I Two Traditions. Scientific inquiry, seen in a very broad perspective, may be said to present two main aspects. One is the ascertaining and discovery of ...
... V The Foundations of Mathematics Braithwaite VI Logical Studies von Wright VII A Treatise on Induction and Probability von Wright VIII An Examination of ...
Preference is a key area where analytic philosophy meets philosophical logic. I start with two related issues: reasons for preference, and changes in preference, first mentioned in von Wright’s book The Logic of Preference but not thoroughly explored there. I show how these two issues can be handled together in one dynamic logical framework, working with structured two-level models, and I investigate the resulting dynamics of reason-based preference in some detail. Next, I study the foundational issue of entanglement between (...) preference and beliefs, and relate the resulting richer logics to belief revision theory and decision theory. (shrink)
Preference is a key area where analytic philosophy meets philosophical logic. I start with two related issues: reasons for preference, and changes in preference, first mentioned in von Wright’s book The Logic of Preference but not thoroughly explored there. I show how these two issues can be handled together in one dynamic logical framework, working with structured two-level models, and I investigate the resulting dynamics of reason-based preference in some detail. Next, I study the foundational issue of entanglement between (...) preference and beliefs, and relate the resulting richer logics to belief revision theory and decision theory. (shrink)
A feature of the spiritual physiognomy of the twentieth century has been belief in "progress" and in the beneficial influence on human wellbeing of science and technology. Wittgenstein never shares these optimistic sentiments. Towards the end of his life he wrote that there is nothing absurd in the belief that the age of science and technology is "the beginning of the end of humanity" and that mankind steering its course towards the future relying on scientific rationality "is falling into a (...) trap. His life and also his philosophy was a protest against these trends and a search for "a changed mode of thought and life". (shrink)
The Viennese satirist Karl Kraus called progress a ‘standpoint that looks like movement’ and a ‘mobile decoration’: a politically useful slogan devoid of content. Despite his tendency to think in the revolutionary mode of the tabula rasa, Ludwig Wittgenstein was a cultural conservative, sceptical of progress. He shares this pessimistic scepticism with some, but not all, of the early twentieth-century Viennese writers he read enthusiastically. It would, however, be too simple to claim that Wittgenstein did not believe in the possibility (...) of progress. Rather, he thought it mistaken to confuse progress with continued movement in one direction. Georg Henrik von Wright, Wittgenstein's student and successor at Cambridge, has discussed the ‘myth of progress’ in Wittgenstinian terms; the relevance of these analyses of progress in contemporary political discourse is examined. (shrink)
Is “good” a family-resemblance concept? Wittgenstein holds it is, since cases of goodness may not have anything in common, but there may be a continuous transition from some cases to others. Von Wright and Hacker argue it is not. They hold that family-resemblance concepts satisfy two conditions that goodness does not satisfy. I assess their arguments and then present a constitutivist account of goodness that Wittgenstein seems to endorse. The constitutivist account is what one would expect if goodness was (...) a family-resemblance concept. Finally, I note that Wittgenstein's nod towards non-descriptivism in the Investigations is paralleled by Stevenson's ethical emotivism. (shrink)
Narrative imagination, as MarthaNussbaum (1996) discusses it, is ``the abilityto be an intelligent reader of another person'sstory'', an ability tied to being a democraticand cultivated world citizen, one whounderstands the lives of others. Narrativeimagination does not only need knowledge andlogical reasoning but also love and compassion.This article argues that in order to be agenuine tool for democracy, narrativeimagination and consciously taking theperspective of others has to be based on anunderstanding of humans as basicallypluralistic, as homines aperti. Criticalexamination and reflection should (...) be broughtcloser to the lives we live and confront ourhabits and implicit values in order tocultivate us as humans so that we are genuinelyaffected and touched. (shrink)
