The distinction between the syntactic and the semantic approach to scientific theories emerged in formal philosophy of science. The semantic approach is commonly considered more advanced and more successful than the syntactic one, but the transition from the one approach to the other was not brought about without any loss. In essence, it is the formal analysis of atomic propositions and the analysis of deductive reasoning that dropped out of consideration in at least some of the elaborated versions of the (...) semantic approach. In structuralist theory of science, as founded by Sneed and Stegmüller, the focus is on global propositions concerning the question of whether or not certain empirical systems satisfy a set-theoretic predicate that encodes the axioms of a scientific theory. Hence, an analysis of deductive reasoning from atomic premisses with the help of a given theory is missing. The objective of the present paper is to develop a deductive system on the basis of the structuralist framework. This system comes with a novel formulation of empirical propositions in structuralism. (shrink)

It is one of the distinctive claims of Neurath, though not of the Vienna Circle generally, that the Vienna Circle's philosophy was not really German philosophy at all. The relation is, if Neurath is to be trusted, anything but straight-forward. To understand it, not only must some effort be expended on specifying Neurath's claim, but also on delineating the different party-lines within the Vienna Circle.

The investigation of the social and epistemological context of the rejection of ontology makes György Lukács’s critique of neopositivism an important moment of his late work, Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins . This article argues, on the one hand, that Lukács’s critique of neopositivism can be regarded as an indispensable contribution to understand the social roots of realist attitudes towards ontology, and, on the other hand, that the target of Lukács’s marxist critique of neopositivism is indeed a special, neutral epistemological (...) position between realism and instrumentalism, which became explicit only in a later period of history of neopositivism. To prove this assumption, I investigate some components of Lukács’s critique of neopositivism-critique by showing inter alia that Lukács fails to distinguish clearly between the two different forms of realism—scientific and moderate—which lead to the rejection of ontology. (shrink)

In Carnap’s autobiography, he tells the story how one night in January 1931, “the whole theory of language structure” in all its ramifications “came to [him] like a vision”. The shorthand manuscript he produced immediately thereafter, he says, “was the first version” of Logical Syntax of Language. This document, which has never been examined since Carnap’s death, turns out not to resemble Logical Syntax at all, at least on the surface. Wherein, then, did the momentous insight of 21 January 1931 (...) consist? We seek to answer this question by placing Carnap’s shorthand manuscript in the context of his previous efforts to accommodate scientific theories and metalinguistic claims within Wittgenstein’s Tractatus theory of meaning. The breakthrough of January 1931 consists, from this viewpoint, in the rejection of the Tractatus theory in favor of the meta-mathematical perspective of Hilbert, Gödel, and Tarski. This was not yet the standpoint of the published Logical Syntax, as we show, but led naturally to the “principle of tolerance” and thus to Carnap’s mature philosophy, in which the inconsistencies between this first view and the principle of tolerance, which survived into the published Syntax, were overcome. (shrink)

The difference between Carnap and Quine over analyticity is usually thought to turn on a disagreement as to whether there is a notion of meaning, or rules of language, which enable us to define that idea. This paper argues that the more important disagreement is epistemological. Quine came to accept a notion of analyticity. That leaves him in a position somewhat like Putnam's in ‘The Analytic and the Synthetic’: that there is a notion of analyticity, but that it is of (...) no philosophical importance. But their reasons for thinking analyticity unimportant are quite different: for Putnam it is because all analytic truths are trivial; for Quine, the notion of analyticity itself is unimportant. I contrast Putnam's position with that of Carnap, and also contrast Carnap and Quine. Analyticity only has the force that it has for Carnap because he accepts the Principle of Tolerance, the idea that changes within a language and changes of language are subject to justification in different senses. Quine rejects that idea. That is why he does not take analyticity to be philosophically important or useful. (shrink)

In Untersuchungen zur allgemeinen Axiomatik and Abriss der Logistik, Carnap attempted to formulate the metatheory of axiomatic theories within a single, fully interpreted type-theoretic framework and to investigate a number of meta-logical notions in it, such as those of model, consequence, consistency, completeness, and decidability. These attempts were largely unsuccessful, also in his own considered judgment. A detailed assessment of Carnap’s attempt shows, nevertheless, that his approach is much less confused and hopeless than it has often been made out to (...) be. By providing such a reassessment, the paper contributes to a reevaluation of Carnap’s contributions to the development of modern logic. (shrink)

There is a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance about Husserl’s philosophy among analytic philosophers. The present paper attempts to help correct that situation. It begins with some quotations of Husserl written around 1890, which clearly establish that he arrived at the distinction between sense and reference with independence from Frege. Then follows a brief survey of the most important themes of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, emphazising those that are of special interest to analytic philosophers. The paper concludes by mentioning other interesting (...) issues treated in later Husserlian writings, including his valuable conferences on ancient and modern logic from 1908-1909.Existen muchos malentendidos y mucha ignorancia acerca de la filosofía de Husserl entre los filósofos analíticos. El presente artículo intenta contribuir a corregir esa situacion. Él comienza con algunas citas de Husserl de aproximadamente 1890, que claramente establecen que Husserl obtuvo la distinción entre sentido y referente con independenica de Frege. Luego sigue un breve recuento de los más importantes temas de las Investigaciones Lógicas de Husserl, destacando aquéllos que son de particular interés para los filósofos analíticos. El artículo concluye haciendo référencia a otros temas tratados en escritos posteriores de Husserl, incluyendo sus valiosas conferencias acerca de lógica antigua y moderna de 1908-1909. (shrink)

La philosophie analytique est ici considérée à son point de départ. Les conditions de l’expression sont vues comme synonymes de celles de la pensée. Une entreprise d’explicitation est à cette suite appliquée en retour à la méthode scientifique qui était auparavant le modèle. La distinction de la syntaxe et de la sémantique, commandée par l’analyse logique, est alors appliquée à l’ensemble des systèmes de représentation: oeuvre d’art, action humaine, esprit. Cette évolution montre un souci essentiel: l’instrument technique de la connaissance.

In this article I will compare two approaches for defining theoretical terms, that of Logical Empirism and that of Structuralism. I will determine explicitly the accounts of theoreticity in both Logical Empirism and Structuralism, and compare them by means of a case study: a structuralistic reconstruction of Neurobiological Constructivism. I will point out that the structuralistic criticism on the account of theoreticity of Logical Empirism is insufficient and that the structuralistic criterion of theoreticity does not satisfy the requirements of demarcation (...) for theoretical terms demanded by Logical Empirism. (shrink)

Popper emphasised both the problem-solving nature of human knowledge, and the need to criticise a scientific theory as strongly as possible. These aims seem to contradict each other, in that the former stresses the problems that motivate scientific theories while the one ignores the character of the problems that led to the formation of the theories against which the criticism is directed. A resolution is proposed in which problems as such are taken as prime in the search for knowledge, and (...) subject to discussion. This approach is then applied to the problem of induction. Popper set great stake to his solution of it, but others doubted its legitimacy, in ways that are clarified by changing the form of the induction problem itself. That change draws upon logic, which is the subject of another application: namely, in contrast to Popper’s adhesion to classical logic as the only welcome form (because of the maximal strength of criticism that it dispenses), can other logics be used without abandoning his philosophy of criticism? (shrink)

What is a minimal proof-theoretical foundation of logic? Two different ways to answer this question may appear to offer themselves: reduce the whole of logic either to the relation of inference, or else to the property of incompatibility. The first way would involve defining logical operators in terms of the algebraic properties of the relation of inference—with conjunction $$\hbox {A}\wedge \hbox {B}$$ A ∧ B as the infimum of A and B, negation $$\lnot \hbox {A}$$ ¬ A as the minimal (...) incompatible of A, etc. The second way involves introducing logical operators in terms of the relation of incompatibility, such that X is incompatible with $$\{\lnot \hbox {A}\}$$ { ¬ A } iff every Y incompatible with X is incompatible with {A}; and X is incompatible with $$\{\hbox {A}\!\wedge \!\hbox {B}\}$$ { A ∧ B } iff X is incompatible with {A,B}; etc. Whereas the first route leads us naturally to intuitionistic logic, the second leads us to classical logic. The aim of this paper is threefold: to investigate the relationship of the two approaches within a very general framework, to discuss the viability of erecting logic on such austere foundations, and to find out whether choosing one of the ways we are inevitably led to a specific logical system. (shrink)

I argue that recent defenses of the view that in 1936 Tarski required all interpretations of a language to share one same domain of quantification are based on misinterpretations of Tarski’s texts. In particular, I rebut some criticisms of my earlier attack on the fixed-domain exegesis and I offer a more detailed report of the textual evidence on the issue than in my earlier work. I also offer new considerations on subsisting issues of interpretation concerning Tarski’s views on the logical (...) correctness of certain omega-arguments, on the Tarskian proof that Etchemendy took to be modal and fallacious, and on Tarski’s appeals to the “common concept of consequence”. (shrink)

The is an old question over whether there is a substantial disagreement between advocates of different logics, as they simply attach different meanings to the crucial logical terminology. The purpose of this article is to revisit this old question in light a pluralism/relativism that regards the various logics as equally legitimate, in their own contexts. We thereby address the vexed notion of translation, as it occurs between mathematical theories. We articulate and defend a thesis that the notion of “same meaning” (...) is itself context-sensitive, depending on the purposes of a given conversation. (shrink)

The paper analyses Frege's approach to the identity conditions for the entity labelled by him as Sinn. It starts with a brief characterization of the main principles of Frege's semantics and lists his remarks on the identity conditions for Sinn. They are subject to a detailed scrutiny, and it is shown that, with the exception of the criterion of intersubstitutability in oratio obliqua, all other criteria have to be discarded. Finally, by comparing Frege's views on Sinn with Carnap's method of (...) extension and intension and the method of intensional isomorphism, it is proved that these methods do not provide a criterion for the identity of Frege's Sinn, even for extensional contexts, that the concept of intension does not coincide, as stated by Carnap, in these contexts, with Frege's concept of Sinn, and that Carnap's claim that in oratio obliqua Frege's semantics leads to an infinite hierarchy of Sinn entities can be questioned at least hypothetically in the light of certain new historical facts. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to outline the historical background and the present state of the methodology of deductive systems invented by Alfred Tarski in the thirties. Key notions of Tarski's methodology are presented and discussed through, the recent development of the original concepts and ideas.

Reichenbach's Philosophy of Space and Time (1928) avoids most of the logical positivist pitfalls it is generally held to exemplify, notably both conventionalism and verificationism. To see why, we must appreciate that Reichenbach's interest lies in how mathematical structures can be used to describe reality, not in how words like 'distance' acquire meaning. Examination of his proposed "coordinative definition" of congruence shows that Reichenbach advocates a reductionist analysis of the relations figuring in physical geometry (contrary to common readings that attribute (...) to him a holistic conventionalism), while embracing a thoroughly holistic understanding of empirical confirmation (contrary to rival operationalist readings). (shrink)