?
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 40 (1): 105-119. 1989.
  •  61
    The generalizability of critical thinking
    Educational Philosophy and Theory 23 (1). 1991.
  •  61
    Virtue epistemology is among the dominant influences in mainstream epistemology today. An important commitment of one strand of virtue epistemology – responsibilist virtue epistemology – is that it must provide regulative normative guidance for good thinking. Recently, a number of virtue epistemologists have held that virtue epistemology not only can provide regulative normative guidance, but moreover that we should reconceive the primary epistemic aim of all education as the inculcation of the …Read more
  •  56
    Gimme That Old-Time Enlightenment Meta-Narrative
    Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 11 (4): 1-1. 1993.
  •  56
    A major virtue of the Pragma-Dialectical theory of argumentation is its commitment to reasonableness and rationality as central criteria of argumentative quality. However, the account of these key notions offered by the originators of this theory, Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst, seems to us problematic in several respects. In what follows we criticize that account and suggest an alternative, offered elsewhere, that seems to us to be both independently preferable and more in keeping with …Read more
  •  47
    Is it irrational to be immoral? A response to Freeman
    Educational Philosophy and Theory 10 (2). 1978.
  •  45
    Dangerous dualisms or murky monism? A reply to Jim Garrison
    Journal of Philosophy of Education 35 (4). 2001.
    Jim Garrison’s recent criticisms of what he refers to as ‘dangerous dualisms’ in my theory of critical thinking are unsuccessful. They fail, in large part, because of misinterpretations of my view, but also because of Garrison’s systematic reliance on problematic aspects of Dewey’s terminology and philosophy.
  •  45
    Garssen and van Laar in effect concede our main criticism of the pragma-dialectical approach. The criticism is that the conclusions of arguments can be ‘P-D reasonable’ yet patently unreasonable, epistemically speaking. The concession consists in the claim that the theory “remains restricted to the investigation of standpoints in the light of particular sets of starting points” which are “up to individual disputants to create” and the admission that all the relevant terms of normative appraisal …Read more
  •  38
    Connie Missimer (1990) challenges what she calls the Character View, according to which critical thinking involves both skill and character, and argues for a rival conception-the Skill View-according to which critical thinking is a matter of skill alone. In this paper I criticize the Skill View and defend the Character View from Missimer's critical arguments
  •  38
    Rationality and Judgment
    Metaphilosophy 35 (5): 597-613. 2004.
    Philosophical/epistemic theories of rationality differ over the role of judgment in rational argumentation. According to the “classical model” of rationality, rational justification is a matter of conformity with explicit rules or principles. Critics of the classical model, such as Harold Brown and Trudy Govier, argue that the model is subject to insuperable difficulties. They propose, instead, that rationality be understood, ultimately, in terms of judgment rather than rules. In this article I …Read more
  •  37
  •  37
    The limits of A Priori philosophy
    Studies in Philosophy and Education 11 (3): 265-284. 1992.
  •  36
    'Radical' pedagogy requires 'conservative' epistemology
    Journal of Philosophy of Education 29 (1). 1995.
    Many defences of multiculturalist educational initiatives conjoin a‘liberal’ or ‘radical’ moral/political view—that education should endeavour to treat students with respect, and that respecting non-dominant,‘marginalised’ students requires protecting them from the hegemonic domination of the dominant culture—with what appears to be an equally radical epistemological view, according to which respecting minority students and cultures requires respecting their culturally specific epistemologies, w…Read more
  •  35
    Philosophy of Science Naturalized? Some Problems with Giere's Naturalism
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 20 (3): 365. 1989.
    The main thesis is that the study of science must itself be a science. the only viable philosophy of science is a naturalized philosophy of science
  •  34
    Advocates of naturalized epistemology who wish to secure epistemology’s normativity want that normativity to be restricted to instrumental concerns, because these can be understood naturalistically. But epistemic normativity cannot be so limited; a ‘categorical’ sort of normativity must be acknowledged. Naturalism can neither account for nor do away with this sort of normativity. Hence naturalism is at best a seriously incomplete and therefore inadequate meta-epistemological position.
  •  32