STORRE Community: This community contains the ePrints and eTheses produced by Law and Philosophy staff and students.
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/10
This community contains the ePrints and eTheses produced by Law and Philosophy staff and students.2024-03-24T00:15:14ZScience Denial, Cognitive Command and the Theory-Ladenness of Observation: A Postscript for a Time of ‘Post-Truth’
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35861
Title: Science Denial, Cognitive Command and the Theory-Ladenness of Observation: A Postscript for a Time of ‘Post-Truth’
Author(s): Wright, Crispin
Abstract: One worrying aspect of contemporary Western Society is the increasing prevalence of instances of ‘Science Denial’ in popular culture. Examples include both cases where well-attested scientific hypotheses are rejected and conversely, where scientifically discredited ideas are stubbornly retained. The paper raises the question whether the kind of argument for an anti-realist conception of empirical scientific theory considered in my contribution to the inaugural issue of this journal could in principle provide intellectual succour for these trends. The discussion proceeds through an examination of the role of ‘takings for granted’ in all reflective enquiry to the conclusion that a trusting acceptance of the general credibility of informants is a precondition for the exercise of individual epistemic responsibility, and that in that context an acceptance of at least the empirical adequacy, if not the truth, realistically understood, of the teachings of scientists in general is rationally non-optional.2024-01-22T00:00:00ZKripke, Quine, the 'Adoption Problem' and the Empirical Conception of Logic
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35857
Title: Kripke, Quine, the 'Adoption Problem' and the Empirical Conception of Logic
Author(s): Boghossian, Paul; Wright, Crispin
Abstract: Recently, there has been a significant upsurge of interest in what has come to be known as the 'Adoption Problem', first developed by Saul Kripke in 1974. The problem purports to raise a difficulty for Quine’s anti-exceptionalist conception of logic. In what follows, we first offer a statement of the problem and argue that, so understood, it depends upon natural but resistible assumptions. We then use that discussion as a springboard for developing a different adoption problem, arguing that, for a significant class of basic logical principles, there is indeed a difficulty in seeing how they might be ‘freely adopted,’ thereby vindicating something close to the spirit of Kripke’s original claim. This first part of our argument will enforce a significant qualification of Quine’s claim that basic logical principles can be empirically confirmed. In the concluding sections of the paper, we turn to the question, specifically, of the empirical revisability of logic, arguing that when proper attention is paid to the role of reasoning in theory revision, it does indeed emerge that anti-exceptionalism, in full generality, is untenable.2024-01-01T00:00:00ZModality
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35854
Title: Modality
Author(s): Roca Royes, Sonia
Abstract: Modality is a vast phenomenon. In fact, it is arguably a plurality of phenomena. Within it, one type of modality warrants distinctive interest in philosophy and, in particular, in metaphysics. In view of this, this Element has a first part devoted to modality as a general phenomenon, where different types of modalities are distinguished, and where the question of unification is raised. Following this, the second part is focused on metaphysical modality: the type of modality that is of distinctive interest in metaphysics, and thus for the series of this Element. In this second part, the overarching question is about the source of metaphysical modality, and the discussion here informs back, and is informed by, the question of unification from the first part. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.2023-01-01T00:00:00ZScots law, 16- and 17-year-olds and the UNCRC: balancing autonomy and protection
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/35852
Title: Scots law, 16- and 17-year-olds and the UNCRC: balancing autonomy and protection
Author(s): Kirk, Tracy