•  71
  •  204
    Relativism, truth, and incoherence
    Synthese 68 (2): 225-259. 1986.
    There are many contemporary sources and defenders of epistemological relativism which have not been considered thus far. I have, for example, barely touched on the voluminous literature regarding frameworks, conceptual schemes, and Wittgensteinian forms of life. Davidson's challenge to the scheme/content distinction and thereby to conceptual relativism, Rorty's acceptance of the Davidsonian argument and his use of it to defend a relativistic position, Winchian and other sociological and anthropo…Read more
  •  26
    Book reviews (review)
    with Manfred Kienpointner and Erik C. W. Krabbe
    Argumentation 6 (3): 357-360. 1992.
  •  401
    Justification by balance
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52 (1): 27-46. 1992.
    A critique of reflective equilibrium as an account of epistemic justification
  •  53
    Consideraciones en torno a la pragma-dialéctica
    with Jhon Biro
    Logos: Revista de Lingüística, Filosofía y Literatura 24 (2): 193-201. 2015.
    El presente trabajo complemenJa las referencias a la lengua aut6ctona de los día­ guitas chilenos, en la encrucijada histórica de la conquista hispana en el siglo Xlll, cuya primera parte se publicó en WGOS N 2 l.En este número conJrastamos las hipó­ tesis de don Ricardo Latcham con la crftica de don Jorge /ribarren; se ofrece, aderruís, un suscinJo panorama de la situación lingüística en el noroeste argenJino, y las anota­ ciones espedficamenJe lingüísticas sobre el "cacán" de Antonio Tovar, Ce…Read more
  •  117
    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
  •  396
    What is the question concerning the rationality of science?
    Philosophy of Science 52 (4): 517-537. 1985.
    The traditional views of science as the possessor of a special method, and as the epitome or apex of rationality, have come under severe challenges for a variety of historical, psychological, sociological, political, and philosophical reasons. As a result, many philosophers are either denying science its claim to rationality, or else casting about for a new account of its rationality. In this paper a defense of the traditional view is offered. It is argued that contemporary philosophical discuss…Read more
  •  183
    Beginning with a discussion of the Informal Logic Movement and the renewed interest in critical thinking in education, this book critically assesses the work of Robert Ennis, Richard Paul and John McPeck.
  •  161
    Philosophy of Education (review)
    Teaching Philosophy 20 (1): 83-88. 1997.
  •  189
    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
  •  307
    Recent work in epistemology has focused increasingly on the social dimensions of knowledge and inquiry. Education is one important social arena in which knowledge plays a leading role, and in which knowledge-claims are presented, analyzed, evaluated, and transmitted. Philosophers of education have long attended to the epistemological issues raised by the theory and practice of education . While historically philosophical issues concerning education were treated alongside other philosophical issu…Read more
  •  84
    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.
  •  252
    Penelope MaddySecond Philosophy: A Naturalistic Method (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 61 (4): 897-903. 2010.
    (No abstract is available for this citation)
  •  275
    In this review of Christopher Winch's new book, Education, Autonomy and Critical Thinking (2006), I discuss its main theses, supporting some and criticising others. In particular, I take issue with several of Winch's claims and arguments concerning critical thinking and rationality, and deplore his reliance on what I suggest are problematic strains of the later Wittgenstein. But these criticisms are not such as to upend Winch's powerful critique of antiperfectionism and 'strong autonomy' or his …Read more
  •  106
    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
  •  63
  •  51
    Relativism
    In Ilkka Niiniluoto, Matti Sintonen & Jan Woleński (eds.), Handbook of Epistemology, Kluwer Academic. pp. 747--780. 2004.
  •  42
    How "practical" should philosophy of education be?
    Educational Studies 12 (2): 125-134. 1981.
  •  310
    Truth, Thinking, Testimony and Trust: Alvin Goldman on Epistemology and Education
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 71 (2): 345-366. 2007.
    In his recent work in social epistemology, Alvin Goldman argues that truth is the fundamental epistemic end of education, and that critical thinking is of merely instrumental value with respect to that fundamental end. He also argues that there is a central place for testimony and trust in the classroom, and an educational danger in over‐emphasizing the fostering of students’ critical thinking. In this paper I take issue with these claims, and argue that (1) critical thinking is a fundamental en…Read more
  •  8
    El Pensamiento Crítico Como Un Ideal Educacional
    Logos: Revista de Lingüística, Filosofía y Literatura 23 (2): 272-292. 2013.
    El Pensamiento crítico como un ideal educacional
  •  151
    Objectivity, rationality, incommensurability, and more (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31 (4): 359-375. 1980.
  •  100
    Response to MacKenzie
    Educational Philosophy and Theory 22 (1). 1990.
  •  92
    Justifying conceptual development claims: Response to Van Haaften
    Journal of Philosophy of Education 27 (1). 1993.
    This paper is a response to van Haaften's attempt to build ‘a natural bridge from “is” to “ought”’ and in doing so to provide a general account of how, in developmental theory, a claim that ‘a later stage in conceptual development is somehow better or more adequate than preceding ones’ can itself be justified. The account by van Haaften violates the ‘seems justified/is justified’ distinction and embroils him in a problematic form of relativism. This paper offers an alternative account of such cl…Read more