I am interested in indeterminacy in law, fake news, the norms of public debate, and the teaching of argumentative and epistemic skills in school and university.
In this chapter legal utterances are analysed as being typically normative, directed toward futur... more In this chapter legal utterances are analysed as being typically normative, directed toward future events, addressed to heterogeneous audiences, and applied in a wide variety of circumstances.It argues that these features of legal language are decisive for the use of linguistic indeterminacy in law, and that they are exemplified in three paradigmatic kinds of legal utterances: the enactment of laws, rendering of verdicts, and formation of contracts. It also examines the plausibility of the communication theory of law as basis for an account of legal indeterminacy. More importantly, it identifies indeterminacy on the level of legal content. This specially legal form of indeterminacy is not only due to gaps and contradictions, but also theoretical and meta-interpretive disagreement. In particular, theoretical disagreement in legal practice renders linguistic indeterminacy (including semantic vagueness) less relevant than suggested by the debate on vagueness in law.
Indeterminacy in legal texts is pervasive.At the same time, there is a widespread misunderstandin... more Indeterminacy in legal texts is pervasive.At the same time, there is a widespread misunderstanding about what indeterminacy is - especially in the law. Legal texts are particularly interesting insofar as they address a heterogeneous audience, are applied in a variety of unforeseeable circumstances and must, at the same time, lay down clear and unambiguous standards.Sometimes they fail to do so, either by accident or by intention.While many have claimed that indeterminacy facilitates flexibility and can be strategically used, few have even recognized that there are more forms of indeterminacy than vagueness and ambiguity. A comprehensive account of legal indeterminacy is called for. This book is a contribution to lift the puzzle about the role of indeterminacy in in the law andaims to answer three, related, questions. First, what are the sources of indeterminacy in law? Second, what effects do the different forms of indeterminacy have? Third, how can and should they be intentionally ...
Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin überein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiw... more Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin überein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiwertigkeit der klassischen Logik auch im Angesicht des Sorites-Paradoxes beibehalten werden kann. In der vorliegenden Arbeit zeige ich auf, warum die epistemische Theorie zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. Dabei unterziehe ich die Ansätze von James Cargile, Richmond Campbell, Roy Sorensen und Timothy Williamson einer ausführlichen kritischen Analyse. Einerseits widerlege ich die konkreten Argumente für die Annahme des Epistemizismus und untersuche andererseits die Implikationen daraus für Theorien der Wahrheit, Bezugnahme und Bedeutung. Das deutliche Ergebnis der Analyse besteht in der Konklusion, dass die epistemische Theorie philosophisch unhaltbar ist.
This chapter shows why defining “fake news” is worthwhile and what a suitable definition of “fake... more This chapter shows why defining “fake news” is worthwhile and what a suitable definition of “fake news” might look like. It begins by introducing the authors’ definition of “fake news” (§2) and employs it to set fake news apart from related phenomena that are often conflated with it (§3). It then extracts seven potential dimensions of the concept of fake news from the literature (§4) and compares the most representative definitions that have been proposed so far along those dimensions (§5). The chapter’s primary aims are (i) to enable a systematic evaluation of prevalent definitions with respect to their extensional scope, practical utility, and conceptual transparency, (ii) to demonstrate that there is more widespread agreement than one would think at the outset, and (iii) to show (in §6) that defining “fake news” is not only far from futile, but of vital importance to confront the epistemic threats posed by fake news.
Few philosophers today embrace quantitative hedonism, which states that a person’s well-being dep... more Few philosophers today embrace quantitative hedonism, which states that a person’s well-being depends only on the amount of her experienced happiness and suffering. Despite recent attempts to rehabilitate it, most philosophers still consider it untenable. The most influential arguments levelled against it by Mill, Moore, Nozick and Kagan purport to demonstrate that well-being must depend on more than only the amount of experienced happiness and suffering. I argue in this paper that quantitative hedonism can rebut these arguments by pointing out a shared systematic flaw in their argumentative structure. In particular, I argue that they are based on thought experiments that invoke either structurally unreliable intuitions or intuitions that are not in tension to the tenets of quantitative hedonism. While this does not rehabilitate the theory by itself, it shows that the classical arguments against quantitative hedonism provide less evidence against it than commonly thought and certain...
Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin uberein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiw... more Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin uberein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiwertigkeit der klassischen Logik auch im Angesicht des Sorites-Paradoxes beibehalten werden kann. In der vorliegenden Arbeit zeige ich auf, warum die epistemische Theorie zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. Dabei unterziehe ich die Ansatze von James Cargile, Richmond Campbell, Roy Sorensen und Timothy Williamson einer ausfuhrlichen kritischen Analyse. Einerseits widerlege ich die konkreten Argumente fur die Annahme des Epistemizismus und untersuche andererseits die Implikationen daraus fur Theorien der Wahrheit, Bezugnahme und Bedeutung. Das deutliche Ergebnis der Analyse besteht in der Konklusion, dass die epistemische Theorie philosophisch unhaltbar ist.
Problemstellung: Mit groser Wahrscheinlichkeit wird die Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) am 24. ... more Problemstellung: Mit groser Wahrscheinlichkeit wird die Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) am 24. September in den Bundestag einziehen. Jungste Umfragen legen nahe, dass sie sogar drittstarkste Partei werden konnte. Warum findet die AfD so viele Unterstutzerinnen und Unterstutzer? Mit welchen Argumenten wirbt die AfD fur ihren Einzug in den Bundestag? Das Wahlprogramm der AfD zeigt nicht nur, wofur die Partei steht, sondern auch welche Strategie sie bei der Bundestagswahl und daruber hinaus verfolgt. Aus diesem Grund habe ich es argumentationstheoretisch analysiert und die darin enthaltene Argumentation im Detail rekonstruiert. Ergebnisse: Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse umfassen: Erstens, aus einer rein logischen Perspektive ist die Argumentation der AfD ausergewohnlich klar und stringent. Dies gelingt ihr deshalb, weil sie sich gezielt auf Annahmen stutzt, die vereinfachend oder konstruiert sind. Zweitens, das zentrale Thema der „Fluchtlingskrise“ zieht sich beinahe durch die gesamte Ar...
When the United States Supreme Court used the expression “with all deliberate speed” in the case ... more When the United States Supreme Court used the expression “with all deliberate speed” in the case Brown v. Board of Education, it did so presumably because of its vagueness. Many jurists, economists, linguists, and philosophers accordingly assume that vagueness can be strategically used to one’s advantage. Roy Sorensen has cast doubt on this assumption by strictly differentiating between vagueness and generality. Indeed, most arguments for the value of vagueness go through only when vagueness is confused with generality. Sorensen claims that vagueness – correctly understood – has no function in law inter alia because judges lie systematically when confronted with borderline cases. I argue that both claims are wrong. First, judges do not need to resort to lying when adjudicating borderline cases, and even if they had to, this would not render vagueness useless. Secondly, vagueness has several important functions in law such as the reduction of decision costs and the delegation of power. Although many functions commonly attributed to the vagueness of legal expressions are in fact due to their generality or other semantic properties, vagueness has at least these two functions in law.
In the first chapter, linguistic indeterminacy is defined in terms of unclarity in linguistic con... more In the first chapter, linguistic indeterminacy is defined in terms of unclarity in linguistic content. Based on this general definition, three main forms of linguistic indeterminacy are differentiated:there is semantic indeterminacy, pragmatic indeterminacy, and conversational vagueness. Lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and polysemy as well as semantic vagueness are forms of semantic indeterminacy. Speech act ambiguity, presupposition indeterminacy, and implicature indeterminacy obscure what the utterance's illocutionary force is, what it presupposes, and what it implicates, respectively. They are forms of pragmatic indeterminacy. Another form is impliciture indeterminacy, which is most relevant when a contextually valued standard is implicited, i.e., in the form of standard-relativity. Conversational vagueness, finally, appears most commonly when an utterance is unclear due to the over-generality of its expressions.
The events of the year 2016 have led many critical observers to doubt the stability and longevity... more The events of the year 2016 have led many critical observers to doubt the stability and longevity of democracy. Ideally, democracy effectuates the rule of reason. Debates in elected assemblies and in society as a whole should serve the process of finding best reasons for political decisions. However, the mechanisms that currently produce such decisions are vulnerable to misuse. Opinion formation processes, whether in relation to parliamentary elections or political referendums, are increasingly driven by structural incentives, particularly those relating to the economy of online media. In addition to these systemic challenges, populist politicians and parties as well as foreign agents are on the lookout to exploit the mechanisms of public debate and political decisionmaking in modern democracies. Arguably, these mechanisms need to be redesigned in an attempt to make them ‘foolproof’ – that is, democracies need to design them in a way that seeks to reduce misuse or to minimise its ne...
In this chapter legal utterances are analysed as being typically normative, directed toward futur... more In this chapter legal utterances are analysed as being typically normative, directed toward future events, addressed to heterogeneous audiences, and applied in a wide variety of circumstances.It argues that these features of legal language are decisive for the use of linguistic indeterminacy in law, and that they are exemplified in three paradigmatic kinds of legal utterances: the enactment of laws, rendering of verdicts, and formation of contracts. It also examines the plausibility of the communication theory of law as basis for an account of legal indeterminacy. More importantly, it identifies indeterminacy on the level of legal content. This specially legal form of indeterminacy is not only due to gaps and contradictions, but also theoretical and meta-interpretive disagreement. In particular, theoretical disagreement in legal practice renders linguistic indeterminacy (including semantic vagueness) less relevant than suggested by the debate on vagueness in law.
Indeterminacy in legal texts is pervasive.At the same time, there is a widespread misunderstandin... more Indeterminacy in legal texts is pervasive.At the same time, there is a widespread misunderstanding about what indeterminacy is - especially in the law. Legal texts are particularly interesting insofar as they address a heterogeneous audience, are applied in a variety of unforeseeable circumstances and must, at the same time, lay down clear and unambiguous standards.Sometimes they fail to do so, either by accident or by intention.While many have claimed that indeterminacy facilitates flexibility and can be strategically used, few have even recognized that there are more forms of indeterminacy than vagueness and ambiguity. A comprehensive account of legal indeterminacy is called for. This book is a contribution to lift the puzzle about the role of indeterminacy in in the law andaims to answer three, related, questions. First, what are the sources of indeterminacy in law? Second, what effects do the different forms of indeterminacy have? Third, how can and should they be intentionally ...
Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin überein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiw... more Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin überein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiwertigkeit der klassischen Logik auch im Angesicht des Sorites-Paradoxes beibehalten werden kann. In der vorliegenden Arbeit zeige ich auf, warum die epistemische Theorie zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. Dabei unterziehe ich die Ansätze von James Cargile, Richmond Campbell, Roy Sorensen und Timothy Williamson einer ausführlichen kritischen Analyse. Einerseits widerlege ich die konkreten Argumente für die Annahme des Epistemizismus und untersuche andererseits die Implikationen daraus für Theorien der Wahrheit, Bezugnahme und Bedeutung. Das deutliche Ergebnis der Analyse besteht in der Konklusion, dass die epistemische Theorie philosophisch unhaltbar ist.
This chapter shows why defining “fake news” is worthwhile and what a suitable definition of “fake... more This chapter shows why defining “fake news” is worthwhile and what a suitable definition of “fake news” might look like. It begins by introducing the authors’ definition of “fake news” (§2) and employs it to set fake news apart from related phenomena that are often conflated with it (§3). It then extracts seven potential dimensions of the concept of fake news from the literature (§4) and compares the most representative definitions that have been proposed so far along those dimensions (§5). The chapter’s primary aims are (i) to enable a systematic evaluation of prevalent definitions with respect to their extensional scope, practical utility, and conceptual transparency, (ii) to demonstrate that there is more widespread agreement than one would think at the outset, and (iii) to show (in §6) that defining “fake news” is not only far from futile, but of vital importance to confront the epistemic threats posed by fake news.
Few philosophers today embrace quantitative hedonism, which states that a person’s well-being dep... more Few philosophers today embrace quantitative hedonism, which states that a person’s well-being depends only on the amount of her experienced happiness and suffering. Despite recent attempts to rehabilitate it, most philosophers still consider it untenable. The most influential arguments levelled against it by Mill, Moore, Nozick and Kagan purport to demonstrate that well-being must depend on more than only the amount of experienced happiness and suffering. I argue in this paper that quantitative hedonism can rebut these arguments by pointing out a shared systematic flaw in their argumentative structure. In particular, I argue that they are based on thought experiments that invoke either structurally unreliable intuitions or intuitions that are not in tension to the tenets of quantitative hedonism. While this does not rehabilitate the theory by itself, it shows that the classical arguments against quantitative hedonism provide less evidence against it than commonly thought and certain...
Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin uberein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiw... more Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin uberein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiwertigkeit der klassischen Logik auch im Angesicht des Sorites-Paradoxes beibehalten werden kann. In der vorliegenden Arbeit zeige ich auf, warum die epistemische Theorie zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. Dabei unterziehe ich die Ansatze von James Cargile, Richmond Campbell, Roy Sorensen und Timothy Williamson einer ausfuhrlichen kritischen Analyse. Einerseits widerlege ich die konkreten Argumente fur die Annahme des Epistemizismus und untersuche andererseits die Implikationen daraus fur Theorien der Wahrheit, Bezugnahme und Bedeutung. Das deutliche Ergebnis der Analyse besteht in der Konklusion, dass die epistemische Theorie philosophisch unhaltbar ist.
Problemstellung: Mit groser Wahrscheinlichkeit wird die Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) am 24. ... more Problemstellung: Mit groser Wahrscheinlichkeit wird die Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) am 24. September in den Bundestag einziehen. Jungste Umfragen legen nahe, dass sie sogar drittstarkste Partei werden konnte. Warum findet die AfD so viele Unterstutzerinnen und Unterstutzer? Mit welchen Argumenten wirbt die AfD fur ihren Einzug in den Bundestag? Das Wahlprogramm der AfD zeigt nicht nur, wofur die Partei steht, sondern auch welche Strategie sie bei der Bundestagswahl und daruber hinaus verfolgt. Aus diesem Grund habe ich es argumentationstheoretisch analysiert und die darin enthaltene Argumentation im Detail rekonstruiert. Ergebnisse: Die wichtigsten Ergebnisse umfassen: Erstens, aus einer rein logischen Perspektive ist die Argumentation der AfD ausergewohnlich klar und stringent. Dies gelingt ihr deshalb, weil sie sich gezielt auf Annahmen stutzt, die vereinfachend oder konstruiert sind. Zweitens, das zentrale Thema der „Fluchtlingskrise“ zieht sich beinahe durch die gesamte Ar...
When the United States Supreme Court used the expression “with all deliberate speed” in the case ... more When the United States Supreme Court used the expression “with all deliberate speed” in the case Brown v. Board of Education, it did so presumably because of its vagueness. Many jurists, economists, linguists, and philosophers accordingly assume that vagueness can be strategically used to one’s advantage. Roy Sorensen has cast doubt on this assumption by strictly differentiating between vagueness and generality. Indeed, most arguments for the value of vagueness go through only when vagueness is confused with generality. Sorensen claims that vagueness – correctly understood – has no function in law inter alia because judges lie systematically when confronted with borderline cases. I argue that both claims are wrong. First, judges do not need to resort to lying when adjudicating borderline cases, and even if they had to, this would not render vagueness useless. Secondly, vagueness has several important functions in law such as the reduction of decision costs and the delegation of power. Although many functions commonly attributed to the vagueness of legal expressions are in fact due to their generality or other semantic properties, vagueness has at least these two functions in law.
In the first chapter, linguistic indeterminacy is defined in terms of unclarity in linguistic con... more In the first chapter, linguistic indeterminacy is defined in terms of unclarity in linguistic content. Based on this general definition, three main forms of linguistic indeterminacy are differentiated:there is semantic indeterminacy, pragmatic indeterminacy, and conversational vagueness. Lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and polysemy as well as semantic vagueness are forms of semantic indeterminacy. Speech act ambiguity, presupposition indeterminacy, and implicature indeterminacy obscure what the utterance's illocutionary force is, what it presupposes, and what it implicates, respectively. They are forms of pragmatic indeterminacy. Another form is impliciture indeterminacy, which is most relevant when a contextually valued standard is implicited, i.e., in the form of standard-relativity. Conversational vagueness, finally, appears most commonly when an utterance is unclear due to the over-generality of its expressions.
The events of the year 2016 have led many critical observers to doubt the stability and longevity... more The events of the year 2016 have led many critical observers to doubt the stability and longevity of democracy. Ideally, democracy effectuates the rule of reason. Debates in elected assemblies and in society as a whole should serve the process of finding best reasons for political decisions. However, the mechanisms that currently produce such decisions are vulnerable to misuse. Opinion formation processes, whether in relation to parliamentary elections or political referendums, are increasingly driven by structural incentives, particularly those relating to the economy of online media. In addition to these systemic challenges, populist politicians and parties as well as foreign agents are on the lookout to exploit the mechanisms of public debate and political decisionmaking in modern democracies. Arguably, these mechanisms need to be redesigned in an attempt to make them ‘foolproof’ – that is, democracies need to design them in a way that seeks to reduce misuse or to minimise its ne...
In this book I examine various forms of indeterminacy in the law and scrutinize (i.a. by way of g... more In this book I examine various forms of indeterminacy in the law and scrutinize (i.a. by way of game theoretical models) the conditions under which they can be strategically used. In particular, I analyze the advantages and disadvantages of indeterminacy in the wording of laws, contracts, and verdicts. Legal texts are particularly interesting insofar as they address a heterogeneous audience, are applied in a variety of unforeseeable circumstances and must, at the same time, lay down clear and unambiguous standards. I argue for the claim that semantic vagueness is less relevant than commonly supposed in the debate, while other forms of indeterminacy (in particular, polysemy and standard-relativity) are underrated or altogether ignored. This misconception is, as I argue, due to a systematic confusion between semantic vagueness and these forms of indeterminacy. Once it is resolved, the value of indeterminacy can be clearly shown.
Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin überein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiw... more Vertreter der epistemischen Theorie kommen darin überein, dass Vagheit Unwissen ist und die Zweiwertigkeit der klassischen Logik auch im Angesicht des Sorites-Paradoxes beibehalten werden kann. In der vorliegenden Arbeit zeige ich auf, warum die epistemische Theorie zum Scheitern verurteilt ist. Dabei unterziehe ich die Ansätze von James Cargile, Richmond Campbell, Roy Sorensen und Timothy Williamson einer ausführlichen kritischen Analyse. Einerseits widerlege ich die konkreten Argumente für die Annahme des Epistemizismus und untersuche andererseits die Implikationen daraus für Theorien der Wahrheit, Bezugnahme und Bedeutung. Das deutliche Ergebnis der Analyse besteht in der Konklusion, dass die epistemische Theorie philosophisch unhaltbar ist.
Diskussionspapiere / Institut für Technikzukünfte, 2017
Die AfD wird am 24. September in den Bundestag einziehen und vielleicht dabei sogar drittstärkste... more Die AfD wird am 24. September in den Bundestag einziehen und vielleicht dabei sogar drittstärkste Kraft im deutschen Parlament werden. Warum überzeugt die AfD so viele Menschen? Das Wahlprogramm offenbart die argumentative Strategie der AfD: Man greife berechtigte oder unberechtigte Ängste und Zweifel in der Bevölkerung auf, nähre sie mit entsprechenden Untergangsszenarien und präsentiere sich anschließend als alternativloser Retter in der Not. Dieses Muster zieht sich durch das gesamte Wahlprogramm der AfD und ich habe es in der vorliegenden Analyse im Detail rekonstruiert.
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