Conventionalism: From Poincare to QuineThe daring idea that convention - human decision - lies at the root both of necessary truths and much of empirical science reverberates through twentieth-century philosophy, constituting a revolution comparable to Kant's Copernican revolution. This book provides a comprehensive study of Conventionalism. Drawing a distinction between two conventionalist theses, the under-determination of science by empirical fact, and the linguistic account of necessity, Yemima Ben-Menahem traces the evolution of both ideas to their origins in Poincaré's geometric conventionalism. She argues that the radical extrapolations of Poincaré's ideas by later thinkers, including Wittgenstein, Quine, and Carnap, eventually led to the decline of conventionalism. This book provides a fresh perspective on twentieth-century philosophy. Many of the major themes of contemporary philosophy emerge in this book as arising from engagement with the challenge of conventionalism. |
Contents
Section 1 | 19 |
Section 2 | 28 |
Section 3 | 35 |
Section 4 | 37 |
Section 5 | 39 |
Section 6 | 62 |
Section 7 | 75 |
Section 8 | 80 |
Section 15 | 162 |
Section 16 | 177 |
Section 17 | 187 |
Section 18 | 191 |
Section 19 | 199 |
Section 20 | 211 |
Section 21 | 218 |
Section 22 | 232 |
Section 9 | 85 |
Section 10 | 111 |
Section 11 | 126 |
Section 12 | 133 |
Section 13 | 137 |
Section 14 | 155 |
Section 23 | 235 |
Section 24 | 241 |
Section 25 | 248 |
Section 26 | 255 |
Section 27 | 290 |
Section 28 | 297 |
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Common terms and phrases
account of necessary affine connection alternative analogy analytic arbitrary argue argument Carnap chapter choice claim conception consistency consistency proof constitutive construed context conventionalist conventionalist account critique different geometries distinction distinguish Duhem Einstein emphasis in original empirically equivalent entities equations Euclidean geometry experience explain fact formal Frege Friedman geometric conventionalism Gödel Gödel's grammar gravitational field Hilbert holism hypothesis implicit definition incompatible indeterminacy of translation interpretation intuition language later laws linguistic logic and mathematics logical positivists logical syntax logical truth meaning metaphor methodological metric nature necessary truth Newtonian mechanics non-Euclidean geometries notion of truth objects observation particular philosophical physical Poincar´e’s Poincaré position possible principle problem propositions question Quine Quine’s realist refutation Reichenbach relations role rule-following paradox rules Schlick scientific semantic sense sentences skepticism space spacetime structure syntactical synthetic a priori theorem theory of relativity thesis tion Tractatus true truth by convention underdetermination ventionalism Wittgenstein