Rational choice is not between science and common sense; it is a choice of both, of science to master the universal, and of common sense to deal with the particular. -Bernard Lonergan
I have struggled for some time to find the thread that connects a number of divisions that I've brought up on this blog. For example, there is the division of the context of discovery from the context of justification. This anti-psychologistic position originates with Frege and is carried forward by Wittgenstein, the logical positivists, and … Continue reading Intellectualism or Conceptualism?
One of the central projects of Anglo-American philosophy was reducing, or translating, scientific statements into observation statements. Russell, (the early) Wittgenstein, Carnap, Hempel - they all sought to discover the logical connections between these seemingly related orders of description. However, not one of them was successful. But why should this be so difficult? What did … Continue reading One of analytic philosophy’s supreme failures
Ludwig Wittgenstein Previously I outlined what Stephen P. Schwartz takes to be the central tenets of logical positivism. Here I'll focus on the textual sources of logical analysis as a philosophical method. While not first chronologically, Hans Reichenbach's 1938 Experience and Prediction summarizes the intent of the logical positivist project concisely: It is the intention of uniting … Continue reading Logical analysis as philosophical method
Another motivating question for 20th century empiricism was the nature and status of Kant’s analytic/synthetic distinction. Frege, Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Carnap and others all accepted this distinction, though the significance of distinction changed over time. Famously, Quine rejected it and viewed analytic and synthetic statements as different in degree, but not in kind. In this … Continue reading The analytic/synthetic distinction
There are several questions that motivated all the thinkers involved in the development of 20th century empiricism and philosophy of science that need to be stated explicitly. Often, these are the sorts of questions which, for everyone involved in the conversation, are presupposed and therefore, are never (or rarely) stated outright. And even if they … Continue reading The value of an empiricist account of mathematics
Dissertating Outloud 