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Situationism and the Concept of a Situation
Author(s) -
Kristjánsson Kristján
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
european journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.42
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1468-0378
pISSN - 0966-8373
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0378.2011.00474.x
Subject(s) - situationism , epistemology , mainstream , argument (complex analysis) , focus (optics) , personality psychology , analytic philosophy , psychology , philosophy of psychology , virtue , watson , theoretical psychology , sociology , personality , social psychology , contemporary philosophy , philosophy , computer science , chemistry , biochemistry , physics , theology , optics , natural language processing
The concept of a situation underlying the debate between moral situationists and dispositionists conceals various underexplored complexities. Some of those issues have been engaged recently in the so‐called psychology of situations, but they have been slow to receive attention in mainstream philosophy. I invoke various distinctions among situations, and show how situationists have selectively chosen certain types of situations that, for conceptual reasons, skew the argument in their favour. I introduce the concept of a ‘virtue‐calibrated situation’, and argue that if the person–situation debate is to move forward in philosophy as it has in psychology, it must focus on such situations. I bring to bear evidence from analytic and continental philosophy, as well as from social and personality psychology.