EMBEDDING LOGICAL EMPIRICISM INTO THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY: EINO KAILA ON HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Size: px
Start display at page:

Download "EMBEDDING LOGICAL EMPIRICISM INTO THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY: EINO KAILA ON HUMAN KNOWLEDGE"

Transcription

1 ESSAY REVIEW EMBEDDING LOGICAL EMPIRICISM INTO THE HISTORY OF EPISTEMOLOGY: EINO KAILA ON HUMAN KNOWLEDGE Eino Kaila. Human Knowledge: A Classic Statement of Logical Empiricism. Trans. Anssi Korhonen. Ed. Juha Manninen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, and George A. Reisch. Chicago: Open Court, Pp $49.95 (paper). The name of philosopher and psychologist Eino Kaila ( ) is well known among people who are interested in logical empiricism and its history. His writings, however, have received only limited attention. This can only partially be due to linguistic barriers; after all, most of his writings on the philosophy of science have appeared in German, and some of them are available in English (see Eino Kaila, Reality and Experience: Four Philosophical Essays, ed. R. S. Cohen with intro. by G. H. von Wright, Vienna Circle Collection 12 [Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979]). The current book, which is now available in English for the first time, was first published in Finnish in 1939 and translated into Swedish in the same year by G. H. von Wright, a student of Kaila. Even in 1979, von Wright espoused the view that Kaila s book was the best introduction to logical empiricism that had been written. Carnap wanted to arrange for an English translation of the book to be published in the Library of Unified Science but was hindered by the war. If he had been successful and an English translation of the book had been published, the so-called received view of logical empiricism may never have become as widespread as it did. The literal translation of the Finnish title would be Human knowledge: What it is and what it is not. The editors of the current volume decided in favor of HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, vol. 6 (Spring 2016) /2016/ $ by the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. All rights reserved. 148

2 Essay Review SPRING 2016 Human Knowledge: A Classic Statement of Logical Empiricism. Presumably, the subtitle is intended to indicate that the philosophical theses presented in the book (75 years after the original publication) are to be regarded as constituting a step in the history of philosophy of science in the twentieth century namely, in the classic period of logical empiricism. In this sense, the subtitle is well suited. But, it could also create the misleading impression that Kaila s systematic introduction to logical empiricism (xxvi) does nothing more than systematically rehash canonical theorems of logical empiricism in the form of a textbook. Such a book could of course be historically interesting and worthy of translation: a systematic presentation of logical empiricism that was already available in Finnish in 1939 would greatly enrich the stock of resources available to HOPOS scholars doing research on the philosophy of science of the twentieth century. However, it would be thoroughly mistaken to expect a textbook-style presentation of familiar themes from logical empiricism. Indeed, the book holds a number of surprises in store for the reader. In characterizing his philosophical position, Eino Kaila used the term ein logischer Empirismus (in German) as early as On Moritz Schlick s invitation, he visited Vienna in 1929, 1932, and 1934 and entered into a lively exchange with the members of the Vienna Circle. In his writings from this period, he engaged intensively with Frege, Russell, Carnap, Schlick, Popper, Gödel, Reichenbach, and others. It is clear from the titles of several of his writings in these years that the development of his philosophical views was shaped by reflection on the movement in Vienna and Berlin (e.g., Logical Positivism: A Critical Study, Annales Universitatis Aboensis B 13 [1930], On the System of Concepts of Reality: A Contribution to Logical Empiricism, Acta Philosophica Fennica 2 [1936], On the Physical Concept of Reality: Second Contribution to Logical Empiricism, Acta Philosophica Fennica 4 [1941]). The first surprise that one encounters in this book is that it exudes the same freshness as the early logical empiricists exuded in their discussions of fundamental questions about modern science. It has the charm of a time capsule that has been washed from that world that is passed onto the shore of the twentyfirst century. In this sense, the book really does deserve to be counted among the classical texts of early logical empiricism. The second and probably greater surprise that one encounters in the book is an idea that differs markedly from the views one finds in other classical writings from the 1920s and 1930s. Specifically, for Kaila, the term logical empiricism is not primarily used to designate a movement in twentieth-century philosophy but, rather, a characteristic of modern science since Galileo. According to Kaila, the most central achievements of logical empiricism, understood in this sense, can only be properly appreciated against the background of 149

3 HOPOS The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science the epistemology that Galileo overcame. This way of thinking leads toward a hybrid systematic-historical orientation, which we do not find elsewhere in early logical empiricism except perhaps to some extent in Edgar Zilsel and Philipp Frank. But, there are obvious similarities to Ernst Cassirer s The Problem of Knowledge ( ), as well as to his Substance and Function (1910) not least in the role played by Aristotle s account of substances in Kaila s reconstruction. According to Kaila, the Aristotelian understanding of substances in logic and metaphysics was precisely the impediment that had to be overcome, in successive historical stages, in order for the modern conception of knowledge to become established. Kaila s book contains 10 chapters, which are organized into three parts: part 1 (Theory Formation), part 2 (The Formal Truth of Theory), and part 3 (The Empirical Truth of Theory). In the first chapter, Kaila defines and explicates a conception of human knowledge that then serves as a red thread through the entire investigation. Here, too, a deep relationship between Kaila and Cassirer s philosophy of science becomes visible. According to Kaila, the search for invariances is a core characteristic of the human mind that is also found in aesthetic experience (5) and in prescientific thinking: the so-called laws of nature and even the so-called physical objects emerge from that search for invariances (3). In his book, Kaila attempts to show that the human search for knowledge can indeed be regarded as a search for invariances; and that knowledge itself, being the result of this search, can be understood as the discovery and representation of such invariances. If, furthermore, we succeed in showing that other conceptions of human knowledge in fact presuppose this self-same search for invariances, but err because of some prejudices and misconceptions, we will have accomplished something (17). A further surprise is then in store in the second and third chapters, where it becomes clear just how highly Kaila esteems the ancient Greeks: The dialogues of Plato, the best of which remain fresh as morning dew, reveal to us the entire depth of the struggling human spirit. Everything to which the ancient Greeks put their minds grew to become exemplary. Thus they created European art and European science (19). It is not only Euclidean geometry, the conception of an axiomatic system, and the notion of a theory as a hypotheticodeductive system that we owe to the Greeks but also the decisive step taken by transforming astronomy into a science. This step becomes apparent in the following famous question, attributed to Plato: What are those completely regular circular motions that, if assumed, would save planetary phenomena? The remarkable phrase to save the phenomena ; in Greek sozein tai phainomena occurs repeatedly thereafter. In its Latinized form apparentia salvare it is even used by Copernicus in his great work On the Revolution of Celestial Spheres. 150

4 Essay Review SPRING 2016 The phrase means: Which invariances would define the motions of stars in such a way as to render their wanderings only apparent? This was the beginning of scientific astronomy (25). Similarly, with respect to scientific philosophy: And it is really only with Plato that philosophy in the strict, the scientific sense of the word is born: that is, with Plato the eye of the intellect is now turned inward so that the concept of knowledge itself becomes an object of scientific consideration. In this way, the theory of theories, the theory of knowledge, is born (37). But, Kaila also observes that the Greeks set up significant barriers to science and to scientific philosophy for example, through their prejudice that true knowledge can only be knowledge of the unchangeable (38) and that the unchangeable must be conceived as being thing-like (51). In Kaila s view, these prejudices are philosophically interesting insofar as they are linked to a particular concept of human knowledge that pervades all of ancient Greek thought and was definitely established by Aristotle and... dominated all European scientific thought until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (27). In the atomists and in Plato, there was still a powerful impetus to the development of mathematical natural science (40) namely, the ideas of mathematical invariances and structural laws. But these impulses could not be developed further, because Plato considered transient objects to be mere reflections of true reality : Plato regards all mathematical natural science as no more than a probable story, which is not even supposed to be valid as full, exact account. The requirement of verification by experience is weak. It is at this point the Plato s heir, Aristotle enters the stage, taking the main role in the development of scientific ideas (41). The great achievements for which Aristotle deserves such high praise, such as turning toward empirical study and taking the first steps in formalizing logic, came at a high price (46). Rather than freeing the search for invariances from its peculiarly Greek limitations, Aristotle rejected, in the name of experience, the requirement imposed on it by Plato. This fact underlies one of the remarkable features of the Aristotelian conception of knowledge: it rejects the very idea of rationalizing concept and theory formation. This means, above all, that attempts to create a mathematical natural science are given up (42). These attempts were taken up again in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it was in Galileo that a conception of knowledge finally arose that combined both the search for invariances and the requirement of verification. In the fourth chapter, The Galilean Conception of Knowledge, Kaila characterizes the decisive step toward the modern concept of knowledge as follows: the most important kind of unchangeable thing is no longer to be found in things themselves, but rather in the relations between changes; it is to be found, that is, in relational invariances or functions, not in substances (51). 151

5 HOPOS The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science In this formulation, and elsewhere, Kaila s proximity to Cassirer becomes apparent. Like Cassirer, he also emphasizes that this new concept of knowledge obviated the characteristically Aristotelian need for a foundation in everyday commonsense thinking: Now, though, human thought took a decisive step as consciously developed relational concepts, often quite detached from everyday experience, came to occupy an ever greater role in the comprehension of reality (52). Kaila s understanding of the Galilean concept of knowledge is not limited to Galileo himself. Rather, Kaila presents this concept as a dense network of relations and thoughts extending from Leonardo da Vinci to Galileo, Newton, Descartes, and Leibniz. At the same time, this network is focused around two points: the Platonic and Aristotelian concept of knowledge, on the one hand, and the concept of knowledge found in logical empiricism, on the other. In Kaila s view, the Galilean concept of knowledge not only incorporated and reconfigured crucial aspects of Greek science but also took up new aspects that link it with the concept of knowledge in logical empiricism. Let s mention some of these features: Galileo s remark that the way of demonstration is distinct from the way of discovery (53); Galileo s way of demonstration, which consists in finding out what the consequences given assumptions have (55); the Leibnizian distinction between logical truths as analytic and empirical truths as synthetic (57); and the way Leibniz s philosophy overcame the imaginary opposition between thinking and extension, or between matter and spirit (66). In the fifth chapter, Kaila situates the problem of induction in the conceptual and historical context established in the previous chapters. Taking up the Galilean distinction between the way of demonstration and the way of discovery, he asks: Can the way of discovery, that is the search for invariances, be subjected to a number of exact rules? (69). In discussing Mill, Reichenbach, Leibniz, Hume, and Bayes, Kaila addresses the induction problem in connection with the labels enumerative induction, causal induction, inductive probability, relative simplicity, relative simplicity and the explanatory value of a theory, and justification of induction (71 84). His discussion ranges over countless examples from the history of science, including Kepler, Newton, Mendeleyev, Fresnel, and Poisson. According to Kaila, scientific imagination plays a decisive role in major scientific discoveries: it seems that this kind of scientific discovery [i.e., Kepler s laws of planetary motion] can be subjected to mechanical rules no more than the genius of an artist (71). A theory is created through free invention regulated by the search for invariances, and this way of discovery cannot marked out in advance. Only the way of demonstration can be regulated (76). 152

6 Essay Review SPRING 2016 After this chapter on induction, which concludes part 1, Kaila moves on to part 2, where he presents the fundamental concepts of formal logic in chapters 6, Logical Truth, and 7, Mathematical Truth. It is against this backdrop that he discusses Kant s doctrine of synthetic a priori statements. Drawing on Reichenbach and Carnap, he impugns Kant s view that there are synthetic a priori truths, and in so doing he establishes a bridge to the third part of the volume. The third part deals with the concept of truth in logical empiricism. According to Kaila, logical empiricism can be characterized by four main theses. The first two of these are a matter of consensus among philosophers who feel committed to this philosophy of science. The first was that all a priori sentences are analytic; in negative terms and this formulation is directed specifically against Kant there are no sentences that are both synthetic and a priori. The second main thesis was that every factual sentence must have some determinate consequences with respect to experience; or, what comes to the same, every statement concerning reality must have a determinate factual content (144). The second thesis is, in Kaila s terms, the principle of testability. Kaila observes that this principle can already be found both in Aristotle and in Leibniz and that the empiricists endorsed different versions of it. The logical empiricists achievement was to bring it into a clear form. In contrast to the first two theses, the third main thesis was a matter of controversy among the logical empiricists. This thesis says that every theory concerning reality must be translatable into the language of experience, that is, must be capable of being transformed into an equivalent form in which there occur, besides logical constraints, only empirical predicates (145). According to Kaila, the thesis is particularly controversial with respect to the question as to whether the translation in the language of experience can proceed wordby-word or sentence-by-sentence or perhaps even in a freer manner (146). Wittgenstein and Schlick like Hume would have endorsed the radical view that it must be possible to verify or falsify every single factual claim. This was the radical view of so-called logistic neopositivism, the first phase in the development of logical empiricism (148). In this connection, Kaila makes a point of referring explicitly to his own criticism of this view, which he published in In contrast to the early phase as Kaila demonstrates in his discussion of Carnap, Popper, Reichenbach, and Hempel logical empiricism arrived in later years at a holistic view of the testability principle. Pierre Duhem, Kaila observes, was one of the earliest advocates of Logical Empiricism (154). One essential reason why the testability principle must be interpreted in a holistic manner, according to Kaila, is that every well-developed scientific 153

7 HOPOS The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science theory works with rationalizations. As mentioned above, Kaila criticizes the Aristotelian concept of knowledge for precisely this reason namely, for leaving out a crucial component of scientific thinking by rejecting the idea of a rationalizing concept. In Kaila s view, general theoretical claims cannot be derived through experience but, rather, through the operation that he dubs rationalization. Through rationalization a regularity that experience has shown to be valid only within certain limits and sometimes with glaring exceptions becomes valid without restrictions and exceptions. Thus, rationalization adds to the regularity of experience and not only generalizes it, as induction does. We must therefore address the remarkable problems that are involved in the testability of rationalized systems (166). Drawing on Reichenbach, von Wright, Richard von Mises, and Hempel, Kaila demonstrates that the mathematical concept of probability is a typical result of rationalization (165). Since rationalization plays a decisive role, both in scientific thought and in prescientific thought (168), the principle of testability must be interpreted in a way that makes it applicable to rationalized theories. It is worth noting in this context that Edgar Zilsel s Das Anwendungsproblem (1916) may also have played a role, given that it, too, gave pride of place to the concept of rationalization. Kaila uses the expression das Anwendungsproblem (the problem of application) in numerous places in the context of his critique of Kant s account of synthetic a priori statements. In the passage in which Kaila introduces this term, he refers to section 13 of Reichenbach s Philosophie der Raum-Zeit-Lehre, where Reichenbach discusses Kant s conception of pure intuition but where Reichenbach, as far as I can see, does not actually use the term Anwendungsproblem. Although Kaila does not expressly mention Zilsel, he did know Zilsel s book well. The editors note that Kaila s book Der Satz vom Ausgleich des Zufalls und das Kausalprinzip (1925) was heavily influenced by Zilsel s book (xiv). Moreover, Kaila s terminology in other passages indicates the extent to which the philosophy of science of the twentieth century pervades his thinking: the fact that he uses the term idealization in the same sense as rationalization, for example, once again attests to the proximity of his thinking to that of Ernst Cassirer. Testability does not apply separately to each sentence of a rationalized theory. It is only as a whole that an idealized theory represents some region of experience; its sentences do not have the relatively transparent relation to experience that we find in inductive theories.... We must, then, give the principle of testability a broad interpretation, so that a theory in its entirety can be regarded as one sentence (170). In chapter 9, The Logic of Physical Theories, Kaila emphasizes the tremendous significance of rationalization for physical concepts and physical 154

8 Essay Review SPRING 2016 theories. In so doing, he focuses on the interpretation of microphysical theories (184) and physical determinism and indeterminism (189). The fourth thesis with which Kaila characterizes logical empiricism is the topic of chapter 10, The Principle of Logical Behaviorism (197). In this context, Kaila is able to draw on his comprehensive knowledge of psychology: before turning to philosophy, he had completed a doctorate in experimental psychology (in 1916), founded a lab for experimental psychology (in 1922), and (in the 1920s and 1930s) written a series of important monographs in psychology, such as Sielunelämäm rakenne (The structure of mental life, 1923) (xiii). During his stay in Vienna in spring 1934, Kaila worked on experimental psychology with Karl and Charlotte Bühler. That same year he published in Finnish his masterpiece in the psychology of personality, Persoonallisuus, which was soon translated into Swedish and English (xviii). Early on in the current volume, while explaining the significance of the concept of experiential sentences (148), Kaila had already introduced the distinction between phenomenal language or φ-language and physical language or f-language. At this point, he returns to that distinction and draws on Carnap s work from the early 1930s in order to define what he calls the principle of logical behaviorism : φ-sentences describing the so-called immediate experience of S1 are intersubjectively equipollent with f-sentences describing certain states of S1 s body.that a given φ-sentence and a given f-sentence are intersubjectively equipollent means that the former sentence, insofar as it is meant to be understood by other people, agrees in its factual content with the latter (204). Kaila emphasizes that this principle has little to do with Watson s quite primitive, mechanistic and materialistic behaviorism and also that logical behaviorism by no means wishes to claim that there is no consciousness (205). Of course, it becomes clear in this section that Kaila still sees many unsolved problems. He argues that the φ- language should be seen as fundamental with respect to f-language (198) and explains how he thinks that this provides a basis on which to investigate the problem of other minds (198), as well as the question of the intersubjective content of sentences (202). This brief chapter then closes with a discussion of three objections to the thesis of logical behaviorism (205). These open questions that come up at the end of the final chapter make it clear that Kaila intended his book as a contribution to a lively and ongoing philosophical movement, in which there was still much philosophical work to be done. They remind the reader that the book appeared in 1939, right around the middle of Kaila s career. The outstanding introduction to the book, written jointly by Juha Manninen and Ilkka Niiniluoto, is extremely helpful, providing a comprehensive look into Kaila s rich work straddling experimental psychology and scientific philosophy. And it underscores the magnitude of Kaila s 155

9 HOPOS The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science influence and in particular the influence of this book on philosophy in the Nordic countries. Kaila conceived the book both as a textbook of scientific philosophy for laypersons and university students and as a systematic introduction to logical empiricism for professional philosophers. In the two countries where it could most easily be read, it performed those functions for several decades and paved the way for analytic philosophy to become a dominant trend in the Nordic countries (ix). The book, which is now available in English some 75 years after its original publication, has retained much of its freshness. Perhaps it could also be used today as an excellent introduction to logical empiricism but with the proviso that this classification may be misleading, insofar as Kaila s book offers much more than what one would expect from an introduction to logical empiricism written in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1940, Carnap immediately recognized that the special quality of the book lay in the historical connections that Kaila had identified (x). Today, after several decades of HOPOS research, the historical side of Kaila s reconstruction of the process leading up to the concept of knowledge in logical empiricism is interesting in two respects. First, as a historical phenomenon, it is an example of a type of early logical empiricist thinking that aims to situate logical empiricism in the history of epistemology and of science. (As noted above, if Kaila s book had been published in English in the 1940s, as Carnap intended, our image of logical empiricism in the second half of the twentieth century would have been very different.) Second, the book is interesting as a provocation. Kaila s historical presentation has, in some respects, the character of a grand narrative. For years, historians of science and HOPOS scholars have spoken out against the tendency to indulge in grand narratives. And in contrast to the Whiggish tendencies to be found in grand narratives they have established a much more narrowly focused style of historical research, which avoids broad and sweeping historical narrative. There are excellent reasons for this. And there are also good reasons to avoid the sort of anachronistic interpretation that casts Galileo as an early logical empiricist. Be that as it may, I could not help but notice over and again while reading this book just how fruitful it is to see how Kaila links the debates that were ongoing in philosophy of science in the first half of the twentieth century to philosophical questions that were articulated by the ancient Greeks and the early Moderns. The conceptual riches that he thereby gains make it possible for Kaila to discuss the core themes of twentieth-century philosophy of science with a greater freedom than would have been possible if he had restricted himself to the philosophy of science of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kaila s book is fundamentally shaped by this freedom and that is 156

10 Essay Review SPRING 2016 probably the main reason why the book appears surprisingly fresh and new even today. Thanks to John Michael for translating my text into English. Elisabeth Nemeth, University of Vienna 157

145 Philosophy of Science

145 Philosophy of Science Logical empiricism Christian Wüthrich http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/ 145 Philosophy of Science Vienna Circle (Ernst Mach Society) Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, and Philipp Frank regularly meet

More information

PHILOSOPHICAL RAMIFICATIONS: THEORY, EXPERIMENT, & EMPIRICAL TRUTH

PHILOSOPHICAL RAMIFICATIONS: THEORY, EXPERIMENT, & EMPIRICAL TRUTH PHILOSOPHICAL RAMIFICATIONS: THEORY, EXPERIMENT, & EMPIRICAL TRUTH PCES 3.42 Even before Newton published his revolutionary work, philosophers had already been trying to come to grips with the questions

More information

Remarks on the philosophy of mathematics (1969) Paul Bernays

Remarks on the philosophy of mathematics (1969) Paul Bernays Bernays Project: Text No. 26 Remarks on the philosophy of mathematics (1969) Paul Bernays (Bemerkungen zur Philosophie der Mathematik) Translation by: Dirk Schlimm Comments: With corrections by Charles

More information

PHI2391: Logical Empiricism I 8.0

PHI2391: Logical Empiricism I 8.0 1 2 3 4 5 PHI2391: Logical Empiricism I 8.0 Hume and Kant! Remember Hume s question:! Are we rationally justified in inferring causes from experimental observations?! Kant s answer: we can give a transcendental

More information

MY PURPOSE IN THIS BOOK IS TO PRESENT A

MY PURPOSE IN THIS BOOK IS TO PRESENT A I Holistic Pragmatism and the Philosophy of Culture MY PURPOSE IN THIS BOOK IS TO PRESENT A philosophical discussion of the main elements of civilization or culture such as science, law, religion, politics,

More information

Verificationism. PHIL September 27, 2011

Verificationism. PHIL September 27, 2011 Verificationism PHIL 83104 September 27, 2011 1. The critique of metaphysics... 1 2. Observation statements... 2 3. In principle verifiability... 3 4. Strong verifiability... 3 4.1. Conclusive verifiability

More information

24.01 Classics of Western Philosophy

24.01 Classics of Western Philosophy 1 Plan: Kant Lecture #2: How are pure mathematics and pure natural science possible? 1. Review: Problem of Metaphysics 2. Kantian Commitments 3. Pure Mathematics 4. Transcendental Idealism 5. Pure Natural

More information

LENT 2018 THEORY OF MEANING DR MAARTEN STEENHAGEN

LENT 2018 THEORY OF MEANING DR MAARTEN STEENHAGEN LENT 2018 THEORY OF MEANING DR MAARTEN STEENHAGEN HTTP://MSTEENHAGEN.GITHUB.IO/TEACHING/2018TOM THE EINSTEIN-BERGSON DEBATE SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein met on the 6th of

More information

Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Module - 20 Lecture - 20 Critical Philosophy: Kant s objectives

More information

Phil 1103 Review. Also: Scientific realism vs. anti-realism Can philosophers criticise science?

Phil 1103 Review. Also: Scientific realism vs. anti-realism Can philosophers criticise science? Phil 1103 Review Also: Scientific realism vs. anti-realism Can philosophers criticise science? 1. Copernican Revolution Students should be familiar with the basic historical facts of the Copernican revolution.

More information

Ayer and the Vienna Circle

Ayer and the Vienna Circle Ayer and the Vienna Circle Richard Zach October 29, 2010 1/20 Richard Zach Ayer and the Vienna Circle Outline 1 The Vienna Circle 2 Ayer s Logical Positivism 3 Truth and Analyticity 4 Language, Truth and

More information

Ayer on the criterion of verifiability

Ayer on the criterion of verifiability Ayer on the criterion of verifiability November 19, 2004 1 The critique of metaphysics............................. 1 2 Observation statements............................... 2 3 In principle verifiability...............................

More information

Conventionalism and the linguistic doctrine of logical truth

Conventionalism and the linguistic doctrine of logical truth 1 Conventionalism and the linguistic doctrine of logical truth 1.1 Introduction Quine s work on analyticity, translation, and reference has sweeping philosophical implications. In his first important philosophical

More information

Important dates. PSY 3360 / CGS 3325 Historical Perspectives on Psychology Minds and Machines since David Hume ( )

Important dates. PSY 3360 / CGS 3325 Historical Perspectives on Psychology Minds and Machines since David Hume ( ) PSY 3360 / CGS 3325 Historical Perspectives on Psychology Minds and Machines since 1600 Dr. Peter Assmann Spring 2018 Important dates Feb 14 Term paper draft due Upload paper to E-Learning https://elearning.utdallas.edu

More information

Ch V: The Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Otto Neurath)[title crossed out?]

Ch V: The Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Otto Neurath)[title crossed out?] Part II: Schools in Contemporary Philosophy Ch V: The Vienna Circle (Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, and Otto Neurath)[title crossed out?] 1. The positivists of the nineteenth century, men like Mach and

More information

THE CRISIS OF THE SCmNCES AS EXPRESSION OF THE RADICAL LIFE-CRISIS OF EUROPEAN HUMANITY

THE CRISIS OF THE SCmNCES AS EXPRESSION OF THE RADICAL LIFE-CRISIS OF EUROPEAN HUMANITY Contents Translator's Introduction / xv PART I THE CRISIS OF THE SCmNCES AS EXPRESSION OF THE RADICAL LIFE-CRISIS OF EUROPEAN HUMANITY I. Is there, in view of their constant successes, really a crisis

More information

Cory Juhl, Eric Loomis, Analyticity (New York: Routledge, 2010).

Cory Juhl, Eric Loomis, Analyticity (New York: Routledge, 2010). Cory Juhl, Eric Loomis, Analyticity (New York: Routledge, 2010). Reviewed by Viorel Ţuţui 1 Since it was introduced by Immanuel Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, the analytic synthetic distinction had

More information

G. H. von Wright (1916 )

G. H. von Wright (1916 ) 21 G. H. von Wright (1916 ) FREDERICK STOUTLAND Georg Henrik von Wright was born and educated in Helsinki, Finland, where his graduate work was supervised by Eino Kaila, a distinguished Finnish philosopher

More information

the aim is to specify the structure of the world in the form of certain basic truths from which all truths can be derived. (xviii)

the aim is to specify the structure of the world in the form of certain basic truths from which all truths can be derived. (xviii) PHIL 5983: Naturalness and Fundamentality Seminar Prof. Funkhouser Spring 2017 Week 8: Chalmers, Constructing the World Notes (Introduction, Chapters 1-2) Introduction * We are introduced to the ideas

More information

Denis Seron. Review of: K. Mulligan, Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande (Paris: Vrin, 2012). Dialectica

Denis Seron. Review of: K. Mulligan, Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande (Paris: Vrin, 2012). Dialectica 1 Denis Seron. Review of: K. Mulligan, Wittgenstein et la philosophie austro-allemande (Paris: Vrin, 2012). Dialectica, Volume 70, Issue 1 (March 2016): 125 128. Wittgenstein is usually regarded at once

More information

What does it mean if we assume the world is in principle intelligible?

What does it mean if we assume the world is in principle intelligible? REASONS AND CAUSES The issue The classic distinction, or at least the one we are familiar with from empiricism is that causes are in the world and reasons are some sort of mental or conceptual thing. I

More information

All philosophical debates not due to ignorance of base truths or our imperfect rationality are indeterminate.

All philosophical debates not due to ignorance of base truths or our imperfect rationality are indeterminate. PHIL 5983: Naturalness and Fundamentality Seminar Prof. Funkhouser Spring 2017 Week 11: Chalmers, Constructing the World Notes (Chapters 6-7, Twelfth Excursus) Chapter 6 6.1 * This chapter is about the

More information

Phil/Ling 375: Meaning and Mind [Handout #10]

Phil/Ling 375: Meaning and Mind [Handout #10] Phil/Ling 375: Meaning and Mind [Handout #10] W. V. Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism Professor JeeLoo Liu Main Theses 1. Anti-analytic/synthetic divide: The belief in the divide between analytic and synthetic

More information

Has Logical Positivism Eliminated Metaphysics?

Has Logical Positivism Eliminated Metaphysics? International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Invention ISSN (Online): 2319 7722, ISSN (Print): 2319 7714 Volume 3 Issue 11 ǁ November. 2014 ǁ PP.38-42 Has Logical Positivism Eliminated Metaphysics?

More information

Rethinking Knowledge: The Heuristic View

Rethinking Knowledge: The Heuristic View http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319532363 Carlo Cellucci Rethinking Knowledge: The Heuristic View 1 Preface From its very beginning, philosophy has been viewed as aimed at knowledge and methods to

More information

Philosophy Courses-1

Philosophy Courses-1 Philosophy Courses-1 PHL 100/Introduction to Philosophy A course that examines the fundamentals of philosophical argument, analysis and reasoning, as applied to a series of issues in logic, epistemology,

More information

Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Aspects of Western Philosophy Dr. Sreekumar Nellickappilly Department of Humanities and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology, Madras Module - 21 Lecture - 21 Kant Forms of sensibility Categories

More information

Emergence of Modern Science

Emergence of Modern Science Chapter 16 Toward a New Heaven and a New Earth: The Scientific Revolution and the Learning Objectives Emergence of Modern Science In this chapter, students will focus on: The developments during the Middle

More information

Philosophy 203 History of Modern Western Philosophy. Russell Marcus Hamilton College Spring 2014

Philosophy 203 History of Modern Western Philosophy. Russell Marcus Hamilton College Spring 2014 Philosophy 203 History of Modern Western Philosophy Russell Marcus Hamilton College Spring 2014 Class #26 Kant s Copernican Revolution The Synthetic A Priori Forms of Intuition Marcus, Modern Philosophy,

More information

Naturalized Epistemology. 1. What is naturalized Epistemology? Quine PY4613

Naturalized Epistemology. 1. What is naturalized Epistemology? Quine PY4613 Naturalized Epistemology Quine PY4613 1. What is naturalized Epistemology? a. How is it motivated? b. What are its doctrines? c. Naturalized Epistemology in the context of Quine s philosophy 2. Naturalized

More information

Philosophy of Mathematics Kant

Philosophy of Mathematics Kant Philosophy of Mathematics Kant Owen Griffiths oeg21@cam.ac.uk St John s College, Cambridge 20/10/15 Immanuel Kant Born in 1724 in Königsberg, Prussia. Enrolled at the University of Königsberg in 1740 and

More information

Falsification or Confirmation: From Logic to Psychology

Falsification or Confirmation: From Logic to Psychology Falsification or Confirmation: From Logic to Psychology Roman Lukyanenko Information Systems Department Florida international University rlukyane@fiu.edu Abstract Corroboration or Confirmation is a prominent

More information

III Knowledge is true belief based on argument. Plato, Theaetetus, 201 c-d Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Edmund Gettier

III Knowledge is true belief based on argument. Plato, Theaetetus, 201 c-d Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Edmund Gettier III Knowledge is true belief based on argument. Plato, Theaetetus, 201 c-d Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Edmund Gettier In Theaetetus Plato introduced the definition of knowledge which is often translated

More information

B OOK R EVIEWS 557 is Jeremy Heis work on the connections between Ernst Cassirer, Lewin, and Reichenbach a topic which surfaces again in Milkov s pape

B OOK R EVIEWS 557 is Jeremy Heis work on the connections between Ernst Cassirer, Lewin, and Reichenbach a topic which surfaces again in Milkov s pape 556 B OOK R EVIEWS Nikolay Milkov and Volker Peckhaus (eds.): The Berlin Group and the Philosophy of Logical Empiricism. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science 273. Springer, Dordrecht,

More information

METHODENSTREIT WHY CARL MENGER WAS, AND IS, RIGHT

METHODENSTREIT WHY CARL MENGER WAS, AND IS, RIGHT METHODENSTREIT WHY CARL MENGER WAS, AND IS, RIGHT BY THORSTEN POLLEIT* PRESENTED AT THE SPRING CONFERENCE RESEARCH ON MONEY IN THE ECONOMY (ROME) FRANKFURT, 20 MAY 2011 *FRANKFURT SCHOOL OF FINANCE & MANAGEMENT

More information

- We might, now, wonder whether the resulting concept of justification is sufficiently strong. According to BonJour, apparent rational insight is

- We might, now, wonder whether the resulting concept of justification is sufficiently strong. According to BonJour, apparent rational insight is BonJour I PHIL410 BonJour s Moderate Rationalism - BonJour develops and defends a moderate form of Rationalism. - Rationalism, generally (as used here), is the view according to which the primary tool

More information

1/12. The A Paralogisms

1/12. The A Paralogisms 1/12 The A Paralogisms The character of the Paralogisms is described early in the chapter. Kant describes them as being syllogisms which contain no empirical premises and states that in them we conclude

More information

Philosophy of Science PHIL 241, MW 12:00-1:15

Philosophy of Science PHIL 241, MW 12:00-1:15 Philosophy of Science PHIL 241, MW 12:00-1:15 Naomi Fisher nfisher@clarku.edu (508) 793-7648 Office: 35 Beck (Philosophy) House (on the third floor) Office hours: MR 10:00-11:00 and by appointment Course

More information

Philosophy Courses-1

Philosophy Courses-1 Philosophy Courses-1 PHL 100/Introduction to Philosophy A course that examines the fundamentals of philosophical argument, analysis and reasoning, as applied to a series of issues in logic, epistemology,

More information

Philosophy 125 Day 1: Overview

Philosophy 125 Day 1: Overview Branden Fitelson Philosophy 125 Lecture 1 Philosophy 125 Day 1: Overview Welcome! Are you in the right place? PHIL 125 (Metaphysics) Overview of Today s Class 1. Us: Branden (Professor), Vanessa & Josh

More information

Kant & Transcendental Idealism

Kant & Transcendental Idealism Kant & Transcendental Idealism HZT4U1 - Mr. Wittmann - Unit 3 - Lecture 4 Empiricists and rationalists alike are dupes of the same illusion. Both take partial notions for real parts. -Henri Bergson Enlightenment

More information

Jerry A. Fodor. Hume Variations John Biro Volume 31, Number 1, (2005) 173-176. Your use of the HUME STUDIES archive indicates your acceptance of HUME STUDIES Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.humesociety.org/hs/about/terms.html.

More information

Moral Argumentation from a Rhetorical Point of View

Moral Argumentation from a Rhetorical Point of View Chapter 98 Moral Argumentation from a Rhetorical Point of View Lars Leeten Universität Hildesheim Practical thinking is a tricky business. Its aim will never be fulfilled unless influence on practical

More information

Areas of Specialization and Competence Philosophy of Language, History of Analytic Philosophy

Areas of Specialization and Competence Philosophy of Language, History of Analytic Philosophy 151 Dodd Hall jcarpenter@fsu.edu Department of Philosophy Office: 850-644-1483 Tallahassee, FL 32306-1500 Education 2008-2012 Ph.D. (obtained Dec. 2012), Philosophy, Florida State University (FSU) Dissertation:

More information

Overview. Is there a priori knowledge? No: Mill, Quine. Is there synthetic a priori knowledge? Yes: faculty of a priori intuition (Rationalism, Kant)

Overview. Is there a priori knowledge? No: Mill, Quine. Is there synthetic a priori knowledge? Yes: faculty of a priori intuition (Rationalism, Kant) Overview Is there a priori knowledge? Is there synthetic a priori knowledge? No: Mill, Quine Yes: faculty of a priori intuition (Rationalism, Kant) No: all a priori knowledge analytic (Ayer) No A Priori

More information

Excerpt from J. Garvey, The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books (Continuum, 2007): Immanuel Kant s Critique of Pure Reason

Excerpt from J. Garvey, The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books (Continuum, 2007): Immanuel Kant s Critique of Pure Reason Excerpt from J. Garvey, The Twenty Greatest Philosophy Books (Continuum, 2007): Immanuel Kant s Critique of Pure Reason In a letter to Moses Mendelssohn, Kant says this about the Critique of Pure Reason:

More information

Qué es la filosofía? What is philosophy? Philosophy

Qué es la filosofía? What is philosophy? Philosophy Philosophy PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF THINKING WHAT IS IT? WHO HAS IT? WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WAY OF THINKING AND A DISCIPLINE? It is the propensity to seek out answers to the questions that we ask

More information

Epistemology Naturalized

Epistemology Naturalized Epistemology Naturalized Christian Wüthrich http://philosophy.ucsd.edu/faculty/wuthrich/ 15 Introduction to Philosophy: Theory of Knowledge Spring 2010 The Big Picture Thesis (Naturalism) Naturalism maintains

More information

A Brief History of Thinking about Thinking Thomas Lombardo

A Brief History of Thinking about Thinking Thomas Lombardo A Brief History of Thinking about Thinking Thomas Lombardo "Education is nothing more nor less than learning to think." Peter Facione In this article I review the historical evolution of principles and

More information

Eino Kaila's Scientific Philosophy. Korhonen, Anssi. Philosophical Society of Finland 2012

Eino Kaila's Scientific Philosophy. Korhonen, Anssi.   Philosophical Society of Finland 2012 https://helda.helsinki.fi Eino Kaila's Scientific Philosophy Korhonen, Anssi Philosophical Society of Finland 2012 Korhonen, A 2012, Eino Kaila's Scientific Philosophy. in I Niiniluoto & S Pihlström (eds),

More information

INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE

INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE Péter Érdi Henry R. Luce Professor Center for Complex Systems Studies Kalamazoo College, Michigan and Dept. Biophysics KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics of

More information

DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE PHILOSOPHY UNDERGRADUATE COURSES 2017-2018 FALL SEMESTER DPHY 1100 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY JEAN-FRANÇOIS MÉTHOT MONDAY, 1:30-4:30 PM This course will initiate students into

More information

What is the Nature of Logic? Judy Pelham Philosophy, York University, Canada July 16, 2013 Pan-Hellenic Logic Symposium Athens, Greece

What is the Nature of Logic? Judy Pelham Philosophy, York University, Canada July 16, 2013 Pan-Hellenic Logic Symposium Athens, Greece What is the Nature of Logic? Judy Pelham Philosophy, York University, Canada July 16, 2013 Pan-Hellenic Logic Symposium Athens, Greece Outline of this Talk 1. What is the nature of logic? Some history

More information

Chapter 31. Logical Positivism and the Scientific Conception of Philosophy

Chapter 31. Logical Positivism and the Scientific Conception of Philosophy Chapter 31 Logical Positivism and the Scientific Conception of Philosophy Key Words: Vienna circle, verification principle, positivism, tautologies, factual propositions, language analysis, rejection of

More information

ABSTRACT of the Habilitation Thesis

ABSTRACT of the Habilitation Thesis ABSTRACT of the Habilitation Thesis The focus on the problem of knowledge was in the very core of my researches even before my Ph.D thesis, therefore the investigation of Kant s philosophy in the process

More information

Class #14: October 13 Gödel s Platonism

Class #14: October 13 Gödel s Platonism Philosophy 405: Knowledge, Truth and Mathematics Fall 2010 Hamilton College Russell Marcus Class #14: October 13 Gödel s Platonism I. The Continuum Hypothesis and Its Independence The continuum problem

More information

Ayer and Quine on the a priori

Ayer and Quine on the a priori Ayer and Quine on the a priori November 23, 2004 1 The problem of a priori knowledge Ayer s book is a defense of a thoroughgoing empiricism, not only about what is required for a belief to be justified

More information

THE CHALLENGES FOR EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY: EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 1. Steffen Ducheyne

THE CHALLENGES FOR EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY: EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 1. Steffen Ducheyne Philosophica 76 (2005) pp. 5-10 THE CHALLENGES FOR EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY: EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION 1 Steffen Ducheyne 1. Introduction to the Current Volume In the volume at hand, I have the honour of appearing

More information

Review of David J. Chalmers Constructing the World (OUP 2012) David Chalmers burst onto the philosophical scene in the mid-1990s with his work on

Review of David J. Chalmers Constructing the World (OUP 2012) David Chalmers burst onto the philosophical scene in the mid-1990s with his work on Review of David J. Chalmers Constructing the World (OUP 2012) Thomas W. Polger, University of Cincinnati 1. Introduction David Chalmers burst onto the philosophical scene in the mid-1990s with his work

More information

Courses providing assessment data PHL 202. Semester/Year

Courses providing assessment data PHL 202. Semester/Year 1 Department/Program 2012-2016 Assessment Plan Department: Philosophy Directions: For each department/program student learning outcome, the department will provide an assessment plan, giving detailed information

More information

COURSE GOALS: PROFESSOR: Chris Latiolais Philosophy Department Kalamazoo College Humphrey House #202 Telephone # Offices Hours:

COURSE GOALS: PROFESSOR: Chris Latiolais Philosophy Department Kalamazoo College Humphrey House #202 Telephone # Offices Hours: PROFESSOR: Chris Latiolais Philosophy Department Kalamazoo College Humphrey House #202 Telephone # 337-7076 Offices Hours: 1) Mon. 11:30-1:30. 2) Tues. 11:30-12:30. 3) By Appointment. COURSE GOALS: As

More information

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY FALL 2014 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY FALL 2014 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY FALL 2014 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS PHIL 2300-001 Beginning Philosophy 11:00-11:50 MWF ENG/PHIL 264 PHIL 2300-002 Beginning Philosophy 9:00-9:50 MWF ENG/PHIL 264 This is a general introduction

More information

The British Empiricism

The British Empiricism The British Empiricism Locke, Berkeley and Hume copyleft: nicolazuin.2018 nowxhere.wordpress.com The terrible heritage of Descartes: Skepticism, Empiricism, Rationalism The problem originates from the

More information

Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Philosophy 1 Introduction to Philosophy What is Philosophy? It has many different meanings. In everyday life, to have a philosophy means much the same as having a specified set of attitudes, objectives or values

More information

Philosophy (PHILOS) Courses. Philosophy (PHILOS) 1

Philosophy (PHILOS) Courses. Philosophy (PHILOS) 1 Philosophy (PHILOS) 1 Philosophy (PHILOS) Courses PHILOS 1. Introduction to Philosophy. 4 Units. A selection of philosophical problems, concepts, and methods, e.g., free will, cause and substance, personal

More information

Saving the Substratum: Interpreting Kant s First Analogy

Saving the Substratum: Interpreting Kant s First Analogy Res Cogitans Volume 5 Issue 1 Article 20 6-4-2014 Saving the Substratum: Interpreting Kant s First Analogy Kevin Harriman Lewis & Clark College Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.pacificu.edu/rescogitans

More information

Class #17: October 25 Conventionalism

Class #17: October 25 Conventionalism Philosophy 405: Knowledge, Truth and Mathematics Fall 2010 Hamilton College Russell Marcus Class #17: October 25 Conventionalism I. A Fourth School We have discussed the three main positions in the philosophy

More information

17. Tying it up: thoughts and intentionality

17. Tying it up: thoughts and intentionality 17. Tying it up: thoughts and intentionality Martín Abreu Zavaleta June 23, 2014 1 Frege on thoughts Frege is concerned with separating logic from psychology. In addressing such separations, he coins a

More information

Fall 2016 Department of Philosophy Graduate Course Descriptions

Fall 2016 Department of Philosophy Graduate Course Descriptions Fall 2016 Department of Philosophy Graduate Course Descriptions http://www.buffalo.edu/cas/philosophy/grad-study/grad_courses/fallcourses_grad.html PHI 548 Biomedical Ontology Professor Barry Smith Monday

More information

EMPIRICISM & EMPIRICAL PHILOSOPHY

EMPIRICISM & EMPIRICAL PHILOSOPHY EMPIRICISM & EMPIRICAL PHILOSOPHY One of the most remarkable features of the developments in England was the way in which the pioneering scientific work was influenced by certain philosophers, and vice-versa.

More information

Kant and his Successors

Kant and his Successors Kant and his Successors G. J. Mattey Winter, 2011 / Philosophy 151 The Sorry State of Metaphysics Kant s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) was an attempt to put metaphysics on a scientific basis. Metaphysics

More information

HPS 1653 / PHIL 1610 Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

HPS 1653 / PHIL 1610 Introduction to the Philosophy of Science HPS 1653 / PHIL 1610 Introduction to the Philosophy of Science Logical positivism/empiricism Adam Caulton adam.caulton@gmail.com Wednesday 27 August 2014 Maybe of interest... Bad Science blog www.badscience.net

More information

Thought is Being or Thought and Being? Feuerbach and his Criticism of Hegel's Absolute Idealism by Martin Jenkins

Thought is Being or Thought and Being? Feuerbach and his Criticism of Hegel's Absolute Idealism by Martin Jenkins Thought is Being or Thought and Being? Feuerbach and his Criticism of Hegel's Absolute Idealism by Martin Jenkins Although he was once an ardent follower of the Philosophy of GWF Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach

More information

Moral Objectivism. RUSSELL CORNETT University of Calgary

Moral Objectivism. RUSSELL CORNETT University of Calgary Moral Objectivism RUSSELL CORNETT University of Calgary The possibility, let alone the actuality, of an objective morality has intrigued philosophers for well over two millennia. Though much discussed,

More information

Realistic Claims in Logical Empiricism

Realistic Claims in Logical Empiricism Realistic Claims in Logical Empiricism Matthias Neuber Logical empiricism is commonly seen as a counter-position to scientific realism. In the present paper it is shown that there indeed existed a realist

More information

Putnam on Methods of Inquiry

Putnam on Methods of Inquiry Putnam on Methods of Inquiry Indiana University, Bloomington Abstract Hilary Putnam s paradigm-changing clarifications of our methods of inquiry in science and everyday life are central to his philosophy.

More information

Carnap s Non-Cognitivism as an Alternative to Both Value- Absolutism and Value-Relativism

Carnap s Non-Cognitivism as an Alternative to Both Value- Absolutism and Value-Relativism Carnap s Non-Cognitivism as an Alternative to Both Value- Absolutism and Value-Relativism Christian Damböck Institute Vienna Circle christian.damboeck@univie.ac.at Carnap s Non-Cognitivism as a Better

More information

Quine on Holism and Underdetermination

Quine on Holism and Underdetermination Quine on Holism and Underdetermination Introduction Quine s paper is called Two Dogmas of Empiricism. (1) What is empiricism? (2) Why care that it has dogmas? Ad (1). See your glossary! Also, what is the

More information

A Priori Knowledge: Analytic? Synthetic A Priori (again) Is All A Priori Knowledge Analytic?

A Priori Knowledge: Analytic? Synthetic A Priori (again) Is All A Priori Knowledge Analytic? A Priori Knowledge: Analytic? Synthetic A Priori (again) Is All A Priori Knowledge Analytic? Recap A Priori Knowledge Knowledge independent of experience Kant: necessary and universal A Posteriori Knowledge

More information

Basic Considerations on Epistemology (1937) Paul Bernays

Basic Considerations on Epistemology (1937) Paul Bernays Bernays Project: Text No.?? Basic Considerations on Epistemology (1937) Paul Bernays (Grundsätzliche Betrachtungen zur Erkenntnistheorie, 1937) Translation by: Volker Peckhaus Comments: 279 The doctrines

More information

Chapter 18 David Hume: Theory of Knowledge

Chapter 18 David Hume: Theory of Knowledge Key Words Chapter 18 David Hume: Theory of Knowledge Empiricism, skepticism, personal identity, necessary connection, causal connection, induction, impressions, ideas. DAVID HUME (1711-76) is one of the

More information

The Ontological Argument for the existence of God. Pedro M. Guimarães Ferreira S.J. PUC-Rio Boston College, July 13th. 2011

The Ontological Argument for the existence of God. Pedro M. Guimarães Ferreira S.J. PUC-Rio Boston College, July 13th. 2011 The Ontological Argument for the existence of God Pedro M. Guimarães Ferreira S.J. PUC-Rio Boston College, July 13th. 2011 The ontological argument (henceforth, O.A.) for the existence of God has a long

More information

FIRST STUDY. The Existential Dialectical Basic Assumption of Kierkegaard s Analysis of Despair

FIRST STUDY. The Existential Dialectical Basic Assumption of Kierkegaard s Analysis of Despair FIRST STUDY The Existential Dialectical Basic Assumption of Kierkegaard s Analysis of Despair I 1. In recent decades, our understanding of the philosophy of philosophers such as Kant or Hegel has been

More information

Humanistic Thought, Understanding, and the Nature of Grasp

Humanistic Thought, Understanding, and the Nature of Grasp Humanistic Thought, Understanding, and the Nature of Grasp Michael Strevens Guggenheim Research Proposal Wilhelm Dilthey and other nineteenth-century German thinkers envisaged a deep methodological division

More information

Ayer s linguistic theory of the a priori

Ayer s linguistic theory of the a priori Ayer s linguistic theory of the a priori phil 43904 Jeff Speaks December 4, 2007 1 The problem of a priori knowledge....................... 1 2 Necessity and the a priori............................ 2

More information

Descartes to Early Psychology. Phil 255

Descartes to Early Psychology. Phil 255 Descartes to Early Psychology Phil 255 Descartes World View Rationalism: the view that a priori considerations could lay the foundations for human knowledge. (i.e. Think hard enough and you will be lead

More information

UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE (IN TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH FOR SUSTAINABILITY) Vol. I - Philosophical Holism M.Esfeld

UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE (IN TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH FOR SUSTAINABILITY) Vol. I - Philosophical Holism M.Esfeld PHILOSOPHICAL HOLISM M. Esfeld Department of Philosophy, University of Konstanz, Germany Keywords: atomism, confirmation, holism, inferential role semantics, meaning, monism, ontological dependence, rule-following,

More information

The Copernican Shift and Theory of Knowledge in Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl.

The Copernican Shift and Theory of Knowledge in Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. The Copernican Shift and Theory of Knowledge in Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. Matthew O Neill. BA in Politics & International Studies and Philosophy, Murdoch University, 2012. This thesis is presented

More information

Rationalism. A. He, like others at the time, was obsessed with questions of truth and doubt

Rationalism. A. He, like others at the time, was obsessed with questions of truth and doubt Rationalism I. Descartes (1596-1650) A. He, like others at the time, was obsessed with questions of truth and doubt 1. How could one be certain in the absence of religious guidance and trustworthy senses

More information

KANT, MORAL DUTY AND THE DEMANDS OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON. The law is reason unaffected by desire.

KANT, MORAL DUTY AND THE DEMANDS OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON. The law is reason unaffected by desire. KANT, MORAL DUTY AND THE DEMANDS OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON The law is reason unaffected by desire. Aristotle, Politics Book III (1287a32) THE BIG IDEAS TO MASTER Kantian formalism Kantian constructivism

More information

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy Roger Bishop Jones Started: 3rd December 2011 Last Change Date: 2011/12/04 19:50:45 http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/books/ppfd/ppfdpam.pdf Id: pamtop.tex,v

More information

PHILOSOPHY. Chair: Karánn Durland (Fall 2018) and Mark Hébert (Spring 2019) Emeritus: Roderick Stewart

PHILOSOPHY. Chair: Karánn Durland (Fall 2018) and Mark Hébert (Spring 2019) Emeritus: Roderick Stewart PHILOSOPHY Chair: Karánn Durland (Fall 2018) and Mark Hébert (Spring 2019) Emeritus: Roderick Stewart The mission of the program is to help students develop interpretive, analytical and reflective skills

More information

Review of Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics by David Bronstein

Review of Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics by David Bronstein Marquette University e-publications@marquette Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications Philosophy, Department of 4-1-2017 Review of Aristotle on Knowledge and Learning: The Posterior Analytics by David

More information

Immanuel Kant, Analytic and Synthetic. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Preface and Preamble

Immanuel Kant, Analytic and Synthetic. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Preface and Preamble + Immanuel Kant, Analytic and Synthetic Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Preface and Preamble + Innate vs. a priori n Philosophers today usually distinguish psychological from epistemological questions.

More information

Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics. * Dr. Sunil S. Shete. * Associate Professor

Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics. * Dr. Sunil S. Shete. * Associate Professor Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics * Dr. Sunil S. Shete * Associate Professor Keywords: Philosophy of science, research methods, Logic, Business research Abstract This paper review Popper s epistemology

More information

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones

Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy. Roger Bishop Jones Positive Philosophy, Freedom and Democracy Roger Bishop Jones June 5, 2012 www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/www/books/ppfd/ppfdbook.pdf c Roger Bishop Jones; Contents 1 Introduction 1 2 Metaphysical Positivism 3

More information

This handout follows the handout on The nature of the sceptic s challenge. You should read that handout first.

This handout follows the handout on The nature of the sceptic s challenge. You should read that handout first. Michael Lacewing Three responses to scepticism This handout follows the handout on The nature of the sceptic s challenge. You should read that handout first. MITIGATED SCEPTICISM The term mitigated scepticism

More information

Difference between Science and Religion? - A Superficial, yet Tragi-Comic Misunderstanding

Difference between Science and Religion? - A Superficial, yet Tragi-Comic Misunderstanding Scientific God Journal November 2012 Volume 3 Issue 10 pp. 955-960 955 Difference between Science and Religion? - A Superficial, yet Tragi-Comic Misunderstanding Essay Elemér E. Rosinger 1 Department of

More information

1/8. Introduction to Kant: The Project of Critique

1/8. Introduction to Kant: The Project of Critique 1/8 Introduction to Kant: The Project of Critique This course is focused on the interpretation of one book: The Critique of Pure Reason and we will, during the course, read the majority of the key sections

More information

Philosophy 308 The Language Revolution Russell Marcus Hamilton College, Fall 2014

Philosophy 308 The Language Revolution Russell Marcus Hamilton College, Fall 2014 Philosophy 308 The Language Revolution Russell Marcus Hamilton College, Fall 2014 Class #14 The Picture Theory of Language and the Verification Theory of Meaning Wittgenstein, Ayer, and Hempel Marcus,

More information