Matthias Holweger

What is an argument? This foundational question in argumentation research cannot be answered univocally, because ‘argument’ is ambiguous. This paper has two goals. The first is to draw attention to a neglected distinction between two ordinary ‘logical’ senses of the term: an ‘objective’ and a ‘subjective’ one. The second is to define these senses. In the objective sense, an argument for (or against) a certain proposition is a reason for (or against) believing that proposition. In the subjective sense, it is a consideration intended to provide such a reason. After defining these two senses, the paper defends these definitions against several objections. In this connection, I argue, among other things, that conclusions are not internal parts of arguments; that premises and conclusions are not ‘speech acts’; that the subjective sense of ‘argument’ is robust against the charge of relativism; and that considerations can deserve the name ‘argument’ even if they do not provide actual support.

Student relativism (‘SR’) is an umbrella term for ideas expressed in statements like: ‘In philosophy, everyone can have their own opinion,’ ‘What’s true for one person may not be true for another,’ ‘There is no right and wrong,’ ‘That’s an opinion, not a fact.’ At least sometimes, SR appears to question the seriousness or value of philosophy in general or of specific discussions, which is a key reason why many regard it as potentially problematic. This paper presents a complete teaching sequence including ready-to-use worksheets designed to challenge SR. The sequence draws on the existing idea that a promising strategy for dealing with SR is to resolve the various confusions that may underlie it. In addition, it addresses a phenomenon previously neglected in the literature. I call it ‘epistemic cluelessness’ – the state of lacking a clear (and confidence-inspiring) idea of how one could, in principle, determine the truth in a given issue. I hypothesize that, under certain conditions, epistemic cluelessness significantly contributes to the existence of SR, and could therefore play an important role in challenging it.

Some researchers and educators highlight numerous advantages of the Toulmin model that speak in favour of its use in school teaching: it is said to be an easily comprehensible framework with wide applicability, offering valuable support in identifying, presenting, evaluating, and constructing arguments. We begin by showing that these positive assessments are questionable – primarily due to conceptual shortcomings of the model. We then outline an alternative to the Toulmin model which, in our view, is more promising for argumentative practice and is just as easy to teach. We conclude that the Toulmin model should not be used in school teaching to foster the identification, presentation, evaluation, and construction of arguments.

Some philosophical classics are so highly esteemed that they are considered an important, if not indispensable, part of any good school curriculum. However, for all the emphasis placed on the importance of such classics, a fundamental problem is often overlooked that makes teaching them very difficult, if not practically impossible. We call it the “Problem of Critical Interpretive Controversy” (“PCIC”). PCIC occurs when there is a critical controversy about what an author intends to express. In this paper, we illustrate PCIC using the example of Kant’s ethics. In the case of Kant’s ethics, we argue, PCIC is so profound that even the basic features of this theory cannot fruitfully be taught in school, making it an unsuitable subject for school teaching.

A major part of philosophical work is engagement with argumentative texts. Engaging with an argumentative text involves correctly identifying the arguments presented in this text. In the context of teaching philosophy in school, the difficulty of correctly identifying arguments in philosophical texts is often underestimated. In this paper, I focus on one specific problem with argument identification that has been neglected in philosophy didactics thus far: the problem that there are many non-argumentative phenomena in an argumentative text that are easily misinterpreted as (part of) an argument. It is easy to fall for such phenomena if one is not aware of this problem, thereby misinterpreting the author’s intentions. This paper aims to present and discuss such phenomena, as well as to provide guidelines on how to help students recognize them.

Like many other philosophical disciplines, ethics is sometimes highly abstract. And many key notions of the discipline are vague, ambiguous or both. Abstractness, vagueness, and ambiguity invite confusion. My objective in this paper is to draw attention to a serious problem that, despite being widespread, has so far remained largely unrecognized: the confusion of different questions in teaching ethics. This confusion occurs, for example, when a philosopher’s viewpoint is presented as an answer to one question, but in fact, the philosopher is addressing a different question with that viewpoint. In the first part of this paper, I will present and clarify several ethical questions that are often confused, and point out damaging consequences that the confusion of such questions entails. In the second part, I will demonstrate the confusion of ethical questions by drawing attention to cases of confused teaching of Schopenhauer’s ethics. Finally, for those interested, I outline how Schopenhauer’s ethics could be taught without confusion.

That certain paper bills have monetary value, that Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia, and that Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II: such facts are commonly called ‘institutional facts’. IFF are, by definition, facts that exist by virtue of collective recognition. The standard view or tacit belief is that such facts really exist. In this paper we argue, however, that they really do not—they really are just well-established illusions. We confront realism about IFF with six criteria of existence, three established and three less so but highly intuitive. We argue that they all tell against the existence of IFF. An obvious objection to IFF non-realism is that since people’s behaviour clearly reflects the existence of IFF, denying their existence leaves an explanatory gap. We reject this argument by introducing a variant of the so-called ‘Thomas Theorem,’ which says that when people collectively recognize a fact as existing, they largely behave accordingly, regardless of whether that fact really exists or not.

Facts such as the fact that Donald Trump is the US president or the fact that Germany won the 2014 world cup final are commonly referred to as “institutional facts” (“IFF”). I advocate the view that the nature of these facts is comparatively simple: they are facts that exist by virtue of collective recognition (CR), where CR can be direct or indirect. The leading account of IFF, that of John Searle, basically conforms with this definition. However, in his writings Searle has considered or defended several other conditions as potentially necessary for the existence of IFF. In particular, he has considered whether (a) IFF necessarily involve deontic powers, (b) IFF are necessarily so-called “status functions”, (c) IFF require speech acts of Declaring for their existence, (d) IFF require language for their existence. Each of these considerations, if valid, would seem to render the nature of IFF less simple. In this paper, I argue that none of these considerations stand up to scrutiny. Being unaware of any other serious considerations of this kind, I conclude that the nature of IFF is simple as captured by my definition. There is a respect, however, in which my view is possibly less simple than Searle’s, for he suggests that CR is always direct, and never indirect. I reject this suggestion. Indeed, I think that most of the facts existing by virtue of CR exist by virtue of indirect CR. Some authors have (or at least might be construed as having) objected that CR is not even necessary for the existence of IFF. I argue that the account defended here is immune to these objections.