Ladislav Koren | University of Hradec Králové (original) (raw)
2022 - today: Associate professor (docent) at Department of philosophy and social sciences, Philosophical Faculty of the University of Hradec Králové
2016/2017: Aktion habilitation fellowship, host institute: Department of philosophy of the University of Vienna
2018-2019: Vice-Dean for Science and Research, Philosophical Faculty of the University of Hradec Králové
2014 - 2018: Chair of the Department of philosophy and social sciences, Philosophical Faculty of the University of Hradec Králové
2013 - 2017: Member of the Department of Logic, Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (part-time)
2013: Alexander-von-Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship, host institute: Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy (LMU University)
2004-2011: PhD. in philosophy at the Department of philosophy and religious studies, Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. Thesis: Truth and Meaning: The Dialectics of Theory and Practice (submitted 3/2011, graduated 9/2011)
1999-2004: Undergraduate study of philosophy at the Department of philosophy and religious studies, Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. Thesis: Knowledge and Belief (submitted 8/2004, graduated 10/2004)
1998-1999: Undergraduate study of philosophy at the Department of philosophy of the University of Vienna.
Research grants (principal investigator and participation in grants):
2017-2019:
Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality (PI), a three-year grant awarded by the Czech Science Grant Agency. This is a joint project with the University of Vienna (PI: Hans Bernhard Schmid) co-founded by FWF.
Man as a Normative Creature (co-proposer and coordinator of the project, PI: Jaroslav Peregrin), a three-year grant for excellence in research awarded by the University of Hradec Králové.
2013-2017:
Participation in a five-year research grant "Povaha normativity – ontologie, sémantika, logika" (The nature of the normative – ontology, semantics, logic) supported by Czech Science Foundation (as a member of the research team; Department of Logic of the Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).
2012 – 2014:
Principal investigator: a three-year postdoctoral research grant "Certainties and the sceptical problem" supported by Czech Science Foundation (Faculty of Arts of the University of Hradec Králové).
2009– 2012:
Participation in a three-year research grant "Člověk jako normativní tvor"(Man as a normative being) from Czech Science Foundation (as a member of the research team; Faculty of Arts of the University of Hradec Králové).
2007–2008:
Principal investigator: a two-year postdoctoral research grant "Pravda, význam a základy sémantické teorie" (Truth, Meaning and the Foundations of Semantics supported by Grant Agency of Charles University in Prague (GAUK)
2005-2007:
Participation in a three year project "Doctoral Center for Foundations of Semantics and Representation of Knowledge" supported by Czech Science Foundation (as a member of the team)
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Papers by Ladislav Koren
Biology and Philosophy, 2024
This study critically reflects and assesses a recent debate over the nature of uniquely human cog... more This study critically reflects and assesses a recent debate over the nature of uniquely human cognition. The two standpoints in this debate are advocated by Michael Tomasello and Henrike Moll. Both agree that shared intentionality is a key difference-maker, affording qualitatively new mental processes that support new forms of cooperative sociality and cumulative culture and thoroughly transform human cognition. But Moll argues that Tomasello is infirm in his commitment to the transformative impact of shared intentionality on human cognition, flirting with a conflicting, additive account of shared intentionality as making a key difference only in the social domain. On her own view, human-unique social development innervated by human-unique forms of shared intentionality makes a difference across the board, and all the way down. This, we are told, is a reason not only to reject additive accounts, but to accept cognitive discontinuity across the board. Having reconstructed the two standpoints, I argue that Tomasello develops a consistently transformative approach immune to most objections leveled by Moll and in key respects more modest and plausible than her own alternative proposal. And I draw from this debate some general methodological lessons for theorizing about the nature and scope of human-unique cognition.
Routledge Handbook of Mindshaping
A number of theorists have recently proposed to illuminate distinctively human social-cognitive a... more A number of theorists have recently proposed to illuminate distinctively human social-cognitive accomplishments, including linguistic and folk-psychological practices, in terms of “mindshaping,” “mindmaking,” or “regulative” functions and mechanisms (McGeer, 2007, 2015, 2020; Zawidzki, 2008, 2013). This chapter draws on this idea and shows that it nicely applies to human reason-giving practices, which enable justificatory and self-regulative functions that fit well with the proposal that human minds are shaped to conform to shared discursive and folk-psychological norms.
Why and How We Ask for and Give Reasons, 2024
This chapter serves to introduce the topic of human practices and skills for giving and asking fo... more This chapter serves to introduce the topic of human practices and skills for giving and asking for reasons, particularly emphasizing and justifying its current importance. To this end, it first situates the topic in a larger context of pertinent “big ideas” - past and present, philosophical and scientific - that serve to frame - anticipate, intimate or stimulate - the key themes that continue to be explored today, including in the present volume. Based on this, then, it details how the essays in this volume develop those themes.
Why and How We Give and Ask for Reasons, 2024
This chapter explores the relation between two capacities whose development enables the kind of s... more This chapter explores the relation between two capacities whose development enables the kind of self-conscious thinking that we humans are capable of. (1) We can assess our judgements with a view to whether they get things right. (2) We can also assess them with a view to reasons for or against them. A common view seems to be that (1) is more basic and makes (2) possible. Michael Tomasello's recent account of their ontogeny seems to lean towards this view. I articulate three considerations that, taken together, suggest a more symmetrical account: namely, any grip on thoughts as objectively correct always already involves some grip on them as located in a space of reasons. On the view I urge, a basic grip on both correctness and reasons is embodied in discursive abilities, and both of these grips co-develop from simpler, pre-reflective forms towards increasingly complex, reflective forms of understanding.
In their own way, inferentialists and interactionists both trace the roots of reflective reasonin... more In their own way, inferentialists and interactionists both trace the roots of reflective reasoning to practices and skills for making, assessing and responding to public performances in communicative practices of giving and asking for reasons. Inferentialists have developed the idea mostly on conceptual grounds. Interactionists ask, in a more empirical spirit, why and how such practices and skills might have evolved. Thus they promise complementary "anthropological" insights of foremost interest to inferentialists. But interactionist theories advance a number of controversial claims that deserve careful scrutiny. In this essay I focus on one such claim: namely that confirmation bias can be plausibly explained as a design feature that promotes postulated functions of interactive reasoning. And I argue that each of three extant proposals fails to make the claim good.
In: Groups, Norms and Practices Essays on Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality. Koreň L., Schmid H.B., Stovall P., Townsend L. (eds). Groups, Norms and Practices. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 13. Cham: Springer, 2021
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_7 One of the main tenets of inferentialism is that reasoning is p... more DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_7
One of the main tenets of inferentialism is that reasoning is primarily a competence to play the social game of giving and asking for reasons. A rather similar idea has recently been elaborated from the naturalistic perspective by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. They argue that reasoning evolved originally and primarily for the purposes of social justification and argumentation. In this chapter I compare the inferentialist account of reasoning with the approach of Mercier and
Sperber. I argue that although Mercier-Sperber’s naturalistic hypothesis is promising, their account of how reasoning works faces a number of philosophical objections that inferentialism has the resources to overcome. At the same time, I show that “naturalized” inferentialists could find congenial much of what Mercier and Sperber have to say about the social origins and functions of reasoning. Finally, I
consider a different naturalistic account of the social nature of reasoning due to Michael Tomasello, who submits that reasoning evolved primarily for cooperative argumentation and joint or collective decision-making. I argue that Tomasello’s account may go too far in the collectivist tradition and I conclude that a more plausible
naturalistic account of the sociality of human reasoning would likely recognize a mix of different social contexts and functions of reasoning.
In: Groups, Norms and Practices Essays on Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality. Koreň L., Schmid H.B., Stovall P., Townsend L. (eds.). Groups, Norms and Practices. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 13. Cham: Springer. Springer, 2021
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_1 Inferentialism and theories of collective intentionality are t... more DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_1
Inferentialism and theories of collective intentionality are two important strands in the current philosophical research. Each tradition recognizes the crucial
role that collective norms and practices play in human lives; and each maintains that
social attitudes or activities of sorts underlie them. But they have been barely confronted
in the literature up to now. This volume brings together new essays, which
tackle the issue at hand from different angles, often drawing on and comparing the
core ideas developed in each approach. This introductory chapter provides a basic
theoretical background and map of the terrain explored by the essays included in
the volume.
Keywords Inferentialism
In: Social Institution of Discursive Norms. Routledge. Eds. Leo Townsend. Hans Bernhard Schmid, Preston Stovall, 2021
So-called dialectical approaches offer an attractive account of assertions as embedded in a large... more So-called dialectical approaches offer an attractive account of assertions as embedded in a larger norm-governed practice of reasoned discourse. But their proponents have rarely asked about what function such a practice could have fulfilled in the lives of human beings that could explain why those beings could have elaborated it. In this chapter I address this challenge by reconstructing a pragmatic genealogy of assertoric practice and its intimate relation to reasoned discourse. Taking inspiration from the recent “state of nature epistemology,” I describe a discursive state of nature inhabited by simple yet already sociable human beings who stand to benefit from coordination, cooperation and communication. I then reconsider why and how creatures could be under pressure to elaborate a communicative practice with the characteristic features that prominent dialectical accounts attribute to assertions. Finally, I show how that account can accommodate a number of characteristic features - social, normative, epistemic - that assertions might be claimed to have.
Inquiry, 2019
Over the last decade, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have elaborated an influential naturalistic ac... more Over the last decade, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have elaborated an influential naturalistic account of human reasoning. Their distinctive hypothesis is that its adaptive rationale-and primary function-is to produce and assess reasons in interpersonal justification and argumentation. In this paper I argue, first, that their characterization of reasoning as based on metarepresentations threatens to oversophisticate reasoning and faces the problem of vicious regress. Second, I argue that they owe us a coherent account of the cognitive role of reasons in reasoning.
Philosophica et Historica 2/2007, Miscellanea Logica (VIII), Foundations of Logic, 2010
"From Rules to Meanings. New Essays on Inferentialism". Edited by O. Beran, V. Kolman, L. Koreň. To appear 2017/18
According to the expressive conception of logic propounded by inferentialists, logical devices ex... more According to the expressive conception of logic propounded by inferentialists, logical devices explicate — rather than shape — material-inferential articulation of the contents of nonlogical vocabulary. I elaborate a challenge to this account of logic and its relation to prelogical discourse. I presume that inferentialists are committed to the view that full-fledged conceptual contents materialize in discursive practices of giving and asking for reasons governed by socially articulated inferential norms instituting a dimension of correctness. To establish such norm-governed practices, I submit, practitioners must be able to make it sufficiently manifest to one another what inferentially articulated commitments they undertake and attribute, and hence what utterances and inferential moves they endorse or reject. Approaching this issue in the spirit of a conjectural genealogy, I argue the following: without some expressive (broadly logical) tools for bringing it into the open that something is endorsed (or rejected) as a reason for (or against) something else, prelogical communicative practices could be in key pragmatic respects too ambiguous across practitioners-interpreters to provide for norms governing practices of giving and asking for reasons, hence constituting propositional contents. Having these conjectural considerations in place, I finally discuss its ramifications for the explicitating role of logic.
V monografii A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge, Mass. HUP 2016) rozpracoval Michael... more V monografii A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge, Mass. HUP 2016) rozpracoval Michael Tomasello originální teorii evoluce morálky. Morálka je podle něj specificky lidská forma spolupráce podpořená specifickými psychologickými procesy. Jeho cílem je popsat tyto dispozice a vysvětlit, jak a proč se mohly vyvinout v průběhu antropogeneze z rudimentárnější morálky soucitu. V první části této recenzní stati popíšeme, jak si Tomasello tento proces představuje. Ve druhé části zaměříme kritickou pozornost na některé kontroverzní body jeho výkladu.
V monografii Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin argumentuje, že inferenčné pravi... more V monografii Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin argumentuje, že inferenčné pravidlá konštituujú sémantickú štruktúru jazyka. V predchádzajúcej stati som predstavil a zhodnotil filozofické aspekty jeho teórie jazyka a významu. V tejto stati sa zameriam na koncepciu logiky, ktorú Peregrin rozpracoval v druhej časti knihy.
V knihe Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin predstavuje inferencializmus ako filo... more V knihe Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin predstavuje inferencializmus ako filozofický smer, ktorý systematicky odpovedá na klasickú otázku: Čo je význam? V tejto stati predstavím a zhodnotím kľúčové argumenty Peregrinovej koncepcie jazyka a významu. V nasledujúcej stati sa podrobnejšie zameriam na Peregrinovu inferencialistickú koncepciu logiky.
According to the shared intentionality hypothesis proposed by Michael Tomasello, two cognitive up... more According to the shared intentionality hypothesis proposed by Michael Tomasello, two cognitive upgrades — joint
and collective intentionality respectively — make human thinking unique. Joint intentionality is supposed to account
for our early and species-specific capacity to think, reason and act in cooperative ways. To elucidate its mechanisms
Tomasello draws on standard philosophical accounts of shared or collective intentionality. I argue that appealing to
such cognitively demanding accounts is problematic, if his ambition is, among other things, to show that and how
prelinguistic capacities for joint action contribute to the development of higher cognitive capacities such as fullblooded
mindreading.
This concluding study devoted to quantificational accounts of consequence and related logical pro... more This concluding study devoted to quantificational accounts of consequence and related logical properties deals with the model-theoretic account (MTA). In response to objections questioning its intuitive adequacy, it is argued that MTA does not aim to analyse “the” alleged intuitive notion of consequence, but aims to formally reconstruct one specific semantic account, according to which valid arguments preserve truth in virtue of their logico-semantic structure and irrespectively of particular semantic values of the non-logical vocabulary. So conceived, MTA is arguably superior to any other quantificational account, being based on a principled account of the semantic structure and the specific contribution of logical elements to it.
This study provides a critical appraisal of Duncan Pritchard’s (2012) argument to the effect that... more This study provides a critical appraisal of Duncan Pritchard’s (2012) argument to the effect that ability to preserve certain eminently plausible transmission and/or closure principles for knowledge serves as a powerful adequacy test on alternative accounts of so-called Wittgensteinian certainties or hinge commitments. I argue that Pritchard fails to establish this claim and that the transmission test does not favor his favorite conception over alternative conceptions premised on the idea that hinge commitments are not supportable via evidential-cognitive routes.
This study focuses on the problem of trust-based cooperation in social dilemmas as discussed in r... more This study focuses on the problem of trust-based cooperation in social dilemmas as discussed in recent behavioral and experimental economics and game theory. Some pertinent experimental evidence will first be presented to the effect that a sizeable proportion of human population consists of conditional cooperators disposed to cooperate with others on the condition that others are willing to cooperate too ― monitoring, assessing and manipulating for this purpose intentions and beliefs of social partners. Second, it will be argued that framing of social exchanges via social norms modulates trust-reciprocity relations, playing a vital role in coordinating intentions and beliefs of conditional cooperators. Third, I put this together in explaining how this approach allows us to explicate many trust-reciprocity based social exchanges as reasonable.
Quantificational accounts of logical consequence account for it in terms of truth-preservation in... more Quantificational accounts of logical consequence account for it in terms of truth-preservation in all cases – be it admissible substitutional variants or interpretations with respect to non-logical terms. In this second of my three connected studies devoted to the quantificational tradition, I set out to reconstruct the seminal contributions of Russell, Carnap, Tarski and Quine and evaluate them vis-à-vis some of the most pressing objections. This study also prepares the ground for my discussion of the standard model-theoretic account of consequence to be found in the concluding study.
This study aims to articulate and compare the structure, presuppositions and implications of two ... more This study aims to articulate and compare the structure, presuppositions and implications of two paradigmatic sceptical arguments, i.e. arguments from underdetermination of scientific theories by observational data (UA) and Cartesian-style arguments (CA) invoking sceptical scenarios of severe cognitive dislocation. Although salient analogies between them may prompt one to think that a unified diagnosis of what is amiss with them is called for, it will be argued that this may be a false hope, if those analogies do not underwrite a complete homology. That said, possible parallels of one promising anti-sceptical exposure of CA are pointed out for the case of UA, which conspire together to render the problem of underdetermination less threatening than it could at first appear.
Biology and Philosophy, 2024
This study critically reflects and assesses a recent debate over the nature of uniquely human cog... more This study critically reflects and assesses a recent debate over the nature of uniquely human cognition. The two standpoints in this debate are advocated by Michael Tomasello and Henrike Moll. Both agree that shared intentionality is a key difference-maker, affording qualitatively new mental processes that support new forms of cooperative sociality and cumulative culture and thoroughly transform human cognition. But Moll argues that Tomasello is infirm in his commitment to the transformative impact of shared intentionality on human cognition, flirting with a conflicting, additive account of shared intentionality as making a key difference only in the social domain. On her own view, human-unique social development innervated by human-unique forms of shared intentionality makes a difference across the board, and all the way down. This, we are told, is a reason not only to reject additive accounts, but to accept cognitive discontinuity across the board. Having reconstructed the two standpoints, I argue that Tomasello develops a consistently transformative approach immune to most objections leveled by Moll and in key respects more modest and plausible than her own alternative proposal. And I draw from this debate some general methodological lessons for theorizing about the nature and scope of human-unique cognition.
Routledge Handbook of Mindshaping
A number of theorists have recently proposed to illuminate distinctively human social-cognitive a... more A number of theorists have recently proposed to illuminate distinctively human social-cognitive accomplishments, including linguistic and folk-psychological practices, in terms of “mindshaping,” “mindmaking,” or “regulative” functions and mechanisms (McGeer, 2007, 2015, 2020; Zawidzki, 2008, 2013). This chapter draws on this idea and shows that it nicely applies to human reason-giving practices, which enable justificatory and self-regulative functions that fit well with the proposal that human minds are shaped to conform to shared discursive and folk-psychological norms.
Why and How We Ask for and Give Reasons, 2024
This chapter serves to introduce the topic of human practices and skills for giving and asking fo... more This chapter serves to introduce the topic of human practices and skills for giving and asking for reasons, particularly emphasizing and justifying its current importance. To this end, it first situates the topic in a larger context of pertinent “big ideas” - past and present, philosophical and scientific - that serve to frame - anticipate, intimate or stimulate - the key themes that continue to be explored today, including in the present volume. Based on this, then, it details how the essays in this volume develop those themes.
Why and How We Give and Ask for Reasons, 2024
This chapter explores the relation between two capacities whose development enables the kind of s... more This chapter explores the relation between two capacities whose development enables the kind of self-conscious thinking that we humans are capable of. (1) We can assess our judgements with a view to whether they get things right. (2) We can also assess them with a view to reasons for or against them. A common view seems to be that (1) is more basic and makes (2) possible. Michael Tomasello's recent account of their ontogeny seems to lean towards this view. I articulate three considerations that, taken together, suggest a more symmetrical account: namely, any grip on thoughts as objectively correct always already involves some grip on them as located in a space of reasons. On the view I urge, a basic grip on both correctness and reasons is embodied in discursive abilities, and both of these grips co-develop from simpler, pre-reflective forms towards increasingly complex, reflective forms of understanding.
In their own way, inferentialists and interactionists both trace the roots of reflective reasonin... more In their own way, inferentialists and interactionists both trace the roots of reflective reasoning to practices and skills for making, assessing and responding to public performances in communicative practices of giving and asking for reasons. Inferentialists have developed the idea mostly on conceptual grounds. Interactionists ask, in a more empirical spirit, why and how such practices and skills might have evolved. Thus they promise complementary "anthropological" insights of foremost interest to inferentialists. But interactionist theories advance a number of controversial claims that deserve careful scrutiny. In this essay I focus on one such claim: namely that confirmation bias can be plausibly explained as a design feature that promotes postulated functions of interactive reasoning. And I argue that each of three extant proposals fails to make the claim good.
In: Groups, Norms and Practices Essays on Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality. Koreň L., Schmid H.B., Stovall P., Townsend L. (eds). Groups, Norms and Practices. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 13. Cham: Springer, 2021
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_7 One of the main tenets of inferentialism is that reasoning is p... more DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_7
One of the main tenets of inferentialism is that reasoning is primarily a competence to play the social game of giving and asking for reasons. A rather similar idea has recently been elaborated from the naturalistic perspective by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. They argue that reasoning evolved originally and primarily for the purposes of social justification and argumentation. In this chapter I compare the inferentialist account of reasoning with the approach of Mercier and
Sperber. I argue that although Mercier-Sperber’s naturalistic hypothesis is promising, their account of how reasoning works faces a number of philosophical objections that inferentialism has the resources to overcome. At the same time, I show that “naturalized” inferentialists could find congenial much of what Mercier and Sperber have to say about the social origins and functions of reasoning. Finally, I
consider a different naturalistic account of the social nature of reasoning due to Michael Tomasello, who submits that reasoning evolved primarily for cooperative argumentation and joint or collective decision-making. I argue that Tomasello’s account may go too far in the collectivist tradition and I conclude that a more plausible
naturalistic account of the sociality of human reasoning would likely recognize a mix of different social contexts and functions of reasoning.
In: Groups, Norms and Practices Essays on Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality. Koreň L., Schmid H.B., Stovall P., Townsend L. (eds.). Groups, Norms and Practices. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 13. Cham: Springer. Springer, 2021
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_1 Inferentialism and theories of collective intentionality are t... more DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-49590-9_1
Inferentialism and theories of collective intentionality are two important strands in the current philosophical research. Each tradition recognizes the crucial
role that collective norms and practices play in human lives; and each maintains that
social attitudes or activities of sorts underlie them. But they have been barely confronted
in the literature up to now. This volume brings together new essays, which
tackle the issue at hand from different angles, often drawing on and comparing the
core ideas developed in each approach. This introductory chapter provides a basic
theoretical background and map of the terrain explored by the essays included in
the volume.
Keywords Inferentialism
In: Social Institution of Discursive Norms. Routledge. Eds. Leo Townsend. Hans Bernhard Schmid, Preston Stovall, 2021
So-called dialectical approaches offer an attractive account of assertions as embedded in a large... more So-called dialectical approaches offer an attractive account of assertions as embedded in a larger norm-governed practice of reasoned discourse. But their proponents have rarely asked about what function such a practice could have fulfilled in the lives of human beings that could explain why those beings could have elaborated it. In this chapter I address this challenge by reconstructing a pragmatic genealogy of assertoric practice and its intimate relation to reasoned discourse. Taking inspiration from the recent “state of nature epistemology,” I describe a discursive state of nature inhabited by simple yet already sociable human beings who stand to benefit from coordination, cooperation and communication. I then reconsider why and how creatures could be under pressure to elaborate a communicative practice with the characteristic features that prominent dialectical accounts attribute to assertions. Finally, I show how that account can accommodate a number of characteristic features - social, normative, epistemic - that assertions might be claimed to have.
Inquiry, 2019
Over the last decade, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have elaborated an influential naturalistic ac... more Over the last decade, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber have elaborated an influential naturalistic account of human reasoning. Their distinctive hypothesis is that its adaptive rationale-and primary function-is to produce and assess reasons in interpersonal justification and argumentation. In this paper I argue, first, that their characterization of reasoning as based on metarepresentations threatens to oversophisticate reasoning and faces the problem of vicious regress. Second, I argue that they owe us a coherent account of the cognitive role of reasons in reasoning.
Philosophica et Historica 2/2007, Miscellanea Logica (VIII), Foundations of Logic, 2010
"From Rules to Meanings. New Essays on Inferentialism". Edited by O. Beran, V. Kolman, L. Koreň. To appear 2017/18
According to the expressive conception of logic propounded by inferentialists, logical devices ex... more According to the expressive conception of logic propounded by inferentialists, logical devices explicate — rather than shape — material-inferential articulation of the contents of nonlogical vocabulary. I elaborate a challenge to this account of logic and its relation to prelogical discourse. I presume that inferentialists are committed to the view that full-fledged conceptual contents materialize in discursive practices of giving and asking for reasons governed by socially articulated inferential norms instituting a dimension of correctness. To establish such norm-governed practices, I submit, practitioners must be able to make it sufficiently manifest to one another what inferentially articulated commitments they undertake and attribute, and hence what utterances and inferential moves they endorse or reject. Approaching this issue in the spirit of a conjectural genealogy, I argue the following: without some expressive (broadly logical) tools for bringing it into the open that something is endorsed (or rejected) as a reason for (or against) something else, prelogical communicative practices could be in key pragmatic respects too ambiguous across practitioners-interpreters to provide for norms governing practices of giving and asking for reasons, hence constituting propositional contents. Having these conjectural considerations in place, I finally discuss its ramifications for the explicitating role of logic.
V monografii A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge, Mass. HUP 2016) rozpracoval Michael... more V monografii A Natural History of Human Morality (Cambridge, Mass. HUP 2016) rozpracoval Michael Tomasello originální teorii evoluce morálky. Morálka je podle něj specificky lidská forma spolupráce podpořená specifickými psychologickými procesy. Jeho cílem je popsat tyto dispozice a vysvětlit, jak a proč se mohly vyvinout v průběhu antropogeneze z rudimentárnější morálky soucitu. V první části této recenzní stati popíšeme, jak si Tomasello tento proces představuje. Ve druhé části zaměříme kritickou pozornost na některé kontroverzní body jeho výkladu.
V monografii Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin argumentuje, že inferenčné pravi... more V monografii Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin argumentuje, že inferenčné pravidlá konštituujú sémantickú štruktúru jazyka. V predchádzajúcej stati som predstavil a zhodnotil filozofické aspekty jeho teórie jazyka a významu. V tejto stati sa zameriam na koncepciu logiky, ktorú Peregrin rozpracoval v druhej časti knihy.
V knihe Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin predstavuje inferencializmus ako filo... more V knihe Inferentialism: Why Rules Matter Jaroslav Peregrin predstavuje inferencializmus ako filozofický smer, ktorý systematicky odpovedá na klasickú otázku: Čo je význam? V tejto stati predstavím a zhodnotím kľúčové argumenty Peregrinovej koncepcie jazyka a významu. V nasledujúcej stati sa podrobnejšie zameriam na Peregrinovu inferencialistickú koncepciu logiky.
According to the shared intentionality hypothesis proposed by Michael Tomasello, two cognitive up... more According to the shared intentionality hypothesis proposed by Michael Tomasello, two cognitive upgrades — joint
and collective intentionality respectively — make human thinking unique. Joint intentionality is supposed to account
for our early and species-specific capacity to think, reason and act in cooperative ways. To elucidate its mechanisms
Tomasello draws on standard philosophical accounts of shared or collective intentionality. I argue that appealing to
such cognitively demanding accounts is problematic, if his ambition is, among other things, to show that and how
prelinguistic capacities for joint action contribute to the development of higher cognitive capacities such as fullblooded
mindreading.
This concluding study devoted to quantificational accounts of consequence and related logical pro... more This concluding study devoted to quantificational accounts of consequence and related logical properties deals with the model-theoretic account (MTA). In response to objections questioning its intuitive adequacy, it is argued that MTA does not aim to analyse “the” alleged intuitive notion of consequence, but aims to formally reconstruct one specific semantic account, according to which valid arguments preserve truth in virtue of their logico-semantic structure and irrespectively of particular semantic values of the non-logical vocabulary. So conceived, MTA is arguably superior to any other quantificational account, being based on a principled account of the semantic structure and the specific contribution of logical elements to it.
This study provides a critical appraisal of Duncan Pritchard’s (2012) argument to the effect that... more This study provides a critical appraisal of Duncan Pritchard’s (2012) argument to the effect that ability to preserve certain eminently plausible transmission and/or closure principles for knowledge serves as a powerful adequacy test on alternative accounts of so-called Wittgensteinian certainties or hinge commitments. I argue that Pritchard fails to establish this claim and that the transmission test does not favor his favorite conception over alternative conceptions premised on the idea that hinge commitments are not supportable via evidential-cognitive routes.
This study focuses on the problem of trust-based cooperation in social dilemmas as discussed in r... more This study focuses on the problem of trust-based cooperation in social dilemmas as discussed in recent behavioral and experimental economics and game theory. Some pertinent experimental evidence will first be presented to the effect that a sizeable proportion of human population consists of conditional cooperators disposed to cooperate with others on the condition that others are willing to cooperate too ― monitoring, assessing and manipulating for this purpose intentions and beliefs of social partners. Second, it will be argued that framing of social exchanges via social norms modulates trust-reciprocity relations, playing a vital role in coordinating intentions and beliefs of conditional cooperators. Third, I put this together in explaining how this approach allows us to explicate many trust-reciprocity based social exchanges as reasonable.
Quantificational accounts of logical consequence account for it in terms of truth-preservation in... more Quantificational accounts of logical consequence account for it in terms of truth-preservation in all cases – be it admissible substitutional variants or interpretations with respect to non-logical terms. In this second of my three connected studies devoted to the quantificational tradition, I set out to reconstruct the seminal contributions of Russell, Carnap, Tarski and Quine and evaluate them vis-à-vis some of the most pressing objections. This study also prepares the ground for my discussion of the standard model-theoretic account of consequence to be found in the concluding study.
This study aims to articulate and compare the structure, presuppositions and implications of two ... more This study aims to articulate and compare the structure, presuppositions and implications of two paradigmatic sceptical arguments, i.e. arguments from underdetermination of scientific theories by observational data (UA) and Cartesian-style arguments (CA) invoking sceptical scenarios of severe cognitive dislocation. Although salient analogies between them may prompt one to think that a unified diagnosis of what is amiss with them is called for, it will be argued that this may be a false hope, if those analogies do not underwrite a complete homology. That said, possible parallels of one promising anti-sceptical exposure of CA are pointed out for the case of UA, which conspire together to render the problem of underdetermination less threatening than it could at first appear.
Inferentialism is a philosophical approach premised on the claim that an item of language (or tho... more Inferentialism is a philosophical approach premised on the claim that an item of language (or thought) acquires meaning (or content) in virtue of being embedded in an intricate set of social practices normatively governed by a special sort of rules—inferential rules. Over the last two decades, inferentialism has established itself as one of the leading research programs in the philosophy of language and also, increasingly,
in the philosophy of logic. Though it has grown into a vigorous and ramified branch of philosophical thinking, contemporary inferentialism is only rarely presented in a more systematic and comprehensive manner that explores its diversity. The book fills this lacuna by bringing together new essays on inferentialism that develop, compare, and assess, but also critically react to some of the most pertinent recent trends that would appeal to a wider philosophical readership. Its core chapters have been written by distinguished philosophers contributing to the research in the field.
Practices of Reason Fusing the Inferentialist and Scientific Image. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2021
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This book offers new insights into the nature of human rational capacities by engaging inferentialism with empirical research in the cognitive sciences.
Inferentialism advocates that humans’ unique kind of intelligence is discursive and rooted in competencies to make, assess and justify claims. This approach provides a rich source of valuable insights into the nature of our rational capacities, but it is underdeveloped in important respects. For example, little attempt has been made to assess inferentialism considering relevant scientific research on human communication, cognition or reasoning. By engaging philosophical and scientific approaches in a productive dialogue, this book shows how we can better understand human rational capacities by comparing their respective strengths and weaknesses. In this vein, the author critically revisits and constructively develops central themes from the work of Robert Brandom and other "language rationalists": the nature of the assertoric practice and its connection to reasoned discourse, the linguistic constitution of the shared space of reasons, the social nature and function of reasoning, the intersubjective roots of social-normative practices and the nature of objective thought.
Practices of Reason will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and philosophy of logic.
Groups, Norms and Practices. Essays on Inferentialism and Collective Intentionality. Eds. Ladislav KoreňHans Bernhard Schmid, Preston Stovall, Leo Townsend. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality.Springer, Cham., 2021
This edited volume examines the relationship between collective intentionality and inferential th... more This edited volume examines the relationship between collective intentionality and inferential theories of meaning. The book consists of three main sections. The first part contains essays demonstrating how researchers working on inferentialism and collective intentionality can learn from one another. The essays in the second part examine the dimensions along which philosophical and empirical research on human reasoning and collective intentionality can benefit from more cross-pollination. The final part consists of essays that offer a closer examination of themes from inferentialism and collective intentionality that arise in the work of Wilfrid Sellars.
Groups, Norms and Practices provides a template for continuing an interdisciplinary program in philosophy and the sciences that aims to deepen our understanding of human rationality, language use, and sociality.