Online research in philosophy

In this paper, one aspect of Carnap's philosophy is examined, namely the relations of Carnap's various views and the rationality of theory acceptance in science. Irzik, Friedman and others have shown already that the so called “standard account” – presenting Carnap as an “arch rationalist”- is over-simplified. Friedman’s earlier view was criticized by Irzik to be too relativistic. I agree with these critiques; however I attempt to show that even Irzik’s and Friedman’s later view – which converge to each other - are not adequate. Their argument based on linguistical framework is examined, but several defects are shown. I point out that linguistical frameworks can be wider and narrower, which makes the conclusion invalid. Carnap’s view on theory acceptance is investigated and we find that Carnap accepted algorithmic evaluation of degree of confirmation, but rejected a binary theory choice. I argue that the reason for this is avoidance of information loss and not framework relativity. Irzik’s and Friedman’s term of “instrumental rationality” is analyzed, and some conceptual problems are indicated. I reason that Carnap’s conventionalism has to be regarded with keeping in mind his distinction of synthetical and analytical questions. Friedman’s hierarchy of frameworks, - which he constructed as an extension of Carnap’s and Kuhn’s theory - is discussed, and I propose another hierarchy of frameworks and give some arguments why it is more fruitful than Friedman’s.

It is argued here that the question of whether compatibilism is true is irrelevant to metaphysical questions about the nature of human decision-making processes-for example, the question of whether or not humans have free will-except in a very trivial and metaphysically uninteresting way. In addition, it is argued that two other questionsnamely, the conceptual-analysis question of what free will is and the question that asks which kinds of freedom are required for moral responsibility-are also essentially irrelevant to metaphysical questions about the nature of human beings.

Beings of reason or non-existent objects have always been a source of mind-boggling paradoxes that have vexed philosophers and thinkers in the past and present. Consider Bertrand Russell’s paradox: “if A and B are not different, then the difference between A and B does not subsist. But how can a non-entity be the subject of a proposition?” Or Meinong’s paradox: “There are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects.” At the root of these troubling conundrums are two basic questions: What are beings of reason? What kind of existence do they have? Francisco Suárez was well aware that a solution to the metaphysical questions concerning the essential character of beings of reason and their ontological status would serve as the key to solving the puzzles and paradoxes just described. A solution to these metaphysical questions would also bring about an understanding of how we talk about beings of reason and other problems that they give rise to in the philosophy of language. In this paper, I present Suárez’s view on the nature andontological status of beings of reason and clarify some of the following questions: What kind of beings (entia) are beings of reason? What kind of being (esse) do beings of reason have? This latter concern is related to the following metaphysical issues: What are real beings? What is the nature and ontological status of possible beings? What is the distinction between real beings, actual beings, and possible beings?

This article is an evaluation of Le Poidevin’s use of Carnap’s stance on ontology within the philosophy of religion. Le Poidevin claims that 1) theists need to take God to be a putative entity within space-time in order for their claim that God exists to be meaningful, and that 2) instrumentalism about theology is viable. I argue that although Le Poidevin’s response to Carnap’s argument is no less problematic than that argument itself, his position is in fact thoroughly un-Carnapian. The upshot is that his discussion provides some support to atheism, but none to either of his two official conclusions.

In contemporary debates about ontology, one prominent skeptical view emphasizes the existence of different possible languages for doing ontology. Eli Hirsch, in recent years the most prominent proponent of a view like this, has defended the claim that “many familiar questions about the ontology of physical objects are merely verbal. Nothing is substantively at stake in these questions beyond the correct use of language” and the claim that “quantifier expressions can have different meaning in different languages”.1 Ted Sider, while critical of the type of view Hirsch defends, has in many places prominently singled it out for critical discussion. In his (2001), he associates with Carnap the view that “different frameworks employ different semantic rules for the quantifiers”, and says that a theorist in Carnap’s tradition would say that the stuff-ontologist and the thing-ontologist have different “frameworks” and that “[W]ithin these frameworks there are answers to what there is, but any question about which framework is the right framework is metaphysical in the pejorative sense of being a pseudo-question”.2 In his (forthcoming), Sider discusses at length the view that disputants in ontological disputes use the same sentences with different meaning and hence in fact each speak the truth, and what he describes as the attendant view that “there are multiple candidate meanings for the quantifiers”.3 In his (2005), Cian Dorr critically discusses “the idea that there are many different possible languages which differ systematically in the truth-values they assign to general ontological claims”.4..

A lot of philosophers engage in debates about what claims are “metaphysically necessary”, and a lot more assume with little argument that some classes of claims have the status of “metaphysical necessity”. I think we can usefully replace questions about metaphysical necessity with five other questions which each capture some of what people may have had in mind when talking about metaphysical necessity. This paper explains these five other questions, and then discusses the question “how much of metaphysics is metaphysically necessary?”, and each of its five replacements.

This paper will deal with three questions regarding Carnap's transition from the position he held at the time of writing Syntax to the doctrines he held during his semantic phase: (1) What was Carnap's attitude towards truth at the time of writing Syntax? (2) What was Carnap's position regarding questions of reference and ontology at the time of writing Syntax? (3) Was Carnap's acceptance of Tarski's analysis of truth and reference detrimental to his philosophical project? Section 1 of this paper will deal with the first of these questions. Special attention will be paid to identifying what it was that prevented Carnap from defining a truth predicate for descriptive languages in Syntax. Section 2 of this paper will deal with the question of Carnap's attitude towards reference and ontology in Syntax. It will be shown that the attempt in Syntax to address ontological questions is seriously defective. Section 3 of this paper addresses the last of the questions posed above. It is argued that in the light of what is established in Sections 1 and 2, Carnap could not have retained the position of Syntax with respect to truth and reference.

[Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces of nonliterality in our assertions; if there is no sensible project of doing that, there is no sensible project of Quinean ontology. /// [Andre Gallois] I discuss Steve Yablo's defence of Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions. In the first section I set out what I take that distinction, as Carnap draws it, to be, and spell out a central motivation Carnap has for invoking it. In the second section I endorse, and augment, Yablo's response to Quine's arguments against Carnap. In the third section I say why Carnap's application of the distinction between internal and external questions runs into trouble. In the fourth section I spell out what I take to be Yablo's version of Carnap. In the last I say why that version is especially vulnerable to the objection raised in the second.

Characteristic of metaphysics are general questions of existence, such as 'Are there numbers?' This kind of question is the target of Carnap's argument for deflationism, to the effect that general existential questions, if taken at face value, are meaningless. This paper considers deflationism in a theological context, and argues that the question 'Does God exist?' can appropriately be grouped with the 'metaphysical' questions attacked by Carnap. Deflationism thus has the surprising consequence that the correct approach to theism is that of radical theology. The paper attempts to show why Carnap's argument fails, and why, nevertheless, enough remains of it for us to conclude that God cannot be outside time and space.