CHRISTOPHER PINCOCK, Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA The volume under review contains fifteen new essays by some of the most influential scholars of the history of early analytic philosophy. The focus of the essays is, as the editor says in the preface, ‘the work of Gottlob Frege and of Ludwig Wittgenstein (mostly the early Wittgenstein), as well as various ties between them’ (p. x). The essays are divided into four parts. The first part, ‘Background and (...) General Themes’, contains essays by E. Reck, G. Gabriel and S. Gerrard. The second part on Frege has contributions by H. Sluga, S. Shieh, M. Ruffino and J. Weiner. Essays on the relation between Frege and the early Wittgenstein by W. Goldfarb, D. Macbeth, T. Ricketts and C. Diamond comprise the third part. The volume concludes with essays by I. Proops, J. Floyd, M. Ostrow and J. Conant on the early Wittgenstein. This volume is an important contribution to our understanding of Frege and the early Wittgenstein and should prove a help to specialists in the history of analytic philosophy. I have chosen to briefly discuss seven of these essays with an emphasis on topics in the history and philosophy of logic. Reck’s opening essay, ‘Wittgenstein’s “Great Debt” to Frege: Biographical Traces and Philosophical Themes’, gives a helpful overview of our current knowledge of the contacts between Frege and Wittgenstein. Reck argues quite persuasively for the conclusion that Wittgenstein engaged with Frege’s work throughout his philosophical career. The depth of this engagement is in-. (shrink)

Explication is the conceptual cornerstone of Carnap’s approach to the methodology of scientific analysis. From a philosophical point of view, it gives rise to a number of questions that need to be addressed, but which do not seem to have been fully addressed by Carnap himself. This paper reconsiders Carnapian explication by comparing it to a different approach: the ‘formalisms as cognitive tools’ conception. The comparison allows us to discuss a number of aspects of the Carnapian methodology, as well as (...) issues pertaining to formalization in general. We start by introducing Carnap’s conception of explication, arguing that there is a tension between his proposed criteria of fruitfulness and similarity; we also argue that his further desideratum of exactness is less crucial than might appear at first. We then bring in the general idea of formalisms as cognitive tools, mainly by discussing the reliability of so-called statistical prediction rules, i.e. simple algorithms used to make predictions across a range of areas. SPRs allow for a concrete instantiation of Carnap’s fruitfulness desideratum, which is arguably the most important desideratum for him. Finally, we elaborate on what we call the ‘paradox of adequate formalization’, which for the Carnapian corresponds to the tension between similarity and fruitfulness. We conclude by noting that formalization is an inherently paradoxical enterprise in general, but one worth engaging in given the ‘cognitive boost’ it affords as a tool for discovery. (shrink)

© The Author [2017]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] Dedekind was a contemporary of Bernhard Riemann, Georg Cantor, and Gottlob Frege, among others. Together, they revolutionized mathematics and logic in the second half of the nineteenth century. Dedekind had an especially strong influence on David Hilbert, Ernst Zermelo, Emmy Noether, and Nicolas Bourbaki, who completed that revolution in the twentieth century. With respect to mainstream mathematics, he is best known for his contributions (...) to algebra and number theory. With respect to logic and the foundations of mathematics, many of his technical results — his conceptualization of the natural and real numbers, his analysis of proofs by mathematical induction and definitions by recursion (extended to the transfinite by Zermelo, John von... (shrink)

In a career that spans 60 years so far, W.W. Tait has made many highly influential contributions to logic, the philosophy of mathematics, and their history. The present collection of new essays - contributed by former students, colleagues, and friends - is a Festschrift, i.e., a celebration of his life and work. The essays address a variety of themes prominent in his work or related to it. The collection starts with an introduction in which Tait's contributions are sketched and put (...) into context. The eleven essays that follow are arranged in three parts: Part I. Proof Theory and its History; Part II. Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics; and Part III. History of Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics. Each of the essays contributes substantially to one or several of these areas. The authors included are: Steve Awodey, Solomon Feferman, Michael Friedman, Warren Goldfarb, Geoffrey Hellman, William Howard, Stephen Menn, Rebecca Morris, Charles Parsons, Erich Reck, Thomas Ricketts, and Wilfried Sieg. The editor, Erich H. Reck is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California at Riverside. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy and modern logic are intimately connected, both historically and systematically. Thinkers such as Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein were major contributors to the early development of both; and the fruitful use of modern logic in addressing philosophical problems was, and still is, definitive for large parts of the analytic tradition. More specifically, Frege's analysis of the concept of number, Russell's theory of descriptions, and Wittgenstein's notion of tautology have long been seen as paradigmatic pieces of philosophy in this tradition. (...) This close connection remained beyond what is now often called "early analytic philosophy", i.e., the tradition's first phase. In the present chapter I will consider three thinkers who played equally important and formative roles in analytic philosophy's second phase, the period from the 1920s to the 1950s: Rudolf Carnap, Kurt Gödel, and Alfred Tarski. (shrink)

This collection of writings by E.S. Brightman is a worthy representation of the intellectual dimensions and philosophical achievements of the man who led the personalist movement in his lifetime and who served as Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy at Boston University from 1924 until 1953. The volume contains twenty-one selections, consisting of journal articles, book chapters, published lectures and addresses; they are arranged in seven subdivisions: Person, Knowledge, and Reality; Persons and Theory of Value; Philosophy of Religion; On Bowne’s (...) Personalism; Of Persons and Philosophies; Latin American Thought; and Personalism and Life. Each part is meaty in its own way. (shrink)

It is well known that Frege and his writings were an important influence on Wittgenstein. There is no agreement, however, on the nature and scope of this influence. In this paper, I clarify the situation in three related ways: by tracing Frege's and Wittgenstein's actual interactions, i.e., their face‐to‐face meetings and their correspondence between 1911 and 1920; by documenting Wittgenstein's continued study of Frege's writings, until the very end of his life in 1951; and by constructing, on that basis, a (...) new framework for understanding the themes that connect Wittgenstein to Frege, both in his early and his later works. (shrink)

In the foreground of Father Lonergan's analysis of the cognitional process are insight and the heuristic structures it employs. A close study of paradigms of insight exhibits mental acts apprehending intelligibilities logically distinct from, though psychologically conveyed by sense data and images. Because these intelligibilities, e.g., in contemporary physics, bear witness to entities which are unimaginable, knowing is not merely looking. Knowing involves entertaining intelligible meanings and reflecting on them, and though it exists, for men at least, within the boundaries (...) of sensible experience, knowing in its primary activity as insight goes beyond the empirical presentations to grasp intelligible meanings and to judge reflectively their truth or falsity. When judging, a rational self-consciousness affirms a proposition, i.e., an intelligible meaning, in view of its sufficient reason or grounds. In this sense affirmative judgment renders the conditioned "virtually unconditioned" by linking it up with its conditions, as structures immanent and operative within the cognitional process effectuate this linkage of the conditioned with its conditions. These structures, which Father Lonergan supposes he can express as rules for the construction of situations which give rise to insight so that method and not genius suffices to gain truth, are held to be constitutive of the acts of insight and understanding. Accordingly, the positive content of Insight is summed up in the slogan: "Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments of understanding". (shrink)

Reck has rendered the philosophical community an invaluable service in providing these lucid, systematic and faithful expositions of the thought of the ten men he has selected: R. B. Perry, W. E. Hocking, G. H. Mead, J. E. Boodin, W. M. Urban, D. H. Parker, R. W. Sellars, A. O. Lovejoy, E. Jordan and E. S. Brightman. Included is a general introduction in which Reck offers a brief perspective upon the extra ordinary diversity and richness characteristic of the (...) period in American philosophy which these men represent. Bibliographical notes are given at the end of each chapter.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Process philosophy is said by some to be the future of American philosophy. This collection of essays, ranging from studies of Whitehead to Camus and Sir Muhammad Iqbal, extends the discussion far beyond the boundaries of North America. Several of the essays are of a more systematic character. Donald Hanks analyzes the category of process as a pre-conceptual principle used to organize experience into an intelligible pattern. Andrew Reck provides an analysis of the meaning and justification of what he (...) considers to be the ten ideas or categories requisite for a system of process philosophy. Charles Schmidtke argues that process philosophy faces a fundamental decision regarding whether the character of reality as process is given as an ultimate datum or whether process philosophy structures reality in accordance with the characteristic of creative becoming. Other essays in the volume are concerned with the concept of process in the work of a variety of philosophers, some of whom are less directly in the process tradition. Ramona Cormier analyzes the relationship of the process of experience to its unchanging aspect in connection with Camus’ concern for the meaningfulness of life and the limitations of rational inquiry. Bertrand P. Helm provides a study of James’ concept of time and Patrick S. Madigan a study of the concept of space in Leibniz and Whitehead. Whitehead’s understanding of the interaction of things provides the basis for R. Kirby Godsey’s study of the categories of substance and relation in Whitehead, and Robert C. Whittemore provides an introduction to the process philosophy of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, the little known poet-philosopher and sometime student of James Ward. James Leroy Smith’s article on Whitehead and Marx is a critical comparison of their political philosophies.—E.T.L. (shrink)

Can contemporary American philosophy be characterized in a way which would meaningfully distinguish it from philosophy in other times, other places? The somewhat negative answer to this question given by John E. Smith and Andrew J. Reck is a source of puzzlement to Roger T. Simonds, author of the first essay in this collaboration volume. Simonds asserts, with reference to activism, pragmatism, and optimism, that while "these qualities are... not the exclusive property of American philosophers," yet "Americans seem to (...) show them more than others do," and this is a meaningful characterization because "America herself is a sort of incarnation of Western activism, pragmatism, and optimism." Whether Western philosophy as a whole can profitably take a new point of departure, viz., that of Shankara, the ninth century systematizer of Vedantism, is the question dealt with in the second essay of this volume, written by Cornelia D. Church. Both Shankara and Western philosophers attempt to bring into focus God, the world, man, and mind, but Shankara tries to see how man can be liberated from his limits of perception through a quasi-mystical technique. The possibilities of this avenue for Western seekers of truth, according to Miss Church, "are tremendously exciting.". (shrink)

This collection of thirteen essays, when viewed together, offers a unique perspective on the history of American philosophy. It illuminates for the first time in book form, how thirteen major American philosophical thinkers viewed a problem of special interest in the American philosophical tradition: the relationship between experience and reflection. Written by well-known authorities on the figure about which he or she writes, the essays are arranged chronologically to highlight the changes and developments in thought from Puritanism to Pragmatism to (...) Process Philosophy. While Doctrine and Experience will be of particular interest to specialists in American Philosophy, there is also much to offer anyone interested in the intellectual and cultural history of the United States. In order of appearance, the essays are: "Jonathan Edwards and the Great Awakening" by John E. Smith "Heart and Head: The Mind of Thomas Jefferson" by Andrew J. Reck"Emerson and the American Future" by Robert C. Pollock"Chauncey Wright and the Pragmatists" by Edward Madden"Charles S. Peirce: Action Through Thought – The Ethics of Experience" by Vincent G. Potter"Life Is in the Transitions’: Radical Empiricism and Contemporary Concerns" by John J. McDermott"John Dewey and the Metaphysics of American Democracy" by Ralph W. Sleeper"Individualization and Unification in Sartre and Dewey" by Thelma Z. Levine"Josiah Royce: Anticipator of European Existentialism and Phenomenology" by Jacqueline Ann K. Kegley"The Transcendence of Materialism and Idealism in American Thought" by John Lachs"C. I. Lewis and the Pragmatic Tradition in American Philosophy" by Sandra Rosenthal"The Social Philosophy of George Herbert Mead" by David Miller"Existence as Transaction: A Whiteheadian Study of Causality" by Elizabeth Kraus. (shrink)

_Erich Reck* * and Georg Schiemer.** ** The Prehistory of Mathematical Structuralism. _Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 454. ISBN: 978-0-19-064122-1 ; 978-0-19-064123-8. doi: 10.1093/oso/9780190641221.001.0001.

resumo O texto procura comentar as condições éticas e políticas do compromisso histórico, de s t a c a ndo o caso do eng a j a me nto do escritor. Pa ra isso relacio na mos as noções de intersubjetividade e transitividade da prosa, no intuito de esclarecer o que Sartre denomina “encont ro de liberdades”, compromisso recíproco assumido ent re escritor e leitor no que se refere à produção de significações. Esse compromisso, compreendido a partir do exercício da (...) liberdade situada, manifesta, no contexto da relação escritor/leitor, o caráter decisivamente revelador da alteridade como estrutura existencial e experiência histórica. palavras-chave compromisso histórico; liberdade; intersubjetividade; alteridade. (shrink)

Řecké sloveso metabiónai, objevující se v Aetiově zprávě o Anaximandrově zoogonii, bylo dosud považováno za ojedinělé a předpokládalo se, že může mít význam „změnit způsob života“, nebo „přežít“. Tato studie nachází dosud neznámé výskyty daného slovesa, které svědčí pro význam „změnit způsob života“, současně však upozorňuje na syntaktickou problematičnost tohoto významu v Aetiově textu.keywords: Anaximandros; zoogonie; metabiónai; řecký aorist; Aetios; Pseudo-Plútarchos; Placita.

Wittgenstein’s concepts shed light on the phenomenon of schizophrenia in at least three different ways: with a view to empathy, scientific explanation, or philosophical clarification. I consider two different “positive” wittgensteinian accounts―Campbell’s idea that delusions involve a mechanism of which different framework propositions are parts, Sass’ proposal that the schizophrenic patient can be described as a solipsist, and a Rhodes’ and Gipp’s account, where epistemic aspects of schizophrenia are explained as failures in the ordinary background of certainties. I argue that (...) none of them amounts to empathic-phenomenological understanding, but they provide examples of how philosophical concepts can contribute to scientific explanation, and to philosophical clarification respectively. (shrink)