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October 1-3, 2004
8th Floor, Darla Moore Business Building
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC
SYNTHESIS AND THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE:
A conference examining Michael Friedman's work and ideas on the
relationship between history of philosophy and history of science
Conference Organizers: Mary Domski, Michael Dickson
List of Speakers (alphabetically)
Domenico Bertoloni-Meli,
History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
Richard Creath,
Department of Philosophy, Arizona State University
William Demopoulos,
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario
Robert DiSalle,
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario
Michael Friedman,
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Don Howard,
History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame
Andrew Janiak,
Department of Philosophy, Duke University
Noretta Koertge,
History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
Alison Laywine,
Department of Philosophy, McGill University
James Mattingly,
Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University
William Newman,
History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
John Norton,
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
Paul Pojman,
Department of Philosophy, Towson State University
Alan Richardson,
Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia
Thomas Ricketts,
Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University
Thomas Ryckman
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Daniel Sutherland,
Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois, Chicago
Scott Tanona,
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Program
Friday, Oct. 1 - Lumpkin Auditorium
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8:00-8:45
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breakfast
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(Chair: Michael Dickson)
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8:45-9:00
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Michael Dickson, Welcome
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9:00-9:30
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Mary Domski, Opening Remarks
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9:35-10:25
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Domenico Bertoloni Meli, Indiana University
'Axiomatic versus Experimental Traditions in the Seventeenth Century'
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10:25-10:45
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coffee
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(Chair: Matt Kisner)
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10:50-11:40
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Bill Newman, Indiana University,
'The Reduction to the Pristine State in Robert Boyle's Corpuscular Philosophy'
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11:45-12:35
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Andrew Janiak, Duke University
'Newtonian Force and the Critique of Pure Reason
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12:35-2:00
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lunch
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(Chair: Jerry Hackett)
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2:00-2:50
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Daniel Sutherland, University of Illinois, Chicago
'Leibniz and Kant on Geometrical Method'
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2:55-3:45
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Alison Laywine, McGill University
'Euclidean Postulates and the Significance of Lambert for Kant'
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3:50-4:10
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coffee
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(Chair: Graciela De Pierris)
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4:10-5:00
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William Demopoulos, University of Western Ontario
'Philosophy of Mathematics and the Theory of Theories'
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7:30
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Theater
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9:30
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Dinner at Hampton Street Vineyards
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Saturday, Oct. 2 - Gambrell Hall, Room 151
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8:00-8:55
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breakfast
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(Chair: Davis Baird)
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9:00-9:50
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Noretta Koertge, Indiana University
'Retrospective vs. Prospective Accounts of the Development of Science'
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9:55-10:45
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Thomas Ryckman, University of California, Berkeley
'Friedman's 'Relativized A Priori': An Appreciation and a Critique'
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10:50-11:10
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coffee
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(Chair: George Khushf)
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11:10-12:00
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Alan Richardson, University of British Columbia
'Neo-Kantianism in the History of Philosophy of Science: Some Larger Themes'
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12:00-1:30
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lunch
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(Chair: R.I.G. Hughes)
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1:30-2:20
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Don Howard, University of Notre Dame
'Neo-Kantianism and General Relativity'
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2:25-3:15
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John Norton, University of Pittsburgh
'What did Einstein Learn from Hume and Mach?'
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3:20-3:40
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coffee
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(Chair: Adonai Sant'Anna)
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3:45-4:35
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James Mattingly, Georgetown University
'The Paracletes of Quantum Gravity'
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4:40-5:30
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Scott Tanona, Stanford University
'Theory and Phenomena'
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7:30
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dinner party at Michael Dickson's house
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Sunday, Oct. 3 - Lumpkin Auditorium
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8:00-8:40
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breakfast
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(Chair: Mary Domski)
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8:45-9:35
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Thomas Ricketts, Northwestern University
'Carnap's Aufbau and Duhemian Underdetermination'
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9:40-10:30
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Paul Pojman, Towson State University
'From Mach to Carnap: What About Empiricism in the Aufbau?'
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10:35-11:25
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Richard Creath, Arizona State University
'The Construction of Reason: Kant, Carnap, Kuhn, ...'
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11:30-11:45
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coffee
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11:50-12:30
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Michael Friedman
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12:45
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lunch at a local restaurant
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Paper Abstracts (by general area)
(i) The Newtonian Era
Domenico Bertoloni Meli
History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
Axiomatic versus Experimental Traditions in the Seventeenth Century
This paper focuses on select episodes from Galileo to Newton,
highlighting the existence of different traditions in the mixed
mathematical disciplines. I focus especially on the science of motion,
showing how the role of experiments changed depending on the scholars
views on how a science ought to be formulated. Some, like Galileo,
Torricelli, and Huygens, focused on the search for axioms to be accepted
almost as a priori principles or reasons, not as experimentally proved.
At most, experiments could instantiate and corroborate axioms. In this
tradition a science was formulated in axiomatic form, starting from
definitions, on the example of Archimedes. Others, such as Mersenne,
Riccioli, Boyle, and Mariotte, focused on careful experiments involving
the presentation of numerical data. For them, experiments had almost a
foundational role. I conclude by discussing Newton's views on these
traditions, especially in Principia Mathematica.
Robert DiSalle
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario
Conceptual Analysis and Conceptual Transformation in the Evolution of
Modern Science
Michael Friedman's work on the history of philosophy and science has
focused on two kinds of interaction between the two: the assimilation of
novel physical theories by systematic philosophers, and the creative use
of philosophical ideas by physicists in developing novel theories. The
first is obviously illustrated by Friedman's account of Kant, which
reveals Kant's lifelong, and strikingly successful, effort to
reconstruct Newton's physics within the framework of a genuine
metaphysics of nature; the second is illustrated by Einstein's appeal to
philosophical tradition, particularly in epistemology and the
foundations of geometry, in his development of special and general
relativity. From Friedman's analyses, we get an exceptionally clear
picture of an essential task for the history and philosophy of science:
to understand revolutionary change in science, not as a sudden and
rationally inexplicable transition, but as an evolutionary process that
may be motivated, guided, and even partly justified by the engagement of
science with the concerns of philosophy.
In coming to understand this process, we can also begin to understand
something of the task facing revolutionary science itself, in times of
conceptual transformation; that is, the task of actually constructing
what will eventually become, in effect, an a priori framework which
subsequent scientific reasoning will be able to take for granted. Thomas
Kuhn, for example, assumed that some combination of historical forces
could produce such a framework what he called a paradigm for normal
science but saw no need to think of it as a rational and constructive
project, a project whose philosophical motivations might provide an
important argument for its eventual acceptance. For Kuhn, instead,
philosophical arguments were no more than extra-scientific, indeed
subjective, motivations to prefer particular kinds of theory where
rational grounds for choice were necessarily lacking. Starting from
Friedman's analyses, however, we can illuminate the role of detailed
philosophical arguments in the actual construction of scientific
concepts. We can see that the kind of conceptual reconstruction engaged
in by Kant in his study of Newtonian physics the analysis of the ways in
which the Newtonian conceptions of space, time, and force function in
our understanding of the metaphysics of substance and causality plays an
equally important role in the very construction of Newton's physics.
That is, part of what Kant and other philosophers were reconstructing
was not merely a physical theory, but the philosophical analysis that
made that theory possible in the first place.
Newton's theory was forced into confrontation with the most prominent
general philosophical accounts of space and time, namely those of
Descartes and Leibniz. But its rejoinder to them was not only that his
theory was empirically successful, considered on purely scientific
grounds, but also that their philosophical views could not be reconciled
with their own views of physics. On the assumption that physics
describes the real world more precisely, that the physical conception of
force as contained in the laws of motion truly captures the metaphysical
nature of causality that the physical account of forces captures the
true nature of causal interaction among things there could be no
question of the authority of physics to speak to the fundamental nature
of space and time, and no question of the force of Newton's arguments.
What Kant added to Newton's account was not strictly a philosophical
analysis of Newton's physics, then, but an extension of Newton's
philosophical analysis. For Newton's philosophical arguments did assume
that the laws of physics were absolutely fundamental. But if metaphysics
had any claim to deeper knowledge than physics, penetrating to the inner
nature of things beyond the ken of empirical science, then arguments
like Newton's would be easy to evade. One could simply retreat from the
sensible to the intelligible world: "absolute" space, time, and motion,
as understood in Newtonian physics, could be viewed as mere phenomena
with no basis in the world of intelligible things and their intelligible
causal relations. The challenge for Kant, then, was to develop Newton's
analysis into a more general critique of the pretensions of metaphysics.
Newton took some essential steps in this direction by criticizing the
mechanists' narrow metaphysical conception of causality. But it was Kant
whose analyses of Leibnizian metaphysics and Newtonian physics showed
that the former offered only an illusory promise of transcendent
knowledge, while the latter offered a genuine metaphysics of nature, in
which space and time were the basis for an objective understanding of
force and motion.
Andrew Janiak
Department of Philosophy, Duke University
Newtonian Force and the Critique of Pure Reason
Michael Friedman's now classic study, Kant and the Exact Sciences, helped
to reinvigorate the field of Kantian studies in part by exploring the
depth of Kant's philosophical response to Newtonian science. Newton's
treatment of gravity in Principia Mathematica, particularly his
derivation of the law of universal gravitation, has received much
scholarly attention. In the less well-known, more reflective sections of
the Principia and the Opticks, Newton characterizes gravity as a
fundamental force that should not be construed as an intrinsic property
of any one physical object. This characterization represents part of
Newton's rejection of the infamous eighteenth-century claim that the
Principia's theory of gravity revived so-called occult qualities within
natural philosophy. Newton's avowed agnosticism on the cause of gravity
did not prevent him from finding a subtle method of defending his theory
from this ubiquitous charge, one made famous particularly by Newtons
Leibnizian interlocutors. Following a suggestion of Friedman's, I argue
that the Newtonian conception of force provides Kant with a model
according to which forces should not be understood as intrinsic
properties. Even at the high level of philosophical abstraction achieved
in the Critique of Pure Reason, where basic questions in physics are not
raised, Kant criticizes his Leibnizian predecessors precisely for
failing to accept the Newtonian conception of force he favors. This case
study indicates that the relation between Kantian philosophy and
Newtonian science cannot be exhausted by considering whether the former
presupposes the truth of, or attempts to justify, the latter. In this
case, Newton provides Kant with a model for understanding basic kinds of
object interaction.
Bill Newman
History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
The Reduction to the Pristine State in Robert Boyles Corpuscular Philosophy
Over the last twenty years, the traditional image of Robert Boyle as the
establisher of the mechanical philosophy has given way to a picture of
him as the founder of British experimental science. Scholars from Steven
Shapin and Simon Schaffer to Rose-Mary Sargent have stressed the novelty
of Boyles experimental approach, while placing little emphasis on his
theory of matter. But this raises an obvious question. How is it that
this arch-empiricist could have maintained throughout his published
works that matter is actually composed of insensible corpuscles whose
imperceptible yet primary qualities account for the sensory experiences
of the phenomenal world? In fact, Boyle had an experimental strategy for
demonstrating the corpuscular structure of matter, based on the work of
previous chymists such as the Wittenberg professor Daniel Sennert and
the Italo-German iatrochemical writer Angelus Sala. These chymists, like
Boyle, showed the inadequacy of the theory of substantial forms for
explaining qualitative chemical change by employing a kind of test
called the reduction to the pristine state (reductio in pristinum
statum). In essence, the reduction to the pristine state employed
reversible chemical reactions to show that seemingly fundamental changes
to matter were really just superficial impositions on our senses
resulting from the association and dissociation of particles that
underwent no change other than that of altering their position relative
to one another. As I will show in my paper, Boyle used this crucial but
little-studied test throughout his works, and made it one of the most
fundamental tools in his attempt to provide an experimental basis for
the mechanical philosophy.
(ii) Kant
Alison Laywine
Department of Philosophy, McGill University
Euclidean Postulates and the Significance of Lambert for Kant
This paper concerns Lambert's significance for Kant. Lambert believed
that the metaphysics of his time needed to be reformed. One aspect of
this reform, as he understood it, involved introducing the notion of a
postulate into metaphysics. Lambert borrowed the notion of postulate
from Euclidean geometry. Thus he understood postulates as practical
propositions telling us what can and cannot be done, as in Euclid's
postulate concerning circles: we can describe a circle of any radius.
Just as the edifice of Euclidean geometry rests heavily on the
postulates laid out at the beginning of Book One of the Elements, so too
metaphysics should be made to rest on special postulates of its own. The
question was just what these postulates should be. Lambert tried to
answer this question in various ways. Now Kant too believed as early as
the 1760s that metaphysics was in need of reform. Indeed, we know that
he and Lambert corresponded on this subject and that the two of them
were very much stimulated by one anothers ideas. I argued in a paper
published in the Journal of the History of Philosophy a few years back
that Kant made use of the idea of Euclidean postulates and geometrical
problems in the Critique of Pure Reason to articulate his distinction
between the faculties of reason and the understanding. (Laywine,
'Problems and Postulates: Kant on Reason and the Understanding'.) I am
pretty confident that Kant's use of these geometrical notions was
inspired by Lambert's strategy of using postulates to reform metaphysics.
In the paper for the Journal of the History of Philosophy, I did not
explore Lambert's influence and significance for Kant. Nor did I explore
its possible ramifications for the Transcendental Deduction. But that's
what I would like to do in this paper.
Daniel Sutherland
Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois, Chicago
Leibniz and Kant on Geometrical Method
Kant held that philosophical method cannot improve on mathematical
method, and for that reason, he strongly warns against mixing philosophy
into mathematics. Many today would find Kant's position congenial, for
Kant seems to say that philosophers should not presume to dictate proper
mathematical practice. Nonetheless, Kant had a well-defined conception
of philosophical knowledge and philosophical method, and mathematicians
as well as philosophers were admonished not to import philosophy into
mathematical practice. In fact, Kant's warnings were directed at
Christian Wolff's employment of a Leibnizian metaphysical conception of
similarity. Leibniz clearly had a wide-ranging view of acceptable
mathematical practice. Is Kant justified in placing limits on Leibniz's
innovative genius?
My paper uses this question as a focal point to clarify and evaluate
Kant's views on proper mathematical method. Doing so requires elucidation
of Leibniz's views. Leibniz actually pursued two distinguishable
approaches to geometry. The first, which he called analysis situs, took
congruence as fundamental and used it to define loci; it allowed the
easy derivation of geometrical theorems that are difficult to prove in
Euclidean geometry. The second attempted to assimilate analysis situs
into a logical calculus by introducing a metaphysical definition of
similarity. Leibniz worked on both approaches simultaneously, but
neither was brought to fruition, and only the metaphysical view of
similarity appeared in Wolff. I argue that Kant's demarcation between
philosophy and mathematics would not have ruled out analysis situs,
which is good, because Liebniz's approach anticipated important advances
in mathematics. I also argue that Kant does rule out Leibnizs
philosophical definition of similarity, but that this is not bad, since
this approach never proved fruitful. It is nevertheless worrisome that
Kant was willing to introduce constraints that might have stifled
progress in mathematics.
(iii) Logical Empiricism and Neo-Kantianism
Don Howard
History and Philosophy of Science, University of Notre Dame
Neo-Kantianism and General Relativity
This paper will be both a sketch of the developing logical empiricist
answer to neo-Kantian critiques of relativity, with special emphasis on
Einstein's role in interaction with, especially, Schlick and Reichenbach,
and a critical discussion of the lessons Michael Friedman draws by way
of historical evidence for his claims about the equivalence principle
playing the role of a contingent a priori element in general relativity.
Paul Pojman,
Department of Philosophy, Towson State University
From Mach to Canap: What About Empiricism in the Aufbau?
Michael Friedman, in his 1987 'Carnaps Aufbau Reconsidered' and 1992
'Epistemology in the Aufbau', criticizes the received view of Rudolf
Carnap's Aufbau as found especially in Quine's criticisms of Logical
Positivism. This view holds that Carnap is attempting an
empiricist-phenomenalist reduction of reality which pushes up
objectivity from a foundation of indubitable sense experience. Friedman
suggests instead that Carnap is primarily working within a neo-Kantian
tradition, where intersubjectivity is achieved not through the content
of an individual's experience but through the universal similarity of the
structure of all of our experiences.
A number of questions remain. In particular, Carnap clearly is
influenced by thinkers of an empiricist tendency, but it is now unclear
what these influences amount to. Furthermore, in the case of one of the
most important of these, Ernst Mach, there is an entrenched received
view which is as problematic as that existing for Carnap. Not only is
Carnap not a traditional empiricist, but neither is Mach, and thus
Machian influences may remain even once the received interpretation of
the Aufbau is rejected.
The Machian influences lie within Carnap's choice of the
auto-psychological basis used to illustrate his construction project; he
clearly could have chosen an easier basis. Carnap's motivation for this
basis is the epistemic primaries of the auto-psychological, which
fulfills two of his central aims: (1) to be neutral to all philosophical
schools, and (2) to solve the problem of solipsism which he saw as
arising within Machs thought. Importantly, these latter problems are
solved within the neo-Kantian structure Friedman suggests is central to
the Aufbau.
Alan Richardson
Department of Philosophy, University of British Columbia
Neo-Kantianism in the History of Philosophy of Science: Some Larger Themes
Michael Friedman is the principal contributor to a growing literature
that finds Kantian and neo-Kantian themes in the work of the logical
empiricist philosophers of science in Germany and Austria. This
literature contests certain well-entrenched stories of the empiricist
and positivist roots of logical empiricism, and the response to the
literature has been guarded. Many of the quite specific claims that have
been put forward by Friedman and others have been argued against, and
the some of the early interpretative positions have been significantly
altered. This essay reflects on this literature, especially of Friedman's
seminal contributions to it, at a more fundamental level by asking about
the significance for our understanding of the origins of
twentieth-century philosophy of science in the historical connections it
had with neo-Kantian concerns. The essay argues that the most
significant feature of early twentieth-century philosophy of science
that Friedman, through his attention to neo-Kantian resources and
influences, has drawn our attention to is the complex interplay of
science as topic of epistemology and logic as tool for epistemology. By
way of illustration, I will examine some ways in which the quite similar
neo-Kantian conventionalisms that Reichenbach and Carnap started with in
the early 1920s had diverged by the 1930s into Reichenbach's
epistemologically-based semantics and defense of realism and Carnaps
semantically-based philosophy of science. Of particular interest will be
the question of why Reichenbach felt the need to place his earlier
technical work in the context of a more general epistemological
framework in his 1938 Experience and Prediction, while Carnap was, by
the mid-1930s, arguing that general epistemology had to be replaced by a
technical philosophy of science.
Thomas Ricketts
Department of Philosophy, Northwestern University
Carnap's Aufbau and Duhemian Underdetermination
In "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," Quine famously objects to Carnap's
Aufbau, arguing on the basis of Duhem's point about the
underdetermination of theory, that the vocabulary of the intermediate
reaches of Carnap's epistemic constitution system, vocabulary for
describing the perceptual and physical worlds, cannot be defined in
terms of autopsychological vocabulary. Quine's cogent point raises an
exegetical puzzle. Carnap and Quine alike require that definitions be
explicit definitions. Furthermore, in the Aufbau period, Carnap has a
good grasp on Duhem's point, and accepts it, acknowledging the role of
convention in the development of theories in science. How then could
Carnap have thought that it would be possible to define perceptual and
physical vocabulary in autopsychological terms?
The paper begins with a discussion of the standards of adequacy
(rational reconstruction) for Carnap's Aufbau definitions. I then urge
that Carnap's informal methodological constraints on the assignments of
colors to space time regions to constitute the percetual world in Aufbau
126-127 are not intended as an informal sketch for formalization as some
sort of recursive definition as Friedman maintains in "Epistemology in
the Aufbau". I argue that Carnap is well aware that these constraints
can be satisfied by any number of assignments. Carnap is confident that
it will be possible to define some such assignment in purely logical
terms within the constitution system. Such a definition would satisfy
Carnap's standards for a constitution of the perceptual world in
autopsycholgical terms. Carnap's confidence in the definability of this
assignment reflects, however, a conflation of claims of set existence
with claims of set definability. I argue that there is good reason to
think that Carnap is hazy on this distinction until well into the
1930's. The paper concludes with some remarks on the development of
Carnap's views on autopsychological language in the 1930's in connection
with the protocol language debate.
(iv) History and Philosophy of Physics
James Mattingly
Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University
The Paracletes of Quantum Gravity
There is, I think, some confusion in how best to understand Ernst
Cassirer's picture of the world and of man's place in it, and I therefore
do not wish to engage here with his full project or with standard
interpretations of his contribution to philosophy. Instead I will
undertake to outline a modest interpretation certain passages of
Cassirer's Substance and Function and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. I
will claim that despite substantive criticism of Cassirer's overall view
of intellectual progress leveled by Michael Friedman and others, there
is contained in these passages the prescription for a robust methodology
of scientific theory change. While much work remains to be done to
explicate fully this prescription and fit it into the larger context of
Cassirer's work, I here restrict my attention to an application of the
prescription to the case of quantum gravity. I argue that some key
features of a revolutionary break with prior theory are absent in the
current state of attempts to integrate quantum mechanics with general
relativity, and I suggest that pursuing aggressively a "Lorentzian"
strategy (in this context, the theory of quantum fields on curved
spacetime) is likely to yield more fruit than the alternative strategy
of quantizing the gravitational field. The argument proceeds along two
parallel lines. On the one hand, I rehearse a few of the more popular
arguments in favor of quantizing the gravitational field and point out
their failings. On the other hand, I show how the process of reconciling
gravitation theory with quantum theory recapitulates certain aspects of
the Lorentzs attempt to accommodate electrodynamics within the framework
of Newtonian mechanics. I claim that these two strands taken together
give strong reason to doubt that we have uncovered the real
incompatibility between classical gravitation theory and quantum theory,
and further that the route toward a post-classical gravitation theory is
mapped out by disclosing this incompatibility in accordance with
Cassirers account of theory change. The account requires that we
identify explicitly the contradictions between the theoretical
frameworks in putative conflict, and I offer some suggestions for the
form these contradictions might take.
John Norton
Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
What Did Einstein Learn from Hume and Mach?
In recounting his discovery of special relativity, Einstein recalled a
debt to the philosophical writings of Hume and Mach. I review the path
Einstein took to special relativity and urge that, at a critical
juncture, he was aided decisively not by any specific doctrine of space
and time, but by a general account of concepts that Einstein found in
Hume and Mach's writings. That account required concepts to be properly
grounded in experience. In so far as they extended beyond that
grounding, they were fictional and, Einstein inferred, could be modified
freely. After years of failed efforts to conform the principle of
relativity and electrodynamics to one another and with mounting
frustration, Einstein applied this account to the concept of
simultaneity. It provided the reconceptualization of simultaneity that
solved his problem in electrodynamics and led directly to the special
theory of relativity.
Scott Tanona
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Theory and Phenomena
Michael Friedman has shown us the neo-Kantian influence on the logical
positivists reaction to relativity theory. A paradigm example is found
in Schlick, whose understanding of relativity focused on the
coordination of experience and theoretical concepts in the face of the
apparent fallibility of Kantian spatial intuition.
In this paper I examine this type of approach to the philosophy of
physics with regard to both relativity and quantum theory, which with
Niels Bohrs correspondence principle also was interpreted in terms of a
neo-Kantian conception of the coordination of theory with experience. I
will focus on two insights I have taken from Bohr: (1) that abstract
physical theories have no empirical content without such coordinating
principles as the equivalence principle or the correspondence principle,
and (2) that the observable empirical phenomena to which theory is
connected are in fact strongly theory-laden, although this background
theory is different from the theory in question. I argue that this
general understanding of the relationship between theory and phenomena
is quite powerful, and that we ought to look to these historical cases
not just for their historical interest, but also for insight into the
contemporary philosophy of physics. Comparing relativity and quantum
theory in this context lets us understand some differences between the
states and nature of their interpretation. Relativity and quantum theory
share the fact that they both superceded well-developed theories which
on this view nevertheless still are involved in the link between the
theories and theory-laden phenomena that gives them empirical content.
At least superficially we can understand this similarity in terms of an
analogy between the link between relativity and frames of reference in
which classical physics holds and the link between quantum theory and
experimental arrangements in which classical physics holds. In both
cases, since the theories strictly contradict those theories they
overturn, making the link between theory and actual phenomena
(theory-laden descriptions of experiments and results) generates a
tension. The differences between the state of the interpretation of the
theories can be understood in terms of, first, the status of and
grounding for the coordinating principles and, second, the degree to
which this tension can be avoided or overcome.
I will conclude that we may well view all of science in terms of this
understanding of the link between theory and phenomena. Since the two
pillars of modern physics are more or less unique in their relationships
with previous well-established theories, the form of this coordination
does not fully generalize. However, the approach taken in this paper
suggests that we revisit the issue of the distinction between theory and
observation, and I will suggest some possible repercussions of this
approach on topic of scientific realism, theoretical holism, and
contemporary empiricism.
(v) Post-Kuhnian Philosophy of Science
Richard Creath
Department of Philosophy, Arizona State University
The Construction of Reason: Kant, Carnap, Kuhn, ...
According to one longstanding tradition in epistemology our commitments
fall into two (or sometimes more) tiers, the contents of which are
justified in substantially different ways. The epistemologies of Kant,
Carnap, Kuhn, and others still on the scene, such as Friedman, are of
such a two-tier sort. This paper explores this tradition both
historically and systematically and considers the value of a two-tier
approach as a source of continuing philosophic insight.
William Demopoulus
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario
Philosophy of Mathematics and the Theory of Theories
The philosophy of mathematics exerted a profound influence on the
philosophy of science developed in the first half of the 20th Century.
The two principal influences were Hilbert's development of axiomatic
foundations, expressed most completely in his Foundations of Geometry,
and the philosophical and mathematical contributions to logic of Frege
and Russell. The influence of these figures was not at all restricted to
philosophy of science. For example, Hilbert's work had a direct bearing
on the development of the conceptual framework of model theory; and
perhaps the most striking influence on the development of mathematics to
emerge from the logicist tradition was the application of the ideas of
ramified type theory by Goedel in his work on constructibility. In
philosophy of science, the work of Hilbert and Russell shaped the
positivist and neo-positivist conception of theories and their
interpretation. This paper explores these developments. It shows why the
issues the philosophers of science sought to address with the methods
and techniques appropriated from Hilbert and Russell resisted solution.
A goal of the study is to identify issues the tradition uncovered that
are important from virtually any perspective and to indicate how they
might be fruitfully addressed.
Noretta Koertge
History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
Retrospective vs. Prospective Accounts of the Development of Science
Philosophers interested in trying to make sense of the claim that new
scientific theories improve upon their predecessors have proposed
various retrospective accounts centered on notions such as convergence,
verisimilitude, or correspondence. The intuitive idea underlying such
philosophical analyses is simply this: it seems that later theories not
only correct their predecessors, but also enable us to understand, with
hindsight, why the supplanted theories worked as well as they did within
the domain in which they were first tested.
Such philosophers, whom we might dub retrospective progressivists, often
go on to defend a fairly strong version of realism: the fact that new
theories conserve so much of the old seems to them to indicate that as
we do science we are getting progressively clearer portrayals of the
real world. All such attempts have met with considerable criticism.
There is another locus for investigations of the relationships between
successive theories in science. Philosophers interested in describing
the logical aspects of discovery or formulating heuristics for
scientific problem-solving have proposed prospective accounts of the
development of science. The attempt here is to describe methods for
assessing a current theory in order to project promising lines of
innovation that may well result in a new theory which will supplant the
old.
It is not obvious what the relationship between retrospective and
prospective accounts should be: in general the trajectory of hindsight
is not simply the reverse path of foresight. This paper will analyze the
relationship between forward and backward looking models of the growth
of science, paying special attention to Michael Friedman's account of
dynamic rationalism.
Thomas Ryckman
Department of Philosophy, Stanford University
Friedman's 'Relativized A Priori': An Appreciation and a Critique
Michael Friedman has revivified, and considerably enriched, Reichenbach's
early account of the relativized a priori, arguing that constitutively a
priori principles have a fallible but meta-empirical standing, defining
a framework or space of intellectual possibilities within which physical
laws first find application and empirical meaning. In particular, he
urges that distinct systems of coordination principles first define the
different spatio-temporal frameworks presupposed by the laws of
classical and relativity mechanics.
Enormously sympathetic to the goals of Friedman's restoration project, I
nonetheless see a somewhat different pivotal role for relativized
constitutive a priori principles in the light of general relativity. The
root of the difference goes back to Reichenbach's neo-Kantian doctrine of
cognition as a coordination between two independent faculties, accepted
by also by Friedman, and yielding the above dichotomization of
spatio-temporal framework and (empirically confirmed) dynamical laws
that is inappropriate in general relativity. Here Einstein's requirement
of general covariance, that dynamical laws are diffeomorphism invariant,
removes not only the background metric but also the manifold. Extended
to matter fields, this is an injunction that the laws of motion of
particles are derived from generally covariant equations of the total
field, a demand arguably met only by a non-linear theory.
In such theories, there is no unambiguous way to partition the total
field into the self-field of the particle and a finite external incident
field immediately surrounding, primarily responsible for its state of
motion. The conception of possible object in a theory of this kind
presupposes a relational mode of individuation of distinct physical
systems that nowhere relies upon a background space and time, a
criterion re-surfacing in the program of quantum gravity. In conclusion,
I trace a genealogy for this conception of the relativized a priori that
rejects the account of cognition as a coordination of independent
sources of knowledge.
Registration
All are welcome to attend. We ask that participants pre-register, and
pay a small fee if they plan to eat meals with us.
Travel To and From USC
If you are traveling to the conference by air, you have a couple options.
(1) You can fly into the Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE), and get
to campus by taxi. The airport is approximately 10 miles from campus.
(2) You can fly into the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport (CLT)
in Charlotte, NC, rent a car, and take a 2 hour drive south to Columbia
on I-77. Though this option may seem a bit more tedious, it may save you
some money and get you here just as quickly.
If you are driving to the conference, you can access driving directions
at the USC Visitors
Center web site.
To help you navigate around USC, you can access USC's
campus map.
Accommodations
Due to sporting events on campus over the weekend of the conference, we
were unable to secure a conference rate for our main hotel, the Holiday
Inn City Center. Below are some possible places to stay, all of which
are within 2 miles of the USC campus.
Clarion Town House Hotel
1615 Gervais Street
Columbia, SC 29201
Phone: +1-803-771-8711
(doubles $89-109)
Claussen's Inn
2003 Green Street
Columbia, SC 29205
Phone: +1-803-765-0440
Fax: +1-803-799-7924
(singles $89-109)
Holiday Inn City Center
630 Assembly Street
Columbia, SC 29202
Phone: +1-803-799-7800
Fax: +1-803-252-5909
(singles $119)
Governor's House Hotel
1301 Main Street
Columbia, SC 29201
Phone: +1-803-799-7790
Fax: +1-803-779-7856
(singles $49)
Fairground Plaza Hotel
621 South Assembly Street
Columbia, SC 29201
Phone: +1-803-252-2000
Fax: +1-803-779-0026
(singles $40)
The Whitney Hotel
700 Woodrow St.
Columbia, SC 29205
Phone: +1-803-252-0845 or +1-800-637-4008
(Ask for USC visitor rates: 1 bedroom suite $109; 2
bedroom suite $119)
This conference has been made possible by generous funding from the
University of South Carolina Department of Philosophy, College of Liberal
Arts, College of Science and Mathematics, Department of Physics, Department
of History, and The International Society for the History of the Philosophy
of Science.
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