Browsing by Author "Lauer, H."

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African and non-African concepts of time: to contrast or not to contrast? The geo-political convenience of dichotomization, Thought and Practice
(2013) Lauer, H.
This critique offers analytic reasons for suspecting that political economics drives the enduring philosophical debates concerning a purported contrast between ‘African’ and ‘Western’ concepts of time. In particular, the essay illuminates flawed and self-refuting assumptions underlying the recurrent hypothesis that certain metaphysical beliefs peculiar to Africans are causally responsible for the poor quality of development policy as practiced by Africans. Such a hypothesis neglects how economic conditions actually result from what people think and do. It is shown that drawing a causal connection from culture-specific metaphysical beliefs to economic practices is a mistaken project, flawed both by its logical incoherence and by overlooking the structure of individual intentions which comprise some component of the causal sequences involved in the practice of developmental economics, if it is driven by individuals’ beliefs. These results achieved a-historically suggest why a prevailing intercultural debate explicitly focused on the practical aspects of divergent beliefs about the nature of time, may be implicitly an enduring conflict about control over its use
An Appraisal of Laurence Bonjour’s Internalist Foundationalism as a Theory of Epistemic Justification
(University of Ghana, 2016-07) Arthur, S.D.; Lauer, H.; Ackah, K.; University of Ghana, College of Humanities, School of Arts, Department of Philosophy and Classics
This thesis focuses on the issue of how we, human beings, can show that our beliefs about our physical environment are justified. This is called the concept of epistemic justification. What is central to the concept of epistemic justification is the epistemic regress problem (regress problem). In relation to the regress problem, I will examine Laurence BonJour‟s thesis that basic beliefs which are „immediately‟ obtained from our sensory contacts with physical objects adequately prove other beliefs of ours as instances of justified beliefs. With this account, he claims that he has resolved the regress problem. Moreover, BonJour denies as inadequate D. M. Armstrong‟s and C. I. Lewis‟ various proposed solutions to the regress problem. My view is that BonJour‟s criticisms against the above mentioned philosophers are generally tenable. Nonetheless, I will argue that BonJour‟s own account fails to be adequate in resolving the regress problem. Hence, the analysis made in this study will show that his notion of basic beliefs cannot serve as adequate basis for justification.
Cashing in on shame: How the popular "tradition vs. modernity" dualism contributes to the "HIV/AIDS crisis" in Africa
(Review of Radical Political Economics, 2006-03) Lauer, H.
Orthodox descriptions and treatment of Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis are subject to robust controversy among research experts and clinicians who raise questions about the tests used to define the crisis, the statistics used to document the crisis, and the drugs marketed to curtail it. Despite this critical scientific corpus, fanciful misconceptions about chronic illness and mortality in Africa are sustained by ahistorical and apolitical analyses misrepresenting Africans' mporary morality, social reality, and public health care needs. © 2006 Union for Radical Political Economics.
Critical Thinking and Practical Reasoning.UGRC 150 Course Reader. Co-edited with Abena Oduro. Front matter, Units 1-10, 12
(Institute of Continuing and Distance Education, 438pp, 2010) Lauer, H.; Amponsah, B.
Depreciating African Political Culture
(Journal of Black Studies 38(2): 288-307., 2007) Lauer, H.
The global arena is dominated by the popular conviction that Africans require foreign direction in the socio-economic management of their own societies. This essay challenges the belief that economic development in Africa is impeded by bad governance.
Identity Meets Nationality: Voices from the Humanities
(Accra: Subsaharan, 2011) Lauer, H.; Amfo, N.A.A.; Anderson, J.A.
The Logical Limits to Misunderstanding
(Legon Journal for the Humanities. (XVIII): 107-118., 2007) Lauer, H.
A widely shared mistake about human experience is that it is irredeemably gender-specific, in the sense that there are things only women, or only men, can understand. As will be shown in brief measure, this is logically unsustainable. One cannot intelligibly both insist there exists a strict dichotomy between gender viewpoints and maintain there is no way to conceive of a gender viewpoint other than one’s own. Further, society at large is disadvantaged by invalidating women’s experience and their voice as a source of authority through the fiction that women’s sensibilities and intuitions are inherently beyond men’s capacity to appreciate.
“The Modern Scientific Tradition and its Contribution to Economic Regression in Africa.”
(.” Philosophy and Social Change (ed.) Temisan Ebijuwa. -Ibadan: Hope Publications, pp. 121-146., 2007) Lauer, H.
A false ‘ideology of incapacity’ dominates current mainstream socio-economic literature about Africa carried over from August Comte’s 18th century formula for social progress. To presume there is movement along a universal vector of increasing civilisation leaves unchallenged the most egregious inaccuracies about African societies that dominate global discourse about economic development and health crises in Africa. This paper corrects the record of where contributions to scientific progress actually originate, and to whom the legacy of scientific benefits and social goods actually belongs.
Must We Share True Beliefs to Understand Each Other’s Intentions?
(Legon: Universitas, pp. 157-170., 2007) Lauer, H.
This paper critically examines Donald Dvidson’s model of intention. Its posits that pro-attitudes and beliefs in combination constitute the cause of an intentional action.
Reclaiming the Human Sciences and Humanities through African Perspectives. Vol. I & II
(Sub-Saharan Press, 2012) Lauer, H.; Anyidoho, K.
Social identity’ and ‘shared worldview’: free riders in explanations of collective action
(Abstracta, 2013) Lauer, H.
The notions ‘worldview’ and ‘social identity’ are examined to consider whether they contribute substantively to causal sequences or networks or thought clusters that result in intentional group actions. Routine reference to such purportedly key components of agents’ intentions are presumed to help explain their collective actions. But problems emerge when we consider the theoretical details of attributing one worldview and identity to each individual, or a shared worldview to a whole community. Where does one worldview, or type of identity, leave off and another begin? Comparable fuzziness surfaces when we inspect the notion of distinct worldviews as inherently incommensurable, or distinct social identities as inherently antagonistic. Three proposed explanations of sectarian conflict or ethnic violence are analysed as examples of theories that link intentional group behaviour to the worldviews and social identities of the individuals directly involved. But as will be shown, it is not facts about worldviews and identities as such, but historically specific facts and contingent circumstances that impinge upon those individual agents’ welfare (as well as their beliefs and values) which need to be examined in order to explain their group-motivated behaviour—be it violent, conciliatory, or otherwise.
“UG’s Epistemic competitive advantage: The role of the Humanities in a World Class African University”.
(University of Ghana, 2014-06-26) Lauer, H.
Wiredu and eze on good governance
(Philosophia Africana, 2012-09) Lauer, H.
The Womb as Target: Linking Procreative Sex with Premature Death and Epidemics in Modern Day Ghana
(Studies in Gender and Development in Africa 1(1): 1-20., 2007) Lauer, H.
This essay will reveal that the source of public health policy over the last two decades in Ghana and South Africa—widely divergent cultures and political economies in other respects—has been shaped by political history and current global economic forces. The dualistic juxtaposition of African tradition with Western modernity functions nowadays in the international domain to build a dual impression of the need for foreign direction and expertise in the building of health care delivery, and yields a perpetuation of Victorian racist stereotyping as the basis for forwarding a non-scientific agenda, and promoting the multinational pharmaceutical industry’s profits, at the expense of coherence and effectiveness in domestic health care policies of African nations, with specific focus on modern Ghana .
“A Worldly View of Worldview Metaphysics.” In: Worldviews and Cultures
(Germany: Springer Science, pp. 103-128, 2009) Lauer, H.
The mental realm remains obscure; the causes of reprehensible behaviour remain elusive despite the plethora of socio-psychological research and modelling of intentional group behaviour. When the construct called social or ethnic worldview is added to the narrative mix of beliefs, social norms, principles of action, peer pressures, religious mandates, traditions, and customs to explain someone’s inexplicable behaviour, we are only adding to the obscurity surrounding protracted self-destructive violence. It will be shown that talk of divergent atomized worldview deflects attention from the more pernicious features of our interdependent social reality which provoke some people into defensive postures of intractable distrust and protracted combat
Worldviews & Identities: How Not to Explain Collective Human Behaviour
(Legon Journal of International Affairs 4(1): 43-65., 2007) Lauer, H.
Worldviews and social identities of agents are attributed with causal powers critical to acts of group violence. But problems emerge when we consider the theoretical details of attributing one worldview and identity to each individual, or a shared worldview to a whole community. Where does one worldview, or type of identity, leave off and another begin? Comparable fuzziness surfaces when we inspect the notion of distinct worldviews as inherently incommensurable, or distinct social identities as inherently antagonistic. Three proposed explanations of sectarian conflict or ethnic violence are analysed, as proposed by Alex Honneth, Walker Connor, and Donald H. Horowitz. As will be shown, it is not facts about worldviews and identities as such, but historically specific facts and contingent circumstances that impinge upon agents’ welfare (as well as their beliefs and values) which need to be examined in order to explain group-motivated behaviour—be it violent, conciliatory, or otherwise.