Abstracts of invited presentations
The logic of singular terms that refer to nothing, such as 'Santa Claus,' has been studied extensively under the heading of free logic. The present essay examines expressions whose reference is defective in a different way: they signify more than one entity. The bulk of the effort is directed at developing an acceptable formal semantics based upon an informal and intuitive idea introduced by Field (1973) and discussed by Camp (2001); their basic strategy is to use supervaluations. Their idea, as it stands, encounters serious difficulties, but with suitable refinements it can be salvaged. Two other options for a formal semantics of multiply-signifying terms are also presented. Finally, the relative merits of the three semantics are briefly discussed.
Two central and well-known philosophical goals of the logical empiricists are the unification of science and the elimination of metaphysics. Textual analysis shows that these two apparently distinct planks of the logical empiricist party platform are actually intimately related. From the 1920's through 1950, one abiding criterion for judging whether an apparently declarative assertion or descriptive term is metaphysical is that that assertion or term cannot be incorporated into a language of unified science. I explore various versions of this criterion throughout the works of Carnap and Neurath.
During the academic year 1940-1941, several giants of analytic philosophy congregated at Harvard University. The list is impressive: Bertrand Russell, Alfred Tarski, Rudolf Carnap, and C. G. Hempel were visiting the university that year. W. V. O. Quine held his permanent professorship at Harvard, and Nelson Goodman was finishing his dissertation. This group held public meetings under the name 'Logic Group,' and its members had private, smaller conversations as well. Fortunately, one can almost be a 'fly on the wall' for many of these conversations: Carnap often took very detailed discussion notes during this year. These unpublished documents, not previously studied by scholars, have been preserved in the Rudolf Carnap Collection, part of the Archives of Scientific Philosophy.
Unsurprisingly, these notes cover a wide range of topics. However, the largest portion of Carnap's discussion notes deal with the following question: what form should logic and mathematics take if the number of physical items in the universe is finite or possibly finite? Carnap, Tarski, and Quine together attempt to answer this question. In the first part of this talk, I outline the essential features of their efforts to construct (what they call) 'the language of science, on a finitist basis.' Since their project involves a number of issues central to analytic philosophy of logic, mathematics, and science, I discuss two such issues in the second part of this talk: (1) modern nominalism and (2) the analytic/ synthetic distinction.
Quine's argument for the indeterminacy of translation is, in certain significant respects, similar to some of Einstein's arguments for special and general relativistic spacetime principles. I first outline these two arguments, and then indicate the significant similarities and differences. These arguments are interesting because they embody a certain form of underdetermination argument. (By 'underdetermination argument,' I mean an inference that takes the existence of empirically equivalent theories as a crucial premise.) Quine and Einstein's arguments are verificationist, in the sense that they infer from the empirical equivalence of two theoretical descriptions to the assertion that the two theoretical descriptions are completely equivalent, i.e., they 'say the same thing.'
I use this exposition to address a perennial problem in philosophy of science: what view should one take of two purportedly empirically equivalent theories? Much ink has been spilled on this question. However, one common assumption held by competing sides in the debate is that whatever philosophical position one takes toward one underdetermination argument applies to all the others of the same form. Hence one is a verificationist/ positivist, an empiricist/ agnostic, or a realist about every underdetermination argument. I suggest another possible stance: there may not be a 'one-size-fits-all' analysis of empirically equivalent theories in general. It may be perfectly rational to be a verificationist about one set of empirically equivalent theories, but an agnostic about another set. I use the arguments of Einstein and Quine as examples to show the plausibility of the claim that we (at least) can be verificationists with respect to certain empirically equivalent theories.
If this suggestion about empirical equivalence is accepted, then we have a pressing question: which underdetermination arguments should end in the the verificationist conclusion, and which not? I offer a provisional answer: basically, if the empirical equivalence is due merely to physiological limitations of our sensory modalities, then one should not draw the verificationist's conclusion. (Absolute motion and semantic meaning are not 'hidden' from us in the same way electrons and DNA are hidden.) Finally, I use this viewpoint to criticize van Fraassen's primary example of empirically equivalent theories in The Scientific Image, namely the case of the fictitious 'Leibniz*,' and his corresponding critique of Newtonian Absolute Space. For there, van Fraassen argues for an agnostic position via an argument that is standardly taken to have a verificationist conclusion.
Stillman Drake has suggested that Galileo is one of the fathers of modern science because Galileo's mature work is free of causal inquiry and therefore of metaphysical elements. "Rejection of causal inquiries," Drake writes, "was Galileo's most revolutionary proposal in physics" (1974, 159). Other scholars (e.g. William Wallace) have disputed this view, rejecting it entirely. My aim is to show that a very limited portion of Drake's position on this subject is defensible, and thereby partially reconcile Drake's basic view with his critics' well-founded objections.
The structure of the paper is as follows. I present Drake's position on Galileo's use of the term 'cause,' and the Galilean texts upon which Drake bases this position. I use this to frame a textual conundrum: if one takes the view that Galileo abandons the search for causes, then why does the term 'cause' occur many, many times in Galileo's work? Alternatively, if one takes the view that Galileo does not abandon causal inquiry, then why, in certain texts (namely, those that support Drake's view), does Galileo refrain from seeking causes of certain phenomena? As a clue, I outline Descartes' critical interpretation of Galileo's work. Then, drawing on this Cartesian account, I argue that the following constitutes the salvageable core of Drake's interpretive intuitions: Galileo believes that explanations of natural phenomena do not have to be (i.) universal or (ii.) ultimate in order to be epistemically legitimate or worthwhile, and this (in part) distinguishes Galileo's 'scientific' work from more metaphysical or philosophical work. Next, I point out passages of the Galilean corpus that support such a reading. I will argue that this stance does in fact distinguish Galileo's 'scientific' intellectual stance from a more 'philosophical' or 'metaphysical' stance, which could reject a proposed explanation on the grounds that it is insufficiently universal or ultimate. (I use Descartes as an example of such a philosophical contemporary.) Finally, I consider possible objections to my exegetical hypothesis.
I am not asserting the psychological claim that Galileo himself explicitly formulated the above methodological principle, nor do I maintain that this principle consciously motivated his research and writings. I wish only to articulate and defend the weaker claim that the above principle simply captures a regularity in the Galilean corpus.
Bas van Fraassen's constructive empiricism makes central use of the observable/ unobservable distinction, a distinction which has been the target of a sustained stream of criticism. Such criticism usually comes from realists, and often focuses on the untenable or vague nature of this distinction. In this paper, I criticize the distinction differently. I argue that van Fraassen's decision to base his empiricist position on the distinction between the observable and the unobservable fails to achieve effectively a goal of central importance to many empiricists. This goal is the elimination of metaphysics. I first provide textual evidence from The Scientific Image to show that van Fraassen himself holds that one significant reason to hold his constructive empiricism is that it rids the scientific landscape of metaphysics. I then argue that constructive empiricism may fail to deliver completely on its promise to eliminate metaphysics from (our interpretation of) science, on the grounds that the observable/ unobservable distinction is not coextensive with the science/ metaphysics distinction.