Filosoofia osakonna magistritööd – Master's theses

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10062/35473

Browse

Browsing Filosoofia osakonna magistritööd – Master's theses by Author "Davies, Alexander Stewart, juhendaja"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Does an argument for a detached school contain an incoherence?
    (Tartu Ülikool, 2018) Rozumna, Viktoriia; Davies, Alexander Stewart, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Humanitaarteaduste ja kunstide valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Filosoofia osakond
    In this thesis, I argue that Levinson’s argument for a detached school is inconsistent in the sense that the solution to the problem of cultural coherence of a child’s identity violates the function of a detached school. However, I argue, this incoherence could be resolved by introducing a particular requirement to the content of civic education. With this aim, I explain Levinson’s arguments that children in a liberal state should be educated for autonomy. I show why, according to Levinson, valuation of autonomy by a liberal state makes the three commitments of liberalism – to good life pluralism, to a legitimation process, and to substantive liberal institutions – consistent with one another. Since a liberal state must be committed to the valuation of autonomy, a system of formal schooling must be such that generates children with an ability for autonomy. I explain what is the conception of autonomy that, according to Levinson, should be promoted within a liberal state. Since one of the requirements of the minimal substantive conception of autonomy poses a problem for an ideal liberal school, I explain Levinson’s solution to it and point out the incoherence of such a solution. Finally, I defend Levinson’s argument for a detached school by showing how the incoherence in question could be resolved. I present further objections to the proposed solution and reply to them.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    In defense of beliefs as stably high credences: how stability theory of belief avoids the problem of conviction based on purely statistical evidence
    (Tartu Ülikool, 2021) Machavariani, Sophio; Davies, Alexander Stewart, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Humanitaarteaduste ja kunstide valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Filosoofia osakond
    In the thesis, I defended STB from Staffel’s criticism where she argues that STB provides neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition on rational belief. The reason for this is that STB is argued to allow for a belief in guilt based on purely statistical evidence, which is counterintuitive. I showed that this inference fails: conviction based on a narrative for guilt ensures that the conviction is not issued based on purely statistical evidence. Since in the cases that involve narratives for and against guilt STB (complemented with pragmatic constraints on accusing narrative) performs fine, the theory avoids the problem of purely statistical evidence. In the end, I dismissed a concern that STB when complemented with pragmatic constraints fails to provide a necessary condition on rational belief. A corollary of my defense of STB from Staffel’s criticism is an account of how STB can be fruitfully deployed in a court context. This makes room for further research on whether the combination of STB and the pragmatic constraints on accusing narratives provide a promising explication of the beyond reasonable doubt standard and, hence, a novel candidate to modeling legal standards of proof in both probabilistic and non-probabilistic ways.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Metalinguistic denial and its felicity conditions
    (Tartu Ülikool, 2021) Celli, Gabriele; Davies, Alexander Stewart, juhendaja; Tartu Ülikool. Humanitaarteaduste ja kunstide valdkond; Tartu Ülikool. Filosoofia osakond
    In the literature on denial, not much attention has been paid to metalinguistic denial, a speech act used to object to metalinguistic information in a conversation. The purposes of this paper are to describe the effects of a metalinguistic denial in a Stalnakerian framework of conversations and to determine the felicity conditions of metalinguistic denial. To fulfil the first purpose, I propose to represent in the framework used metalinguistic information as “metalinguistic propositions”. Each metalinguistic proposition encodes a criterion used to determine the meaning of an expression in a conversation. These are the entities a metalinguistic denial objects to. After introducing metalinguistic propositions, I model the effects of metalinguistic denial on a conversation. To fulfil the second purpose, we need to represent why, in some cases, a metalinguistic denial needs to be followed by an explanation to be felicitous. In order to do so, I argue we have to introduce propositions that speakers acknowledge as possible points of disagreement in the conversation. I call these propositions “contestable metalinguistic propositions”. I argue that if speakers cannot figure out which contestable metalinguistic propositions are being denied by a metalinguistic denial, an explanation has to follow the denial.