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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Carnap and Grice on the metaphysics of physics

Speranza

Nothing too substantial, or substantive (if that's not a metaphysical monicker I don't know what is), but I got this via S. Clark's mailing list today, and thought of sharing. It's a CFP (I'm not sending one! I think!) on 'the metaphysics of physics', which should be an interesting combo to consider.

This is what the organiser wrote -- the original e-mail is to be found in Clark's archives for the University of Liverpool:

"Very recently, and after a long hiatus, the metaphysics of physics has enjoyed a remarkable renaissance, with both philosophers and physicists addressing explicitly metaphysical questions that arise in the context of physics and the interpretation of its theories."

"As theoretical physics has achieved dramatic progress, pushing back the boundaries of our knowledge and forcing us to rethink our most fundamental concepts describing physical reality, questions about the impact of this rapid development on traditionally conceived metaphysical investigations become urgent. Does it make metaphysics irrelevant, or does it call for an altogether new metaphysics?"

"On the other hand, physics has encountered more than a few roadblocks in its fundamental endeavours, e.g. in attempts to bring gravity into the fold of the standard model. Could reconceiving the metaphysical foundations of fundamental physical theories possibly lead to a breakthrough, as some have suggested?"

"The aim of this volume is to bring together papers that address various aspects of the mutual interrelations between contemporary research in theoretical physics and the conceptual work done in analytic metaphysics. The suggested topics for the contributions to the volume include, but are most definitely not limited to, the following questions: “Are fundamental objects postulated by our physical theories (elementary particles, fields, spacetime points, etc.) individuals with intrinsic properties and well-defined identities, or perhaps relational structures with no relata?”, “What is the ontological significance of symmetries in physical theories?”, “How does spacetime emerge from the quantum phenomena?”"

"We invite original research papers on topics related to the general description of the planned volume."

---- So there you have:

I suppose the keywords then:

METAPHYSICS, METAPHYSIC, METAPHYSICAL as attached to PHYSICS.

In this instance, it seems like the prefix, 'meta-' becomes indeed ambiguous. For how would you distinguish meta-physics of physics, or a meta-physical approach to physics from simply a meta-theoretical approach to physical theory? Or something like that.

But it may do to revise the organiser's wording and reflect or elaborate on them!

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

The Grice Carnap conversation

Roger Bishop Jones for The City of Eternal Truth

A long time ago (it now seems), Speranza agreed to collaborate with me on a project concerned with the reconciliation of the philosophies of Grice and Carnap and with finding a way forward (philosophically) which might engage both those philosophers (as they might be if they were still active) in common enterprise.

In this joint endeavour, Speranza and I have taken on the philosophical personas of Grice* and Carnap*.
Some progress has been made, we have a draft document entitled "A Conversation between Grice and Carnap (as it might have been)", but a meeting of minds on matters of sufficient substance remains an illusive ideal.

In my own head the project is now beginning to gather momentum, and this note is to sketch some contributions which I now anticipate.

This blog was started by Speranza shortly after our collaboration began, and at roughly the same time I started the "Carnap Corner" blog, so together with Speranza's Grice Club we have three blogs one devoted to each philosopher and one perhaps to the joint enterprise.

"The City of Eternal Truth" is, of course, a phrase which Grice coined in his "Reply to Richards", and we can take it as being where Grice philosophically might like us to be, the ultimate aim of his philosophising.  I am taking it that some such ideal might also be attributable to Carnap and that a good outcome of our project would be to come up with a conception of that idea which might provide common cause for our two philosophers (both those two, Grice and Carnap, and us two Speranza and Jones).

Seeking common ground between Grice and Carnap I have been inclined to investigate the areas in which they seem at odds and to enquire whether their differences are substantive.
Many of the apparent differences (for example those enumerated by Grice as his Betes Noires) seem connected with their respective attitudes towards metaphysics, in connection with which their respective attitudes towards Aristotle might be thought illuminating.
It is this line of enquiry which has lately been the focus of my thinking.

At face value Aristotelian Metaphysics is embraced wholeheartedly by Grice and rejected out of hand by Carnap.

I have come to feel that the positions of Grice and Carnap on Aristotle might in both cases be seen as in conflict with some of their own more general philosophical principles.
One might therefore hope that discussion of these apparent conflicts might make room for common ground not otherwise apparent.

This case I hope to present in pieces, one on Carnap and Aristotle at Carnap Corner, one on Grice and Aristotle in the Grice Club, and then some kind of synthesis here in "The City".

RBJ









Monday, October 14, 2013

Carnap and Grice on logic

Speranza

This below did take place already, but it may be worth it checking out some abstracts, etc.

Cheers.

----

International conference on "Carnap on Logic", July 3 - 6, 2013
The conference is dedicated to a reevaluation of Carnap's work on logic and its philosophical applications. It will investigate different aspects of his contributions-from type theory and modal logic to inductive logic-and set them in context with his work in the philosophy of logic.

Invited Speakers

  • Steve Awodey (Carnegie-Mellon University)
  • Patricia Blanchette (University of Notre Dame)
  • André Carus (Hegeler Institute)
  • Richard Creath (Arizona State University)
  • Catarina Dutilh Novaes (University of Groningen)
  • Michael Friedman (Stanford University)
  • Wolfgang Kienzler (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)
  • Sebastian Lutz (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität)
  • Erich Reck (UC Riverside)
  • Florian Steinberger (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität)
  • Pierre Wagner (University Paris)
  • Richard Zach (University of Calgary)

AvH_Logo_n7_4cThe conference is generously supported by the German Research Council (DFG), the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through a Humboldt Professorship.

The Grice Annual Lectures

Speranza

I wish Grice had them. But of course, he has them every year when a lecturer uses 'implicature' in his lectures.

O. T. O. H., there's the annual Carnap lectures [sic in plural].

Below.

Cheers,

----
 
 

 
Rudolf-Carnap-Lectures

 
Rrom the online site:
"[t]he Rudolf-Carnap-Lectures are an annual event started by Prof. Dr. Albert Newen from the Institute of Philosophy II at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany in 2008."
 
"The Lectures provide a platform for distinguished scholars to present their work in the form of several talks on their preferred topic."
 
"The focus is usually on the areas of Philosophy of Mind, Language or Science."
 
"In turn, graduate students interested in these topics get the chance to engage in extensive discussion and get in touch with state-of-the-art research."
 
"In addition, some of them have the chance to present their own work on related topics during a graduate conference, based on a peer review process."

"The lecture series is dedicated to the philosopher Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) who was born in Barmen (today: Wuppertal) which is not far from Bochum."
 
"He studied Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics in Jena and Freiburg, amongst others with Gottlob Frege, and is one of the main representatives of Logical Empiricism."

Prior Carnap-Lecturers include Shaun Gallagher (Memphis), Alva Noë (Berkeley), John Perry (Stanford) [who contributed to PGRICE], David Papineau (London), Tim Crane (Cambridge) & Katalin Farkas (Budapest) (see Archive).


Forthcoming Carnap Lectures 2014

From March 10-12, 2014, the next RCL will be presented by Prof. Daniel C. Dennett (Tufts University).

[who spells 'Gricean', rightly, as 'Griceian', I believe]

"Dennett is going to give several lectures in the context of a Graduate Conference with Student presentations on aspects of his work incl. Intentionality, Consciousness, Free Will, Evolution and Religion."

Daniel C. Dennett is Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in Medford (Massachusetts).

More details to be announced soon.