Online research in philosophy

In this paper, I criticize a common misinterpretation of Hans Reichenbach’s argument that indeterminism is both necessary and sufficient for temporal becoming. I show that Reichenbach’s argument rests on the assumption of a particular variety of verificationism (which I call ‘Weak Probabilistic Verificationism’) and that Reichenbach’s critics have failed to notice this premise. The purpose of the paper is not to defend Reichenbach’s thesis—I offer no argument in support of this verificationist premise. My aim is simply to set the historical record straight by correcting a prevalent misinterpretation of Reichenbach’s argument. The argument, as I reconstruct it, is not only valid but also far more ingenious than is commonly allowed. Correct or not, I believe it remains worthy of study.

Reichenbach’s use of ‘posits’ to defend his frequentistic theory of probability has been criticized on the grounds that it makes unfalsifiable predictions. The justice of this criticism has blinded many to Reichenbach’s second use of a posit, one that can fruitfully be applied to current debates within epistemology. We show first that Reichenbach’s alternative type of posit creates a difficulty for epistemic foundationalists, and then that its use is equivalent to a particular kind of Jeffrey conditionalization. We conclude that, under particular circumstances, Reichenbach’s approach and that of the Bayesians amount to the same thing, thereby presenting us with a new instance in which chance and credence coincide.

A new reading of Plato's account of conventionalism about names in the Cratylus. It argues that Hermogenes' position, according to which a name is whatever anybody 'sets down' as one, does not have the counterintuitive consequences usually claimed. At the same time, Plato's treatment of conventionalism needs to be related to his treatment of formally similar positions in ethics and politics. Plato is committed to standards of objective natural correctness in all such areas, despite the problematic consequences which, as he himself shows, arise in the case of language.

A new reading of Plato's account of conventionalism about names in the Cratylus. It argues that Hermogenes' position, according to which a name is whatever anybody 'sets down' as one, does not have the counterintuitive consequences usually claimed. At the same time, Plato's treatment of conventionalism needs to be related to his treatment of formally similar positions in ethics and politics. Plato is committed to standards of objective natural correctness in all such areas, despite the problematic consequences which, as he himself shows, arise in the case of language.

The book also contains an unpublished interview with Maria Reichenbach, Hans Reichenbach's wife, which sheds new light on Reichenbach's academic and personal ...

Hans Reichenbach's 1928 thesis of the relativity of geometry has been misunderstood as the statement that the geometrical structure of space can be described in different languages. In this interpretation the thesis becomes an instance of trivial semantical conventionalism, as Grünbaum calls it. To understand Reichenbach correctly, we have to interpret it in the light of the linguistic turn, the transition from thought oriented philosophy to language oriented philosophy, which mainly took place in the first decades of our century. Reichenbach — as Poincaré before him — is undermining the prejudice of thought oriented philosophy, that two propositions have different factual content, if they are associated with different ideas in our mind. Thus Reichenbach prepared the change to language oriented philosophy, which he also accepted later.

Reichenbach's Philosophy of Space and Time (1928) avoids most of the logical positivist pitfalls it is generally held to exemplify, notably both conventionalism and verificationism. To see why, we must appreciate that Reichenbach's interest lies in how mathematical structures can be used to describe reality, not in how words like 'distance' acquire meaning. Examination of his proposed "coordinative definition" of congruence shows that Reichenbach advocates a reductionist analysis of the relations figuring in physical geometry (contrary to common readings that attribute to him a holistic conventionalism), while embracing a thoroughly holistic understanding of empirical confirmation (contrary to rival operationalist readings).

We take another look at Reichenbach’s 1920 conversion to conventionalism, with a special eye to the background of his ‘conventionality of distant simultaneity’ thesis. We argue that elements of Reichenbach earlier neo-Kantianism can still be discerned in his later work and, related to this, that his conventionalism should be seen as situated at the level of global theory choice. This is contrary to many of Reichenbach’s own statements, in which he declares that his conventionalism is a consequence of the arbitrariness of coordinative definitions.

Hans Reichenbach's so-called geometrical conventionalism is often taken as an example of a positivistic philosophy of science, based on a verificationist theory of meaning. By contrast, we shall argue that this view rests on a misinterpretation of Reichenbach's major work in this area, the Philosophy of Space and Time (1928). The conception of equivalent descriptions, which lies at the heart of Reichenbach's conventionalism, should be seen as an attempt to refute Poincaré's geometrical relativism. Based upon an examination of the reasons Reichenbach gives for the cognitive equivalence of geometrical descriptions, the paper argues that his conventionalism is a specific form of scientific realism. At the same time we shall argue against those interpretations which lead to a trivialization of Reichenbach's conventionalism or deny it entirely.