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This paper deals with a less well-known connection between Thomas Reid's conception of common sense and pragmatism. The paper starts with an exposition of the different principles of common sense one can find in Reid's writings and a discussion of their epistemic status. The main focus of the paper is on what one may call 'Reid's dilemma of common sense'. I argue that Reid's writings not only present us with a dilemma of common sense but that they also offer a way out of the dilemma, one that is pragmatist in a certain sense. I also discuss the question whether the proposed way out can work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper expands on Rokeach's original construct of dogmatism outlined some fifty years ago in his classical treatise The Open and Closed Mind. It draws from Altemeyer's definition and measurement of dogmatism as well as the Big Five dimension of Closed (or Closedness) to articulate a comprehensive framework for three broad domains of characteristic subtraits: the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural. Collectively, these features form an embryonic classification system that expands earlier concepts of dogmatism. While the theory proposed here assumes that dogmatism is a personality trait consisting of 13 subtraits, six of which are necessary to determine trait presence, empirical tests on the construct validity of these subtraits are necessary to support the interpretative and explanatory framework of the model. It is hoped that research on these fundamentals will advance our psychological understanding of the psychological nature and manifestations of dogmatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transcendental arguments have been described as undogmatic or non-dogmatic arguments. This paper examines this contention critically and addresses the question of what is required from an argument for which the characterization is valid. I shall argue that although transcendental arguments do in certain respects meet what one should require from non-dogmatic arguments, they - or more specifically, what I shall call 'general transcendental arguments' - involve an assumption about conceptual unity that constitutes a reason for not attributing to them the status of non-dogmatic arguments. As a solution to this problem I distinguish general transcendental arguments from what I shall call 'specific transcendental arguments' and seek to explain how by limiting the use of transcendental arguments to the latter type it would be possible to avoid dogmatism. This methodological adjustment also opens up a possibility of re-interpreting transcendental arguments from the past in a novel non-dogmatic fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it is suggested that while most theorists of ideology implicitly or explicitly link it to language, the notion of ‘language’ itself is often under-theorized. In particular, discussions of its relationship to ideology often fail to acknowledge that language is not simply a vehicle for other ideological processes but is itself shaped by ideological processes. It is argued that many influential accounts of the ideological and political ‘abuse’ of language (e.g. the political language criticism of Orwell and Chomsky) rely on ideological propositions about how language works, or ought to work, which are (a) culturally and historically specific and (b) subject to contestation in any given time and place. The status of ‘language’ in such accounts should be interrogated by political theorists rather than treated as unproblematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a prolegomena to the adaptation of a content analytic measure from psychology to help in the linguistic study of writer's stance. The DOTA measure of dogmatism is applied to learner and native-speaker corpora and the results used as a starting point for more detailed corpus analysis of word and phrase frequencies. By isolating those words and phrases which are underused, overused or avoided by apprentice writers, first steps are taken towards suggesting how apprentice writers might improve their documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I explore the insights suggested by Michele Borrelli's‘The Utopianisation of Critique’ in the context of a real-life educational encounter that involves an attempt at being‘critical’. Borrelli's observation that all positive utopian critique implies an inevitable degree of dogmatism takes on a new—and less depressing—significance when examined in the light of such an encounter. Acknowledging the tensions suggested by Borelli's analysis is, I argue, what makes a particular educational stance‘critical’. Rather than leading to conceptual confusion, this should be seen as integral to the transformative and motivational potential of the educational process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the unity of thought and belief. In recent years there have appeared a number of empirical studies on the relation between social belief and cognition. In most of these studies the specific social belief under scrutiny was ethnic prejudice, or the authoritarianism conceived to underlie it. The research program regarding the relations between belief, as measured by the Dogmatism Scale, and thought, as measured by cognitive tasks, is being derived solely from the cognitive model, which attempts to tie together the organization of thought with that of belief. The concepts employed in describing such properties seem to be equally applicable to both lines of inquiry and permit one to flit with relative ease from belief to thought-and back again to belief, so much so that it is becoming increasingly more difficult to delineate where believing ends and thinking begins. The outcome of the cognitive studies discussed in this paper suggests that the model provides a fertile basis for further research relating belief to thought. Thus, the researchers intend to return to Doodleland to test other properties of the thought-belief model.

The current age of Postmodernist discourse involves a critique of various forms of oppression. These can take the form of grand narratives, foundations, and the belief in various forms of inflexible truth. But the traditional religious discourse -- with its attempts to understand faith and reason and its reliance on unique singular truths -- can easily lead to charges of dogmatism. So the question is whether religion thought is sufficiently well-equipped for opening itself to postmodern thought which tends to be analogous, flexible and tolerant of a plurality of meanings. This paper will enlist the aid of Ricoeur's critical hermeneutics to show how traditional religious discourse can adapt to the postmodern age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Better understanding the psychological factors related to certainty in one's beliefs (i.e., dogmatism) has important consequences for both individuals and social groups. Generally, beliefs can find support from at least two different routes of information processing: social/moral considerations or analytic/empirical reasoning. Here, we investigate how these two psychological constructs relate to dogmatism in two groups of individuals who preferentially draw on the former or latter sort of information when forming beliefs about the world-religious and nonreligious individuals. Across two studies and their pooled analysis, we provide evidence that although dogmatism is negatively related to analytic reasoning in both groups of individuals, it shares a divergent relationship with measures of moral concern depending on whether one identifies as religious or not. Study 1 showed that increasing levels of dogmatism were positively related to prosocial intentions among the religious and negatively related to empathic concern among the nonreligious. Study 2 replicated and extended these results by showing that perspective taking is negatively related to dogmatism in both groups, an effect which is particularly robust among the nonreligious. Study 2 also showed that religious fundamentalism was positively related to measures of moral concern among the religious. Because the current studies used a content-neutral measure to assess dogmatic certainty in one's beliefs, they have the potential to inform practices for most effectively communicating with and persuading religious and nonreligious individuals to change maladaptive behavior, even when the mode of discourse is unrelated to religious belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Filosofija, Sociologija is the property of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Dogmatists claim that having a perceptual experience as of p can provide one with immediate and defeasible warrant to believe that p. A persistent complaint against this position is that it sanctions an intuitively illicit form of reasoning: bootstrapping. I argue that dogmatism has no such commitments. Dogmatism is compatible with a principle that disallows the final non-deductive inference in the bootstrapping procedure. However, some authors have maintained that such strategy is doomed to failure because earlier stages of in the bootstrapping inference are already problematic. I argue that insofar as these inferences appear problematic, the dogmatist is not committed to sanctioning them. I conclude that the bootstrapping argument presents no significant objection to the claim that perceptual experiences can provide immediate and defeasible warrant to believe their contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Perceptual Dogmatism (PD) holds that if it perceptually seems to S that p, then S has immediate prima facie justification for the belief that p. Various philosophers have made the notion of a perceptual seeming more precise by distinguishing perceptual seemings from both sensations and beliefs to accommodate a) the epistemic difference between perceptual judgments of novices and experts, and, b) the problem of the speckled hen. Using somewhat different terminology, perceptual seemings are supposed to be high-level percepts instead of low-level sensations. I argue that although it is right that perceptual seemings should not be identified with sensations, they should also not be identified with percepts. There is no strong reason to assume that sensations and percepts exist as separate conscious states, and it appears therefore best to identify perceptual seemings simply with perceptual experiences interpreted as entities incorporating aspects from both sensations and percepts. However, even with this plausible identification in hand, the speckled hen will remain problematic for PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on philosophy as a struggle against dogmatism and moral concepts in practices and ways of logical thinking. The author suggests a vision of moral thinking but also aims to demonstrate the role of children's literature in moral discourse. He believes that psychological investigation of particular emotions is a way to show moral reasoning that involves much more than conceptions of right and wrong, good or bad.

There is a sceptical puzzle according to which knowledge appears to license an unacceptable kind of dogmatism. Here is a version of the corresponding sceptical argument: (1) If a subject S knows a proposition p, then it is OK for S to ignore all evidence against p as misleading; (2) It is never OK for any subject to ignore any evidence against their beliefs as misleading; (3) Hence, nobody knows anything. I distinguish between different versions of the puzzle (mainly a 'permissibility' version and a 'closure' version) and offer a solution for one version (the permissibility version) of the problem. No matter how much a subject knows, knowledge never gives one a license to ignore evidence against a proposition. Premise (1) of the argument is false and the puzzle can thus be resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the mind/body dualism inherent in western culture, tracing some causes and consequences of the 'disappearing body.' It considers the complicity of the 'disembodied eye' in privileging the intellect over corporeality and proposes the more holistic approach of interactive and installation art as an antidote to this age-old mind/body split. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the brain-in-a-vat-hypothesis of social epistemology. It states that there are many ways in which sceptical hypotheses can be utilized in a statement for doubting the conclusion. It mentions other proposals by some philosophers including the canonical argument by Keith DeRose and Jim Pryor's dogmatism.

The article offers information on the philosophical concept of disagreement, dogmatism and polarization of belief. It says that similar exposure to evidence tends to mitigate the disagreement among individuals and different views are inclined to undergo a corresponding convergence. It mentions that belief polarization calls for some consideration on questions including how individuals respond to common evidence, the epistemic status of beliefs in response to evidence, and issues on the objectivity of beliefs in contrast to dogmatic or biased. It further cites that Kripkean dogmatism, though not obvious, is illegitimate for cases in which an individual's belief is based on evidence enough to justify it.

A sample of 422 female undergraduate students, attending a university-sector college in Wales specialising in teacher education and liberal arts subjects, completed the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator together with the Troldahl-Powell Dogmatism Scale. The data demonstrated that higher dogmatism scores are most clearly associated with sensing rather than intuition. Higher dogmatism scores are also associated with extraversion rather than introversion, and with judging rather than perceiving. No significant difference in dogmatism scores were found between thinking and feeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. The study tested the validity of a new measure of dogmatism by examining university students' evaluations of the Bible. Those who believed that every word in the Bible came directly from God and that the Bible is free of any error, contradiction, or inconsistency scored much higher on this dogmatism measure than students who thought otherwise. Such "true believers" then read the 4 highly varying Gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus. The most dogmatic of them still insisted there were no contradictions or inconsistencies in the Bible. The less dogmatic acknowledged that contradictions and inconsistencies exist. These results reinforce those of 4 earlier studies that indicated that the new measure of dogmatism has empirical validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the nature of the paradox and the relevance of conditionals through an interpretation of philosopher Gilbert Harman's analysis of the dogmatism paradox. This interpretation tends to believe the existence of junk knowledge, from which one can not draw familiar inferences to expand his existing knowledge. Junk knowledge is a by-product of expansive knowledge that would cut down one's epistemic efficiency if it is thought and talked about. Conditionals can not always expand knowledge through modus ponens, but modus ponens does play a defining role for conditionals in that it is valid for all conditionals.

Conflicting stereotypes have confused the public about the motivations, ideology, and organization underlying soft drug dealing. This field study integrates new and existing images of criminality and commitment to provide insight into the complex and subterranean dealing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rokeach's notion of dogmatism viewed as a system or network of beliefs and attitudes was related to the area of adoption attitudes. The Dogmatism Scale and an Adoption Attitude Scale were administered to 113 college students. Hypotheses that dogmatism would be positively related to intolerant attitudes toward adoption and areas related to adoption were almost wholly supported for the 61 males in the sample, but not the females. The results are interpreted as suggesting that the emphasis on the maternal aspects of the feminine role in our society makes attitudes toward adoption an exception to Rokeach's theory of dogmatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on dogmatism and attitudes towards religion change. Since Vatican II, changes are taking place in the Roman Church's monarchial ruling structure and also in its semper idem view of faith and morals. The changes have been new experiences for those who belong to the American Catholic church, although they are part of their experience with most other institutions they contact in daily life. One might wonder about the attitudes that these people have about the changes taking place in their church, but only a few studies have been published which attempt to assess the impact of these changes at the parish level. Public debate in the religious or secular media favorable to divorce by bishops is increasing. The purpose of the present investigation, therefore, is to determine if differences exist in a personality characteristic (dogmatism) between those who favor changes in the Roman Catholic Church and those who are less favorable to these changes.