http://hdl.handle.net/2262/152 Philosophy (Scholarly Publications) Sun, 19 May 2013 11:42:07 GMT 2013-05-19T11:42:07Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/61825 Title: Vectors and Beyond: Geometric Algebra and its Philosophical Significance Author: SIMONS, PETER Abstract: An account of the history and recent revival of geometric algebra (first invented in the 19th century but later sidelined by vector theory), together with reflections on its importance for the philosophy of mathematics. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/61825 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/61824 Title: Formalism Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Andrew Irvine Abstract: Formalism is a philosophical theory of the foundations of mathematics that had a spectacular but brief heyday in the 1920s. After a long preparation in the work of several mathematicians and philosophers, it was brought to its mature form and prominence by David Hilbert and co-workers as an answer to both the uncertainties created by antinomies at the basis of mathematics and the criticisms of traditional mathematics posed by intuitionism. In this prominent form it was decisively refuted by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, but aspects of its methods and outlook survived and have come to inform the mathematical mainstream. This article traces the gradual assembly of its components and its rapid downfall. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/61824 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/61823 Title: Bocheński and Balance: System and History in Analytic Philosophy Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Edgar Morscher, Otto Neumaier and Peter Simons Abstract: This paper praises, upholds and justifies the balance found in Bocheński's philosophical writings between a systematic interest in theoretical questions and a purely historical approach to philosophy. The drawbacks of the unbalanced positions are pointed out and the benefits of due balance illustrated from Bocheński's own work and from my own. Description: PUBLISHED Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/61823 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/40595 Title: Conscience - an essay in moral psychology Author: LYONS, WILLIAM EDWARD Abstract: The ultimate aim of this essay is to suggest that conscience is a very important part of human psychology and of our moral point of view, not something that can be dismissed as merely ‘a part of Christian theology’. The essay begins with discussions of what might be regarded as the two most influential functional models of conscience, the classical Christian account of conscience and the Freudian account of conscience. Then, using some insights from these models, and from some comparatively recent work in psychology and especially psychiatry, the author argues for a quite different model of conscience that might be called the personal integrity account of conscience. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/40595 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39417 Title: A Short Glossary of Metaphysics Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal and Ross Cameron Abstract: NOTE: Many of the words in this glossary have everyday meanings which are different from these. We give only the more specialized philosophical meanings. JOHNSONIAN HEALTH WARNING: like all glossaries and dictionaries, not infallible and not complete, but an honest attempt to capture the senses of principal usages and occasionally to recommend some over others. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39417 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39416 Title: Whitehead: Process and Cosmology Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal and Ross Cameron Abstract: Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) occupies a remarkable position in twentieth century philosophy. Though he co-authored the seminal Principia mathematica with his former student Bertrand Russell, and later supervised W. V. Quine, his influence on later analytic philosophy has been minimal, while in other circles his work enjoyed cult status. Largely ignored by professionals in his native Britain, he is respected in his adopted America, and receives interest in continental Europe. Trained as a mathematician, he moved into logic and the foundations of mathematics. In his fifties he began writing about the philosophy of science, physics, and education, and at 63 emigrated to the United States, teaching as Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University for a further thirteen years. His chief work, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929) has been compared, for length, difficulty, and importance, to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. This work—we will refer to it as ‘PR’—completed Whitehead’s transformation into a metaphysician, and it is the focus of our attention. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39416 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39415 Title: Why there are no states of affairs Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Maria Elisabeth Reicher Abstract: A state of affairs, such as that John loves Mary or that Gordon Brown is Scottish, is an entity which in some way corresponds to a true sentence, belief or judgement. Its correspondence is indicated by its being standardly designated by a that-clause taking a whole declarative sentence as its linguistic complement. Sometimes a gerund or gerundive clause may take the place of the that-cause, as in John’s loving Mary or Gordon being Scottish. In certain contexts a state of affairs might be designated by a bare sentential clause, as in the last four words of John saw Mary cross the road. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39415 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39414 Title: Twardowski on Truth Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Sandra Lapointe and Jurgis Skilters Abstract: Of those students of Franz Brentano who went on to become professional philosophers, Kazimierz Twardowski (1866-1938) is much less well-known than his older contemporaries Edmund Husserl and Alexius Meinong. Yet in terms of the importance of his contribution to the history of philosophy, he ranks among Brentano’s students behind at most those two, possibly only behind Husserl. Notice that I did not say “the history of philosophy in Poland” but “the history of philosophy”. This may seem surprising for a philosopher whose writings and even name are very little known outside his native country. The only work of Twardowski likely to be known at all is his 1894 Vienna Habilitationsschrift Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen [On the Content and Object of Presentations], which strongly and decisively influenced both Meinong and Husserl in their accounts of the structure of intentionality. That work was translated into English by Reinhardt Grossmann and published in 1977. I share Reinhardt’s estimation* (echoing that of Findlay*) that it is one of the most accomplished short monographs in all philosophy and deserves to be considered a classic. It disambiguates Brentano’s 1874 work on intentionality, distinguishing the content of an idea from its object, supporting the distinction with examples and arguments, and cementing it terminologically. It does for content and object what Frege had done for sense and reference just two years earlier. It is written with limpid clarity, an abiding feature of Twardowski’s work. Important as it is for the immediate history however, it is not the main reason why Twardowski is so important. That importance rests in no small part on Twardowski’s teaching and organizational activity, carried out after he took up his Extraordinariat in Lwów in 1895 at the age of 29 and until his retirement in the 1930s. Twardowski found philosophy in Poland in a parlous state. Up until 1918 philosophy in Poland was essentially confined to two centres, Kraków and Lwów in Austrian-administered Galicia, where instruction in Polish was allowed. In Warsaw, where some higher education was permitted in Russian, though the University had been closed then reopened as a non-university then Russified following the abortive uprisings of 1830 and 1863 Henryk Struve, the only philosopher of note, emigrated to Britain in 1903 and that, until the Gemans reopened the University in 1915, was that. According to Władysław Tatarkiewicz’s Zarys dziejów filozofii w Polsce (A Brief History of Philosophy in Poland), published in 1948* (Tartarkiewicz was yet another former Twardowski student), Polish philosophy in the 19th century had been an eclectic mixture of Scottish common sense philosophy, Kantianism, a romantic nationalistic Messianism and after 1863 what was known as Warsaw Positivism. None of it was of international standard. Twardowski saw that to promote good academic (Brentanian) philosophy in Poland he would have to sacrifice his career as a writer for one as a teacher and organiser, and his unparalleled influence on the philosophical life of a nation bears testimony to his success. Within twenty years he had gathered a cohort of the best students round him in Lwów, who would after the war go on to people thirty chairs, including ten of philosophy, around the Second Republic, make Poland one of the chief centres of scientific-analytic philosophy in the world, and the world centre of mathematical logic. All this is well documented. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39414 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39413 Title: Ontic Generation: Getting Everything from the Basics Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Alexander Hieke and Hannes Leitgeb Abstract: Properly executed, metaphysics consists in part of painstaking ontological detail and in part of grand systematic speculation. The distinction between these two aspects is not new: it is inspired by Wolff’s distinction between metaphysica generalis sive ontologia and metaphysica specialis, Husserl’s distinction between formal and regional ontology, and finally D. C. Williams’s distinction between analytic ontology and speculative cosmology.1 The detail concerns the basic kinds of entity and the ways in which they are discerned, analysed, fitted together and wielded in explanation. In this, analytic philosophy excels, but it cannot take place in a speculative vacuum. The speculation concerns hypotheses for which evidence is partial and inadequate to ground them without demur or risk. The classic metaphysical positions of Platonism, Aristotelianism, Cartesian dualism, Leibnizian monism, and Hegelian idealism all unabashedly adopt such metaphysical speculations. Analytic philosophers have tried generally to steer away from grand speculation because it got a bad name with Hegel and because it tends to undermine their self-sought credentials as “scientific”. The upshot has been that their cosmological positions have been largely tacit or shamefaced: commonsense ordinary-language Moorean realism, Carnapian disavowal, Wittgensteinian quietism. But several significant twentieth century philosophers have been unafraid to speculate: Alexander, Whitehead, Quine and Lewis being examples. In my view it is part of a metaphysician’s—nay any philosopher’s—responsibility, to articulate the speculative hypothetical framework with which his or her detailed work takes its place. Description: PUBLISHED Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39413 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39412 Title: Why Categories Matter: Grossmann and Beyond Author: SIMONS, PETER Editor: Javier Cumpa Abstract: My copy of Reinhardt Grossmann’s The Categorial Structure of the World (CSW) contains the affectionate inscription “To the Three Musketeers! With best wishes for their future adventures! R.G.” The other two musketeers were and are Kevin Mulligan and Barry Smith, Manchester Mitkämpfer for ontology in the 1970s and 1980s in what was otherwise a sea of logicians and philosophers of language. Reinhardt had noticed the affinity in our taste for ontology, and it was not accidental, because we three had early recognized the Iowa School of Gustav Bergmann and his students including also Herb Hochberg and Ed Allaire as pioneers struggling nobly to get philosophers to concentrate again on the things them¬selves rather than just our representations of them. The other bond we shared with Grossmann was that because of his German background he was more familiar with the German-speaking tradition of Bolzano, Brentano and Husserl than most English-speaking philosophers of that time (or indeed since). Like him we felt that much modern analytic philosophy suffered from historical blinkeredness. The situation has improved considerably since those days in both respects, obwohl es noch in mancher Hinsicht zu wünschen übrig lässt, as we say in Ireland. Description: PUBLISHED Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/2262/39412 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z