Mark Richard in his book offers a new and challenging expressivist theory of the use and semantics of slurs (pejoratives). The paper argues that in contrast, the central and standard uses of slurs are cognitive.
COBISS.SI-ID: 18726920
Aristotle's famous dictum is that the answer to »Why is it?«, which states a cause, and the answer to the »What is it?«, which states an essence, are identical. The purpose of this article is to discuss a problem related to the beginning of the second book of the Posterior Analytics, where Aristotle develops his theory of four types of questions that guide any scientific inquiry. He says that we can ask (a) whether a subject is qualified by some predicate (89b26), or (b) why some subject is qualified by some predicate (89b30), or (c) whether some subject is (89b32), or (d) what some subject is (89b34-5). These fourfold taxonomy of questions refers to the objects »that it is« (to hoti), »why it is« (to dioti), »whether it is« (to ei estin) and »what it is« (to ti estin). Aristotle seems to have different strategies to combine them into pairs: it seems that (a) and (c) are unified in the question where there is a middle term (meson), and (b) and (d) are unified in the question what the appropriate middle term is. I argue that »whether it is« is primarily existential, but has many other qualifications, which are probably inconsistent with the basic intention of this type of questioning, for example in the case of »particular« (epi merous) or »unqualified« (haplos) cases.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33108269
What is informal logic, is it “logic” at all? Main contemporary approaches are briefly presented and critically commented. If the notion of consequence is at the heart of logic, does it make sense to speak about “informal” consequence? According to the prevalent criteria of informal logic an argument is cogent if and only if (i) its premises are rationally Acceptable, (ii) its premises are Relevant to its conclusion and (iii) its premises constitute Grounds adequate for accepting the conclusion (the “ARG” conditions according to Govier). The ARG criteria characterize a certain broad kind of consequence relation. We do not (in general) have truth preservence in cogent arguments but if the premises are acceptable and other criteria are met, then so is the conclusion. We can speak about form in a loose sense and finally, there is rational necessity of the grounding or support relation. So a certain broad notion o f logical consequence emerges from this comparison. The norms of ARG are norms of elementary scientific methodology in which argument is seen as embodying reasoning within a process of inquiry or of belief formation in subject areas accessible to every informed intellectual.
COBISS.SI-ID: 18851592