PHH 3600: Contemporary Philosophy

1
PHH 3600 Contemporary Philosophy

• A History of 20th Century Philosophy

2
Analytic F vs. Continental F

• Focus on logic, mathematics, and language
• Logical Atomism
• Logical Positivism
• Ordinary Language Philosophy
• Analytic Philosophy

• Focus on experience, existence, and being
• Phenomenology
• Existentialism
• Hermeneutics
• Post-modernism

3
Gottlob Frege (1848-1925)

• Founder of Modern Logic
• Key Distinction between sense reference
• Extensional notions Intensional notions

4
What do you know about Bertrand Russell?

• Life (1872-1970)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?viZEWkFA9okI
• Works
• Over 70 books
• Influence and Significance
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vLUaSO9WDcng

5
Descriptions from An Intro. to Mathematical
Philosophy (1919)

• A chapter on the word the in the singular
• Why is this significant?
• The big question
• What is the relationship between language and the
  world?
• A short answer
• Words are names that refer to things in the world.

6
A problem

• What about words such as pegasus, the
  overman,the present king of France (or
  America), and Hamlet?
• Russells answer in brief
• These words are not names they are descriptions.
  Thus, they can fail to refer to something and
  still be meaningful.

7
Indefinite descriptions

• I met a man. I met a unicorn.
• These propositions dont have the same logical
  form as I met Jones.
• Jones is a name with a reference, but a man
  and a unicorn are not.
• They are indefinite descriptions which describe
  nothing (real).
• A robust sense of reality is very necessary in
  framing a correct analysis (11).
• The important point is (12).

8
Definite descriptions

• Scott is the author of Waverley.
• Name a simple symbol, directly designating an
  individual which is its meaning
• Description consists of several words, whose
  meanings are already fixed, and from which
  results whatever is to be taken as the meaning
  of the description (13).

9
The definition of definite descriptions

• The author of Waverley was Scotch.
• (1) at least one person wrote Waverley
• (2) at most one person wrote Waverley
• (3) whoever wrote Waverley is Scotch
• (1) There is an F
• (2) At most one thing is F
• (3) Something that is F is G.

10

• Greatly influenced development of mathematical
  logic and the formal analysis of language
• Towards the construction of a logically perfect
  language

11
(No Transcript)