Welcome one and all to the 159th edition of the Philosophers’ Carnival! To submit your work for the next one, please see the the Philosophers’ Carnival homepage.
We have a large and diverse set of entries this time, so gather ’round, step up, step in, and prepare to ponder some philosophical perplexities!
Logic, Language and Mathematics
Who’s Afraid of Veridical Wool?
Over at enigMania, enigMan inquires,
Do we need non-classical logic to resolve the Liar paradox? Or do we need to see that the natural context of classical logic – natural language – has a slight but ubiquitous vagueness? When something is as much the case as not, it is a borderline case; and similarly, self-descriptions like ‘this is false’ are about as true as not. And when there is no sharp division between something being the case and it not being the case, then the precision of any mathematical logic is inapposite.
This post sums up 10 years of thought about the logical paradoxes of modern mathematics.
Two conceptions of criteria of adequacy for formalization: Tarski and Carnap
And at M-Phi, Catarina Novaes discusses Tarski’s and Carnap’s criteria for the adequacy of formalizations. She asks,
In particular, a key question which is unfortunately not asked often enough is: what counts as a ‘good’ formalization? How do we know that a given proposed formalization is adequate, so that the insights provided by it are indeed insights about the target phenomenon in question?
Was the Aufbau meant by Carnap to be a refutation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit?
Continuing our logico-mathematical theme, at NewAPPS Jon Cogburn sums up what we’ve learned about the logical positivists, especially Carnap, through the re-evaluations of Michael Friedman. Cogburn suspects that Carnap may have known more of Hegel than he let on in his published writings, and thinks the Aufbau may be a covert response to Hegel’s critique of sense-certainty.
Propositions: A Neo-Wittgensteinian Approach
Finally, Tristan Haze of Sprachlogik develops an account of propositions inspired by the middle Wittgenstien (i.e., of the Philosophical Remarks / Philosophical Grammar Period).
Philosophy of Art
The Origin of the Work of Art: Hearing the Title Properly
Transitioning to the philosophy of art we have an entry from Pseudonoma of Seynsgeschichte, who discusses the significance of Heidegger’s lecture Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes . The submitter has commented:
Without any of the glib summarizing one usually gets from Anglophone interpreters of Heidegger, the author demonstrates the necessity for Heidegger to dwell on art by indicating a logical impasse which follows from trying to understand origin by way of philosophical definition. The failure of the approach to the essence of origin in terms of thinking requires the thinker to move into the domain of art.
Andrew Huddleston of Aesthetics for Birds talks about opera staging, which is
…the phenomenon of avant-garde productions, of the sort that are common in Germany especially. These are the kind that present the opera in non-traditional ways, not just by altering its costuming and setting (a fairly tame and widespread practice), but by diverging far more drastically from what the text, stage directions, and past performance practice would lead one to expect.
Out Of Step: Punk Music and the Ontology of Rock Recordings
Christopher Bartel, also of Aesthetics for Birds, discusses the ontology of Punk and Rock recordings , and how they differ from each other and from musical recordings of a more classical sort.
Belief
Occurrent and Conscious Belief
At Certain Doubts, Andrew Moon asks his readers whether it is possible “… for any (purported) occurrent belief that I have, that a demon could delete that belief and I still be in the same conscious state.”
Brandon Watson of Siris responds to the above entry.
Miscellaneous
Review of Tyler Burge: Origins of Objectivity
At Wo’s Weblog, Wolfgang Schwarz critically engages with Tyler Burge’s Origins of Objectivity.
Reconciling Scalar, Maximizing, and Satisficing Consequentialisms
Richard Chappell of Philosophy, et cetera thinks that not only are these three forms of consequentialism compatible, but that consequentialists should accept all of them.
The Moral Epistemology of the Jerk
Eric Schwitzgebel of The Splintered Mind invites us, when theorizing morally, to ask ourselves: “to what extent and in what ways am I a jerk?” You’re a mean one, Mr. Schwitzgebel!
A counterexample to Turri’s thesis about justification?
At FsOpHo, Luis Rosa proposes a counterexample to a thesis of John Turri’s about justification.
Finally, at Alexander Pruss’s Blog, Alexander Pruss discusses different views of time, and what they have to say about why it would be bad for you to cease to exist.
That’ll do it for this edition of the Carnival. The next one will be at Kenny Pearce’s blog on February 10th.
