Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Oswald Veblen, Stephen P. Stich and Roger M. White

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4 ideas

3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
6627 Radical pragmatists abandon the notion of truth [Stich, by Lowe]
     Full Idea: Some radical pragmatists, such as Stich, are ready to abandon the notion of truth.
     From: report of Stephen P. Stich (The Fragmentation of Reason [1990]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.3 n18
     A reaction: Such a proposal strikes me as silly (unless the vacuum left by truth can be filled by something better than just the test of whether 'it works'). It currently strikes me that pragmatism has a sane wing (led by Peirce), and a mad wing.
4. Formal Logic / A. Syllogistic Logic / 1. Aristotelian Logic
23505 Aristotelian logic cannot express 'Everyone loves someone' [White,RM]
     Full Idea: There is no way within Aristotelian logic that you can give a proper expression for the logical form of such a proposition as 'Everyone loves someone'.
     From: Roger M. White (Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' [2006], 1 'Frege')
     A reaction: This needs a combination of two different quantifiers.
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 2. History of Logic
10247 We have no adequate logic at the moment, so mathematicians must create one [Veblen]
     Full Idea: Formal logic has to be taken over by mathematicians. The fact is that there does not exist an adequate logic at the present time, and unless the mathematicians create one, no one else is likely to do so.
     From: Oswald Veblen (Presidential Address of Am. Math. Soc [1924], 141), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics
     A reaction: This remark was made well after Frege, but before the advent of Gödel and Tarski. That implies that he was really thinking of meta-logic.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
4765 Stich accepts eliminativism (labelled 'pragmatism') about rationality and normativity [Stich, by Engel]
     Full Idea: Stich accepts a form of eliminativism (which he calls 'pragmatism') about rationality and normativity generally.
     From: report of Stephen P. Stich (The Fragmentation of Reason [1990]) by Pascal Engel - Truth §5.3
     A reaction: This seems to be the correct position for a Humean empiricist connectionist. Presumably he has some good reasons for eliminating rationality.