Comments on: Fodor on Kripke

By: Neel Krishnaswami

Neel Krishnaswami — Sat, 16 Oct 2004 17:44:12 +0000

I can confirm that computer scientists pay very close attention to analytic philosophy—in fact, it’s fair to say that the research program for my group (the principles of programming group at CMU) is to invent practical applications for analytic philosophy and mathematical logic. For example, a guy a couple of floors down from me used modal logic to make sharing programs on networks work better. The idea is that each computer represents a possible world, and that each program has a type, which is a logical proposition. The Kripkean idea that propositions at situated at worlds corresponds exactly to the idea that each program lives on a computer. Then a program with a box type is a program that you can safely send across the network, because its type is true at any possible world—that is, it can run correctly on any other accessible computer. It’s really beautiful stuff. Robin wrote: Woah! That’s whacked. How could anyone dispute that logic is independent of everything? Remarkably easily. One way of formalizing logic is to turn it into a set of syntactic rules—for example, you can have a rule that says construct “a proof of A and B” by combining “a proof of A” and “a proof of B”. Once you see logic as a set of rules, a natural question to ask is whether you can make up different sets of rules. And the answer is yes, you can—there’s a veritable zoo of logics you can work with. There’s modal logic, linear logic, the logic bunched implications, dependent types, and classical and intuitionistic versions of all of these. At this point, it’s fair to wonder whether logic is really as fundamental as Aristotle might have wanted.

By: harry

harry — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 22:15:28 +0000

John—I’ll try to figure out a way of writing such a post that won’t get me into trouble…. Its a BIG issue for funders, as well as policy-makers.

By: Phersu

Phersu — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 18:07:10 +0000

As a non-philosopher, I am a little surprised by the arguments Fodor uses against Modal Intuitions, Metaphysics and Thought Experiments. I remember reading an old paper around 1990 called “A Modal Argument for Narrow Content” by one Fodor, which used exactly the same kind of “tricks” before he changed his mind about content and analyticity. But Fodor is a relapsed Neo-Quinean and must now think that naturalized psychology will suffice (maybe he will become a true Quinean behaviorist when he is older… :)). Oh, BTW, Fodor does not explain why nobody reads analytic philosophy. Nobody reads conceptual analysis but nobody reads naturalized epistemology or millikanian “meaning empiricism” either. On the other hand, Chalmers’book (which is filled with Obscure Metaphysics and Modal Intuitions) was a success, I think. People buy Dennett’s books because they are well-written, entertaining, full of stories and optimist, not because of their lack of abstruse metaphysics.

By: Matthew S. Mullins

Matthew S. Mullins — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 03:12:37 +0000

‘’‘2+2=5 cannot be true under the standard axioms of arithmetic in any possible world’ presumes that mathematics and logic hold up across all possible worlds, as if they are independent of all possible worlds. I gather that’s been a subject of serious debate.’’ I think Frege’s reply to such an idea was call it a “hitherto unknown kind of madness.”

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 13:15:49 +0000

A pedantic geometer writes: Parallel lines converging probably best refers to the Hyperbolic Geometry of Gauss, Lobachevsky, Bolyai and probably others. This demonstrated a system that replaced one of the Euclidean postulates with one of its opposites. Since Euclidean geometry was regarded as a law of thought in much the same way that logic is today this was quite exciting stuff and Gauss delayed publication for fear of embarassment. Riemannian geometry includes models of Euclidean and Hyperbolic geometry but its introduction was more a revolution in terms of physical interpretation of geometry. Before Riemann distance around a curved object such as the Earth was imaigned as a constrained optimisation in a Euclidean space. After Riemann it was clear that there could be distances that were intrinsic properties of the space without there being some embedding in Euclidean space. This looks like a technicality but it is the theoretical foundation of general relativity. General Relativity uses the technical framework built on the work of Riemann but usually deals with space-times where in Riemannian terms some directions are negatively far away but are more easily accepted as distinguishing time and space. These are distinguished from Riemannian spaces where all distances are positive by terms like Semi Riemannian. Physicists and Mathematicians also frquently deal with imaginary time which has the effect of making space-times into Riemannian spaces which makes a lot of things work more easily.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 11:30:43 +0000

harry, I was just wondering about the general badness of educational studies, which seems to be a significant policy problem in education, when I read your comment. I’d love to see a post looking at: (i) what is the good stuff in educational studies? (ii) if (as it seems to me) most of the stuff taught in education degrees is bad, how can we respond to this in policy terms?

By: Dan S

Dan S — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 06:04:56 +0000

As a recent undergrad philosophy student, I can’t resist mentioning why I am particularly interested in analytic philosophy. The charges of triviality that I see in the posts, even in Fodor, can’t really be rebutted. You either care about the questions or you don’t. And its true that there has been no obvious recent progress made towards a solution to any of the key problems. Not that anyone ever has. The reason that I am engaged by analytic philosophy is that when I sit down to read an article, I want to know that the author is going to make an argument that I can follow. It doesn’t have to easy to follow, and it doesn’t have to be right, but I want to know that the author is trying in good faith to make an argument and be understood. While this sounds a lot like a viewpoint that was criticized more than once in the comments above, I don’t think it can be dismissed as simple chauvenism. I don’t mean to be dismissing other fields of philosophy, even if I was qualified to. I know that I am missing things by not reading some of the people I don’t read. But I am utterly intolerant of deliberate obfuscation in philosophy, its my pet peeve, and analytic philosophy seems to have the least of it. Bad writing is one thing, but I am a lazy reader, and I get very annoyed when reading philosophy is any harder than it has to be.

By: Robin Green

Robin Green — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 02:25:24 +0000

presumes that mathematics and logic hold up across all possible worlds, as if they are independent of all possible worlds. I gather that’s been a subject of serious debate. Woah! That’s whacked. How could anyone dispute that logic is independent of everything? And I really do mean “how”. As in, “how could you construct an argument to get down to a ‘more fundamental level’ at which logic would be relative?” Sounds quite impossible to me. That reminds me. I have a book called “Social Constructivism as a Philosophy of Mathematics” or something similar, lying around somewhere. I must get around to reading it.

By: Mike Huben

Mike Huben — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 00:51:14 +0000

Thanks, Matthew B, you are correct that I misunderstood. However, this different understanding makes me think of another set of objections having to do with the foundations of mathematics and its subbranch logic. “2+2=5 cannot be true under the standard axioms of arithmetic in any possible world” presumes that mathematics and logic hold up across all possible worlds, as if they are independent of all possible worlds. I gather that’s been a subject of serious debate. In addition, the connection between models such as arithmetic and any possible world is another can of worms: there doesn’t seem to be any convincing explanation for why the world coresponds closely to these models, not even for our own universe. I get the feeling these are all foundations of sand.

By: Adam Kotsko

Adam Kotsko — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 22:45:38 +0000

I’d love to read analytic philosophy, but I’m a stupid person, incapable of truly rigorous thought, so I settle for pseudo-philosophical hacks like Derrida, Heidegger, or Hegel.

By: degustibus

degustibus — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:26:55 +0000

I was waiting for mention of “ordinary language” And “What kind of language game is being played?”

By: Zizka

Zizka — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 19:40:06 +0000

Much of my animus against analytic philosophy derives from the way it has come to dominate philosophy departments, and the way that analytic philosophers dismiss and ignore other schools—which they are safe in doing because of their monopoly in hiring. I have what I think of as philosophical interests, but at 90% of American universities it would be out of the question for me to hope to follow these interests in the philosophy dept. Since reading Rorty, Toulmin’s “Cosmopolis” and Michel Meyer’s “Rhetoric, Language, and Reason” provide the best explanations of what I don’t like about AP and what I think the alternative might be. Some of Wittgenstein’s students went on to do very interesting things, usually in areas outside philosophy such as Asian Studies, Anthropology, and Sociology.

By: aphrael

aphrael — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 18:36:27 +0000

Tim Rice wrote the libretto for Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcout; for many years he was Andrew LLoyd Webber's less famous sidekick.

By: aphrael

aphrael — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 18:35:42 +0000

Tim Rice wrote the libretto for Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcout; for many years he was Andrew LLoyd Webber's less famous sidekick.

By: des von bladet

des von bladet — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:41:28 +0000

Matthew B: It is fun to watch the neo-Kantians go general relativity, ouch ouch ouch! (see §3.2) (And pedantic geometers tend to insist that GR is semi-Riemannian, on account of the metric.)