Methods Conference Paper Abstracts

Talking Animals: Fact or Fiction? (Irma Bektic)

In “Truth in Fiction,” David Lewis regards fiction as storytelling and if a story is re-told word for word by a person other than the original storyteller, then this re-telling constitutes a different fiction. With this notion of fiction in hand, Lewis goes on to argue for his account of truth in fiction. I argue that there exist works of writing that are not accounted for by Lewis’ notion of fiction and therefore it is difficult to apply Lewis’ account of truth in fiction to these works. While Lewis’ account of truth in fiction may be correct, it is not universally applicable and so he needs to adjust his notion of fiction to accommodate works he would presumably take to be fiction that are not accounted for by his current notion of fiction.

Is Just War Theory Justifiable?: an evaluation of just war theory and its usefullness (Lacie Horak)

Some of the greatest philosophical minds have pondered and supported a just war theory as a method for evaluating and justifying war. Today, just war theory and its principles are used to help judge and restrain war; just war theory has been instrumental in forming the United Nations and its international sanctions against warfare, terrorism, and genocide. However, just war theory remains one of the most controversial theories and is still hotly debated amongst scholars. In this paper, I will evaluate just war theory, and some criticisms raised against it by Laurie Calhoun in her article, " The Metaethical Paradox of Just War Theory". Also, I will discuss and evaluate possible alternatives to just war theory, with the intention of proving its usefulness as a restraint in warfare.

An Analysis of Williams' Solution to Moore's Paradox (Asad Hussain)

Moore's Paradox remains an unsolved philosophical problem. An example of a sentence that demonstrates this paradox, which was first proposed by G.E. Moore, is: "It is raining, but I do not believe that it is raining." Such statements are problematic because they seem intuitively to be absurd, yet can still be true.In my paper, I focus on an attempt to solve the problem by John N. Williams. Williams argues that statements of Moore's paradox cannot be justifiably believed because such a belief will lead to a contradiction. I examine objections to Williams' solution by Hamid Vahid and John Brueckner. Finally, I conclude that Brueckner's conclusion is stronger than he may have originally believed because it raises a problem for all solutions to Moore's Paradox based upon justified belief.

Heidegger's Contradiction Concerning Embodiment in Being and Time (Philip Opsasnik)

Martin Heidegger’s 1927 publication, Being and Time, is one of the more influential philosophical works of the twentieth century. While the veracity and profundity of Being and Time has received an immense amount of attention, there are numerous philosophers who have endeavored to argue that it contains various flaws and weaknesses. In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger takes up ontology after an elongated lapse from the examination of being, to offer a new project. Heidegger’s ontological account of Dasein is founded on notions that reject subject-object dichotomy and considerations of Dasein’s physicality. This paper examines the construction of Heidegger’s ontological system, with an evaluation of Heidegger’s new conceptual constructions that diverge from previous ontological pursuits in philosophy.

Arguing in Vicious Circles: On Limiting the Role of Circularity in Effective Arguments (Korine Powers)

There is an instinctive urge to dismiss circular arguments as unjustifiable. Does this assumption force us to ignore possible exceptions to this rule? In this paper I differentiate a circular argument from a “viciously” or inevitably circular argument, and explain why inevitably circular arguments are problematic. I then discuss and refute several articles that argue for effectiveness of inevitably circular arguments. Finally, I suggest that the majority of the seemingly justifiable circular arguments in the articles I reference are the result of miswritten non-circular arguments.

Rational Belief and Paradoxes (Jan Willem van den Bos)

“I went to the pictures last Tuesday, but I don’t believe I did” is an absurd but logically consistent conjunction. It fits the model of a typical G.E. ‘Moore’s Paradox’: ‘p & I don’t believe that p’. The problem is that no person can rationally believe in the truth of a typical Moore conjunction. In this paper I show that there is a way to rationally believe in the truth of both conjuncts of a paradoxical conjunctive statement, but that this is impossible in the case of Moore’s paradox. To argue for this I make use of Richard Moran’s view on rationality and John Searle’s theory of beliefs to demonstrate that it would be truly absurd to sincerely assert Moore’s paradox. Another paradox, one that does lead to the possibility of rational belief in the truth of both conjuncts of a paradoxical conjunctive statement, is known as the ‘Paradox of the Prefaces’, and was introduced by D.L. Makinson. The Paradox of the Prefaces is, unlike Moore’s paradox, a rationally believable but logically inconsistent conjunction.