The usual function of the ritual of celebrating anniversaries is to combine publicity with reaffi... more The usual function of the ritual of celebrating anniversaries is to combine publicity with reaffirmation. An alternative to reaffirmation is taking stock: critical assessment. Otto Neurath, the second and last leader of the Vienna Circle, wanted only reaffirmation of that movement and its doctrines (see his correspondence). Karl Popper, the &dquo;official opposition&dquo; of the Vienna Circle, flatly rejected Neurath's approach. Reaffirmation, he observed, leads to stagnation and to furtive changes to school doctrines. His anniversaries, then, deserve to be an occasion for critical reassessment. The two recent special issues of
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Basic research or fundamental research is distinct from both pure and applied research, in that i... more Basic research or fundamental research is distinct from both pure and applied research, in that it is pure research with expected useful results. The existence of basic or fundamental research is problematic, at least for both inductivists and instrumentalists, but also for Popper. Assuming scientific research to be the search for explanatory conjectures and for refutations, and assuming technology to be the search of conjectures and some corroborations, we can easily place basic or fundamental research between science and technology as a part of their overlap. As a bonus, the present view of basic or fundamental research as an overlap explains the specific hardship basic research workers encounter.
Ever since I began my philosophical studies, I learned that one of the major issues in perennial ... more Ever since I began my philosophical studies, I learned that one of the major issues in perennial philosophy is whether the whole equals its parts or is more than its parts. That never ceased to puzzle me: I had no doubt that we are all agreed that in one sense the whole is the sum of its parts, in another sense not. To give the simplest example let us consider a machine, a simple machine such as a mere clock. The party that says the whole is the sum of its parts says that in a machine there is nothing more to the whole than its parts: to know each and all parts of a machine is to know it all: and their opponents say, oh no: the machine is soulless; we are not. What this little debate amounts to is that both parties agree on two fundamental theses. First that machines are sums of their parts: second, that living things arc mysterious if viewed as more than the sum of their parts. Those who view every whole as the sum of its parts insisted that each whole is nothing more mysterious than a machine, a mere clockwork. They would then view the whole universe as such; they were called mechanists. Their opponents were called organicists. They agreed with the mechanists about the machine: a machine, they conceded, is indeed nothing mysterious and is no more than the sum of its parts. They agreed that a non-functioning organism, a dead animal, a dead person, for example, is only the sum of its parts, yet a living person is more than that: that is to say, the anti-mechanists declared that an animal, particularly a human being, has a soul that is mysterious, because it is not any part of the human being: it is the whole of a human being minus each of his parts. It is the added extra, yet it is not an extra part. Proof: were the soul a part proper, a real entity, then putting body and soul together would make a whole that equals its parts. The organicist's conception of the soul is viewed by all as mysterious, not the mechanist's conception. There is much confusion in the literature about the little that I have thus far said. For example, what I said makes it clear that Descartes was a mechanist, both with respect to the soulless organisms like cats and dogs, and with respect to organisms endowed with souls, namely human beings. Likewise, what l have said makes it clear that those who deny Descartes' view on the existence of the soul may be mechanists who view the human being as a machine more akin to cats and dogs than Descartes thought: but they also may be organicists who simply deny that the soul is a [32)
Faint praise is usually taken to be politely dismissive, somewhat insincere, perhaps even slightl... more Faint praise is usually taken to be politely dismissive, somewhat insincere, perhaps even slightly cowardly. Yet at times it is just: Alvin Goldman deserves faint praise for one aspect of his new book. He aims to unify or reconcile the view of science as social with scientific realism: scientific theories are best understood literally. In times when the concept " social construct " is used to consign all sorts of things to the hopper of fiction, it is refreshing to be told that science should be taken literally, as realist, while paying attention to its being a social construct. Goldman deserves more fulsome praise for his effort to apply his ideas to practical fields: science policy, democracy, the law, and education. It should encourage imitations that utilize more promising frameworks. Goldman's framework is the rational beliefs of the abstract individual: he fails to reject the classical theory of rationality as the commitment to rational belief, that is, to science. This framework axes all institutional aspects of science and all social determinants of belief.
Otto Neurath was known in philosophical circles as the initiator of a school, the Vienna Circle, ... more Otto Neurath was known in philosophical circles as the initiator of a school, the Vienna Circle, not of its ideas. Yet he had something important to say: observation reports are uncertain, yet science is empirical. This is empiricism without foundations. How does it work? What is the metaphysics behind it? Neurath did not say: he hated metaphysics. The book presents his vague, anecdotal output as if it were increasingly systematic. It also praises him for his having opposed systematic philosophy; he was "an anti-philosopher". He never explained why he debunked (in his 1935) as metaphysical such innocuous common sentences as " there is now a table in this room ," nor how he exempted his own variant of Marxism from this debunking. He followed the conventionalist philosophy of Pierre Duhem. It is not known to what extent, nor how he managed to blend conventionalism and empiricism. Duhem had said that clear-cut refutations demand corrections by changes of meanings of terms, and that when refuted theories are rectified by reinterpretation, the refuted observation-reports which they contain are (automatically) rectified too. Neurath clearly agreed, yet in response to Popper's view of scientific theories as refutable he protested that clear-cut refutations are hardly ever possible. He rejected the demand for empirical foundations of theories in line with Duhem's idea that there is no need for foundations; yet Duhem said this on the ground of his conventionalism, whereas Neurath was an empiricist. Ordinary parlance, he suggested, is so vague that contradictions are seldom articulated within it.
A B S T R A C T The traditional hermeneutic ruling not to use reports and legends for questioning... more A B S T R A C T The traditional hermeneutic ruling not to use reports and legends for questioning edicts and rules signifies the tacit recognition, contrary to explicit statement, of the part of the Rabbinical leadership, of the inevitability of change in diverse aspects if Jewish life. This may invite criticism of the conduct of the ancient leadership, which, as always, is questionable and useless. Rather, an open discussion should be instituted on the proposal to make future changes openly, not surreptitiously; particularly the change from surreptitious changes to open changes is better done openly. 1. Jewish Studies and Rabbinic Studies The modern field of Jewish Studies was inaugurated by Leopold Zunz early in the nineteenth century, as a historical survey of Jewish literature in the broadest sense, including Jewish Law, commentaries, liturgy, philosophy, etc. He left his stamp on the field to date, both in the breadth and scope of the subject and in its character. As to the breadth and scope, even his own work, relatively slender and sketchy as it was, is simply unbelievably huge. These days the requirements from a scholar in this field are staggering; to be taken seriously in it one needs a few qualifications, each of which requires a lifetime of devotion to scholarship. First, the major required competence is in Jewish Law-to the degree attainable only by constant exposure to it from early childhood (see Lieberman, 1974, p. 92; Lieberman takes relish, it seems, in showing that even the leading Jewish historian Fritz Baer was not up to this). Second, one must be a philologist at home in the classics, able to compare Hebrew, Greek and Latin texts, translations, common expressions, legal terminologies, inscriptions, amulets, and more. Third, one must be proficient in a few ancient Semitic languages and dialects. Fourth, one must be familiar with the swelling secondary literatures in diverse modern languages from the writings of Zunz onward. Fifth, one has to be familiar with Church history, the works of the Church Fathers, Canon Law and Church rites. Sixth and finally, one has to exhibit sufficient command of world history, political, social and cultural, as well as of snippets of archeology, art history and whatever else may turn up as relevant to one or another item under scrutiny. It is clear that only few individuals qualify, and they form an elite club like the world's greatest artistic virtuosi. The disadvantage of such elitism is that the elite can play with ideas beyond the comprehension, let alone the critical appraisal, of ignorant outsider like the writer of these lines. Yet as their labors signify for us ignoramuses, we must do our miserable best to comprehend the methods, general criteria and underlying principles involved in their awesome researches, as well as their major conclusions. Remarkably, Zunz has laid the ground rules in this respect without ever specifying them and that with some minor corrections and extensions his rulings still stand, no matter how much the image of the different historical items that he had studied was altered as the field has progressed. (See * Encyclopedia Judaica*, Art. Zunz; see preface to Hebrew translation of his work for a more detailed, accurate and sympathetic presentation.) As noted, the field of Jewish Studies embraces Rabbinical Studies with the exception that, as such, its practitioners do not qualify as rabbinical authorities, and it is not clear what impact they do have on Jewish public life. However much admiration was accorded Zunz and his followers (he had no disciples), the impact they had on Jewish tradition, on Jewish practices, etc. are probably minor. (Even the Jewish communities of the conservative and reform persuasions evolved more under the pressure of circumstances than following Jewish Studies, simply because systematically ignored as much as possible.) Zunz himself was active in Jewish affairs, and his
AND INTRODUCTION Rationalists assign primacy to rational thought, not to action; irrational-ists ... more AND INTRODUCTION Rationalists assign primacy to rational thought, not to action; irrational-ists dispute this. This discrepancy should be recast in view of recent modifications of rationalism. Traditional rationalism ascribes rationality to demonstrated opinions; contemporary rationalism replaces this by some more moderate view. According to traditional rationalism the rationality of actions is borrowed from the rationality of the opinion on which they rest (given actorsÕ goals and circumstances). This creates an unbridgeable chasm between thought and action. It is therefore better to view rationality as a quality of action alone, and take actorsÕ knowledge to be a component of their circumstances, and their search for new knowledge as rational action. As the rationality of opinions, it is now viewed as a matter of tests, which is a rational activity, so that now thought and action may combine. Scientific technology invites further reform of the theory of rationality, with the rejection of the old view of it as applied demonstrable opinion. Technological conduct often rests on institutionalized opinions, not on actorsÕ personal opinions: institutions determine levels of rationality and of social responsibility. Scientific technology depends more on skills than on information; it thus differs from fully articulated knowledge and is differently institutionalized. Scientific technology is an institutional complex of articulated knowledge and skills that depends on social responsibility. The irrationalist view of the primacy of tradition or of action precludes their rational control. Rational control is best attained by democratic legislation aimed at improving the performance level of technology and its contribution to the quality of life. BETWEEN RATIONALISM AND IRRATIONALISM The most significant and painful division in the whole history of philosophy , perhaps also the deepest, concerns reason: the rationalists propose and the irrationalists dismiss the demand that we all use our intellects as best
This is a comment on G. E. M. Anscombe's suggestion that Wittgenstein consistently confronted the... more This is a comment on G. E. M. Anscombe's suggestion that Wittgenstein consistently confronted the challenging Parmenidean idea that uttering false statements is (or should be) impossible. His work thus springs from the theory that meaning presupposes reference. Since we do not learn to communicate by mystically, instantly, projecting ourselves into a fully knowable world, as all traditional theories of meaning permit, any future alternative theory of meaning and of learning to communicate, we propose, should begin by accounting for the fact that learning to communicate is gradual.
The study of the foundations of mathematics is in a crisis: the failure of logicism has invited a... more The study of the foundations of mathematics is in a crisis: the failure of logicism has invited a satisfactory alternative. This should be a better proof theory; Gentzen's natural deduction came to provide this but had a limited success. The discussion on this practically faded out. Solomon Feferman and his coworkers propose tentatively a synthesis that relies on achievements from diverse directions. Presenting sympathetically ideas of Hilbert, Brouwer, Gentzen, Weyl, and Bishop, they hope to change in the standard textbooks of logic. This requires a more problem-oriented presentatlon of the background material that should make the situation more accessible to the ordinary philosophy faculty. 'Ihk invites supplementary discussions of achievements that they are thus far sadly overlooked, especially those of Popper, Robinson, and Lakatos.
The usual function of the ritual of celebrating anniversaries is to combine publicity with reaffi... more The usual function of the ritual of celebrating anniversaries is to combine publicity with reaffirmation. An alternative to reaffirmation is taking stock: critical assessment. Otto Neurath, the second and last leader of the Vienna Circle, wanted only reaffirmation of that movement and its doctrines (see his correspondence). Karl Popper, the &dquo;official opposition&dquo; of the Vienna Circle, flatly rejected Neurath's approach. Reaffirmation, he observed, leads to stagnation and to furtive changes to school doctrines. His anniversaries, then, deserve to be an occasion for critical reassessment. The two recent special issues of
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Basic research or fundamental research is distinct from both pure and applied research, in that i... more Basic research or fundamental research is distinct from both pure and applied research, in that it is pure research with expected useful results. The existence of basic or fundamental research is problematic, at least for both inductivists and instrumentalists, but also for Popper. Assuming scientific research to be the search for explanatory conjectures and for refutations, and assuming technology to be the search of conjectures and some corroborations, we can easily place basic or fundamental research between science and technology as a part of their overlap. As a bonus, the present view of basic or fundamental research as an overlap explains the specific hardship basic research workers encounter.
Ever since I began my philosophical studies, I learned that one of the major issues in perennial ... more Ever since I began my philosophical studies, I learned that one of the major issues in perennial philosophy is whether the whole equals its parts or is more than its parts. That never ceased to puzzle me: I had no doubt that we are all agreed that in one sense the whole is the sum of its parts, in another sense not. To give the simplest example let us consider a machine, a simple machine such as a mere clock. The party that says the whole is the sum of its parts says that in a machine there is nothing more to the whole than its parts: to know each and all parts of a machine is to know it all: and their opponents say, oh no: the machine is soulless; we are not. What this little debate amounts to is that both parties agree on two fundamental theses. First that machines are sums of their parts: second, that living things arc mysterious if viewed as more than the sum of their parts. Those who view every whole as the sum of its parts insisted that each whole is nothing more mysterious than a machine, a mere clockwork. They would then view the whole universe as such; they were called mechanists. Their opponents were called organicists. They agreed with the mechanists about the machine: a machine, they conceded, is indeed nothing mysterious and is no more than the sum of its parts. They agreed that a non-functioning organism, a dead animal, a dead person, for example, is only the sum of its parts, yet a living person is more than that: that is to say, the anti-mechanists declared that an animal, particularly a human being, has a soul that is mysterious, because it is not any part of the human being: it is the whole of a human being minus each of his parts. It is the added extra, yet it is not an extra part. Proof: were the soul a part proper, a real entity, then putting body and soul together would make a whole that equals its parts. The organicist's conception of the soul is viewed by all as mysterious, not the mechanist's conception. There is much confusion in the literature about the little that I have thus far said. For example, what I said makes it clear that Descartes was a mechanist, both with respect to the soulless organisms like cats and dogs, and with respect to organisms endowed with souls, namely human beings. Likewise, what l have said makes it clear that those who deny Descartes' view on the existence of the soul may be mechanists who view the human being as a machine more akin to cats and dogs than Descartes thought: but they also may be organicists who simply deny that the soul is a [32)
Faint praise is usually taken to be politely dismissive, somewhat insincere, perhaps even slightl... more Faint praise is usually taken to be politely dismissive, somewhat insincere, perhaps even slightly cowardly. Yet at times it is just: Alvin Goldman deserves faint praise for one aspect of his new book. He aims to unify or reconcile the view of science as social with scientific realism: scientific theories are best understood literally. In times when the concept " social construct " is used to consign all sorts of things to the hopper of fiction, it is refreshing to be told that science should be taken literally, as realist, while paying attention to its being a social construct. Goldman deserves more fulsome praise for his effort to apply his ideas to practical fields: science policy, democracy, the law, and education. It should encourage imitations that utilize more promising frameworks. Goldman's framework is the rational beliefs of the abstract individual: he fails to reject the classical theory of rationality as the commitment to rational belief, that is, to science. This framework axes all institutional aspects of science and all social determinants of belief.
Otto Neurath was known in philosophical circles as the initiator of a school, the Vienna Circle, ... more Otto Neurath was known in philosophical circles as the initiator of a school, the Vienna Circle, not of its ideas. Yet he had something important to say: observation reports are uncertain, yet science is empirical. This is empiricism without foundations. How does it work? What is the metaphysics behind it? Neurath did not say: he hated metaphysics. The book presents his vague, anecdotal output as if it were increasingly systematic. It also praises him for his having opposed systematic philosophy; he was "an anti-philosopher". He never explained why he debunked (in his 1935) as metaphysical such innocuous common sentences as " there is now a table in this room ," nor how he exempted his own variant of Marxism from this debunking. He followed the conventionalist philosophy of Pierre Duhem. It is not known to what extent, nor how he managed to blend conventionalism and empiricism. Duhem had said that clear-cut refutations demand corrections by changes of meanings of terms, and that when refuted theories are rectified by reinterpretation, the refuted observation-reports which they contain are (automatically) rectified too. Neurath clearly agreed, yet in response to Popper's view of scientific theories as refutable he protested that clear-cut refutations are hardly ever possible. He rejected the demand for empirical foundations of theories in line with Duhem's idea that there is no need for foundations; yet Duhem said this on the ground of his conventionalism, whereas Neurath was an empiricist. Ordinary parlance, he suggested, is so vague that contradictions are seldom articulated within it.
A B S T R A C T The traditional hermeneutic ruling not to use reports and legends for questioning... more A B S T R A C T The traditional hermeneutic ruling not to use reports and legends for questioning edicts and rules signifies the tacit recognition, contrary to explicit statement, of the part of the Rabbinical leadership, of the inevitability of change in diverse aspects if Jewish life. This may invite criticism of the conduct of the ancient leadership, which, as always, is questionable and useless. Rather, an open discussion should be instituted on the proposal to make future changes openly, not surreptitiously; particularly the change from surreptitious changes to open changes is better done openly. 1. Jewish Studies and Rabbinic Studies The modern field of Jewish Studies was inaugurated by Leopold Zunz early in the nineteenth century, as a historical survey of Jewish literature in the broadest sense, including Jewish Law, commentaries, liturgy, philosophy, etc. He left his stamp on the field to date, both in the breadth and scope of the subject and in its character. As to the breadth and scope, even his own work, relatively slender and sketchy as it was, is simply unbelievably huge. These days the requirements from a scholar in this field are staggering; to be taken seriously in it one needs a few qualifications, each of which requires a lifetime of devotion to scholarship. First, the major required competence is in Jewish Law-to the degree attainable only by constant exposure to it from early childhood (see Lieberman, 1974, p. 92; Lieberman takes relish, it seems, in showing that even the leading Jewish historian Fritz Baer was not up to this). Second, one must be a philologist at home in the classics, able to compare Hebrew, Greek and Latin texts, translations, common expressions, legal terminologies, inscriptions, amulets, and more. Third, one must be proficient in a few ancient Semitic languages and dialects. Fourth, one must be familiar with the swelling secondary literatures in diverse modern languages from the writings of Zunz onward. Fifth, one has to be familiar with Church history, the works of the Church Fathers, Canon Law and Church rites. Sixth and finally, one has to exhibit sufficient command of world history, political, social and cultural, as well as of snippets of archeology, art history and whatever else may turn up as relevant to one or another item under scrutiny. It is clear that only few individuals qualify, and they form an elite club like the world's greatest artistic virtuosi. The disadvantage of such elitism is that the elite can play with ideas beyond the comprehension, let alone the critical appraisal, of ignorant outsider like the writer of these lines. Yet as their labors signify for us ignoramuses, we must do our miserable best to comprehend the methods, general criteria and underlying principles involved in their awesome researches, as well as their major conclusions. Remarkably, Zunz has laid the ground rules in this respect without ever specifying them and that with some minor corrections and extensions his rulings still stand, no matter how much the image of the different historical items that he had studied was altered as the field has progressed. (See * Encyclopedia Judaica*, Art. Zunz; see preface to Hebrew translation of his work for a more detailed, accurate and sympathetic presentation.) As noted, the field of Jewish Studies embraces Rabbinical Studies with the exception that, as such, its practitioners do not qualify as rabbinical authorities, and it is not clear what impact they do have on Jewish public life. However much admiration was accorded Zunz and his followers (he had no disciples), the impact they had on Jewish tradition, on Jewish practices, etc. are probably minor. (Even the Jewish communities of the conservative and reform persuasions evolved more under the pressure of circumstances than following Jewish Studies, simply because systematically ignored as much as possible.) Zunz himself was active in Jewish affairs, and his
AND INTRODUCTION Rationalists assign primacy to rational thought, not to action; irrational-ists ... more AND INTRODUCTION Rationalists assign primacy to rational thought, not to action; irrational-ists dispute this. This discrepancy should be recast in view of recent modifications of rationalism. Traditional rationalism ascribes rationality to demonstrated opinions; contemporary rationalism replaces this by some more moderate view. According to traditional rationalism the rationality of actions is borrowed from the rationality of the opinion on which they rest (given actorsÕ goals and circumstances). This creates an unbridgeable chasm between thought and action. It is therefore better to view rationality as a quality of action alone, and take actorsÕ knowledge to be a component of their circumstances, and their search for new knowledge as rational action. As the rationality of opinions, it is now viewed as a matter of tests, which is a rational activity, so that now thought and action may combine. Scientific technology invites further reform of the theory of rationality, with the rejection of the old view of it as applied demonstrable opinion. Technological conduct often rests on institutionalized opinions, not on actorsÕ personal opinions: institutions determine levels of rationality and of social responsibility. Scientific technology depends more on skills than on information; it thus differs from fully articulated knowledge and is differently institutionalized. Scientific technology is an institutional complex of articulated knowledge and skills that depends on social responsibility. The irrationalist view of the primacy of tradition or of action precludes their rational control. Rational control is best attained by democratic legislation aimed at improving the performance level of technology and its contribution to the quality of life. BETWEEN RATIONALISM AND IRRATIONALISM The most significant and painful division in the whole history of philosophy , perhaps also the deepest, concerns reason: the rationalists propose and the irrationalists dismiss the demand that we all use our intellects as best
This is a comment on G. E. M. Anscombe's suggestion that Wittgenstein consistently confronted the... more This is a comment on G. E. M. Anscombe's suggestion that Wittgenstein consistently confronted the challenging Parmenidean idea that uttering false statements is (or should be) impossible. His work thus springs from the theory that meaning presupposes reference. Since we do not learn to communicate by mystically, instantly, projecting ourselves into a fully knowable world, as all traditional theories of meaning permit, any future alternative theory of meaning and of learning to communicate, we propose, should begin by accounting for the fact that learning to communicate is gradual.
The study of the foundations of mathematics is in a crisis: the failure of logicism has invited a... more The study of the foundations of mathematics is in a crisis: the failure of logicism has invited a satisfactory alternative. This should be a better proof theory; Gentzen's natural deduction came to provide this but had a limited success. The discussion on this practically faded out. Solomon Feferman and his coworkers propose tentatively a synthesis that relies on achievements from diverse directions. Presenting sympathetically ideas of Hilbert, Brouwer, Gentzen, Weyl, and Bishop, they hope to change in the standard textbooks of logic. This requires a more problem-oriented presentatlon of the background material that should make the situation more accessible to the ordinary philosophy faculty. 'Ihk invites supplementary discussions of achievements that they are thus far sadly overlooked, especially those of Popper, Robinson, and Lakatos.
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