ENGLISH

Conventionalism: From Poincare to Quine

By Yemima Ben-Menahem

Book information

Year
2006
ISBN
0521826195, 9780521826198
LCC
B809.15 .B46 2006
Open Library ID
OL22731182M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1493575 bytes)
Pages
340\340
Scanned
no
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07
Философские дисциплины;Философия науки

Description

The daring idea that convention - human decision - lies at the root both of necessary truths and much of empirical science reverberates through twentieth-century philosophy, constituting a revolution comparable to Kant's Copernican revolution. This is the first comprehensive study of Conventionalism. Drawing a distinction between two conventionalist theses, the under-determination of science by empirical fact, and the linguistic account of necessity, Yemima Ben-Menahem traces the evolution of both ideas to their origins in Poincar?'s geometric conventionalism. She argues that the radical extrapolations of Poincar?'s ideas by later thinkers, including Wittgenstein, Quine, and Carnap, eventually led to the decline of conventionalism. This book provides a new perspective on twentieth-century philosophy. Many of the major themes of contemporary philosophy emerge in this book as arising from engagement with the challenge of conventionalism.

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