P. M. S. Hacker, Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy, St. John's, remarks:
"Carnap, unsurprisingly, is incredulous."
"Carnap's account of analyticity, he remonstrates, is intended as an *explication* of the philosophical concept of analyticity, as applied to an ordinary language such as English, which is indeed imprecise.
"Expressions in ordinary language do not have sharply defined meanings."
"Quine argues that he did not know whether
'Everything green is extended'
is analytic or not."
"Quine attributes his uncertainty to the unclarity of the term ‘analytic’ ("Two dogmas of empiricism," p. 32)."
"Carnap objects that the unclarity is due *not* to the term ‘analytic’, but to the fact that it is unclear, in an ordinary language such as English, whether the ‘green’ is applicable to a single spatio-temporal point, where a point is construed as lacking extension."
"An ordinary language such as English does not *talk* of points thus construed."
"Grice and Strawson (in their infamous, "In defence of a dogma") strengthen Carnap’s point.
"Grice and Strawson note that the *same* uncertainty attaches to the question of whether
'Everything green is extended'
is merely *true* -- never mind 'logically true.'"
"Quine could *hardly* complain, Grice and Strawson argue, that, even for Quine, ‘true’ is irremediably unclear."
"In a constructed language, as Carnap has it, one lays down meaning postulates in order to ensure clarity."
"Hence, IF it is a meaning postulate that
‘G’ (‘green’)
IS inapplicable to spatio-temporal points,
‘(x) (Ux z> ~ Gx)’
is analytic in L.
And so is
‘(x) (Gx z> Ex)’
(where ‘U’ signifies ‘unextended’ and ‘E’ ‘extended’).
"Analytic in L," Carnap argues, denotes a sentences whose truth depends on its meaning alone, and is thus independent of the contingency of facts, or ‘true in virtue of meaning’.
"Of course, it does not follow that such a statements cannot be revoked."
"One same entence can be analytic in one system, and synthetic in another."
"An analytic truth is unrevisable only that it remains 'analytically true' as long as the language rules, or indeed, postulates, are not changed."
"Carnap might have added that it is anything but obvious what it would be to *revise* one’s belief that every bachelor is unmarried, without changing the use, or meaning, if you prefer, of the expression!"
"The attribution of truth to a 'synthetic' sentence may change in the light of experience, even though the logical structure of the language does not change."
"The analytic/synthetic distinction may be drawn always and only with respect to a language system, i.e., a language organised according to explicitly formulated rules or postulates, not with respect to a historically given natural language [such as English]’
-- Carnap, ‘Quine on Analyticity’, in "Dear Carnap, Dear Van."
Friday, February 14, 2020
P. M. S. Hacker on Rudolf Carnap and H. P. Grice
"Carnap, unsurprisingly, was incredulous."
"Carnap's account of analyticity, he remonstrates, is intended as an *explication* of the philosophical concept of analyticity as applied to an ordinary language such as English, which is indeed imprecise, since expressions in ordinary language do not have sharply defined meanings."
"Quine argues that he did not know whether ‘Everything green is extended’ is analytic or not, and he attributed his uncertainty to the unclarity of the term ‘analytic’ (TDE 32)."
"Carnap objects that the unclarity is due *not* to the term ‘analytic’, but to the fact that it is unclear in an ordinary language such as English whether the term ‘green’ is applicable to a single spatio-temporal point, where a point is construed as lacking extension, since ordinary language does not talk of points thus construed."
"Grice and Strawson strengthen Carnap’s point in noting that the same uncertainty attaches to the question of whether it is true that everything green is extended - and Quine could hardly complain that the term ‘true’ is irremediably unclear."
"In a constructed language, one lays down meaning postulates in order to ensure clarity."
"Hence, if it is a meaning postulate that ‘G’ (‘green’) is inapplicable to spatio-temporal points, ‘(x) (Ux z> ~ Gx)’ is analytic in L, and so is ‘(x) (Gx z> Ex)’ (where ‘U’ signifies ‘unextended’ and ‘E’ ‘extended’).
"Analytic in L," Carnap argues, signifies sentences whose truth depends on their meanings alone, and is thus independent of the contingency of facts, or ‘true in virtue of meanings’.
"Of course, it does not follow that such statements cannot be revoked."
"The same sentence can be analytic in one system and synthetic in another."
"An analytic truth is unrevisable only in the sense that it remains analytically true as long as the language rules are not changed."
"Carnap might have added that it is anything but obvious what it would be to revise one’s belief that every bachelor is unmarried, without changing the use (or meaning) of the expression."
"The attribution of truth to synthetic sentences may be changed in the light of experience, even though the logical structure of the language does not change."
"The analytic/synthetic distinction can be drawn always and only with respect to a language system, i.e. a language organised according to explicitly formulated rules, not with respect to a historically given natural language [such as English]’
-- Carnap, ‘Quine on Analyticity’, in "Dear Carnap, Dear Van."
"Carnap's account of analyticity, he remonstrates, is intended as an *explication* of the philosophical concept of analyticity as applied to an ordinary language such as English, which is indeed imprecise, since expressions in ordinary language do not have sharply defined meanings."
"Quine argues that he did not know whether ‘Everything green is extended’ is analytic or not, and he attributed his uncertainty to the unclarity of the term ‘analytic’ (TDE 32)."
"Carnap objects that the unclarity is due *not* to the term ‘analytic’, but to the fact that it is unclear in an ordinary language such as English whether the term ‘green’ is applicable to a single spatio-temporal point, where a point is construed as lacking extension, since ordinary language does not talk of points thus construed."
"Grice and Strawson strengthen Carnap’s point in noting that the same uncertainty attaches to the question of whether it is true that everything green is extended - and Quine could hardly complain that the term ‘true’ is irremediably unclear."
"In a constructed language, one lays down meaning postulates in order to ensure clarity."
"Hence, if it is a meaning postulate that ‘G’ (‘green’) is inapplicable to spatio-temporal points, ‘(x) (Ux z> ~ Gx)’ is analytic in L, and so is ‘(x) (Gx z> Ex)’ (where ‘U’ signifies ‘unextended’ and ‘E’ ‘extended’).
"Analytic in L," Carnap argues, signifies sentences whose truth depends on their meanings alone, and is thus independent of the contingency of facts, or ‘true in virtue of meanings’.
"Of course, it does not follow that such statements cannot be revoked."
"The same sentence can be analytic in one system and synthetic in another."
"An analytic truth is unrevisable only in the sense that it remains analytically true as long as the language rules are not changed."
"Carnap might have added that it is anything but obvious what it would be to revise one’s belief that every bachelor is unmarried, without changing the use (or meaning) of the expression."
"The attribution of truth to synthetic sentences may be changed in the light of experience, even though the logical structure of the language does not change."
"The analytic/synthetic distinction can be drawn always and only with respect to a language system, i.e. a language organised according to explicitly formulated rules, not with respect to a historically given natural language [such as English]’
-- Carnap, ‘Quine on Analyticity’, in "Dear Carnap, Dear Van."
P. M. S. Hacker on Rudolf Carnap and H. P. Grice
"Carnap, unsurprisingly, was incredulous. His account of analyticity, he remonstrated, was intended as an explication of the philosophical concept of analyticty
as applied to ordinary language, which is indeed impredse, since expressions in
ordinary language do not have sharply defined meanings. Quine had argued that
he did not know whether ‘Everything green is extended’ is analytic or not, and he
attributed his uncertainty to the unclarity of the term ‘analytic’ (TDE 32). Carnap
objected that the unclarity was due not to the term ‘analytic’, but to the fact that
it is unclear in ordinary language whether the term ‘green’ is applicable to a single
spatio-temporal point, where a point is construed as lacking extension, since ordinary language does not talk of points thus construed. (Grice and Strawson strengthened Carnap’s point in noting that the same uncertainty attaches to the question of
whether it is true that everything green is extended - and Quine could hardly
complain that the term ‘true’ is irremediably unclear.) In a constructed language,
one lays down meaning postulates in order to ensure clarity. Hence, if it is a
meaning postulate that ‘G’ (‘green’) is inapplicable to spatio-temporal points, then
‘(x) (Ux z> ~ Gx)’ is analytic in L, and so is ‘(x) (Gx z> Ex)’ (where ‘U’ signifies
‘unextended’ and ‘E’ ‘extended’). ‘Analytic in L’, Carnap argued, signifies sentences whose truth depends on their meanings alone, and is thus independent of
the contingency of facts, or ‘true in virtue of meanings’. Of course, it does not
follow that such statements cannot be revoked; the same sentence can be analytic
in one system and synthetic in another. An analytic truth is unrevisable only in the
sense that it remains analytically true as long as the language rules are not changed.
(He might have added that it is anything but obvious what it would be to revise
fine’s belief that bachelors are unmarried, without changing the use (or meaning)
c of the expression.) The attribution of truth to synthetic sentences may be changed
in the light of experience, even though the logical structure of the language does
not change. ‘The analytic/synthetic distinction can be drawn always and only with
respect to a language system, i.e. a language organised according to explicitly
formulated rules, not with respect to a historically given natural language’ (Carnap,
‘Quine on Analytidty’, in Dear Camap, Dear Van, pp. 427-32)."
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Grice v. Carnap on what philosophy isn't
Here's a draft for "The City" which dates back a while. I stumbled across it and made a pass at bringing it to a close.
In (once) recent postings to the Grice club Speranza and I have touched anew a topic on which we have not wholly agreed in the past, perhaps in the manner in which Grice and Carnap might have differed.
At its most stark there is a radical difference between Carnap and Grice on the scope and nature of philosophy.
For Carnap philosophy is confined to a priori reasoning yielding analytic truths expressing necessary propositions, which he would rather have in some formal language by way of escaping the inescapable ambiguity and logical incoherence of natural languages.
Our knowledge of natural languages falls under Hume's "matters of fact", hence a posteriori, synthetic and contingent.
For Carnap the study of such things, a posteriori knowledge, is, by definition empirical science, and for this he is called scientistic.
Well perhaps not just for that. Its not just that he calls it science, but also that the "unity of science" demands that these phenomena be considered continuous with, and addressed by the same methods, as the rest of science.
I have tended to talk in a similar manner, at least some of the way.
So I talk about the study of natural languages as belonging to empirical science, even though I don't myself subscribe to the "unity" thesis.
(and I might add, that Carnap's pluralism is a reason to wonder how substantial the "unity of science" was for him).
Against this, Speranza, who knows more about natural language, philosophy of language, ordinary language philosophy and the science of linguistics (none of these to be confused) objects, quite rightly.
There are a few points here on which I will gently criticise Carnap (where others would do so enthusiastically).
A lot of it is "mere" terminology, some of it is demarcation, which is also terminology.
Thus, in my case if not in Carnap's, its little more than inept terminology to talk of all a posteriori knowledge as belonging to science, and it's worth pleading that if that's as far as it goes, then it doesn't really amount to Grice's devil of scientism.
On the other hand, insisting as Carnap did (though he did soften) that philosophy is confined to analytic pronouncements, is the kind of terminological eccentricity which appears as a controversial demarcation, and an intolerant ejection from the status of philosophy of much that philosophers have done.
The suggestion of dogmatism may be contested, for Carnap was more conspicuously pluralistic than he was an advocate of the unity of science, and these two are in tension.
The unity of science is most forcefully presented as a doctrine about language, as some kind of reductionism of the whole of language to one special language.
But Carnap's pluralism rejects the thesis that any language has a special status. He wants phenomenalistic, physicalistic and "theoretical" language all to be equally acceptable, and expected each science to have its own special language.
Grice has an incompatible principle which also looks as if it might be one of those terminological/demarcation things.
It might just be methodological, that all philosophical problems should be addressed in the first instance by a careful study of the relevant ordinary language, but it is hard not to see this as a refusal to accept as philosophy those kinds of problem for which ordinary language can provide no illumination, and thus as a matter of demarcation.
Could Grice really have believed that there are no philosophical problems for which a preliminary study of ordinary language is not valuable, or even relevant, and which his doctrine would therefore be excluding from philosophy?
By way of a speculative gesture I'm going to suggest a concession to which I think Carnap might possibly have been amenable, and a complementary concession which, if extracted from Grice, might draw the teeth from this conflict.
It's principally about adjustments to terminology and demarcation.
The demarcation issue concerns the respective scopes of philosophy and science, and the point to press upon Carnap is that the real world is rather messier than his principled division of academic disciplines along lines inspired by Hume's fork (but not actually in conformance with Hume's conception of philosophy). Not all scientists are concerned with empirical matters, there is such a thing, for example, as "theoretical physics", which is an entirely mathematical discipline concerned with the mathematical consequences of scientific theories such as the general theory of relativity, rather than with the empirical, experimental confirmation or falsification of scientific theories.
Likewise there always have been, and possibly always will be, kinds of philosophising which involve reasoning a posteriori to conclusions which are not purely logical, but which for one reason or another cannot be addressed by the methods of empirical science, or which will only become science after some kind of pre-scientific investigation (perhaps "conceptual elucidation") has rendered them fit for scientific investigation.
The concession for Carnap is to give up his simplistic conception of the words "science" and "philosophy", and allow that these be decoupled from the rigid association which he preferred between these disciplines and the search for synthetic and analytic truth respectively.
Carnap was capable of making this kind of terminological adjustment, bowing thus to necessity. He did in fact concede on the scope of philosophy, and he also gave signs of conceding on the usage of the term "logical truth".
Certainly he did shift his usage of the technical term L-truth which for many years stood for "logical-truth" in the broad sense in which for Carnap took to be the same as analyticity. In the transition from the first edition of Meaning and Necessity and the paper on "Meaning Postulates" which was to be included as an appendix in the second edition, he shifts to using the term "L-truth" for a narrow conception of logical truth and introduces the term "A-truth" for analyticity and the broad conception.
There is no sign that he is personally inclined to take the narrow view, but by this time it perhaps seems a fait accompli, that the community now takes the narrow view (without in general recognising that this is mere terminology).
Turning back to Grice, the concession we need is that, even if a study of the relevant ordinary language were allowed as an important preliminary (to philosophical insight), maybe sometimes there isn't any. Surely there may be recondite and esoteric corners of mathematics or physics so far removed from everyday life that terminological issues can only be progressed through a detailed analysis of the scientific origins of the particular esoteric language. Must these corners of science be devoid of philosophy?
In (once) recent postings to the Grice club Speranza and I have touched anew a topic on which we have not wholly agreed in the past, perhaps in the manner in which Grice and Carnap might have differed.
At its most stark there is a radical difference between Carnap and Grice on the scope and nature of philosophy.
For Carnap philosophy is confined to a priori reasoning yielding analytic truths expressing necessary propositions, which he would rather have in some formal language by way of escaping the inescapable ambiguity and logical incoherence of natural languages.
Our knowledge of natural languages falls under Hume's "matters of fact", hence a posteriori, synthetic and contingent.
For Carnap the study of such things, a posteriori knowledge, is, by definition empirical science, and for this he is called scientistic.
Well perhaps not just for that. Its not just that he calls it science, but also that the "unity of science" demands that these phenomena be considered continuous with, and addressed by the same methods, as the rest of science.
I have tended to talk in a similar manner, at least some of the way.
So I talk about the study of natural languages as belonging to empirical science, even though I don't myself subscribe to the "unity" thesis.
(and I might add, that Carnap's pluralism is a reason to wonder how substantial the "unity of science" was for him).
Against this, Speranza, who knows more about natural language, philosophy of language, ordinary language philosophy and the science of linguistics (none of these to be confused) objects, quite rightly.
There are a few points here on which I will gently criticise Carnap (where others would do so enthusiastically).
A lot of it is "mere" terminology, some of it is demarcation, which is also terminology.
Thus, in my case if not in Carnap's, its little more than inept terminology to talk of all a posteriori knowledge as belonging to science, and it's worth pleading that if that's as far as it goes, then it doesn't really amount to Grice's devil of scientism.
On the other hand, insisting as Carnap did (though he did soften) that philosophy is confined to analytic pronouncements, is the kind of terminological eccentricity which appears as a controversial demarcation, and an intolerant ejection from the status of philosophy of much that philosophers have done.
The suggestion of dogmatism may be contested, for Carnap was more conspicuously pluralistic than he was an advocate of the unity of science, and these two are in tension.
The unity of science is most forcefully presented as a doctrine about language, as some kind of reductionism of the whole of language to one special language.
But Carnap's pluralism rejects the thesis that any language has a special status. He wants phenomenalistic, physicalistic and "theoretical" language all to be equally acceptable, and expected each science to have its own special language.
Grice has an incompatible principle which also looks as if it might be one of those terminological/demarcation things.
It might just be methodological, that all philosophical problems should be addressed in the first instance by a careful study of the relevant ordinary language, but it is hard not to see this as a refusal to accept as philosophy those kinds of problem for which ordinary language can provide no illumination, and thus as a matter of demarcation.
Could Grice really have believed that there are no philosophical problems for which a preliminary study of ordinary language is not valuable, or even relevant, and which his doctrine would therefore be excluding from philosophy?
By way of a speculative gesture I'm going to suggest a concession to which I think Carnap might possibly have been amenable, and a complementary concession which, if extracted from Grice, might draw the teeth from this conflict.
It's principally about adjustments to terminology and demarcation.
The demarcation issue concerns the respective scopes of philosophy and science, and the point to press upon Carnap is that the real world is rather messier than his principled division of academic disciplines along lines inspired by Hume's fork (but not actually in conformance with Hume's conception of philosophy). Not all scientists are concerned with empirical matters, there is such a thing, for example, as "theoretical physics", which is an entirely mathematical discipline concerned with the mathematical consequences of scientific theories such as the general theory of relativity, rather than with the empirical, experimental confirmation or falsification of scientific theories.
Likewise there always have been, and possibly always will be, kinds of philosophising which involve reasoning a posteriori to conclusions which are not purely logical, but which for one reason or another cannot be addressed by the methods of empirical science, or which will only become science after some kind of pre-scientific investigation (perhaps "conceptual elucidation") has rendered them fit for scientific investigation.
The concession for Carnap is to give up his simplistic conception of the words "science" and "philosophy", and allow that these be decoupled from the rigid association which he preferred between these disciplines and the search for synthetic and analytic truth respectively.
Carnap was capable of making this kind of terminological adjustment, bowing thus to necessity. He did in fact concede on the scope of philosophy, and he also gave signs of conceding on the usage of the term "logical truth".
Certainly he did shift his usage of the technical term L-truth which for many years stood for "logical-truth" in the broad sense in which for Carnap took to be the same as analyticity. In the transition from the first edition of Meaning and Necessity and the paper on "Meaning Postulates" which was to be included as an appendix in the second edition, he shifts to using the term "L-truth" for a narrow conception of logical truth and introduces the term "A-truth" for analyticity and the broad conception.
There is no sign that he is personally inclined to take the narrow view, but by this time it perhaps seems a fait accompli, that the community now takes the narrow view (without in general recognising that this is mere terminology).
Turning back to Grice, the concession we need is that, even if a study of the relevant ordinary language were allowed as an important preliminary (to philosophical insight), maybe sometimes there isn't any. Surely there may be recondite and esoteric corners of mathematics or physics so far removed from everyday life that terminological issues can only be progressed through a detailed analysis of the scientific origins of the particular esoteric language. Must these corners of science be devoid of philosophy?
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Cognitive Architecture
Following a slow moving theme on which I posted here some 18 months ago, I wanted to write something about a kind of "cognitive architecture" in which I am now engaged, and I thought it might be suitable material for this blog.
Eternal truths, if such there be, are of course, once established, a kind of knowledge, and knowledge is the stuff of cognition. So, the place where one might hope to find eternal truths could be some ideally conceived cognitive system. A philosophical exposition of what eternal truth might be, how and where we might find it, and how it might be brought to bear in improving our mundane existence might be thought of as a kind of cognitive architecture, and also as a special species of philosophy, which I now like to call synthetic philosophy.
Having thus made a pass at arguing the relevance of this topic to the city of eternal truth, I will try to elucidate more carefully the kind of cognitive architecture which I think might serve the purpose. I'm going to do this by throwing a bunch of adjectives at it, and explaining how these are to be taken, so that we arrive at a more definite conception.
The first port of call in the exposition of this kind of cognitive architecture is philosophical, it is the articulation of a systematic philosophy in terms of which the cognitive system may be understood, and which will also form bedrock in the "belief system" of this cosmic cognitive system. Since this most closely relates to the philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, I will talk about it at the Carnap Corner Blog.
Eternal truths, if such there be, are of course, once established, a kind of knowledge, and knowledge is the stuff of cognition. So, the place where one might hope to find eternal truths could be some ideally conceived cognitive system. A philosophical exposition of what eternal truth might be, how and where we might find it, and how it might be brought to bear in improving our mundane existence might be thought of as a kind of cognitive architecture, and also as a special species of philosophy, which I now like to call synthetic philosophy.
Having thus made a pass at arguing the relevance of this topic to the city of eternal truth, I will try to elucidate more carefully the kind of cognitive architecture which I think might serve the purpose. I'm going to do this by throwing a bunch of adjectives at it, and explaining how these are to be taken, so that we arrive at a more definite conception.
- architecture - I think of this as the highest levels in the design of some system, concerned with the system as a whole, the principal subsystems and how these fit together, and all the considerations which might precede these matters in the development of the system, particularly, in the case of cognitive systems, a whole raft of considerations which are recognisably philosophical.
- cognitive - this tells us what the system is intended to do, viz. to acquire, hold, reason with and apply knowledge.
- synthetic - there are two distinct ways in which the proposed architecture should be considered synthetic. The first is that the architecture is not intended to be descriptive of any existing cognitive system, but rather prescriptive of various possibilities, which we offer for consideration as models for a future cognitive system which we might strive to realise. The second is that the system is intended to be in part manufactured, and ultimately, overwhelmingly manufactured. A third sense is that the aspects of the architecture which may be regarded as philosophical in character (e.g. the account of what in the system counts as knowledge) will be examples of this kind of philosophy which I am calling synthetic philosophy (a term I will elaborate on in due course).
- hybrid - the cognitive systems for which an architecture is offered are intended to be hybrid, a mix of organic and inorganic constituents. Initially the intelligence will be supplied by organic components (human brains), but eventually some inorganic subsystems will deserve to be considered intelligent as well.
- cosmic - If we first consider our globally networked computing machinery, together with all the human brains which in one way or another connect into that network, as being a computational system slowly morphing into a cognitive system, and think forward to a period between one million and one billion years in the future, when the physical reach of humanity and our progeny extends spatially over a significant part of our galaxy, then we have the context at which the proposed cognitive architecture is aimed. It is nevertheless intended to be immediately applicable, and hence an architecture for the transition from our present global system to a future cosmic system. The hybrid/cosmological pair are also intended to help de-anthropomorphise our conception of cognition, we are not concerned merely with human cognition, but with cognition in very different systems.
The first port of call in the exposition of this kind of cognitive architecture is philosophical, it is the articulation of a systematic philosophy in terms of which the cognitive system may be understood, and which will also form bedrock in the "belief system" of this cosmic cognitive system. Since this most closely relates to the philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, I will talk about it at the Carnap Corner Blog.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
To mock a mockinbird: Carnap, Grice, and Smullyan
Speranza
Smullyan shared some passions with Carnap and Grice, if you can believe it.
Smullyan, the author of a very influential, "First-Order Logic" believed, well, in the power of first-order logic.
His education was peripatetic. An MA followed by a PhD from Princeton on "Theory of Formal Systems."
His main contribution was puzzling: it was his puzzles.
He was an admirer of Goedel, and his list of favourite authors should please both a Carnapian and a Griceian: Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), Boole, Cantor, and a few others!
And he had a sense of humour.
When Grice left Oxford, he had to give some reason. He said he moved because he was looking for the assistance of logicians and he couldn't find ONE in Oxford!
This was a bit hyperbolic. He, for one, was one (Strawson credits him in "Introduction to Logical Theory" as the tutor "from whom I have never ceased to learn about logic"). In "Vacuous Names," Grice's convoluted exposition of a System to allow for names like "Marmaduke Bloggs," who refers the hero who climbed Mt. Everest on hands and knees ("the invention of journalists, as it happened," Grice adds), there is a passing reference to Smullyan. With Myro, and others, Smullyan provided Grice with a way to provide a neat exposition of first order predicate logic -- of which Smullyan was an expert.
The fact that both played the piano helped!
Smullyan shared some passions with Carnap and Grice, if you can believe it.
Smullyan, the author of a very influential, "First-Order Logic" believed, well, in the power of first-order logic.
His education was peripatetic. An MA followed by a PhD from Princeton on "Theory of Formal Systems."
His main contribution was puzzling: it was his puzzles.
He was an admirer of Goedel, and his list of favourite authors should please both a Carnapian and a Griceian: Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), Boole, Cantor, and a few others!
And he had a sense of humour.
When Grice left Oxford, he had to give some reason. He said he moved because he was looking for the assistance of logicians and he couldn't find ONE in Oxford!
This was a bit hyperbolic. He, for one, was one (Strawson credits him in "Introduction to Logical Theory" as the tutor "from whom I have never ceased to learn about logic"). In "Vacuous Names," Grice's convoluted exposition of a System to allow for names like "Marmaduke Bloggs," who refers the hero who climbed Mt. Everest on hands and knees ("the invention of journalists, as it happened," Grice adds), there is a passing reference to Smullyan. With Myro, and others, Smullyan provided Grice with a way to provide a neat exposition of first order predicate logic -- of which Smullyan was an expert.
The fact that both played the piano helped!
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Reason and Reasoning -- and Grice's Bootstrap
-- as it combines with Carnapian tolerance!
Speranza
R. B. Jones has shared with us (that's R. B. Jones and Speranza -- and all the other followers of the yellow brick road to the City of the Eternal Truth) some comments under "Deep Learning Eternal Truth".
Jones notes:
"I thought it might be of some interest to the followers of this blog (both of them) for me to say a few words connecting my present pre-occupations with the Carnap-flavour of the City of Eternal Truth, and this is it."
Good. I love 'pre-occupations'. They contrast of course, Carnapian pre-occupations, with Griceian post-occupations. Which reminds me of the Roman occupation, as satirised by Sellars and Yeatman in "1066 and all that" -- nice figure!
Jones goes on
"I spent a while a few years ago failing to complete a short book-shaped work entitled "Positive Philosophy and The Automation of Reason". "
Lovely title. Jones of course is aware of Comte's positivism, and the new logical positivism. He prefers the mere 'positive', as applied to 'philosophy'. "The automation of reason" is a genial turn of phrase.
Jones:
"It ran into the sand in a very incomplete state at about 130 pages, and though I still felt positive about the enterprise I couldn't find the way to make it move again."
The keyword, though, remains, 'automation of reason', and we should use that phrase more frequently!
Jones:
"Of course (!) "reason" is the key weapon we have in the search for eternal truth."
While Grice uses 'eternal' truth -- as applied to the city thereof -- the phrase also occurs in Quine. I think it's ultimately 'metaphorical', "eternal" -- Grice's 'timeless' won't do here either.
i. Either it will rain or it won't.
is possibly NOT a 'so-called' "eternal" truth, in that in trivalent logics, is not even tautologous!
Jones:
"For a man of logical bent, surely the truths which most deserve that plaudit are the logical truths (though what are they?)."
Indeed, if 'rational' and 'logical' are interchangeable, there's also the possibility to play with 'analytic a priori' truths, as Ayer (or Freddie to his friends) calls them in his Gollancz book -- a classic of logical positivism. Ayer however notes that 'a priori' is otiose, and 'analytic truth' will just do.
Jones:
"Notwithstanding the foundering of that project, it remains my life's pre-occupation to find some way of progressing that topic, or simply of articulating the ideas on it which jostle for attention in my head. A few months ago I made a fresh start at that, shifting the context in which to progress the ideas. The whole thing has always been for me a fence-sitting between the fields of philosophy and information systems engineering."
Beautiful. But cfr. Cole Porter, "Don't fence me in"!
Jones:
"To automate reason is to develop software, and maybe, as is happening right now, to re-architect the hardware we use to execute the software (new hardware architectures for "Deep Learning", beyond Von Neumann). "
Hence the title of his post, with "deep learning" as yet another keyword.
Jones:
"An architecture for reason and its application, depends on philosophical foundations. The articulation of appropriate such foundations is an essential and should be a prominent feature of any such architecture. "
Hence the first part of his conjunctive title, "Positive philosophy AND the automation of reason". The implicature being that only positive philosophy can provide such a foundation. This reminds me of Husserl who said that he dreamed of a philosophy without foundations!
Jones:
"On the other hand, even if the primary purpose is philosophical, the architectural application is a valuable way of testing the practical significance of various issues at stake. One problem with a purely philosophical approach is the enormous difficulty in swimming against the tide of contemporary philosophical opinion, which in this sphere is unduly negative about the status of formal deductive systems as a result, for example, of the Godel's incompleteness results, and of Quine's skepticism about semantics and his consequent dismissal of the notion of logical truth as it was conceived by Carnap (aka analytic truth)."
Indeed, not to mention ("then why do you?") Derrida and all the irrationalists. There is some remarks by Grice on the analytic-synthetic distinction on his Valediction (to his life, almost), in "Retrospective Epilogue" to WoW. He notes that one should indeed take a pragmatist approach to the notion of analyticity.
Jones:
"A shift of thinking from a philosophical perspective on this problem to an architectural engineering perspective is liberating in a way which Carnap's principle of tolerance would endorse.
It allows the adoption of philosophical terminology, in the service of architectural exposition, on a pragmatic basis, sidestepping side issues which in this context may be regarded as metaphysical."
Indeed. Which brings us back to Grice's Bootstrap ("Try to pull yourself by your own bootstraps"). He is (in "Reply to Richards") considering
L1
and
L2
or object-language and meta-language. And he is saying that if L1 is first-order predicate calculus, L2 should NOT contain too much metaphysical jargon; for the idea is that L2 should be reduced to L1, as far as terminology is concerned. So the less technical one is with one's L2, the fewer problems with the morrow, he hopes.
Jones:
"This is what I have done to progress the body of ideas with which I approach the "City of Eternal Truth". I have moved the locus of my creativity from my web domain, hosting philosophical web pages and abortive book projects, to my github account (see: rbjones.github.io),"
which EVERYBODY should check -- where 'everybody' is a universal non-substitutional quantifier, if you must!
Jones:
"where I now seek to articulate a 21st century successor to the idea of demonstrative science found in Aristotle's "Organon," taking science here just as broadly as Aristotle did, encompassing theoretical, practical and productive sciences, and the role which deduction and logical truth plays in this broad arena."
Good. I like the idea of 'demonstrative' science alla Kantotle. Grice used to lecture on the Organon, if you can believe it! And, to me, the most important thing of his seminars on Aristotle's Organon at Oxford is that J. L. Ackrill attended them! (And credits Grice as having taught him Aristotle "so well" -- In Oxford, Plato is almost non-existant, unless you are Hegelian or Bradleyian).
Jones:
"Of course, putting the material at Github creates an expectation that these architectural philosophies will ultimately be translated into code. It's a dream..."
worth pursuing.
"Code" is perhaps not a Griceian word. There is usually the distinction between a code-based model of communication and an inference-based model of communication. The idea is that codes tend to be otiose if we can provide a 'rationale' in terms of inference patterns for them.
Grice said, "Do not multiply senses beyond necessity", and I don't think there is a necessity to multiply the senses of 'code', which is UNI-guous, or monosemous. But Jones uses it alla Jones, and I use it alla Grice.
The code relates to the automation of reason, that Hobbes would have loved!
Cheers
Speranza
R. B. Jones has shared with us (that's R. B. Jones and Speranza -- and all the other followers of the yellow brick road to the City of the Eternal Truth) some comments under "Deep Learning Eternal Truth".
Jones notes:
"I thought it might be of some interest to the followers of this blog (both of them) for me to say a few words connecting my present pre-occupations with the Carnap-flavour of the City of Eternal Truth, and this is it."
Good. I love 'pre-occupations'. They contrast of course, Carnapian pre-occupations, with Griceian post-occupations. Which reminds me of the Roman occupation, as satirised by Sellars and Yeatman in "1066 and all that" -- nice figure!
Jones goes on
"I spent a while a few years ago failing to complete a short book-shaped work entitled "Positive Philosophy and The Automation of Reason". "
Lovely title. Jones of course is aware of Comte's positivism, and the new logical positivism. He prefers the mere 'positive', as applied to 'philosophy'. "The automation of reason" is a genial turn of phrase.
Jones:
"It ran into the sand in a very incomplete state at about 130 pages, and though I still felt positive about the enterprise I couldn't find the way to make it move again."
The keyword, though, remains, 'automation of reason', and we should use that phrase more frequently!
Jones:
"Of course (!) "reason" is the key weapon we have in the search for eternal truth."
While Grice uses 'eternal' truth -- as applied to the city thereof -- the phrase also occurs in Quine. I think it's ultimately 'metaphorical', "eternal" -- Grice's 'timeless' won't do here either.
i. Either it will rain or it won't.
is possibly NOT a 'so-called' "eternal" truth, in that in trivalent logics, is not even tautologous!
Jones:
"For a man of logical bent, surely the truths which most deserve that plaudit are the logical truths (though what are they?)."
Indeed, if 'rational' and 'logical' are interchangeable, there's also the possibility to play with 'analytic a priori' truths, as Ayer (or Freddie to his friends) calls them in his Gollancz book -- a classic of logical positivism. Ayer however notes that 'a priori' is otiose, and 'analytic truth' will just do.
Jones:
"Notwithstanding the foundering of that project, it remains my life's pre-occupation to find some way of progressing that topic, or simply of articulating the ideas on it which jostle for attention in my head. A few months ago I made a fresh start at that, shifting the context in which to progress the ideas. The whole thing has always been for me a fence-sitting between the fields of philosophy and information systems engineering."
Beautiful. But cfr. Cole Porter, "Don't fence me in"!
Jones:
"To automate reason is to develop software, and maybe, as is happening right now, to re-architect the hardware we use to execute the software (new hardware architectures for "Deep Learning", beyond Von Neumann). "
Hence the title of his post, with "deep learning" as yet another keyword.
Jones:
"An architecture for reason and its application, depends on philosophical foundations. The articulation of appropriate such foundations is an essential and should be a prominent feature of any such architecture. "
Hence the first part of his conjunctive title, "Positive philosophy AND the automation of reason". The implicature being that only positive philosophy can provide such a foundation. This reminds me of Husserl who said that he dreamed of a philosophy without foundations!
Jones:
"On the other hand, even if the primary purpose is philosophical, the architectural application is a valuable way of testing the practical significance of various issues at stake. One problem with a purely philosophical approach is the enormous difficulty in swimming against the tide of contemporary philosophical opinion, which in this sphere is unduly negative about the status of formal deductive systems as a result, for example, of the Godel's incompleteness results, and of Quine's skepticism about semantics and his consequent dismissal of the notion of logical truth as it was conceived by Carnap (aka analytic truth)."
Indeed, not to mention ("then why do you?") Derrida and all the irrationalists. There is some remarks by Grice on the analytic-synthetic distinction on his Valediction (to his life, almost), in "Retrospective Epilogue" to WoW. He notes that one should indeed take a pragmatist approach to the notion of analyticity.
Jones:
"A shift of thinking from a philosophical perspective on this problem to an architectural engineering perspective is liberating in a way which Carnap's principle of tolerance would endorse.
It allows the adoption of philosophical terminology, in the service of architectural exposition, on a pragmatic basis, sidestepping side issues which in this context may be regarded as metaphysical."
Indeed. Which brings us back to Grice's Bootstrap ("Try to pull yourself by your own bootstraps"). He is (in "Reply to Richards") considering
L1
and
L2
or object-language and meta-language. And he is saying that if L1 is first-order predicate calculus, L2 should NOT contain too much metaphysical jargon; for the idea is that L2 should be reduced to L1, as far as terminology is concerned. So the less technical one is with one's L2, the fewer problems with the morrow, he hopes.
Jones:
"This is what I have done to progress the body of ideas with which I approach the "City of Eternal Truth". I have moved the locus of my creativity from my web domain, hosting philosophical web pages and abortive book projects, to my github account (see: rbjones.github.io),"
which EVERYBODY should check -- where 'everybody' is a universal non-substitutional quantifier, if you must!
Jones:
"where I now seek to articulate a 21st century successor to the idea of demonstrative science found in Aristotle's "Organon," taking science here just as broadly as Aristotle did, encompassing theoretical, practical and productive sciences, and the role which deduction and logical truth plays in this broad arena."
Good. I like the idea of 'demonstrative' science alla Kantotle. Grice used to lecture on the Organon, if you can believe it! And, to me, the most important thing of his seminars on Aristotle's Organon at Oxford is that J. L. Ackrill attended them! (And credits Grice as having taught him Aristotle "so well" -- In Oxford, Plato is almost non-existant, unless you are Hegelian or Bradleyian).
Jones:
"Of course, putting the material at Github creates an expectation that these architectural philosophies will ultimately be translated into code. It's a dream..."
worth pursuing.
"Code" is perhaps not a Griceian word. There is usually the distinction between a code-based model of communication and an inference-based model of communication. The idea is that codes tend to be otiose if we can provide a 'rationale' in terms of inference patterns for them.
Grice said, "Do not multiply senses beyond necessity", and I don't think there is a necessity to multiply the senses of 'code', which is UNI-guous, or monosemous. But Jones uses it alla Jones, and I use it alla Grice.
The code relates to the automation of reason, that Hobbes would have loved!
Cheers
Aspects of reason and reasoning
Speranza
In his interesting "Deep Learning Eternal Truth," R. B. Jones "thought" (and rightly so) that "it might be of some interest to the followers of this blog (both of them) for me to say a few words connecting my present pre-occupations with the Carnap-flavour of the City of Eternal Truth, and this is it."
Of course there may be more than two (one of which is him) who read this if not follow the yellow brick road (to the City of course!)
"I spent a while a few years ago failing to complete a short book-shaped work entitled "Positive Philosophy and The Automation of Reason". It ran into the sand in a very incomplete state at about 130 pages, and though I still felt positive about the enterprise I couldn't find the way to make it move again."
Blame the sand -- but I love the phrase, 'automation of reason', which of course reminds me of Grice's John Locke Lectures on Aspects of reason and reasoning (previously given as the Immanuel Kant lectures, under the same title, at Stanford -- trust Grice to turn from rationalist to empiricist as he crossed the pond!)
"Of course (!) "reason" is the key weapon we have in the search for eternal truth. For a man of logical bent, surely the truths which most deserve that plaudit are the logical truths (though what are they?)."
Well, for Cicero, 'ratio' was a problem. The Grecian (as in "Ode on a Grecian urn") keyword is merely "logic".
Jones:
"Notwithstanding the foundering of that project, it remains my life's pre-occupation to find some way of progressing that topic, or simply of articulating the ideas on it which jostle for attention in my head. A few months ago I made a fresh start at that, shifting the context in which to progress the ideas. The whole thing has always been for me a fence-sitting between the fields of philosophy and information systems engineering. To automate reason is to develop software, and maybe, as is happening right now, to re-architect the hardware we use to execute the software (new hardware architectures for "Deep Learning", beyond Von Neumann). An architecture for reason and its application, depends on philosophical foundations. The articulation of appropriate such foundations is an essential and should be a prominent feature of any such architecture. On the other hand, even if the primary purpose is philosophical,"
Grice and Carnap would be delighted to hear that!
"the architectural application is a valuable way of testing the practical significance of various issues at stake."
Jones:
"One problem with a purely philosophical approach is the enormous difficulty in swimming against the tide of contemporary philosophical opinion, which in this sphere is unduly negative about the status of formal deductive systems as a result, for example, of the Godel's incompleteness results, and of Quine's skepticism about semantics and his consequent dismissal of the notion of logical truth as it was conceived by Carnap (aka analytic truth)."
Not to mention ("when why do you?", I can imagine Jones retorting) Derrida and all the continental irrationalists!
Jones:
"A shift of thinking from a philosophical perspctive on this problem to an architectural engineering perspective is liberating in a way which Carnap's principle of tolerance would endorse.
It allows the adoption of philosophical terminology, in the service of architectural exposition, on a pragmatic basis, sidestepping side issues which in this context may be regarded as metaphysical. This is what I have done to progress the body of ideas with which I approach the "City of Eternal Truth".
This reminds me of Grice's bootstrap principle ("try to pull yourself by your own bootstraps", in "Reply to Richards"): the less metaphysical the metalanguage, the less problems for the morrow!
Jones:
"I have moved the locus of my creativity from my web domain, hosting philosophical web pages and abortive book projects, to my github account (see: rbjones.github.io),"
which everybody should check, not just two followers!
"where I now seek to articulate a 21st century successor to the idea of demonstrative science found in Aristotle's Organon, taking science here just as broadly as Aristotle did, encompassing theoretical, practical and productive sciences, and the role which deduction and logical truth plays in this broad arena. Of course, putting the material at Github creates an expectation that these architectural philosophies will ultimately be translated into code. It's a dream" but one worth pursuing.
That's the stuff that dreams are made of, as the refrain to that catchy song goes!
In his interesting "Deep Learning Eternal Truth," R. B. Jones "thought" (and rightly so) that "it might be of some interest to the followers of this blog (both of them) for me to say a few words connecting my present pre-occupations with the Carnap-flavour of the City of Eternal Truth, and this is it."
Of course there may be more than two (one of which is him) who read this if not follow the yellow brick road (to the City of course!)
"I spent a while a few years ago failing to complete a short book-shaped work entitled "Positive Philosophy and The Automation of Reason". It ran into the sand in a very incomplete state at about 130 pages, and though I still felt positive about the enterprise I couldn't find the way to make it move again."
Blame the sand -- but I love the phrase, 'automation of reason', which of course reminds me of Grice's John Locke Lectures on Aspects of reason and reasoning (previously given as the Immanuel Kant lectures, under the same title, at Stanford -- trust Grice to turn from rationalist to empiricist as he crossed the pond!)
"Of course (!) "reason" is the key weapon we have in the search for eternal truth. For a man of logical bent, surely the truths which most deserve that plaudit are the logical truths (though what are they?)."
Well, for Cicero, 'ratio' was a problem. The Grecian (as in "Ode on a Grecian urn") keyword is merely "logic".
Jones:
"Notwithstanding the foundering of that project, it remains my life's pre-occupation to find some way of progressing that topic, or simply of articulating the ideas on it which jostle for attention in my head. A few months ago I made a fresh start at that, shifting the context in which to progress the ideas. The whole thing has always been for me a fence-sitting between the fields of philosophy and information systems engineering. To automate reason is to develop software, and maybe, as is happening right now, to re-architect the hardware we use to execute the software (new hardware architectures for "Deep Learning", beyond Von Neumann). An architecture for reason and its application, depends on philosophical foundations. The articulation of appropriate such foundations is an essential and should be a prominent feature of any such architecture. On the other hand, even if the primary purpose is philosophical,"
Grice and Carnap would be delighted to hear that!
"the architectural application is a valuable way of testing the practical significance of various issues at stake."
Jones:
"One problem with a purely philosophical approach is the enormous difficulty in swimming against the tide of contemporary philosophical opinion, which in this sphere is unduly negative about the status of formal deductive systems as a result, for example, of the Godel's incompleteness results, and of Quine's skepticism about semantics and his consequent dismissal of the notion of logical truth as it was conceived by Carnap (aka analytic truth)."
Not to mention ("when why do you?", I can imagine Jones retorting) Derrida and all the continental irrationalists!
Jones:
"A shift of thinking from a philosophical perspctive on this problem to an architectural engineering perspective is liberating in a way which Carnap's principle of tolerance would endorse.
It allows the adoption of philosophical terminology, in the service of architectural exposition, on a pragmatic basis, sidestepping side issues which in this context may be regarded as metaphysical. This is what I have done to progress the body of ideas with which I approach the "City of Eternal Truth".
This reminds me of Grice's bootstrap principle ("try to pull yourself by your own bootstraps", in "Reply to Richards"): the less metaphysical the metalanguage, the less problems for the morrow!
Jones:
"I have moved the locus of my creativity from my web domain, hosting philosophical web pages and abortive book projects, to my github account (see: rbjones.github.io),"
which everybody should check, not just two followers!
"where I now seek to articulate a 21st century successor to the idea of demonstrative science found in Aristotle's Organon, taking science here just as broadly as Aristotle did, encompassing theoretical, practical and productive sciences, and the role which deduction and logical truth plays in this broad arena. Of course, putting the material at Github creates an expectation that these architectural philosophies will ultimately be translated into code. It's a dream" but one worth pursuing.
That's the stuff that dreams are made of, as the refrain to that catchy song goes!
Deep Learning Eternal Truth
I thought it might be of some interest to the followers of this blog (both of them) for me to say a few words connecting my present pre-occupations with the Carnap-flavour of the City of Eternal Truth, and this is it.
I spent a while a few years ago failing to complete a short book-shaped work entitled "Positive Philosophy and The Automation of Reason". It ran into the sand in a very incomplete state at about 130 pages, and though I still felt positive about the enterprise I couldn't find the way to make it move again.
Of course (!) "reason" is the key weapon we have in the search for eternal truth. For a man of logical bent, surely the truths which most deserve that plaudit are the logical truths (though what are they?).
Notwithstanding the foundering of that project, it remains my life's pre-occupation to find some way of progressing that topic, or simply of articulating the ideas on it which jostle for attention in my head.
A few months ago I made a fresh start at that, shifting the context in which to progress the ideas.
The whole thing has always been for me a fence-sitting between the fields of philosophy and information systems engineering. To automate reason is to develop software, and maybe, as is happening right now, to re-architect the hardware we use to execute the software (new hardware architectures for "Deep Learning", beyond Von Neumann). An architecture for reason and its application, depends on philosophical foundations. The articulation of appropriate such foundations is an essential and should be a prominent feature of any such architecture. On the other hand, even if the primary purpose is philosophical, the architectural application is a valuable way of testing the practical significance of various issues at stake.
One problem with a purely philosophical approach is the enormous difficulty in swimming against the tide of contemporary philosophical opinion, which in this sphere is unduly negative about the status of formal deductive systems as a result, for example, of the Godel's incompleteness results, and of Quine's skepticism about semantics and his consequent dismissal of the notion of logical truth as it was conceived by Carnap (aka analytic truth).
A shift of thinking from a philosophical perspctive on this problem to an architectural engineering perspective is liberating in a way which Carnap's principle of tolerance would endorse.
It allows the adoption of philosophical terminology, in the service of architectural exposition, on a pragmatic basis, sidestepping side issues which in this context may be regarded as metaphysical.
This is what I have done to progress the body of ideas with which I approach the "City of Eternal Truth".
I have moved the locus of my creativity from my web domain, hosting philosophical web pages and abortive book projects, to my github account (see: rbjones.github.io), where I now seek to articulate a 21st century successor to the idea of demonstrative science found in Aristotle's Organon, taking science here just as broadly as Aristotle did, encompassing theoretical, practical and productive sciences, and the role which deduction and logical truth plays in this broad arena.
Of course, putting the material at Github creates an expectation that these architectural philosophies will ultimately be translated into code. Its a dream,
I spent a while a few years ago failing to complete a short book-shaped work entitled "Positive Philosophy and The Automation of Reason". It ran into the sand in a very incomplete state at about 130 pages, and though I still felt positive about the enterprise I couldn't find the way to make it move again.
Of course (!) "reason" is the key weapon we have in the search for eternal truth. For a man of logical bent, surely the truths which most deserve that plaudit are the logical truths (though what are they?).
Notwithstanding the foundering of that project, it remains my life's pre-occupation to find some way of progressing that topic, or simply of articulating the ideas on it which jostle for attention in my head.
A few months ago I made a fresh start at that, shifting the context in which to progress the ideas.
The whole thing has always been for me a fence-sitting between the fields of philosophy and information systems engineering. To automate reason is to develop software, and maybe, as is happening right now, to re-architect the hardware we use to execute the software (new hardware architectures for "Deep Learning", beyond Von Neumann). An architecture for reason and its application, depends on philosophical foundations. The articulation of appropriate such foundations is an essential and should be a prominent feature of any such architecture. On the other hand, even if the primary purpose is philosophical, the architectural application is a valuable way of testing the practical significance of various issues at stake.
One problem with a purely philosophical approach is the enormous difficulty in swimming against the tide of contemporary philosophical opinion, which in this sphere is unduly negative about the status of formal deductive systems as a result, for example, of the Godel's incompleteness results, and of Quine's skepticism about semantics and his consequent dismissal of the notion of logical truth as it was conceived by Carnap (aka analytic truth).
A shift of thinking from a philosophical perspctive on this problem to an architectural engineering perspective is liberating in a way which Carnap's principle of tolerance would endorse.
It allows the adoption of philosophical terminology, in the service of architectural exposition, on a pragmatic basis, sidestepping side issues which in this context may be regarded as metaphysical.
This is what I have done to progress the body of ideas with which I approach the "City of Eternal Truth".
I have moved the locus of my creativity from my web domain, hosting philosophical web pages and abortive book projects, to my github account (see: rbjones.github.io), where I now seek to articulate a 21st century successor to the idea of demonstrative science found in Aristotle's Organon, taking science here just as broadly as Aristotle did, encompassing theoretical, practical and productive sciences, and the role which deduction and logical truth plays in this broad arena.
Of course, putting the material at Github creates an expectation that these architectural philosophies will ultimately be translated into code. Its a dream,
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Paul Grice, and Marcus William Dick
Speranza
There was a post in the Grice Club which was basically a quotation from P. M. S. Hacker's essay on Witters (or Wittgenstein, if you must). Hacker has a thing, like I do, matter of fact, for alphabetical ordering. And he manages to try to list the members of what J. L. Austin called his 'kindergarten' -- i.e. the members of that play group that he led and that met on Saturday mornings. The list starts -- I shall use set-theoretical formulation to please Jones:
PG = {Dick, Grice, ...}
i.e. Dick is the first in the list, followed by Grice. I don't think Hacker is trying anything too deep, since, give me five minutes or so, and I shall find members for the play group starting with A, B, and C -- so Dick would NOT be the first!
In any case, why does this relate to The Eternal Truth?
Well, in "Dear Carnap, Dear Van: The Quine-Carnap Correspondence and Related Work," edited by Richard Creath, we read:
"Among it various communications from Marcus Dick, trying to get in touch with us."
So, yes, Dick made it to the Carnap annals, too! The interesting thing is that the communications could not be reciprocated because Marcus Dick left no 'future address', if you can believe that!
Ah, well.
In his biography, Quine notes that Dick had been a Commonwealth Fellow at Harvard, under one of Quine's own courses, and that he had displayed (or done, if you must) some outstanding 'work in logic'.
The connection between Dick and Grice is more tenous, or shall I say, implicatural, in nature!
There was a post in the Grice Club which was basically a quotation from P. M. S. Hacker's essay on Witters (or Wittgenstein, if you must). Hacker has a thing, like I do, matter of fact, for alphabetical ordering. And he manages to try to list the members of what J. L. Austin called his 'kindergarten' -- i.e. the members of that play group that he led and that met on Saturday mornings. The list starts -- I shall use set-theoretical formulation to please Jones:
PG = {Dick, Grice, ...}
i.e. Dick is the first in the list, followed by Grice. I don't think Hacker is trying anything too deep, since, give me five minutes or so, and I shall find members for the play group starting with A, B, and C -- so Dick would NOT be the first!
In any case, why does this relate to The Eternal Truth?
Well, in "Dear Carnap, Dear Van: The Quine-Carnap Correspondence and Related Work," edited by Richard Creath, we read:
"Among it various communications from Marcus Dick, trying to get in touch with us."
So, yes, Dick made it to the Carnap annals, too! The interesting thing is that the communications could not be reciprocated because Marcus Dick left no 'future address', if you can believe that!
Ah, well.
In his biography, Quine notes that Dick had been a Commonwealth Fellow at Harvard, under one of Quine's own courses, and that he had displayed (or done, if you must) some outstanding 'work in logic'.
The connection between Dick and Grice is more tenous, or shall I say, implicatural, in nature!
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Hintikka, Carnap, and Grice
Speranza
Jaakko Hintikka was born in Vantaa, Helsinki, Finland.
Hintikka studied mathematics with Rolf Nevanlinna and philosophy with
Georg Henrik von Wright at the University of Helsinki where defended his
doctoral dissertation on distributive normal forms.
So we see the cross-reference mathematics -- as per mathematics logic, that
today, for example, is taught at Oxford not within the Sub-Faculty of
Philosophy but across the street, so that people enrolled in disciplines other
than Philosophy can attend. The chair is called "Mathematical logic" -- and
philosophy.
Grice loved Wright and he borrowed from him (but never returned) the word
'alethic'. That Hintikka was inspired by these two people (and these two
fields: mathematical logic and philosophy -- moral theory --) to write his
essay on 'distributive normal forms' is interesting.
Geary commented: "A distributive normal form is not as normal as it
seems," and adds with sarcasm: "especially if you catch it undistributed!".
After his Ph.D. studies Hintikka worked as junior fellow at Harvard and
became (independently of Stig Kanger) the founder of possible world
semantics.
The keyterm is Leibniz, as in Leibniz's world: the best of all possible
worlds. Woody Allen (who wrote "Irrational man") and Barrett (who wrote
"Irrational man") have something to say about this, because Leibniz is concerned
with the "best" (morally best) of all possible worlds and Lucas (the
character in Allen's film fallaciously thinks he has discovered it!). Hintikka's
treatment is more abstract: he uses subindexes w1 w2 w3 wn to represent
each world. Thus
"All man is rational"
is true in all possible worlds if for any world n, man is rational.
Hintikka published his groundbreaking work "Knowledge and Belief" on
epistemic logic -- the semantics of which is 'possible-worlds'. He uses now two
dyadic operators:
B(A, p)
and
K(A, p)
to represent that A believes and knows that p respectively. He liked to
play with 'paradoxes' like
K(A, p) --> KK(A, p)
i.e. if you know that God exists, you know that you know that God exists.
Hintikka was appointed professor of Practical Philosophy at Helsinki --
which was a good thing since, having been born there, he never got lost! In
fact, he moved not far from the house where he had been born. And a nice
house it was, too!
Hintikka later became professor of philosophy at Stanford -- which is a
bit away from Helsinki, if just more or less at the same distance from the
beach (different beaches, admittedly).
Stanford, with Hintikka, Patrick Suppes and Dagfinn Föllesdal, and the
programme initiated by Grice "Hands across the Bay" from across the Bay in
UC/Berkeley -- became one of the leading centres of philosophy of science and
philosophical logic, if not conceptual analysis: Urmson and S. N. Hampshire
also taught there.
Hintikka’s new interests included inductive logic and semantic information.
He would say, "What's the good of a philosopher if you don't have a new
interest?"
He shared his time between Stanford and Helsinki for a while.
Later Hintikka started his work with D. Reidel’s Publishing Company (later
Kluwer Academic Publishers) in Holland as the editor-in-chief of the
journal "Synthese" and the book series "The Synthese Library" -- which Geary
calls "hardly synthetic".
This activity made Hintikka the most influential editor of philosophical
works. In fact, he was co-editor of a festschrift, as it were, for Quine, who
had written "Words and Objections". This came out in Reidel as Words and
ObjectIONS -- what's the good of a philosophical theory if you are not going
to criticise it, as Joaquin Phoenix says in "Irrational man"? -- and they
invited H. P. Grice to contribute. Grice took his time -- which delayed the
publication of the thing -- and Hintikka was strict with deadlines -- but
eventually the thing came out with Grice's "Vacuous Names" in it, and a
short reply by Quine crediting Grice's brilliancy.
Hintikka was appointed to a Research Professorship in the Academy of
Finland which allowed him to establish a research group of Finnish scholars
working mainly in logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and
history of philosophy.
The Academy of Finland owes its name to the Academy of Athens founded by
Plato. Most countries have Academies: Greece first, then Rome, then Italy,
then France. Then Finland. Even Britain has its academy and Grice was
appointed FBA in 1966 but he delayed the deliverance of his philosophical lecture
for the British Academy to 1971, when he came up with "Intention and
Uncertanity": a parody on Hart and Hampshire's 'slightly ridiculous' claims in
their joint essay for "Mind" on intention and certainty.
As a teacher and supervisor, Hintikka was highly influential though the
richness of his new ideas and research initiatives.
Many of the former students of Hintikka have been appointed to chairs in
philosophy. To wit: Risto Hilpinen, Raimo Tuomela, Juhani Pietarinen, Ilkka
Niiniluoto, Simo Knuuttila, Veikko Rantala, Juha Manninen, Lauri Carlson,
Esa Saarinen, Matti Sintonen, Gabriel Sandu.
Lauri Carlson wrote a Synthese Library essay on "Dialogue games" -- the
ideas will be later developed by Hintikka himself in his contribution to P. G.
R. I. C. E., the Grice festschrift edited by Grandy and Warner.
Hintikka divorced his first wife Soili.
Hintikka married Merrill Bristow Provence -- Mrs. Hintikka willl later
co-edit with Vermazen a festschrift for Davidson and they invited H. P. Grice
to contribute. He did with a brilliant essay on 'akrasia'.
Hintikka and Provence were appointed at Tallahassee, Florida.
Hintikka married Ghita Holmström.
Hintikka became philosophy professor at Boston -- not far from where he
had been a fellow in the next town -- when he was in Harvard, Massachussets
-- He would walk from Boston to Cambridge, and back, as he seemed to prefer
the bookshops in Cambridge than those in Boston.
During his Boston pewriod, Hintikka resided in a 'cottage' (as
non-New-Englanders call them) at Marlborough.
Marlborough was not named after the person -- via rigid designation -- but
after the borough.
Hintikka retired from Boston and moved back to Finland.
Besides his activities in research, teaching, and publication, Hintikka
served in many important positions in international organizations, among
others vice president of The Association for Symbolic Logic, vice-president and
later president of the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of
Science of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science
(DLMPS/IUHPS), president of the Charles S. Peirce Society -- D. Ritchie was
mentioning this genial philosopher recently -- and the chairman of the
organizing committee of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy.
As a proof of the appreciation of Hintikka’s work, a volume dedicated to
him in "The Library of Living Philosophers" was published.
Hintikka’s publications cover an exceptionally wide range of topics.
During his career he published lots of books or monographs, edited lots of
books, and authored lots of essays in international journals or
collections.
His main works deal with:
-- mathematical logic (proof theory, infinitary logics, IF-logic)
-- intensional logic and propositional attitudes
-- philosophy of logic and mathematics
-- philosophy of language (game-theoretical semantics, quantifiers,
anaphora)
-- philosophy of science (interrogative model of inquiry)
-- epistemology, and
-- history of philosophy (Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Peirce, Frege,
Wittgenstein, Grice -- in the P. G. R. I. C. E. festschrift).
A genius.
Jaakko Hintikka was born in Vantaa, Helsinki, Finland.
Hintikka studied mathematics with Rolf Nevanlinna and philosophy with
Georg Henrik von Wright at the University of Helsinki where defended his
doctoral dissertation on distributive normal forms.
So we see the cross-reference mathematics -- as per mathematics logic, that
today, for example, is taught at Oxford not within the Sub-Faculty of
Philosophy but across the street, so that people enrolled in disciplines other
than Philosophy can attend. The chair is called "Mathematical logic" -- and
philosophy.
Grice loved Wright and he borrowed from him (but never returned) the word
'alethic'. That Hintikka was inspired by these two people (and these two
fields: mathematical logic and philosophy -- moral theory --) to write his
essay on 'distributive normal forms' is interesting.
Geary commented: "A distributive normal form is not as normal as it
seems," and adds with sarcasm: "especially if you catch it undistributed!".
After his Ph.D. studies Hintikka worked as junior fellow at Harvard and
became (independently of Stig Kanger) the founder of possible world
semantics.
The keyterm is Leibniz, as in Leibniz's world: the best of all possible
worlds. Woody Allen (who wrote "Irrational man") and Barrett (who wrote
"Irrational man") have something to say about this, because Leibniz is concerned
with the "best" (morally best) of all possible worlds and Lucas (the
character in Allen's film fallaciously thinks he has discovered it!). Hintikka's
treatment is more abstract: he uses subindexes w1 w2 w3 wn to represent
each world. Thus
"All man is rational"
is true in all possible worlds if for any world n, man is rational.
Hintikka published his groundbreaking work "Knowledge and Belief" on
epistemic logic -- the semantics of which is 'possible-worlds'. He uses now two
dyadic operators:
B(A, p)
and
K(A, p)
to represent that A believes and knows that p respectively. He liked to
play with 'paradoxes' like
K(A, p) --> KK(A, p)
i.e. if you know that God exists, you know that you know that God exists.
Hintikka was appointed professor of Practical Philosophy at Helsinki --
which was a good thing since, having been born there, he never got lost! In
fact, he moved not far from the house where he had been born. And a nice
house it was, too!
Hintikka later became professor of philosophy at Stanford -- which is a
bit away from Helsinki, if just more or less at the same distance from the
beach (different beaches, admittedly).
Stanford, with Hintikka, Patrick Suppes and Dagfinn Föllesdal, and the
programme initiated by Grice "Hands across the Bay" from across the Bay in
UC/Berkeley -- became one of the leading centres of philosophy of science and
philosophical logic, if not conceptual analysis: Urmson and S. N. Hampshire
also taught there.
Hintikka’s new interests included inductive logic and semantic information.
He would say, "What's the good of a philosopher if you don't have a new
interest?"
He shared his time between Stanford and Helsinki for a while.
Later Hintikka started his work with D. Reidel’s Publishing Company (later
Kluwer Academic Publishers) in Holland as the editor-in-chief of the
journal "Synthese" and the book series "The Synthese Library" -- which Geary
calls "hardly synthetic".
This activity made Hintikka the most influential editor of philosophical
works. In fact, he was co-editor of a festschrift, as it were, for Quine, who
had written "Words and Objections". This came out in Reidel as Words and
ObjectIONS -- what's the good of a philosophical theory if you are not going
to criticise it, as Joaquin Phoenix says in "Irrational man"? -- and they
invited H. P. Grice to contribute. Grice took his time -- which delayed the
publication of the thing -- and Hintikka was strict with deadlines -- but
eventually the thing came out with Grice's "Vacuous Names" in it, and a
short reply by Quine crediting Grice's brilliancy.
Hintikka was appointed to a Research Professorship in the Academy of
Finland which allowed him to establish a research group of Finnish scholars
working mainly in logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and
history of philosophy.
The Academy of Finland owes its name to the Academy of Athens founded by
Plato. Most countries have Academies: Greece first, then Rome, then Italy,
then France. Then Finland. Even Britain has its academy and Grice was
appointed FBA in 1966 but he delayed the deliverance of his philosophical lecture
for the British Academy to 1971, when he came up with "Intention and
Uncertanity": a parody on Hart and Hampshire's 'slightly ridiculous' claims in
their joint essay for "Mind" on intention and certainty.
As a teacher and supervisor, Hintikka was highly influential though the
richness of his new ideas and research initiatives.
Many of the former students of Hintikka have been appointed to chairs in
philosophy. To wit: Risto Hilpinen, Raimo Tuomela, Juhani Pietarinen, Ilkka
Niiniluoto, Simo Knuuttila, Veikko Rantala, Juha Manninen, Lauri Carlson,
Esa Saarinen, Matti Sintonen, Gabriel Sandu.
Lauri Carlson wrote a Synthese Library essay on "Dialogue games" -- the
ideas will be later developed by Hintikka himself in his contribution to P. G.
R. I. C. E., the Grice festschrift edited by Grandy and Warner.
Hintikka divorced his first wife Soili.
Hintikka married Merrill Bristow Provence -- Mrs. Hintikka willl later
co-edit with Vermazen a festschrift for Davidson and they invited H. P. Grice
to contribute. He did with a brilliant essay on 'akrasia'.
Hintikka and Provence were appointed at Tallahassee, Florida.
Hintikka married Ghita Holmström.
Hintikka became philosophy professor at Boston -- not far from where he
had been a fellow in the next town -- when he was in Harvard, Massachussets
-- He would walk from Boston to Cambridge, and back, as he seemed to prefer
the bookshops in Cambridge than those in Boston.
During his Boston pewriod, Hintikka resided in a 'cottage' (as
non-New-Englanders call them) at Marlborough.
Marlborough was not named after the person -- via rigid designation -- but
after the borough.
Hintikka retired from Boston and moved back to Finland.
Besides his activities in research, teaching, and publication, Hintikka
served in many important positions in international organizations, among
others vice president of The Association for Symbolic Logic, vice-president and
later president of the Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of
Science of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science
(DLMPS/IUHPS), president of the Charles S. Peirce Society -- D. Ritchie was
mentioning this genial philosopher recently -- and the chairman of the
organizing committee of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy.
As a proof of the appreciation of Hintikka’s work, a volume dedicated to
him in "The Library of Living Philosophers" was published.
Hintikka’s publications cover an exceptionally wide range of topics.
During his career he published lots of books or monographs, edited lots of
books, and authored lots of essays in international journals or
collections.
His main works deal with:
-- mathematical logic (proof theory, infinitary logics, IF-logic)
-- intensional logic and propositional attitudes
-- philosophy of logic and mathematics
-- philosophy of language (game-theoretical semantics, quantifiers,
anaphora)
-- philosophy of science (interrogative model of inquiry)
-- epistemology, and
-- history of philosophy (Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Peirce, Frege,
Wittgenstein, Grice -- in the P. G. R. I. C. E. festschrift).
A genius.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
D. P. Henry: Between Grice and Carnap
Speranza
In his "Quæstio subtilissima", D. P. Henry places himself somewhat between R. Carnap and H. P. Grice (does he not quote).
Henry is concerned with the formalization of metaphysical claims, and disagrees with Carnap in treaeting them (Heidegger's infamous "The Nothing noths") as nonsense.
R. B. Jones may find the Henry reference of some interest, as Henry is trying to see Carnap from a historical perspective and he (Henry) may miss a few points or qualifications!
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!
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
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.
----
The 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.
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)
The 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,
----
Forthcoming Carnap Lectures
2014
"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."
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).
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]
[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.
Friday, June 28, 2013
INFLUENCE OF THE AUFBAU ON GRICE --
Speranza
Well, this below is rather influence ON the Aufbau.
For the record then, there is a
Call for participation:
Influences on the Aufbau.
To be held at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU
Munich
01-03 July 2013
http://www.carnapsaufbau13.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/index.html
The workshop should cover all varieties of influences on Carnap’s seminal
work, with the inclusion of the influences of
Frege
Russell
Husserl,
the neo-Kantians
Dilthey, and
the Dilthey-school
but also the
influences of less well-known philosophers such as
Vaihinger,
Gätschenberger,
Driesch, Dingler,
and others.
Invited speakers:
Andre Carus (Hegeler Institute)
Hans-Joachim Dahms (University of Vienna)
Michael Friedman (Stanford University)
Thomas Mormann (University of San Sebastian)
Matthias Neuber (University of Tübingen)
Alan Richardson (UBC Vancouver)
Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock (University of Puerto Rico)
Thomas Ryckman (Stanford University)
Clinton Tolley (UC San Diego)
Thomas Uebel (University of Manchester)
Paul Ziche (University of Utrecht)
in order to register please contact Christian Damböck
(christian.damboeck@univie.ac.at)
the program and abstracts as well as practical information on the venue
etc. can be found online:
http://www.carnapsaufbau13.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/index.html
Well, this below is rather influence ON the Aufbau.
For the record then, there is a
Call for participation:
Influences on the Aufbau.
To be held at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, LMU
Munich
01-03 July 2013
http://www.carnapsaufbau13.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/index.html
The workshop should cover all varieties of influences on Carnap’s seminal
work, with the inclusion of the influences of
Frege
Russell
Husserl,
the neo-Kantians
Dilthey, and
the Dilthey-school
but also the
influences of less well-known philosophers such as
Vaihinger,
Gätschenberger,
Driesch, Dingler,
and others.
Invited speakers:
Andre Carus (Hegeler Institute)
Hans-Joachim Dahms (University of Vienna)
Michael Friedman (Stanford University)
Thomas Mormann (University of San Sebastian)
Matthias Neuber (University of Tübingen)
Alan Richardson (UBC Vancouver)
Guillermo E. Rosado Haddock (University of Puerto Rico)
Thomas Ryckman (Stanford University)
Clinton Tolley (UC San Diego)
Thomas Uebel (University of Manchester)
Paul Ziche (University of Utrecht)
in order to register please contact Christian Damböck
(christian.damboeck@univie.ac.at)
the program and abstracts as well as practical information on the venue
etc. can be found online:
http://www.carnapsaufbau13.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/index.html
Friday, May 10, 2013
Grice at Ruhr -- On the concept of structure in Grice and Carnap --
Speranza
The Rudolf Carnap Lectures -- not necessarily about Carnap (although cfr. talk below by Guido).
Cfr. Grice's William James lectures not really about James ("Logic and Conversation")
and his "John Dewey" lecture, and his "Paul Carus" lectures, and so on.
Still, Ruhr is the most charming place to hold the Carnap lectures, and I'm pleased to think Grice would be invited!
Cheers,
Speranza
-----
Rudolf Carnap Lectures and Graduate Conference
Institute of Philosophy II,
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
May 21-23, 2013
David J. Chalmers (ANU/NYU)
"Structuralism, Space, and Skepticism"
David J. Chalmers is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director
of the Center for Consciousness at ANU and Professor of Philosophy and
Co-Director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at NYU.
He will be presenting new material in a series of lectures, developing and
extending themes from his recent book "Constructing the World" (OUP 2012).
The Rudolf Carnap Lectures -- not necessarily about Carnap (although cfr. talk below by Guido).
Cfr. Grice's William James lectures not really about James ("Logic and Conversation")
and his "John Dewey" lecture, and his "Paul Carus" lectures, and so on.
Still, Ruhr is the most charming place to hold the Carnap lectures, and I'm pleased to think Grice would be invited!
Cheers,
Speranza
-----
Rudolf Carnap Lectures and Graduate Conference
Institute of Philosophy II,
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
May 21-23, 2013
David J. Chalmers (ANU/NYU)
"Structuralism, Space, and Skepticism"
David J. Chalmers is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director
of the Center for Consciousness at ANU and Professor of Philosophy and
Co-Director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at NYU.
He will be presenting new material in a series of lectures, developing and
extending themes from his recent book "Constructing the World" (OUP 2012).
Tuesday 21st
10.30-12.30 David Chalmers: Lecture 1,
tba
12.30-14.30 Lunch Break
14.00-14.45
Guido Del Din (Padua):
On the concept of
structure in
Carnap‘s ,Der logische Aufbau der Welt‘
14.45-15.30 Benjamin Andrae (Munich School of Philosophy):
Chalmers, Russell, and
Whitehead on Epistemology and Acquaintance
15.30-16.00 Coffee Break
16.00-16.45 Robert Smithson (Carolina): Conceptual vs.
metaphysical grounding
18.00-20.00 David Chalmers: The Matrix as Metaphysics (public
lecture, HGA 30)
20.30 Dinner
Wednesday 22nd
10.00-12.00 David Chalmers: Lecture 2,
tba
12.00-14.00 Lunch Break
14.00-14.45 Inga Vermeulen (Sheffield): Verbal disputes, but
not about words
14.45-15.30 Dusko Prelevic (Belgrade): Scrutability of Truth
and Continuum Hypothesis
15.30-16.00 Coffee Break
16.00-16.45 Antonella Mallozzi (The Graduate Center, CUNY):
Scrutability and negative facts
19.00 Dinner
Thursday 23rd
10.00-10.45 Jonathan Mai (Heidelberg): Two problems with
Chalmers‘ Structuralism
10.45-11.00 Coffee Break
11.00-13.00 David Chalmers: Lecture 4,
tba
13.00 Lunch and End
Further information about these and past Carnap Lectures, the Venue
and
Travel information: http://www.rub.de/philosophy/carnaplectures/Home.html
Travel information: http://www.rub.de/philosophy/carnaplectures/Home.html
Organization:
Prof. Dr. Tobias Schlicht, Prof. Dr. Albert Newen
Institute of Philosophy II
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Germany
Prof. Dr. Tobias Schlicht, Prof. Dr. Albert Newen
Institute of Philosophy II
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Germany
Prof. Dr. Tobias Schlicht
Institut für Philosophie II
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Universitätsstr. 150, GA3/29
44780 Bochum
Thursday, April 25, 2013
The Carnap Idiom, The Grice Idiom -- Look For A Neutral One
--- by JLS, of the Grice Club
---- WON'T SAY a 'common one', because a common idiom may not ring the right sort of bell.
But when discussing what Grice calls the 'longitudinal unity of philosophy', Grice notes that one obstacle in its perception is the dating of 'idioms'. Some idioms date: they become old-fashioned. New ones are fangled, and so on ad infinitum.
---
The idea occurred to me, after the heroic attempts by Jones in "Grice Club" to turn to some Carnapian 'common' lingua franca the latest Gricean novelties.
Jones proposed:
----- for 'meaning', qua noun. As when we say, "The meaning of this". What is this? What is 'meaning' for Carnap? What was meaning for Grice?
When it comes to Carnap one has to give a lot of credit to his mother tongue. Or something.
---- WON'T SAY a 'common one', because a common idiom may not ring the right sort of bell.
But when discussing what Grice calls the 'longitudinal unity of philosophy', Grice notes that one obstacle in its perception is the dating of 'idioms'. Some idioms date: they become old-fashioned. New ones are fangled, and so on ad infinitum.
---
The idea occurred to me, after the heroic attempts by Jones in "Grice Club" to turn to some Carnapian 'common' lingua franca the latest Gricean novelties.
Jones proposed:
----- for 'meaning', qua noun. As when we say, "The meaning of this". What is this? What is 'meaning' for Carnap? What was meaning for Grice?
When it comes to Carnap one has to give a lot of credit to his mother tongue. Or something.
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