In his transcendental approach, Cassirer argues that an objective world is not given and then simply copied by our cognitive faculties; rather, it is gained through the development of symbolic thought and perception. According to Cassirer, language plays a crucial role in this process of objectification. In this paper, the close relationship between language and symbolism in Cassirer’s philosophy will be delineated. This will also shed light on possible distinctions between human speech and animal communication. Furthermore, the relation of language (...) to the different functions of consciousness and to the symbolic forms of myth and science will be addressed. Finally, based on the former considerations of language and objectification, Cassirer’s conceptions of reality and truth will be explicated and critically evaluated. It will be argued that his approach offers several interesting and promising insights but is nonetheless in danger of falling short in explaining the difference between artefacts and natural kinds. (shrink)

In this paper, I will deal with the analogy between Cassirer’s interpretation of relativity and his philosophy of culture. As to the structure of the paper, it will be divided into six parts. I will start with a brief introduction, after which I will succinctly outline Cassirer’s reading of Einstein’s theory, and in particular of general covariance. I will then focus on the presentation of his project for a “systematic philosophy” in the last chapter of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and (...) subsequently delve into the lexical references to relativity made in Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. After this, I will tackle Cassirer’s rectorship speech, where relativity and the philosophy of culture are explicitly interwoven, but with the important clarification (already provided in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Philosophy of Symbolic Forms) that not all kinds of knowledge align with de-anthropomorphized objectivity. The final section contains the concluding remarks. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on Cassirer’s functionalist theory of truth in order to argue that the Positivistic theory of knowledge fails to explain how it is that physics provides us with truth-evaluable and reliably objective descriptions of the world. This argument is based on Cassirer’s idea that what the Positivistic theory of knowledge normally considers as the “factual” of physics is, in fact, unachievable and falsely conceived. I show that Cassirer’s focus on how measurement is made possible, as well (...) as how technological instruments are put to use in physical research, enables him to offer an alternative account of truth, i.e., a functionalist theory of truth, which is philosophically attractive and rationally plausible. (shrink)

Cassirer’s view on ethical objectivity is puzzling. In his scarce comments on Kantian ethics, he defines the “pure will” as a “function of consciousness,” which he considers a prerequisite for the possibility of objective ethical normativity embedded in empirical reality. In the existing body of literature, we find two different interpretations of Cassirer’s account of ethical objectivity. The “meta-philosophical” interpretation takes objectivity as a telos that humanity gradually approaches, thereby emphasizing the historically relative truth standards to which the teleologically-evolving symbolic (...) forms respond. The “Kantian” interpretation takes objectivity as a concept inherent to the conduct of the moral law, highlighting the evaluative and prescriptive aspects of his philosophical method. In this paper, I defend the thesis that, by interpreting Cassirer’s ethics through the lens of Hermann Cohen’s mature ethical theory, we can see that ethical deliberation in Cassirer involves a notion of universality that is a priori and depends on a substantiated concept susceptible to change. The proposed “contingent conception of universality” thesis accounts for both: the evaluative and teleological features of Cassirer’s ethical theory, grounding an a priori account of ethical objectivity conceptualized relative to contingent truth standards that gradually improve. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how Cassirer’s early and mature epistemology, philosophy of science, and philosophy of culture make up a coherent and comprehensive view of the mathematical sciences that is fruitful for understanding contemporary science. In Cassirer’s first systematic work, Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff, the mathematical sciences are understood through the concept of function. This implies that scientific investigation aims at increased unity in a system of functional concepts, rather than at answering the substance-rooted question of what is. In his (...) mature work, Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Cassirer expands his inquiry to diverse notions of objects and principles of symbolic forming, recognizing the mathematical sciences as one of many ways of structuring experience, alongside other symbolic forms such as myth and ordinary language. Together, Cassirer’s early and mature works detail the preconditions and idiosyncrasies of the unfolding of scientific objects and situate the mathematical sciences within the totality of human experience. Applying these insights to contemporary interpretations of science suggests connecting common misconceptions of science to challenges in translating objects between symbolic forms. I propose the concepts of domestication and mythification of science as instructive for clearing up such misunderstandings. (shrink)

In this article, I propose an investigation of Ernst Cassirer’s conception of truth, as set out in his inaugural address as rector of Hamburg University, in light of two key concepts of his philosophy, i.e., function and symbolic form. My aim is neither to give an exhaustive exposition of the subject, nor to attempt to elaborate a complete Cassirerian theory of truth. Rather, I want to focus on how the Cassirerian conception of truth can be useful in countering certain contemporary (...) anti-scientific tendencies, particularly those born from the fear that modern science could destroy other cultural forms (especially religion). Specifically, I believe that Cassirer’s conception enables us to identify criteria by which to distinguish science from non-scientific endeavours and to preserve the primacy of science in the cognitive enterprise, without calling social consensus into question (avoiding the risks of relativization), but also without resorting to positivistic dogmatisms that condemn everything that is not science to falsity or nonsense. By tracing back any kind of truth to its own contest of meaning and by identifying this context of meaning on transcendental and semiotic bases, Cassirer’s conception opens to a pluralistic and pragmatic approach that leaves space for the possibility of non-scientific truths, which, while not being entitled to interfere with the scientific work, can still be considered legitimate and valuable. (shrink)

This special issue focuses on two related topics in Ernst Cassirer’s thought: objectivity and truth. Through this lens, the guest editors attempt to illuminate (a) the historical and systematic value of Cassirer’s philosophical project, (b) the continuing relevance of his account of the plurality and universality of human understanding in view of the crisis of truth that currently permeates Western culture, and (c) the way Cassirer’s style can inspire contemporary scholars who wish to evade the analytic-continental divide. Tobias Endres and (...) Simon Truwant gathered twelve contributions from more analytic oriented authors from the philosophy of science and more continental oriented authors from the philosophy of culture. By bringing these scholars together on a shared topic, they hope to help bridging this divide that is also reflected within Cassirer scholarship by preoccupation with either his philosophy of science or philosophy of culture. The articles in this special issue are preceded by a ceremonial speech that Cassirer gave on the occasion of his assumption of the rectorate of the University of Hamburg on November 7, 1929 and that was translated into English for the first time by the guest editors. (shrink)

© The Authors [2017]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] book Space, Number, and Geometry from Helmholtz to Cassirer is a reworked version of Francesca Biagioli’s PhD thesis. It aims ‘[to offer] a reconstruction of the debate on non-Euclidean geometry in neo-Kantianism between the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century’. More precisely, Biagioli concentrates on how the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism dealt with what may be (...) called ‘Helmholtz’s challenge’ to the classical Kantian thesis that the geometry of space is necessarily Euclidean. To be precise, besides the Marburg current, SNG also deals with some other neo-Kantians, among them the realist neo-Kantian Alois Riehl and the South-West German neo-Kantian Bruno Bauch.According to SNG, the Marburg revision of the Kantian theory of space opened the door to a new way... (shrink)

Original source :「委員会の論理」『世界文化』[Culture du monde], n° 13, janvier 1936, 2–17 ; n° 14, février 1936, 16–33 ; n° 15, mars 1936, 12–25. Repris dans nmz 1 : 46–108. La version des œuvres complètes présente un certain nombre de variantes par rapport à la première publication en 1936. « La logique des comités » a été traduit en espagnol par Agustín J. Zavala. Je remercie vivement Saitō Takako pour sa relecture et ses précieuses remarques.

En este trabajo nos proponemos estudiar los vínculos que Cassirer establece entre los conceptos de causalidad, invariancia y sistematicidad en el conocimiento de la física. Para ello, comenzaremos considerando el marco general en el que se inscribe el análisis que Cassirer realiza. Este marco es el provisto por el método trascendental. En segundo lugar, consideraremos el principio de causalidad de Kant a la luz de su distinción entre principios constitutivos y principios regulativos de la experiencia. Luego, discutiremos las dificultades que (...) Cassirer encuentra en la doctrina kantiana de la causalidad. Más adelante nos referiremos al sistema de los enunciados de la física, para poder así determinar el modo en el que se relacionan los conceptos de causalidad, invariancia y sistematicidad. (shrink)

The present issue of Cognition and Emotion represents a laudable project: publication of some current research and theoretical orientations on two important topics that have not received the attent...

The aim of this paper is to show that the French philosopher and historian of science Abel Rey played a more influential role in the formative phase of the Vienna Circle than hitherto supposed. On the whole, it will be argued that Rey's contribution had political impact. His interpretation of "modern physics" in 1907 in the face of the alleged "bankruptcy of science" should be appreciated as a masterpiece of applied enlightenment thought. As such, it was especially paradigmatic for Philipp (...) Frank's "positivist" defense of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics against the irrationalist tendencies of the 1920s and 1930s. (shrink)

Abstract: This article contends that the relation of early logical empiricism to Kant was more complex than is often assumed. It argues that Reichenbach's early work on Kant and Einstein, entitled The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge (1920) aimed to transform rather than to oppose Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. One the one hand, I argue that Reichenbach's conception of coordinating principles, derived from Kant's conception of synthetic a priori principles, offers a valuable way of accounting for the (...) historicity of scientific paradigms. On the other hand, I show that even Reichenbach, in line with Neo-Kantianism, associated Kant's view of synthetic a priori principles too closely with Newtonian physics and, consequently, overestimated the difference between Kant's philosophy and his own. This is even more so, I point out, in the retrospective account logical empiricism presented of its own history. Whereas contemporary reconstructions of this history, including Michael Friedman's, tend to endorse this account, I offer an interpretation of Kant's conception of a priori principles that contrasts with the one put forward by both Neo-Kantianism and logical empiricism. On this basis, I re-examine the early Reichenbach's effort to accommodate these principles to the paradigm forged by Einstein. (shrink)

Dem Beitrag geht es darum, den modernen olympischen Wettkampfsport als spezifische Form von Körpertechnologisierung zu charakterisieren und zugleich die Relevanz der Thematisierung des Sports für die praktische Philosophie aufzuzeigen. Dazu wird der Sport als alltäglicher und akzeptierter Fall von Körpertechnologisierung im Kontext der allgemeinen philosophischen Diskussion um Formen von Enhancement diskutiert. Die Spezifik olympisch-sportlicher Körpertechnologisierung liegt darin, dass die dort praktizierte Leistungssteigerung eine innere Norm, ein Maß im Hegel’schen Sinne hat. Olympische Leistungssteigerung ist kein maßloses Immer-schneller, Immer-höher, Immer-stärker, sondern eine (...) Steigerung, die unter einer sportspezifischen Bedingung steht. Deshalb kann der olympische Sport kritisiert werden, indem man ihn beim Wort seiner Verfasstheit nimmt. Wenn man ihn loben oder beargwöhnen will, muss man nicht zurückgreifen auf kulturkritisch geprägte Bedenken gegen maßlose Leistungssteigerung oder zynische Gleichgültigkeit gegenüber dem, was Individuen ihren Körpern antun. (shrink)

Idealist Heresies in Philosophy of Science: Cassirer, Carnap, and Kuhn. As common wisdom has it, philosophy of science in the analytic tradition and idealist philosophy are incompatible. Usually, not much effort is spent for explaining what is to be understood by idealism. Rather, it is taken for granted that idealism is an obsolete and unscientific philosophical account. In this paper it is argued that this thesis needs some qualification. Taking Carnap and Kuhn as paradigmatic examples of positivist and postpositivist philosophies (...) of science it is shown that these accounts share important features with Cassirer's idealist philosophy of science developed in the first half of this century. As it turns out, often Cassirer is more modern than those classical philosophers of (post)posivitist philosophy of science. For instance, Quine's criticism against Carnap's empiricist philosophy of science launched in Two Dogmas of Empiricism is anticipated by Cassirer for several decades. (shrink)

This paper outlines and discusses the relative merits and problems of two current interpretations of Philosophy of Information (PI), the metaphysical approach and the analytical approach. The paper argues that both approaches complement one another, being normative and mutually compatible.

The significance or vacuity of the statement, “Everything has just doubled in size,” attracted considerable attention last century from scientists and philosophers. Presenting his conventionalism in geometry, Poincaré insisted on the emptiness of a hypothesis that all objects have doubled in size overnight. Such expansion could have meaning, he argued, “only for those who reason as if space were absolute … it would be better to say that space being relative, nothing at all has happened.” The logical empiricists concurred, viewing (...) the universal doubling hypothesis as illustrating the intrinsic metrical amorphousness of continuous manifolds. It is striking, therefore, to find Kant invoking a universal contraction in space and time to support his famous doctrine of transcendental idealism. In one of several completely neglected passages, he writes: “The proof that the things in space and time are mere appearances can also be grounded on the fact that the whole world could be contained in a nutshell and the entirety of elapsed time in a second without the least difference being met with.” Kant's “also” may suggest an idealist argument distinct from any proposed in published works. Here I ask: What is the meaning of Kant's Nutshell Argument for Idealism? (shrink)

Summary It is about 100 Years ago that the German-American philosopher Susanne K. Langer started a bold and courageous appearance on the stage of consciousness-research - until then exclusively dominated by male and paternalistic figures. This contribution is to highlight SK Langers work and impact on the theory of consciousness, especially on her final three volume publication: “Mind. An Essay on Human Feeling” (1967, 1972, 1982) which, until now, has not been translated into German. What stands out in Langer’s work (...) is her intuitive closeness to many Gestalt-theorists and the overriding importance she attributes to symbolization in the specific make-up of the human mind. Her main focus is centered on presentative symbolics; meaning those early forms of human expression (prior or along the development of human language) in magic rituals, rhythm, music, painting and sculpturing, early collective work experience, formalized playing or funeral activities. Langers view on symbols goes far beyond the typical meaning of reference towards a much more sophisticated intertwinement of form, event and being in a matrix of “living tensions”. I would like to point out that her research is of important value to a revised thinking on mental health and mental crisis in reshaping the complex interaction between image, Gestalt and Symbol. (shrink)

Two books inaugurated the revival of Kantianism in German universities in the second half of the nineteenth century. Both works were exercises in the history of philosophy. And both took to the his...

What I want to point out is the “meaning change” that Friedman ascribes to terms and principles, which he calls a priori, in the transition from the old framework to the new: -/- 'This captures the sense, in particular, in which there has indeed been a ”meaning change” in the transition from the old framework to the new: even if the same terms and principles reappear in the new framework they do not have the same meaning they had in the (...) old' (Friedman 2001, p. 99, ft. 37). -/- Following Friedman, we should admit that the same words possess different meanings in different frameworks. In fact, terms and principles that are empirical in an old framework may shift to constitutive status in the new framework, and vice- versa. If Friedman’s account seemed to entrust the prospective rationality of science to constitutive a priori principle, the notion of meaning change suggests instead that Friedman’s argument upholds the Kuhnian account of incommensurability, while we were expecting he aimed to mitigate it. As he clearly states in the passage to follow: -/- 'The later framework is not translatable into the earlier framework, of course, simply because the concepts used in formulating the later framework have not yet come into existence' (Friedman 2001, pp. 98-99). -/- Friedman’s account purports to emphasize that a transition from empirical laws to principles, and vice-versa, should imply a conceptual shift. But is “meaning change” the appropriate expression that may describe such a conceptual shift? What does the word “concept” mean for Friedman? How are concepts related to the meaning of terms? What does the “meaning” mean in Friedman’s view? What is the relation between terms and theories? Does theory change entail a meaning change of scientific terms, that is, do terms determine theory change (i.e. difference in theories is ipso facto difference in terms)? Recently, some specialists (Tsou 2010, for instance) have stressed Friedman’s notion of constitutive a priori principle in light of Putnam’s positive account of apriority. Friedman's and Putnam’s notions of relativized a priori are presented as similar insofar as they both affirm the existence of principles in science, which are revisable and relativized to a particular body of knowledge. However, the similarities do not take into account that Friedman ascribed a meaning change to coordinating principles that are constitutive of the new framework. Could Putnam subscribe such a meaning change? This paper aims to analyse Friedman’s notion of constitutive a priori principle in relation to the problem of meaning change by taking into account Putnam’s theory of meaning and his notion of framework principle. (shrink)

This paper deals with Natorp’s version of the Marburg mathematical philosophy of science characterized by the following three features: The core of Natorp’s mathematical philosophy of science is contained in his “knowledge equation” that may be considered as a mathematical model of the “transcendental method” conceived by Natorp as the essence of the Marburg Neo-Kantianism. For Natorp, the object of knowledge was an infinite task. This can be elucidated in two different ways: Carnap, in the Aufbau, contended that this endeavor (...) can be divided into two distinct parts, namely, a finite “constitution” of the object of knowledge and an infinite incompletable empirical description. In contrast, and more in the original spirit of Cohen and Natorp, the physicist and philosopher Margenau in The Nature of Physical Reality (Margenau. 1950) conceived the infinity of this “Aufgabe” as an infinite dialectical process, in which relative “data” and “conceptual constructs” determine each other. This dialectical process eliminates the dichotomy between Anschauung and Begriff that distinguished the Marburg Neo-Kantianism from Kantian orthodoxy, namely, the abandonment of the difference between intuition and concept. Finally, the paper deals with the non-Archimedean geometrical systems that played a central role in Natorp’s defence of Cohen’s “infinitesimal” metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper tries to reconstruct Ernst Cassirer's potential reception of the EPR argument, as exposed by Einstein in his letter to Cassirer of March 1937. It is shown that, in conformity with his transcendental epistemology taking the conditions of accessibility as constitutive of the quantum object, Cassirer would probably have rejected the argument. Indeed, Cassirer would probably not have subscribed to its separability/local causality presupposition (which goes against his interpretation of the quantum formalism as a self-suf!cient condition constitutive of the (...) quantum object, without any reliance on spatial intuition), nor to its completeness requirement (as his partial endorsement of Bohr's complementarity, and his rejection of the Kantian "idea of complete determination", illustrate). By rejecting both of its premises, Cassirer's philosophy of physics thus enables to escape the EPR dilemma, and exhibits what, in Kantian terms, might be called a "negative utility" with respect to physical science. A further investigation of the anti-reductionist utility of Cassirer's systematic philosophy with respect to physics and other "symbolic forms" is !nally suggested. (shrink)

This article surveys recent literature by Parsons, McGee, Shapiro and others on the significance of categoricity arguments in the philosophy of mathematics. After discussing whether categoricity arguments are sufficient to secure reference to mathematical structures up to isomorphism, we assess what exactly is achieved by recent ‘internal’ renditions of the famous categoricity arguments for arithmetic and set theory.

This paper has a two-fold objective: to provide a balanced, multi-faceted account of the origins of logicism; to rehabilitate Richard Dedekind as a main logicist. Logicism should be seen as more deeply rooted in the development of modern mathematics than typically assumed, and this becomes evident by reconsidering Dedekind's writings in relation to Frege's. Especially in its Dedekindian and Fregean versions, logicism constitutes the culmination of the rise of ?pure mathematics? in the nineteenth century; and this rise brought with it (...) an inter-weaving of methodological and epistemological considerations. The latter aspect illustrates how philosophical concerns can grow out of mathematical practice, as opposed to being imposed on it from outside. It also sheds new light on the legacy and the lasting significance of logicism today. (shrink)

At the turn of the twentieth century, a number of philosophers introduced the idea of philosophical research on cognition that could enter into competition with psychology, which was developing into an autonomous discipline at that time. In view of the problems of the traditional but still prevailing associationist theory, Ernst Cassirer demanded a more sophisticated theory that could explain the human ability to concentrate one's thoughts on a topic, such as a problem or a task. He presented a representational theory (...) of mind to explain this ability. This paper explicates the scope of this theory and Cassirer's idea of interdisciplinary cooperation between philosophers and psychologists. (shrink)

This paper aims at focusing on Cassirer's relationship with Hegel during the crucial period when Cassirer is outlining and completing the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in the early 1920s. The main thesis is that Cassirer has never abandoned his original Neo-Kantian approach, despite the fact that it has been enriched within the perspective of a philosophy of culture indebted to some extent also to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. However, Cassirer maintains that Kant's critical idealism must be contrasted with Hegel's absolute (...) idealism, keeping thereby open the process of the spirit that cannot close itself in a definitive logical structure. This critical stance is shared by some contemporaries of Cassirer such as Dilthey, Windelband, and above all Natorp. We have thus to read Cassirer's project against the historical backdrop of the ‘Hegel-Renaissance’ in Germany, a circumstance that, according to the author, can contribute to a more adequate understanding of Cassirer's opus magnum. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy in the United States emerged parallel to the demise of idealism. During the second half of the nineteenth century, Josiah Royce had contributed importantly to the predominance of idealist systems and corresponding academic groups. With the rise of pragmatism and new realism, the situation changed dramatically: the idealist movement lost momentum and realism began to dominate the discourse. The present paper argues that the critiques of idealism put forward by the realists during the first two decades of the (...) twentieth century were instrumental to the emergence of analytic philosophy in the United States. As I will explain, Ralph Barton Perry (1876–1957) was the key figure in the underinvestigated genesis of this movement. (shrink)

This paper defends a conceptualistic version of structuralism as the most convincing way of elaborating a philosophical understanding of structuralism in line with the classical tradition. The argument begins with a revision of the tradition of “conceptual mathematics”, incarnated in key figures of the period 1850 to 1940 like Riemann, Dedekind, Hilbert or Noether, showing how it led to a structuralist methodology. Then the tension between the ‘presuppositionless’ approach of those authors, and the platonism of some recent versions of philosophical (...) structuralism, is presented. In order to resolve this tension, we argue for the idea of ‘logical objects’ as a form of minimalist realism, again in the tradition of classical authors including Peirce and Cassirer, and we introduce the basic tenets of conceptual structuralism. The remainder of the paper is devoted to an open discussion of the assumptions behind conceptual structuralism, and—most importantly—an argument to show how the objectivity of mathematics can be explained from the adopted standpoint. This includes the idea that advanced mathematics builds on hypothetical assumptions (Riemann, Peirce, and others), which is presented and discussed in some detail. Finally, the ensuing notion of objectivity is interpreted as a form of particularly robust intersubjectivity, and it is distinguished from fictional or social ontology. (shrink)

Aktivnost integracije i distribucije prožima cjelokupni čovjekov jezik, mišljenje i djelovanje; njegov praktični i teorijski um, uz pomoć malog broja operacija (konjunkcija, negacija, kvantifikacija) koje čine logičke konstante, sabire i razdjeljuje varijabilne elemente jezika, svijeta i mišljenja u beskonačne konačnosti (skupovi, klase, relacije, atributi) u kojima se koreliraju realne stimulacije i virtualne simulacije, čijom se konstrukcijom, rekonstrukcijom i dekonstrukcijom formiraju i transformiraju "dobro uređene formule" jezičko-gramatičkih i mentalno-psiholoških struktura koje se u svijetu saznanja imenuju pojmom svijeta, pojmom jezika, pojmom duha. (...) Svijet pojmova, koji se uzima u kvantificiranoj formi govora / "(x) (Fx) / kao realni ili egzistentni, a u substitutivnoj formi / " { x : Fx}" / kao virtualni ili subzistentni zbog apstraktnosti klasa i relacija, konstruira mrežu multipliciranih logičkih općenitosti, njihovih relacija ili zakonitih sukcesija koje se mogu izraziti, parafrazirati i prevesti iz jedne notacije u drugu salva veritate ed salva congruentia. (shrink)

This research proposes the comparative analysis of the symbolic representations of Maidan in the Ukrainian and Polish media outlets that comprise tabloid and quality publications. Different types of symbols are identified in the news analysis, reports, and feature stories on Maidan. The typology of symbols is worked out on the basis of the Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and Langer’s symbol theory. The coded types of symbols include symbol-products, symbol-concepts, symbol-slogans, symbol-situations, symbol-processes, and symbolic actions. With the help of the (...) content analysis it is found that some most visible symbols in the media coverage of Maidan coincide in the Ukrainian and Polish print media. These are the symbol-concept “barricade”, the symbol-concept “Berkut”, and the symbol-process “dispersal of Maidan”. However, there are symbols that have either quantitative or qualitative significance in the Polish press and are absent in the Ukrainian media at all, namely, the symbol-product “blood”, the symbol-concept “solidarity”, the symbol-concept “freedom”. (shrink)

L'histoire des fondements des mathématiques du xxe siècle montre qu'il nous faut réviser la signification des notions philosophiques traditionnelles comme « évidence », « existence », « expérience » ou « rationalité ». On expose comment le logicien Paul Bernays, familier des conceptions de la philosophie de Jacob Friedrich Fries et de Léonard Nelson, donne aux résultats techniques une interprétation philosophique dont il s'inspire de plus en plus - à partir du milieu du siècle - de la « philosophie ouverte (...) » de Ferdinand Gonseth. Bien avant Thomas Kuhn, Bernays conçoit la révision envisagée non pas simplement comme une question de vérité ou de fausseté, mais comme un problème exigeant l'introduction d'un nouveau système conceptuel. Cependant, l'affaiblissement du concept de vérité est pour lui une conséquence épistémologique provenant de la théorie de la connaissance adoptée et non une conséquence méthodologique issue d'un changement de paradigme et donc d'une incommensurabilité. (shrink)

In recent years, Reichenbach's 1920 conception of the principles of coordination has attracted increased attention after Michael Friedman's attempt to revive Reichenbach's idea of a "relativized a priori". This paper follows the origin and development of this idea in the framework of Reichenbach's distinction between the axioms of coordination and the axioms of connection. It suggests a further differentiation among the coordinating axioms and accordingly proposes a different account of Reichenbach's "relativized a priori".

Both Hilbert's axiomatics and Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms have their roots in Leibniz's idea of a 'universal characteristic,' and grow on Hertz's 'principles of mechanics,' and Dedekind's 'foundations of arithmetic'. As Cassirer recalls in the introduction to his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, it was the discovery of the analysis of infinity that led Leibniz to focus on "the universal problem inherent in the function of symbolism, and to raise his 'universal characteristic' to a truly philosophical plane." In Leibniz's view, (...) the logic of 'things' cannot be separated from the logic of 'signs,' as "the sign is no mere accidental cloak of the idea, but its necessary and essential organ."Every 'law' of .. (shrink)

The aim of the present paper is to contribute to the discussion on the constitutive a priori in science by linking it with the discussion on scientific laws and theories, in such a way to show how the different senses of the notion of constitutive a priori are not incompatible to each other and that they can be precised in a unified, though differentiated, manner.

We seek to elucidate the philosophical context in which one of the most important conceptual transformations of modern mathematics took place, namely the so-called revolution in rigor in infinitesimal calculus and mathematical analysis. Some of the protagonists of the said revolution were Cauchy, Cantor, Dedekind,and Weierstrass. The dominant current of philosophy in Germany at the time was neo-Kantianism. Among its various currents, the Marburg school (Cohen, Natorp, Cassirer, and others) was the one most interested in matters scientific and mathematical. Our (...) main thesis is that Marburg neo-Kantian philosophy formulated a sophisticated position towards the problems raised by the concepts of limits and infinitesimals. The Marburg school neither clung to the traditional approach of logically and metaphysically dubious infinitesimals, nor whiggishly subscribed to the new orthodoxy of the “great triumvirate” of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass that declared infinitesimals conceptus nongrati in mathematical discourse. Rather, following Cohen’s lead, the Marburg philosophers sought to clarify Leibniz’s principle of continuity, and to exploit it in making sense of infinitesimals and related concepts. (shrink)

Max Weber and Georg Simmel are considered as ideal-typical founders of sociology. Whereas Simmel pleaded for a large conception of sociology, which would include the epistemological and metaphysical issues as well, Max Weber explicitly excluded philosophical questions from the domain of sociology. A philosophical reading of Max Weber's sociology, which uncovers his philosophy in the margins of his sociological texts, shows, however, that his sociology is predicated on a disenchanted Weltanschauung, a decisionistic ideology and a nominalist epistemology. Key Words: critical (...) theory • decisionism • disenchantment • epistemology • foundations • nominalism • philosophy • realism • Simmel • sociology • value-freedom • Weber. (shrink)

(2005). Frameworks & foundations. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the german traditionissue editor: damian veal, pp. 201-218.

Sensationalistic Phenomenalism and Economy of Thought. On Ernst Mach's Concept of Science. Ernst Mach, natural scientist and major precursor of the Vienna Circle, never wants to be a philosopher. Nevertheless his writings are full of valuable hints for a modern theory of human knowledge – with respect to economical, historical and evolutionary aspects. His kind of phenomenalism is sensationalistic, monistic and instrumentalistic. This article deals with some contributions of his approach to actual debates in the general philosophy of science.

Zusammenfassung Dieser Aufsatz widmet sich Riehls Auseinandersetzung mit empirischen Sozial- und Humanwissenschaften. Der Neukantianer Riehl wurde in diesem Zusammenhang bisher kaum berücksichtigt. Ein großes Interesse verdient er sich aufgrund seiner Ablehnung des Ansatzes der Südwestdeutschen Schule des Neukantianismus, die sich aus seiner erkenntnistheoretischen Position ergibt. Er sprach sich gegen einen Methodendualismus zwischen Geistes- und Naturwissenschaften und für eine wertfreie Geschichtswissenschaft aus. Ähnlich wie Karl Lamprecht fordert er eine strikte Trennung zwischen Wissenschaft und Weltanschauung und die Implementierung einer kausal-genetischen Betrachtungsweise. Aus (...) diesem Grund trat er in den späten 1880er Jahren als wichtiger Förderer und Wegbereiter der Ethnologie in Freiburg in Erscheinung, förderte in Berlin Anfang der 1900er Jahre die Wissenschaftstheorie wesentlich und erwarb sich schließlich auch als ein Förderer der experimentellen Psychologie Verdienste. (shrink)

We shall address from a conceptual perspective the duality between algebra and geometry in the framework of the refoundation of algebraic geometry associated to Grothendieck’s theory of schemes. To do so, we shall revisit scheme theory from the standpoint provided by the problem of recovering a mathematical structure A from its representations \ into other similar structures B. This vantage point will allow us to analyze the relationship between the algebra-geometry duality and the structure-semiotics duality. Whereas in classical algebraic geometry (...) a certain kind of rings can be recovered by considering their representations with respect to a unique codomain B, Grothendieck’s theory of schemes permits to reconstruct general rings by considering representations with respect to a category of codomains. The strategy to reconstruct the object from its representations remains the same in both frameworks: the elements of the ring A can be realized—by means of what we shall generally call Gelfand transform—as quantities on a topological space that parameterizes the relevant representations of A. As we shall argue, important dualities in different areas of mathematics can be understood as particular cases of this general pattern. In the wake of Majid’s analysis of the Pontryagin duality, we shall propose a Kantian-oriented interpretation of this pattern. We shall use this conceptual framework to argue that Grothendieck’s notion of functor of points can be understood as a “relativization of the a priori” that generalizes the relativization already conveyed by the notion of domain extension to more general variations of the corresponding domains. (shrink)