From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Science vs Philosophy of
Date: 28 Aug 92 22:24:50 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

In article <BtpEGA.5oG@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com 
(Gary Merrill) writes:

>In article <1992Aug28.150002.14160@klaava.Helsinki.FI>, amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell) writes:
>
>|> But I didn't mean _theory_.  The point I was making was just that
>|> Analytical philosophers all employ formal logic, and first order
>|> predicate logic is used in many contexts by the vast majority.  Set
>|> theory can be expressed in this logic as well.  So I still say it's
>|> a question of objectivity too.  The philosophers accept a common idiom
>|> and agree to respect its grammar, conventions, etc.  This allows them
>|> to work together better and not fight over interpretation as much
>|> as other schools.
>
>So I guess your claim is that the use of a certain *notation* lends
>some kind of objectivity to the writings of the philosophers who share
>that notation.  Okay, but this certainly is a very weak sense of
>'objectivity'.  I would argue further that the use of the notation of
>set theory and first-order logic contributes nothing to this objectivity
>beyond what is present in the careful use of natural language.

Agreed.  Maybe I should have used some other word instead of 'objectivity'.
In some cases natural language is just cumbersome.

>Keep in mind that the notation must be *explained* -- that its sense
>or semantics must be accounted for.  Thus you cannot really say in a
>reasonable way "I don't mean _theory_".  *My* point (a bit implicit,
>perhaps), was that the membership sign has a different *meaning* in the
>different set theories (as is evident by their differing sets of
>theorems).  Now you might say, "Well, we don't need to think of an
>axiomatic set theory here.  We just use the notation in the sense of
>naive set theory."  But then, if the notation can be said to have any
>sense at all (an intuitive sense, perhaps) you are confronted with the
>various well known paradoxes -- and if you want inconsistency and
>confusion there are a lot simpler ways to achieve these than using
>set theoretic notation.

I see your point.  I didn't mean to suggest that formal logic is some panacea
for philosophy.  As you said, it can help with precision.

>I find your view that the philosophers who use this notation "work
>together better and do not fight over interpreattions as much as
>other schools" to be without any foundation or evidence.  It smells
>at least slightly of some ideology of formalism.  In fact, on reflection,
>it smells a lot like _The_Logical_Syntax_of_Language_ before Carnap
>figured out what semantics really was and what formal theory construction
>might do for you.

I don't think this is fair.  The 'schools' I was thinking of are people
who regurgitate what they call 'Contemporary French Philosophy' and
think this is philosophy.  I mean here people who imitate charlatans
like Derrida (who writes well in French and so is fun to read sometimes).
The 'work together better...' bit actually comes from a discussion I
had with a friend in Paris last autumn about _French_ Analytical
philosophy.  The point was that many French philosophers have trouble
working together because there is so little common ground and everyone
wants to be a star.  Analytical philosohers are bigger believers in
teamwork.  This is not ideology but just common sense.

>When you say that "Analytical philosophers all employ formal logic,"
>I think you might get some argument on this (Peter Cash?  You still
>there?).  Also, the sense of "employ" is far from clear.  I know
>how *I* used it -- to build formal systems (complete with proof theory
>and semantics) that were used to model, represent, or exhibit certain
>concepts or collections of concepts (while keeping in mind the limits
>of the technique and the degree of approximation one might achieve).
>In fact, I believe I have a rather well thought out view of the proper
>use of formal approaches in philosophy and even published on that
>topic.  Not everyone employs "logic" in this way.  Notice that if
>you *do* use this approach, the formal system becomes an *object*
>of study (as does its purported relation to the concepts of interest)
>and is not the basis of some *shared* understanding.

I was being elliptical about 'employ' and I agree with your elaborations.
Just using formal logic adds no shared understanding, but mutual
familiarity with logic, philosophy of logic, history of logic, etc.
adds a lot.

>Perhaps you mean to point out that "analytical" philosophers have a
>tendency to sprinkle their publications with formulae.  To some
>degree this is true, but often the sprinkling is purely gratuitous.
>In fact, I usually tried to avoid such sprinkling since it breaks
>up the flow of the text and is harder to set.  When the extra precision
>was required, well that's another matter.  Even then, you *can* be
>precise in natural language.  The formalism typically takes up less
>space -- provided its meaning is clear.

I agree with you 100%.  If you knew my previous work you would know
that I'm no gratuitous formula sprinkler.  I just happen to be 
working right now on a logical puzzle that requires the use of
axiomatic set theory.  I think our views are very close on this issue.
I have a tendency to use too few words sometimes, especially when I
think there is mutual understanding already.

Marko Amnell