Logical Empiricism and Practical Philosophy

ICUB Reading Group, convenor: Andreea Popescu (ICUB Humanities Fellow)

Motivation

Logical empiricism seems very far from contemporary social ontology. Its repudiation of metaphysics determines the social ontologist to start from different assumptions, methodologies, and aims. This reading group is a first attempt to recover some of the considerations logical empiricism proposes and to harness ideas that can be fruitful for topics in social ontology.

Topics

1. Carnap

• “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 4, No. 11 (Janvier 1950), pp. 20-40

I think this is a good paper to start with since many of the discussions in social ontology centre around the existence or non-existence of certain social entities. The paper frames a possibility to discuss our ontological commitments and our accounts of social entities.

• “Causality and Determinism,” in Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Basic Books, pp. 187-216.

In the philosophy of action, causality plays a central role in the logical analysis of action sentences. For instance, my throwing of a rock directly brought about the window scatter. Davidson uses this fundamental concept to explain the nature of an action. Something is an action if it is directly brought about by an agent’s primitive action. A primitive action is performed without performing something else. It is thus said that the primitive action is a direct cause of an action an agent performs. We will discuss Carnap’s notion of causality in relation to the problem of causality in the philosophy of action.

1. Hempel

• “Structure and Function of Scientific Concepts and Theories” in Scientific Explanation. Essays in The Philosophy of Science, The Free Press, pp. 135-229

This proposal is best suited for philosophers of social sciences.  We will discuss the following topics: scientific explanation, scientific theories, scientific rationality, and explanations of behaviour.

• Von Wright

Norm and Action. A Logical Inquiry, New York: The Humanities Press.

• Act and Ability, pp. 35-56.
• Logic of Action, pp. 56-66.
• Norms, Language and Truth, pp. 93-107.
• Norms and Existence, pp. 107-187.

Even though not part of the Vienna Circle, Von Wright has a major contribution to the positivist tradition. Two major concepts are to be discussed: action and norms. This contribution sparks the interest of the philosopher of action and the philosopher of law as well. We will discuss topics such as actions and their ontology, the problem of agency, and types of norms and their ontology.