Empress vs. Spider-Man: Margaret Cavendish on pure and applied mathematics

Synthese - The empress of Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World dismisses pure mathematicians as a waste of her time, and declares of the applied mathematicians that “there [is]...     

Apriority and applied mathematics

I argue that we need not accept Quine's holistic conception of mathematics and empirical science. Specifically, I argue that we should reject Quine's holism for two reasons. One, his argument for this position fails to appreciate that the revision of the mathematics employed in scientific theories is often related to an expansion of the possibilities of describing the empirical world, and that this reveals that mathematics serves as a kind of rational framework for empirical theorizing. Two, this holistic conception does not clearly demarcate pure mathematics from applied mathematics. In arguing against Quine, I present a formal account of applied mathematics in which the mathematics employed in an empirical theory plays a role that is analogous to the epistemological role Kant assigned synthetic a priori propositions. According to this account, it is possible to insulate pure mathematics from empirical falsification, and there is a sense in which applied mathematics can also be labeled as a priori.I am especially indebted to Michael Friedman for his valuable suggestions and criticisms of this paper. I would also like to thank Mark Wilson, Anil Gupta, and Arthur Fine for their comments and encouragement.     

Wittgenstein on Description

Philosophical Studies -     

Wittgenstein on Dreaming and Skepticism

In this paper I aim to elucidate Wittgenstein’s claim that the so-called dream argument is senseless. Unlike other interpreters, who understand the sentence “I am dreaming” as contradictory or self-defeating, I intend to elucidate in what sense one should understand it as senseless or, more precisely, as nonsensical. In this sense, I propose to understand the above-mentioned claim in light of Wittgenstein’s criticism of skepticism from the Tractatus logico-philosophicus to his last writings. I intend to show that the words “I am dreaming” are nonsensical in the same sense as the alleged proposition “There are physical objects” or the expression of doubt about the existence of external objects.

     

维特根斯坦论意志与经验

前后期维特根斯坦都讨论了意志问题.按照前期维特根斯坦的理解,意志的行使或者说内在的意志行为不是任何一种经验或现象,进而受意志支配的行动对于行动者本人来说也不是任何一种经验或现象.尽管如此,意志必定总是与某种感受或关于这种感受的心象联系在一起的,后者之出现与否可以说构成了意志是否得到了完全地行使的判定标准.后期维特根斯坦对这样的观点进行了深入的反省和批评,指出我们既不能断言意志是经验,也不能断言意志不是经验;哲学家们为这两种断言所提供的论证均是不成立的,甚至是没有意义的.     

Wittgenstein on Meaning and Life

This is a paper about the way language meshes with life. It focuses on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work, and compares it with Leo Tolstoy and Saint Augustine’s confessions. My aim is to better understand in this way what it means to have meaning in language, as well as meaning in life.

Wittgenstein on culture and civilization

Wittgenstein's remarks on the nature of culture presuppose a view according to which there is an important difference between culture and civilization. This view aligns his thinking to that of the Romantic tradition in philosophy. It also leads him to perceive ‘the disappearance of a culture’ in our time. In many of his remarks on art and certain artists he expresses this view by attempting to clarify the different ways in which the spirit of man is manifested in modern times (in arts, science, and industry) as opposed to how it is manifested in an age of culture. This article undertakes to describe and explain the remarks which lead him to this view. It then considers whether Wittgenstein was, in fact, correct in his evaluation regarding the disappearance of a culture.