CFP: On Dialogical Reason

Description

‘All fire ants are insects, and all insects are animals, therefore all fire ants are …’ Throughout much of the history of Western philosophy, arguments such as these have been considered monological — reasoning being the work of a single agent — with this conception being epitomized in the deductive form of the syllogism. To this tradition, there has always existed an other: the idea of reason as dialogical, with argumentation conceived of as social, deduction as interactive and proof as an act (Dutilh Novaes 2020, 30-31; Negarestani 2018, 360). Whereas in the first, knowledge, meaning and truth are fixed, in the second, they are the outcome of dynamical interactions between agents (Dutilh Novaes 2015; Trafford 2016).

In the second perspective, dialogue occupies a decisive place in the space of reason — what has been called “the game of giving and asking of reasons” — with each move in the game serving to justify other moves, and those again being justified by yet other moves, with the possibility of the game being played on indefinitely (Brandom 1994, 162). This activity — what Plato once named ‘serious play’ — is neither ahistorical (reason takes time) nor apolitical (justice requires justification). Without critique, reasoning becomes self-confirming, with every inference increasing isolation, conditioning the formation of echo chambers (Albarracin et al. 2022, 2). Yet without axioms, reasoning becomes self-defeating, every justification requiring another, resulting in an infinite regress only halted by Pyrrhonism (Negarestani 2018, 8). Rationality, therefore, requires both genealogical suspicion (unmasking reasons as causes) and rational explication (extracting reasons from causes), giving rise to a “dialectics between suspicion and trust” (Brassier 2016, 98).

Suggestions for Topics:

-rationality and dialogue in argumentation theory (Toulmin 1958), dialogical logic (Lorenz and Lorenz 1978), game-theoretical semantics (Hintikka and Sandu 1997), formal dialectics (Barth & Krabbe 1982), inferentialism (Brandom 1994), pragma-dialectics (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004), ludics (Girard 2001) and games in logic (van Benthem 2001)

-dialectics and dialogue in the works of Plato (Gadamer 1980), medieval logic (Dutilh Novaes 2007, 145), Hegel (Kojève 1969, 179), Marx (Horkheimer & Adorno 1947), Sellars (Christias 2023, 257-271), Bachelard (Fabry 2021), Lautman (Holvoet ms.) and Cavaillès (Hare 2022)

-approaches to dialectics and possible uses of the concept of the dialogical in Bayesian epistemology (Betz 2007), predictive processing (Boonstra & Slagter 2019; Wilkins forthcoming), active inference (Parr et al. 2022.) and the free-energy principle (Friston et al. 2020; de Jager ms.)

-dialogical themes in social epistemology such as deep disagreement (Pritchard 2021), antagonism and agonism (Mouffe 1993), deliberation (Skyrms 1990), the principle of charity (Davidson 1984), misunderstanding (Gringras 2007), apathy (Schwengerer & Kotsonis 2024) and trust (McCraw 2015) 

We invite proposals for 30-minute time slots. These can take the form of a 300-word abstract, a topic for — or a model of — discussion, a simulation, a score, a game, whatever form you deem fitting. Decisions will be based on heterogeneity and a throw of the dice. Please send your proposals to the following addresses before August 1: p.t.vangemert @ tilburguniversity and dejager @ esphil.eur.nl. Notifications of acceptance will be sent on August 5.