Alessandro Moscaritolo

In this paper, I bring into dialogue a movement in Latin American social and political philosophy – which I have named Latin American and Latine Liberatory Philosophy – and a Western, or more precisely global North, philosophical movement sometimes called Ordinary Language Philosophy. By ‘Latin American and Latine Liberatory Philosophy’, I refer to a movement, adumbrated at the dawn of the 19th century and developed during the 20th century, whose guiding theme is the political, social, and cultural liberation of Latin America (and global South peoples more generally). By ‘Ordinary Language Philosophy’, on the other hand, I refer to a movement, adumbrated at Oxford at the turn of the 20th century and developed by J.L. Austin and his epigones after the Second World War, whose guiding theme is the idea that ordinary speech ought to be the starting point of philosophy. After examining some main characteristics of each of these movements, I will argue that, for all their differences, they share an important similarity: namely, both of them advocate for, and apply, a socio-historically situated philosophical method. I will conclude by gesturing at the ways in which these movements can supplement each other.

In this paper, I bring into dialogue a movement in Latin American social and political philosophy – which I have named Latin American and Latine Liberatory Philosophy – and a Western, or more precisely global North, philosophical movement sometimes called Ordinary Language Philosophy. By ‘Latin American and Latine Liberatory Philosophy’, I refer to a movement, adumbrated at the dawn of the 19th century and developed during the 20th century, whose guiding theme is the political, social, and cultural liberation of Latin America (and global South peoples more generally). By ‘Ordinary Language Philosophy’, on the other hand, I refer to a movement, adumbrated at Oxford at the turn of the 20th century and developed by J.L. Austin and his epigones after the Second World War, whose guiding theme is the idea that ordinary speech ought to be the starting point of philosophy. After examining some main characteristics of each of these movements, I will argue that, for all their differences, they share an important similarity: namely, both of them advocate for, and apply, a socio-historically situated philosophical method. I will conclude by gesturing at the ways in which these movements can supplement each other.

In this chapter, we explore how to manage student errors in non-traditional philosophy classrooms—where student learning and autonomy are prioritized. We examine the benefits and drawbacks of two models for managing student errors: (1) the philosophical expertise model, whereby instructors are responsible for maximizing the number of true or reasonable claims made in a classroom, including correcting student errors; and (2) the student empowerment model, whereby instructors should be wary of any kind of correction, since more importance is accorded to student autonomy.

This paper’s aim is to help winnow out some ideas about the role of formal logic in human doings at large. I start by discussing some metaphysical presuppositions of logical theory; specifically, I attempt to work towards a clearer understanding of the role of modalities, together with the notions of meaning and truth, in mainstream logical theory. I then appeal to a modal formal semantics (Brandom, 2007a) in order to outline the cognitive role of logical constants in general. From these discussions I conclude that any view of formal logic, and its core concepts, which does not involve a grasp of what we do with them will be found to be distorted.