This is a brief sketch of the form which the analysis of the concept of identity would take under the impact of the most recent phase of Scientific Empiricism. The frame of reference is thus that of Carnap's Introduction to Semantics. Most characteristic of this approach is that it reaches its main clarifications by distinguishing between the various connotations of the traditional terms along the three lines of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The notion of truth, for instance, must be split (...) into syntactical truth or analyticality, semantical truth, and pragmatical truth. Only the last has something to do with belief and verification. In a somewhat similar manner identity splits, upon closer examination, into three radically different meanings, but it will be seen that the third one has nothing to do with either pure or applied pragmatics. Some of the points I am trying to make have been dealt with, in an interesting manner, in a recent paper by Quine. (shrink)

This is a brief sketch of the form which the analysis of the concept of identity would take under the impact of the most recent phase of Scientific Empiricism. The frame of reference is thus that of Carnap's Introduction to Semantics. Most characteristic of this approach is that it reaches its main clarifications by distinguishing between the various connotations of the traditional terms along the three lines of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The notion of truth, for instance, must be split (...) into syntactical truth or analyticality, semantical truth, and pragmatical truth. Only the last has something to do with belief and verification. In a somewhat similar manner identity splits, upon closer examination, into three radically different meanings, but it will be seen that the third one has nothing to do with either pure or applied pragmatics. Some of the points I am trying to make have been dealt with, in an interesting manner, in a recent paper by Quine. (shrink)

Ist wirklich unser ganzes Leben vorausbestimmtes, un entrinnbares Schicksal? Oder gibt es außer der mechanischen naturwissenschaftlichen Vorstellung der Welt noch eine andere Wirklichkeit, ohne daß ein unlösbarer Konflikt beider Anschauungsweisen besteht, die im Grunde jeden Menschen, den naiven wie den gelehrtesten, angehen. Der Widerspruch besteht, daß wir uns in unserem Denken und Handeln frei fühlen und damit eine Verantwortung tragen, auch wenn wir von unserem erbbedingten Charakter und von unserem Erleben beeinflußt sind, aber doch nicht unent rinnbar an diese uns (...) versklavt scheinen. Andererseits lehrt die klassische gesamte Naturwissenschaft, daß ganz wie in der klassischen Physik eine strenge, nirgends durchbrochene Kausalität uns beherrscht. Dieser Widerspruch hat mich seit meiner Jugend nie zur Ruhe kommen lassen. Das Weltbild des Arztes mußte seit dem Altertum an der Heilbestrebung des Organismus festhalten und mußte an die rettende Tat im ärztlichen Berufe glauben. Die klassische Physik schon im Altertum, aber noch weit bewußter seit der Renaissance, lehrt dogmatisch den mechanischen Ablauf allen Geschehens unter der absoluten Herrschaft des Kausal gesetzes. Immer, wenn ich mich wissenschaftlich zu äußern hatte, bin ich dem Weltbild des Arztes gefolgt, das soll gerade diese Schrift aufzeigen. Seit aber einige Physiker von der "klassischen" Physik zu einer "modernen" Physik üb- v gegangen sind, scheint zum erstenmal das fast zweieinhalb Jahrtausende währende Rätsel lösbar. (shrink)

This posthumous work by Gustav Bergmann was essentially complete before his death in 1987.

Teachers are urged to integrate grammar instruction with lessons on writer's craft, but what does that look like in real classrooms with real kids? In The Craft of Grammar, Jeff Anderson shows how he brings grammar and craft together meaningfully for student writers. Jeff and his sixth-grade students move easily from analyzing sentences to freewrites in writer's notebooks to "express-lane edits" of their writing in daily workshops. The lessons, individual conferences, and small-group activities on the video demonstrate how to use (...) high-quality children's and young adult literature as mentor texts and as an alternative to "Daily Oral Language." This sixty-minute DVD includes examples of: developing whole-class lessons focused on short mentor text; linking the writer's notebook to grammar instruction; assisting students in individual conferences as they test new writing strategies and analyze text; scaffolding learning through guided practice and small-group work; creating mnemonic devices to help students retain key rules; celebrating student success and tactfully correcting errors. Jeff presents simple and imaginative tools and memory devices—from the whoop of the AAAWWUBIS to the clever and catchy FANBOYS—that help students see the value of grammar and mechanics in crafting powerful writing and retain that knowledge. Filmed in his diverse, Title I classroom in San Antonio, Texas, and featuring Jeff's unique brand of energy, passion, and self-deprecating humor, The Craft of Grammar helps teachers of intermediate and adolescent writers find new and engaging ways to connect the writing process with grammar and mechanics. (shrink)

On March 12, 1938 the German army crossed the border into Austria. By the following September Gustav Bergmann had managed to send his first wife, Anna, and his daughter, Hanna, to safety in England. In October he managed to leave Austria himself. He first went to the Hague in the Netherlands to see Otto Neurath, who gave him enough money to assist his passage to New York. Bergmann’s prospects were quite uncertain at that time and it was (...) not clear that he would ever be able to repay Neurath. Neurath told Bergmann not to worry about repayment; he merely requested that Bergmann writes something about his recollections of the Vienna Circle. Bergmann wrote the following letter on the S. S. Staatendam while enroute to New York City to begin his new life. (shrink)

The recent philosophy of physics is confronted with the new ontology, as it emerges after philosophy proper has fully articulated the linguistic turn. The classical ontologists asserted or denied, controversially, that certain entities "existed." Rather than adding to these controversies, the new ontology uncovers their dialectics. The ontologically problematic entities of physics are of two kinds, represented by forces and particles, respectively. The dialectics has been dominated by eight patterns. Two of these, independence and realism, belong to philosophy proper. The (...) latter is here considered in order to relieve the philosophy of physics of a burden only philosophy proper can bear. That leaves six patterns: concreteness (including the orbit feature), acquaintance, simplicity, significance, process, and model. The paper sketches how each of these may be used and probably has been used, either explicitly or implicitly, in the recent controversies. (shrink)

Positivists and phenomenalists of all sorts maintain, and long have maintained, some variant of the following thesis concerning the existence of physical objects: Such statements as ‘There is now a wall behind my back’ are synonymous with a class of statements of which the following is representative ‘If I shall turn my head, then I shall also have the visual experience called ‘seeing a wall'.’ This amounts to proposing what many of us call a philosophical analysis of ‘exist’ or, more (...) precisely, of one meaning of ‘exist'; for the thesis implies that this verb, in the sense in which we use it when we say ‘This wall exists', is dispensable in the sense of being definable. Realists, who oppose the thesis, hold that ‘exist', in the sense mentioned, is what I would call an undefined descriptive predicate; and then they go on to recommend that instead of defining existence in terms of what we see, we had better say that we shall, if we turn, see a wall because there is a wall. Thus one could say, perhaps, that the realists wish to convert the positivistic position; instead of founding existence upon experience, they want to found experience upon existence. To be sure, this is but a bare and crudely formulated schema of an issue that has been argued for a long time. Also, contemporary analysts for the most part do not discuss the issue directly; they give their attention to preliminary and, therefore, more fundamental questions. Like experienced chess players, who know to which characteristic situations in the middle game certain openings will eventually lead, we try to convince each other of the excellence of our respective openings. There is, in particular, one fundamental or opening move that is now widely discussed and which, I believe, most of us examine with a view to the position in which we shall find ourselves—in the middle game—with respect to the realism issue. I refer to the clarification of the relations between meaning and verification or, to put it the way positivists do, to the formulation of an adequate meaning criterion. Let me indicate the connection between these questions and the crude schema I have given for the realism issue. According to current garden varieties of positivism, a statement is meaningful if it is verifiable by experience. ‘There is a wall behind my back’ is, in this view, meaningful because it is synonymous with a class of statements each of which is verifiable by future experience. More pointedly, the familiar common sense statements about the existence of physical objects are considered as meaningful because they are verifiable. This has again the subjectivistic ring realists dislike so much; so they may again be inclined to convert the positivistic position, if only tentatively and because they feel that a piece of realistic common sense would thus be preserved. But to make the conversion is to say that ‘There is a wall behind my back’ is verifiable because it is meaningful. (shrink)

The lucidity of Mr. Copilowish's argument makes the task of the reviewer very pleasant, even if he disagrees as completely as I do with the conclusion, which is the main thesis Mr. Copilowish attempts to prove. Only at one minor point does his exposition not quite suit my taste. He chose to preface his argument with a string of quotations supposedly supporting the position he wishes to defend. It seems to me that with the proper historical precautions these passages allow (...) for a very different interpretation. Yet I shall not pursue this matter, partly because I believe that Mr. Copilowish merely followed a literary stereotype, but mainly because the issue ought to be discussed on its merits rather than through the clouds of witness one could adduce on either side. (shrink)

The problem I shall discuss is specific, even minute. Yet, being philosophical, it arises and can be profitably discussed only in a context anything but minute, namely, that of a conception of philosophy and its proper method. I could not possibly unfold my conception once more for the sake of a minute problem. Nor do I believe that as things now stand this is necessary. I shall merely recall two propositions which are crucial in the context, and, in stating them, (...) shall freely use its vocabulary. The undefined descriptive terms of the ideal language all refer to phenomenal things wholly presented. These things all are either individuals or characters, and, if characters, either relational or nonrelational. These are the two propositions. It may throw light on another crucial point not always well understood if I imagine someone to ask: Wholly presented to whom? The answer is: To the person to whose world the philosopher, who, himself always speaks commonsensically, fits the ideal language. (shrink)