The Pot Paradox
Open Review until 2026-05-08
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15845/nwr.v15.3781Keywords:
impartialism, Logical Criticism, Philosophical Availability, Wittgenstein’s Lecture on EthicsAbstract
Logical criticism can seem strange: If successful, it can prove its target illogical, i.e. not fully logically integrated. This can implicate the critic in a kind of paradox, however, which I call ‘pot paradox’ after a short story by Sholem Aleichem: for, if the target view is not logically integrated, is it really there in the first place—even to be criticized? – I propose a way to avert the difficulty: Logical criticism should avoid pronouncing views nonsensical and rather ask for clarifications and propose re-interpretations. I capture a moral aspect of this by borrowing Gabriel Marcel’s notion of ‘availability’: a kind of sharing in the confusion we wish to criticize and taking ownership of the difficulty. My main testcase is ‘impartialism.’ I examine Alice Crary’s apparent logical criticism of impartialism, which maintains that moral justifications require a vantage point outside individuals’ affective lives. I discuss ways of handling impartialism in a philosophically available manner, namely without pronouncing it confused or nonsensical. Here, I’m aided also by Wittgenstein’s ‘Lecture on Ethics,’ in which, or so I claim, he puts forward a kind of impartiality view. I offer a reading of parts of the Lecture.
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