Paul O Irikefe
Biographic Data
| ID | 5995346 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul O Irikefe |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | O Irikefe |
| SIGNATURE | IRIKEFE P O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Irvine |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4086-8229 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Vice of Nepotism
Nepotism forms a core part of our everyday moral and socio-political vocabulary, yet we lack a coherent account of it. The aim of this paper is to provide that account. I argue that nepotism (i.e. nepotism proper) is a moral vice, which has a hitherto unnoticed epistemic counterpart, namely, epistemic nepotism. Further, I argue that nepotism proper is a disposition to give undue weight to one’s primordial private realm or the interests of its mem…
The calibration challenge to philosophical intuitions
To several critics of the philosophical method of cases—Robert Cummins, Jonathan Weinberg and his colleagues, and Avner Baz—the fact that philosophical intuitions cannot be calibrated means that we cannot rule out the skeptical hypothesis that the outcome of our theorizing based on these intuitions is deeply distorted by our cognitive artifacts. Moreover, they take this hypothesis to license the negative conclusion that we are unable to have much…
Ethnocentric Universalism
This paper does three interrelated things. First, it argues that the universalism that forms the target of criticism and attack by decolonial theorists from the Global South is a debased form of universalism, what might be termed ‘ethnocentric universalism’. Second, equipped with a conceptual grip on ethnocentric universalism, it shows that the picture on which ethnocentric universalism confers some innocuous epistemic privilege to members of dom…
Ethnophilosophy as Decolonization
Ethnophilosophy is widely regarded as a disreputable orientation in African philosophy. For example, critics of ethnophilosophy think of it as a ‘defective philosophy’, a ‘semi-anthropological paraphrase’, a merely ‘implicit philosophy ’, a ‘crazed language’ and so on. Although these negative portrayals were made in the 1980s and 1990s (roughly, 1981–1997), and some of these critics softened their position with time, they persist in the thoughts …
How to be a Universalist about Methods in African Philosophy
Kwasi Wiredu argues for the metaphilosophical view, namely that an African orientation in philosophy can only be had through themes and issues of universal significance that are domesticated in African thought and culture. However, in this article, I challenge this claim. I argue that it grossly overlooks ways in which African philosophy already inherits methods of universal significance, which are applied to African problems and discourse. Afric…
Avner Baz's Ordinary Language Challenge to the Philosophical Method of Cases
Avner Baz argues that the philosophical method of cases presupposes a problematic view of language and linguistic competence, namely what he calls "the atomistic-compositional view". Combining key elements of social pragmatism and contextualism, Baz presents a view of language and linguistic competence, which he takes to be more sensitive to the open-endedness of human language. On this view, there are conditions for the "normal" and "felicitous"…
The epistemology of thought experiments without exceptionalist ingredients
This paper argues for two interrelated claims. The first is that the most innovative contribution of Timothy Williamson, Herman Cappelen, and Max Deutsch (a.k.a., the intuition deniers) in the debate about the epistemology of thought experiments is not the denial of intuition and the claim of the irrelevance of experimental philosophy but the claim of epistemological continuity and the rejection of philosophical exceptionalism. The second is that…
The prospects of the method of wide reflective equilibrium in contemporary African epistemology
This article makes a case for wide reflective equilibrium in doing African epistemology. It argues that on the issue of formulating a viable theory of knowledge, such an approach is more promising than the extant dominant approaches, namely the method of ethno-epistemology and the method of particularistic studies. More specifically, wide reflective equilibrium articulates a proper balance between philosophy and culture and endows a theory of kno…
A fresh look at the expertise reply to the variation problem
Champions of the methodological movement of experimental philosophy have challenged the long-standing practice of relying on intuitive verdicts on cases in philosophical inquiry. They argue that their findings show that the verdicts of experts in philosophy are affected by factors not normally thought to be relevant to the truth of those verdicts. This paper offers an emended version of the expertise reply and explains why the new findings of exp…
The epistemology of thought experiments without exceptionalist ingredients
This paper argues for two interrelated claims. The first is that the most innovative contribution of Timothy Williamson, Herman Cappelen, and Max Deutsch (a.k.a., the intuition deniers) in the debate about the epistemology of thought experiments is not the denial of intuition and the claim of the irrelevance of experimental philosophy but the claim of epistemological continuity and the rejection of philosophical exceptionalism. The second is that…
A fresh look at the expertise reply to the variation problem
Champions of the methodological movement of experimental philosophy have challenged the long-standing practice of relying on intuitive verdicts on cases in philosophical inquiry. They argue that their findings show that the verdicts of experts in philosophy are affected by factors not normally thought to be relevant to the truth of those verdicts. This paper offers an emended version of the expertise reply and explains why the new findings of exp…
The prospects of the method of wide reflective equilibrium in contemporary African epistemology
This article makes a case for wide reflective equilibrium in doing African epistemology. It argues that on the issue of formulating a viable theory of knowledge, such an approach is more promising than the extant dominant approaches, namely the method of ethno-epistemology and the method of particularistic studies. More specifically, wide reflective equilibrium articulates a proper balance between philosophy and culture and endows a theory of kno…
How to be a Universalist about Methods in African Philosophy
Kwasi Wiredu argues for the metaphilosophical view, namely that an African orientation in philosophy can only be had through themes and issues of universal significance that are domesticated in African thought and culture. However, in this article, I challenge this claim. I argue that it grossly overlooks ways in which African philosophy already inherits methods of universal significance, which are applied to African problems and discourse. Afric…
Avner Baz's Ordinary Language Challenge to the Philosophical Method of Cases
Avner Baz argues that the philosophical method of cases presupposes a problematic view of language and linguistic competence, namely what he calls "the atomistic-compositional view". Combining key elements of social pragmatism and contextualism, Baz presents a view of language and linguistic competence, which he takes to be more sensitive to the open-endedness of human language. On this view, there are conditions for the "normal" and "felicitous"…
The epistemology of thought experiments without exceptionalist ingredients
This paper argues for two interrelated claims. The first is that the most innovative contribution of Timothy Williamson, Herman Cappelen, and Max Deutsch (a.k.a., the intuition deniers) in the debate about the epistemology of thought experiments is not the denial of intuition and the claim of the irrelevance of experimental philosophy but the claim of epistemological continuity and the rejection of philosophical exceptionalism. The second is that…
Ethnophilosophy as Decolonization
Ethnophilosophy is widely regarded as a disreputable orientation in African philosophy. For example, critics of ethnophilosophy think of it as a ‘defective philosophy’, a ‘semi-anthropological paraphrase’, a merely ‘implicit philosophy ’, a ‘crazed language’ and so on. Although these negative portrayals were made in the 1980s and 1990s (roughly, 1981–1997), and some of these critics softened their position with time, they persist in the thoughts …
Ethnocentric Universalism
This paper does three interrelated things. First, it argues that the universalism that forms the target of criticism and attack by decolonial theorists from the Global South is a debased form of universalism, what might be termed ‘ethnocentric universalism’. Second, equipped with a conceptual grip on ethnocentric universalism, it shows that the picture on which ethnocentric universalism confers some innocuous epistemic privilege to members of dom…
The Vice of Nepotism
Nepotism forms a core part of our everyday moral and socio-political vocabulary, yet we lack a coherent account of it. The aim of this paper is to provide that account. I argue that nepotism (i.e. nepotism proper) is a moral vice, which has a hitherto unnoticed epistemic counterpart, namely, epistemic nepotism. Further, I argue that nepotism proper is a disposition to give undue weight to one’s primordial private realm or the interests of its mem…
The calibration challenge to philosophical intuitions
To several critics of the philosophical method of cases—Robert Cummins, Jonathan Weinberg and his colleagues, and Avner Baz—the fact that philosophical intuitions cannot be calibrated means that we cannot rule out the skeptical hypothesis that the outcome of our theorizing based on these intuitions is deeply distorted by our cognitive artifacts. Moreover, they take this hypothesis to license the negative conclusion that we are unable to have much…
Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (5 works) · Law (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · African cultural and philosophical studies (3 works) · Politics (3 works)