Changing Conceptions of Rationality: From Logical Empiricism to Postpositivism
by Gurol Irzik
in Logical Empiricism, (eds.) P. Parrini, W. Salmon, and M. Salmon
Download (.doc) Quasi-Truth as Truth of a Ramsey Sentence
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I show the quasi-truth of a sentence in a partial structure to be equivalent to the truth of a specific Ramsey sentence... more I show the quasi-truth of a sentence in a partial structure to be equivalent to the truth of a specific Ramsey sentence in a structure that corresponds naturally to the partial structure. Hence quasi-truth, the core notion of the partial structures approach, can be captured in the terms of the received view on scientific theories as developed by Carnap and Hempel. I further show that a mapping is a partial homomorphism/isomorphism between two partial structures if and only if it is a homomorphism/isomorphism between their corresponding structures. It is a corollary that the partial structures approach can be expressed in first or second order model theory.
Ideal Language Philosophy and Experiments on Intuitions
Published in /Studia Philosophica Estonica/, 2.2, 2009
Proponents of linguistic philosophy hold that all non-empirical philosophical problems can be solved by either... more Proponents of linguistic philosophy hold that all non-empirical philosophical problems can be solved by either analyzing ordinary language or developing an ideal one. I review the debates on linguistic philosophy and between ordinary and ideal language philosophy. Using arguments from these debates, I argue that the results of experimental philosophy on intuitions support linguistic philosophy. Within linguistic philosophy, these experimental results support and complement ideal over ordinary language philosophy. I argue further that some of the critiques of experimental philosophy are in fact defenses of ideal language philosophy. Finally, I show how much of the current debate about experimental philosophy is anticipated in the debates about and within linguistic philosophy. Specifically, arguments by ideal language philosophers support experimental philosophy.
Artificial Language Philosophy of Science
Published in the /European Journal for Philosophy of Science/.
Artificial language philosophy (also called ‘ideal language philosophy’) is the position that philosophical problems... more Artificial language philosophy (also called ‘ideal language philosophy’) is the position that philosophical problems are best solved or dissolved through a reform of language. Its underlying methodology—the development of languages for specific purposes—leads to a conventionalist view of language in general and of concepts in particular. I argue that many philosophical practices can be reinterpreted as applications of artificial language philosophy. In addition, many factually occurring interrelations between the sciences and philosophy of science are justified and clarified by the assumption of an artificial language methodology.
Criteria of Empirical Significance: a Success Story
An earlier version of this article received the Sir Karl Popper Essay Prize 2009 of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science.
The sheer multitude of criteria of empirical significance has been taken as evidence that the pre-analytic notion... more The sheer multitude of criteria of empirical significance has been taken as evidence that the pre-analytic notion being explicated is too vague to be useful. I show instead that a significant number of these criteria—by Ayer, Popper, Przełęcki, Suppes, and David Lewis, among others—not only form a coherent whole, but also connect directly to the theory of definition, the notion of empirical content as explicated by Ramsey sentences, and the theory of measurement; two criteria by Carnap and Sober are trivial, but can be saved and connected to the other criteria by slight modifications. A corollary is that the ordinary language defense of Lewis, the conceptual arguments by Ayer and Popper, the theoretical considerations by Przełęcki, and the practical considerations by Suppes all apply to the same criterion or closely related criteria. Furthermore, the equivalence of some criteria allows for their individual justifications to be taken cumulatively and, together with the entailment relations between nonequivalent criteria, suggest criteria for general auxiliary assumptions, comparative criteria, and more liberal conceptions of observation.