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.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)