DOCSLIB.ORG

The Constellations of Empiricism, New Science, and Mind in Hobbes, Locke, and Hume

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Constellations of Empiricism, New Science, and Mind in Hobbes, Locke, and Hume Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 4-29-2016 12:00 AM The Constellations of Empiricism, New Science, and Mind in Hobbes, Locke, and Hume Lisa Pelot The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Robert Stainton The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Philosophy A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Lisa Pelot 2016 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Epistemology Commons, History of Philosophy Commons, Metaphysics Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Recommended Citation Pelot, Lisa, "The Constellations of Empiricism, New Science, and Mind in Hobbes, Locke, and Hume" (2016). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3936. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3936 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract In this thesis, positive and negative tensions among the “unit-ideas” of New Science and empiricism are explored as they relate to explanations of aspects of mind in the Modern period. Some constellations of ideas are mutually supporting, and provide fruitful discussion on how mind can fit into the natural world. This project aims to clarify the adequacy of this type of framework in accommodating and explaining mind, and aspects of mind. I proceed by analyzing key texts via the “unit-ideas” of New Science and empiricism. The three central chapters are case studies, looking at Hobbes, Locke, and Hume. In each chapter I analyse an aspect of the mental as it is explained within a version of the framework created by that thinker’s particular constellation of New Science and empiricism. In evaluating the adequacy of these frameworks to handle the problem presented to them, new insights appear about the historical figures and the texts. For example, in analyzing Hobbes’ framework for explaining mind, the impact of Hobbes’ view of mind on his political philosophy comes into relief, creating space for new research avenues. Identifying underlying tensions within Locke’s explanatory framework, it becomes possible to put to bed an old debate about whether Locke was a libertarian, a compatibilist, or a necessitarian. And in understanding clearly the ways in which Hume’s version of this constellation of ideas leads to his view of volition, at least one interpretation of Hume as a metaphysician can be decisively rejected. This project is intended partly as an illustration of the significance of the historical dimension to adequately understanding contemporary issues in Philosophy of Mind. It is important to recognize that there are certain conditions for possibility of the emergence of philosophical concepts and views, and that the way problems can be resolved depends very much on the way they are posed or articulated. This project straddles the sub-fields of Philosophy of Mind and History of Philosophy. i Keywords Empiricism, mental architecture, New Science, reason, passion, volition, free will, liberty, materialism, empiricist, Philosophy of Mind, mental phenomena, History of Philosophy of Mind, Modern empiricism, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, metaphysics, rationality, mind. ii Acknowledgments I am very grateful for the guidance, feedback, and support that has been essential to this project. I thank my supervisor, Rob Stainton, who not only helped me bring this project to completion, but also encouraged and invited me back into graduate school. The impact of this man on my intellectual life and development cannot be over- stated. Over the years, Rob has modeled for me personal and intellectual standards, and demonstrated how to be a heart-centered philosopher. Rob, my respect for you is profound, and I thank you for your support, and for helping me take this work to completion. My thanks go also to Henrik Lagerlund for time and energy spent clarifying important aspects of this work, and the connections between Modern thinking and the Scholastics. I also thank Lorne Falkenstein, who inspired me to study this area and these thinkers, for guidance, and countless hours spent reading drafts and providing detailed and highly constructive feedback. I am grateful to my long-time trusted counselor and guide, Chris Viger, for providing constructive critique, for sharing knowledge, listening, being genuinely interested in my questions and concerns, and for numberless small acts of kindness. Thank you also to Dennis Klimchuk for invaluable insight in comments on various drafts. I am also grateful to Tracy Isaacs for her humanity in her work as an administrator, and for going above and beyond as Graduate Chair. I thank the Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program and Western University’s Philosophy Department for financial support. I also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, provided through a grant to Robert J. Stainton, and through a grant from the Ontario Government’s Online Initiative to Chris Viger and David Bourget. For your love and support, even in the face of what you thought a crazy dream, I thank my parents, Richard & Aila Pelot, my sisters, Veronica, Amanda, and my iii brothers-in-law John, and Darcy. For inspiration I thank my late grandfather, Ivan Pelot. For diversion, I thank the little ones, Remy and Simone. Special thanks to my friends who also supported me in innumerable ways: Allyson, Meghan, Mark, Simin, Deborah, Casee, Dianne, Liv, Cathy, Annette, Ian, Brian, Deborah, the Zarify family, Michelle & Richard, and Sarah & David. Last, but not least, deep gratitude goes to D. Anthony Larivière—formidable interlocutor, indefatigable cheerleader, and true Friend—whose faith and vision was necessary to bring this doctor into being. Thank you, thank you, thank you. “Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of the one who sees.” ~ Rumi. iv Table of Contents ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................................. III FOREWARD: HOW I GOT HERE ............................................................................................. VIII TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................... V CHAPTER ONE .................................................................................................................................. 1 WHAT MY PROJECT IS AND WHAT IT ISN’T ............................................................. 1 WHAT ARE UNIT-IDEAS? ......................................................................................... 5 BROADER PERSPECTIVE; ENRICHED CONCEPTUAL, RESOURCES & REVEALED ASSUMPTIONS .......................................................................................................... 6 THE PARTICULARS OF MY STUDY ............................................................................ 8 TWO KEY NOTIONS: EMPIRICISM & NEW SCIENCE ................................................ 10 TABLE 1 ................................................................................................................. 14 TABLE 2 ................................................................................................................. 15 SUMMARY .............................................................................................................. 15 A FINAL CAVEAT: ERRORS MAY LIE IN WAIT FOR WE NON-SPECIALISTS ............ 15 WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................ 18 CHAPTER TWO ............................................................................................................................. 19 HOBBESIAN MENTAL ARCHITECTURE .................................................................... 19 THE GAME PLAN .................................................................................................... 22 BACKGROUND NOTIONS: INNATE HETEROGENEIETY, INNATE HOMOGENEITY, DERIVED HETEROGENEITY ..................................................................................... 22 HOBBES’ EMPIRICISM............................................................................................. 23 HOBBES’ NEW SCIENCE ......................................................................................... 26 HOBBES’ MENTAL ARCHITECTURE: CONCEPTIONS, IMAGINATION, AND DREAMS . 27 MENTAL ARCHITECTURE: RATIOCINATION ............................................................ 29 MENTAL ARCHITECTURE: PASSIONS ...................................................................... 30 THE INTEGRATION OF PASSION AND THOUGHT ...................................................... 33 A BRIEF ASIDE: IMPLICATIONS FOR HOBBES’ POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY .................. 36 MENTAL ARCHITECTURE: DELIBERATION .............................................................. 37 MENTAL ARCHITECTURE: VOLITION ...................................................................... 38 v CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 41 WORKS
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education James Magrini College of Dupage, [email protected]
    College of DuPage [email protected]. Philosophy Scholarship Philosophy 7-1-2012 Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education James Magrini College of DuPage, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/philosophypub Part of the Education Commons, and the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Magrini, James, "Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education" (2012). Philosophy Scholarship. Paper 30. http://dc.cod.edu/philosophypub/30 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy at [email protected].. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Scholarship by an authorized administrator of [email protected].. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Existentialism, Phenomenology, and Education James M. Magrini Existentialism, and specifically phenomenology, in qualitative educational research, tends to be misunderstood. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that scholars/researchers writing in the field often emulate and imitate the dense writing styles of philosophical forerunners in phenomenology such as Hegel, Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. Thus the writing is beyond the comprehension of many education professionals and practitioners. Existentialism and phenomenology need not be highly complex. Here I provide a summary of existentialism and phenomenology in accessible terms so that educators might see the potential this type of philosophy holds for enhancing our educational endeavors. 1. Existentialism is a modern philosophy emerging (existence-philosophy) from the 19th century, inspired by such thinkers as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Unlike traditional philosophy, which focuses on “objective” instances of truth, existentialism is concerned with the subjective, or personal, aspects of existence.
    [Show full text]
  • Descartes' Influence in Shaping the Modern World-View
    R ené Descartes (1596-1650) is generally regarded as the “father of modern philosophy.” He stands as one of the most important figures in Western intellectual history. His work in mathematics and his writings on science proved to be foundational for further development in these fields. Our understanding of “scientific method” can be traced back to the work of Francis Bacon and to Descartes’ Discourse on Method. His groundbreaking approach to philosophy in his Meditations on First Philosophy determine the course of subsequent philosophy. The very problems with which much of modern philosophy has been primarily concerned arise only as a consequence of Descartes’thought. Descartes’ philosophy must be understood in the context of his times. The Medieval world was in the process of disintegration. The authoritarianism that had dominated the Medieval period was called into question by the rise of the Protestant revolt and advances in the development of science. Martin Luther’s emphasis that salvation was a matter of “faith” and not “works” undermined papal authority in asserting that each individual has a channel to God. The Copernican revolution undermined the authority of the Catholic Church in directly contradicting the established church doctrine of a geocentric universe. The rise of the sciences directly challenged the Church and seemed to put science and religion in opposition. A mathematician and scientist as well as a devout Catholic, Descartes was concerned primarily with establishing certain foundations for science and philosophy, and yet also with bridging the gap between the “new science” and religion. Descartes’ Influence in Shaping the Modern World-View 1) Descartes’ disbelief in authoritarianism: Descartes’ belief that all individuals possess the “natural light of reason,” the belief that each individual has the capacity for the discovery of truth, undermined Roman Catholic authoritarianism.
    [Show full text]
  • Perspectives on Ethical Leadership: an Overview Drs Ir Sophia Viet MTD
    Perspectives on ethical leadership: an overview drs ir Sophia Viet MTD Paper submitted to the International Congress on Public and Political Leadership 2016 Draft version. Do not site or quote without the author’s permission Abstract There is a growing scientific interest in ethical leadership of organizations as public confidence in organizational leaders continues to decline. Among scholarly communities there is considerable disagreement on the appropriate way to conceptualize, define and study ethical leadership. This disagreement is partly due to the ontological and epistemological differences between the scholarly communities, resulting in different views of organizations, on the role of organizational leadership in general, and on ethical leadership of organizations in particular. Because of the differences in their ontological and epistemological assumptions scholars endlessly debate the concept of ethical leadership. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the academic concepts of ethical leadership by classifying these concepts in terms of their ontological and epistemological assumptions and views of organizations into the modern, symbolic and the critical perspectives of postmodernism and communitarianism. Each category represents a particular set of perspectives on organizations, business ethics, and ethical leadership. The overview can serve as a guide to decode the academic debate and to determine the positions of the scholars participating in the debate. In addition it can serve as a multi-perspective-framework to study lay concepts of ethical leadership of (executive) directors of contemporary organizations. In this article the overview serves as a guide of how to classify some of the most common concepts in the debate on ethical leadership. Introduction There is a growing scientific interest in ethical leadership of organizations as public confidence in organizational leaders continues to decline.
    [Show full text]
  • Epistemology After the Modal Turn Traditionally
    Philosophy 513/Topics in Recent and Contemporary Philosophy: Epistemology after the Modal Turn Princeton University Spring 2019 Tuesdays 7-9:50 Marx 201 Professor Thomas Kelly 221 1879 Hall [email protected] Traditionally, philosophers have often given a starring role to notions like evidence and reasons for belief when theorizing about knowledge. However, in the last decades of the twentieth century and the opening decades of the twentieth-first, this traditional paradigm has been largely supplanted by alternative approaches. There are at least two complementary sources for this relatively recent, radical break with tradition. First, Edmund Gettier’s apparent refutation of “the traditional analysis of knowledge,” along with the failure of early, theoretically conservative attempts to “patch” that analysis, loosened the hold of the traditional paradigm on the philosophical imagination and created a demand for novel theoretical frameworks. More constructively, that demand for innovative approaches was met when the modal revolution, which had first entered analytic philosophy through logic and metaphysics (think Kripke, Lewis) hit epistemology. When epistemology took the modal turn, the result was an entirely new set of intriguing frameworks and powerful conceptual tools for theorizing about knowledge and related notions. Among these are the ideas that that we should think of knowledge in terms of the elimination of contextually salient possibilities (Lewis), that it consists in tracking facts (Nozick, Roush), and the increasingly influential picture of knowledge as safe belief (Williamson, Sosa). We will critically examine this currently flourishing tradition, beginning with seminal accounts by Lewis and Nozick, and continuing up to some of the latest developments.
    [Show full text]
  • Freedom and Determinism (Topics in Contemporary Philosophy)
    1 Determinism: What We Have Learned and What We Still Don’t Know John Earman 1 Introduction The purpose of this essay is to give a brief survey of the implications of the theories of modern physics for the doctrine of determinism. The survey will reveal a curious feature of determinism: in some respects it is fragile, re- quiring a number of enabling assumptions to give it a fighting chance; but in other respects it is quite robust and very difficult to kill. The survey will also aim to show that, apart from its own intrinsic interest, determinism is an excellent device for probing the foundations of classical, relativistic, and quantum physics. The survey is conducted under three major presuppositions. First, I take a realistic attitude toward scientific theories in that I assume that to give an interpretation of a theory is, at a minimum, to specify what the world would have to be like in order for the theory to be true. But we will see that the demand for a deterministic interpretation of a theory can force us to abandon a naively realistic reading of the theory. Second, I reject the “no laws” view of science and assume that the field equations or laws of motion of the most fundamental theories of current physics represent science’s best guesses as to the form of the basic laws of nature. Third, I take deter- minism to be an ontological doctrine, a doctrine about the temporal evo- lution of the world. This ontological doctrine must not be confused with predictability, which is an epistemological doctrine, the failure of which need not entail a failure of determinism.
    [Show full text]
  • “Modern” Philosophy: Introduction
    “Modern” Philosophy: Introduction [from Debates in Modern Philosophy by Stewart Duncan and Antonia LoLordo (Routledge, 2013)] This course discusses the views of various European of his contemporaries (e.g. Thomas Hobbes) did see philosophers of the seventeenth century. Along with themselves as engaged in a new project in philosophy the thinkers of the eighteenth century, they are con- and the sciences, which somehow contained a new sidered “modern” philosophers. That might not seem way of explaining how the world worked. So, what terribly modern. René Descartes was writing in the was this new project? And what, if anything, did all 1630s and 1640s, and Immanuel Kant died in 1804. these modern philosophers have in common? By many standards, that was a long time ago. So, why is the work of Descartes, Kant, and their contempor- Two themes emerge when you read what Des- aries called modern philosophy? cartes and Hobbes say about their new philosophies. First, they think that earlier philosophers, particu- In one way this question has a trivial answer. larly so-called Scholastic Aristotelians—medieval “Modern” is being used here to describe a period of European philosophers who were influenced by time, and to contrast it with other periods of time. So, Aristotle—were mistaken about many issues, and modern philosophy is not the philosophy of today as that the new, modern way is better. (They say nicer contrasted with the philosophy of the 2020s or even things about Aristotle himself, and about some other the 1950s. Rather it’s the philosophy of the 1600s previous philosophers.) This view was shared by and onwards, as opposed to ancient and medieval many modern philosophers, but not all of them.
    [Show full text]
  • SPINOZA's ETHICS: FREEDOM and DETERMINISM by Alfredo Lucero
    SPINOZA’S ETHICS: FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM by Alfredo Lucero-Montaño 1. What remains alive of a philosopher's thought are the realities that concern him, the problems that he addresses, as well as the questions that he poses. The breath and depth of a philosopher's thought is what continues to excite and incite today. However, his answers are limited to his time and circumstances, and these are subject to the historical evolution of thought, yet his principal commitments are based on the problems and questions with which he is concerned. And this is what resounds of a philosopher's thought, which we can theoretically and practically adopt and adapt. Spinoza is immersed in a time of reforms, and he is a revolutionary and a reformer himself. The reforming trend in modern philosophy is expressed in an eminent way by Descartes' philosophy. Descartes, the great restorer of science and metaphysics, had left unfinished the task of a new foundation of ethics. Spinoza was thus faced with this enterprise. But he couldn't carry it out without the conviction of the importance of the ethical problems or that ethics is involved in a fundamental aspect of existence: the moral destiny of man. Spinoza's Ethics[1] is based on a theory of man or, more precisely, on an ontology of man. Ethics is, for him, ontology. He does not approach the problems of morality — the nature of good and evil, why and wherefore of human life — if it is not on the basis of a conception of man's being-in-itself, to wit, that the moral existence of man can only be explained by its own condition.
    [Show full text]
  • PHILOSOPHY 27 Early Modern Philosophy in This Course We Will
    PHILOSOPHY 27 Early Modern Philosophy Michael Epperson CSUS Office: Mendocino Hall # 3036 Fall 2010 Telephone: 278-4535 T & TH 10:30 – 11:45, Amador 152 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: By Appointment Description In this course we will examine the ways in which the scientific and political innovations of 16th, 17th, and 18th century Europe both influenced and were influenced by the rationalist and empiricist philosophical traditions that competed and flourished during this period. We will study the works of several philosophers working within these two traditions as they struggled to make sense of the scientific and social revolutions sweeping through their world; and we will see how their work would, in turn, help shape these revolutions, even as they continue to evolve today. One focus of the course, then, will be to examine the ways in which these philosophical traditions have maintained their relevance and influence in our own millennium as 21st century science struggles with its most difficult questions yet. Our survey will entail a careful reading and critique of the metaphysical and epistemological schemes developed by key philosophers of the early modern period, beginning with the work of Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes and concluding with Kant and his revolutionary synthesis of the rationalist and empiricist worldviews. The course website can be found at: www.csus.edu/cpns/epperson. Requirements Our work will primarily be lecture and discussion, so both careful attention to the readings and class participation will be crucial for a lively course. Please bring your text to class. There will be two examinations--one take-home mid-term paper and one in-class final--as well as several homework assignments and unannounced short answer quizzes on the readings.
    [Show full text]
  • An Introduction to Philosophy
    An Introduction to Philosophy W. Russ Payne Bellevue College Copyright (cc by nc 4.0) 2015 W. Russ Payne Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Contents Introduction ………………………………………………. 3 Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is ………………………….. 5 Chapter 2: How to do Philosophy ………………….……. 11 Chapter 3: Ancient Philosophy ………………….………. 23 Chapter 4: Rationalism ………….………………….……. 38 Chapter 5: Empiricism …………………………………… 50 Chapter 6: Philosophy of Science ………………….…..… 58 Chapter 7: Philosophy of Mind …………………….……. 72 Chapter 8: Love and Happiness …………………….……. 79 Chapter 9: Meta Ethics …………………………………… 94 Chapter 10: Right Action ……………………...…………. 108 Chapter 11: Social Justice …………………………...…… 120 2 Introduction The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so.
    [Show full text]
  • Approaching Contemporary Philosophy Historically
    APPROACHING CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS HISTORICALLY: On IDEALISMS, REALISMS, and PRAGMATISMS, Combining Undergraduate Teaching & Research Cinzia Ferrini University of Trieste [email protected] Abstract: As guest editor of this special issue of Esercizi Filosofici, the author introduces Kenneth R. Westphal’s and Paolo Parrini’s position papers on pragmatism, idealism and realism by elucidating the background and rationale of the workshop she organized on 29 April, 2015 at the Department of Humanities of the University of Trieste, within the frame- work of her undergraduate course in «History of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy». The Appendix lists questions posed by students and by the audience, to which the invited speakers replied in discussion following the presentations; their respective replies follow their main papers. Key Words: Teaching systematic philosophy historically; research and teaching for under- graduates; contemporary issues and modern philosophy; pragmatism. 1. Background The workshop, «A Real Dialogue on an Ideal Topic», with Kenneth R. Westphal1 and Paolo Parrini2 on idealism, realism and pragmatism took 1 Kenneth Westphal has held (full) professorships in philosophy in England (Norwich, Canterbury), visiting professorships at Northwestern University and at the Martin Luther Universität Halle (a.d.Salle), and research fellowships in Heidelberg, Bielefeld (twice) and Göttingen. He has now settled in Istanbul as Professor of Philosophy at Boðaziçi Üniversi- tesi. The main focus of his research is on the character
    [Show full text]
  • 5. Immanuel Kant and Critical Idealism Robert L
    Contemporary Civilization (Ideas and Institutions Section XII: The osP t-Enlightenment Period of Western Man) 1958 5. Immanuel Kant and Critical Idealism Robert L. Bloom Gettysburg College Basil L. Crapster Gettysburg College Harold A. Dunkelberger Gettysburg College See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/contemporary_sec12 Part of the European Languages and Societies Commons, History Commons, and the Philosophy Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. Bloom, Robert L. et al. "5. Immanuel Kant and Critical Idealism. Pt XII: The osP t-Enlightenment Period." Ideas and Institutions of Western Man (Gettysburg College, 1958), 53-69. This is the publisher's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution. Cupola permanent link: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ contemporary_sec12/5 This open access book chapter is brought to you by The uC pola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The uC pola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 5. Immanuel Kant and Critical Idealism Abstract The ideas of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) are significant enough to be compared to a watershed in Western thought. In his mind were gathered up the major interests of the Enlightenment: science, epistemology, and ethics; and all of these were given a new direction which he himself described as another Copernican revolution. As Copernicus had shown that the earth revolved around the sun, rather than the sun around the earth, so Kant showed that the knowing subject played an active and creative role in the production of his world picture, rather than the static and passive role which the early Enlightenment had assigned him.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Language in the Twentieth Century Jason Stanley Rutgers University
    Philosophy of Language in the Twentieth Century Jason Stanley Rutgers University In the Twentieth Century, Logic and Philosophy of Language are two of the few areas of philosophy in which philosophers made indisputable progress. For example, even now many of the foremost living ethicists present their theories as somewhat more explicit versions of the ideas of Kant, Mill, or Aristotle. In contrast, it would be patently absurd for a contemporary philosopher of language or logician to think of herself as working in the shadow of any figure who died before the Twentieth Century began. Advances in these disciplines make even the most unaccomplished of its practitioners vastly more sophisticated than Kant. There were previous periods in which the problems of language and logic were studied extensively (e.g. the medieval period). But from the perspective of the progress made in the last 120 years, previous work is at most a source of interesting data or occasional insight. All systematic theorizing about content that meets contemporary standards of rigor has been done subsequently. The advances Philosophy of Language has made in the Twentieth Century are of course the result of the remarkable progress made in logic. Few other philosophical disciplines gained as much from the developments in logic as the Philosophy of Language. In the course of presenting the first formal system in the Begriffsscrift , Gottlob Frege developed a formal language. Subsequently, logicians provided rigorous semantics for formal languages, in order to define truth in a model, and thereby characterize logical consequence. Such rigor was required in order to enable logicians to carry out semantic proofs about formal systems in a formal system, thereby providing semantics with the same benefits as increased formalization had provided for other branches of mathematics.
    [Show full text]