Conventionalism, structuralism and neo-Kantianism in Poincaré׳s philosophy of science

Poincaré is well known for his conventionalism and structuralism. However, the relationship between these two theses and their place in Poincaré’s epistemology of science remain puzzling. In this paper I show the scope of Poincaré’s conventionalism and its position in Poincaré’s hierarchical approach to scientific theories. I argue that for Poincaré scientific knowledge is relational and made possible by synthetic a priori, empirical and conventional elements, which, however, are not chosen arbitrarily. By examining his geometric conventionalism, his hierarchical account of science and defence of continuity in theory change, I argue that Poincaré defends a complex structuralist position based on synthetic a priori and conventional elements, the mind-dependence of which departs him from metaphysical realism

Linguistic modal conventionalism in the real world

This thesis examines the prospects for a theory of metaphysical modality according to which modal truth is determined by conventional rules governing the terms in a natural language. I label this theory ‘linguistic modal conventionalism’, or ‘LMC’. My focus is on articulating and responding to a specific objection to LMC: the objection that conventionalism about the modal features of objects and propositions leads to conventionalism about ordinary objects and non-modal truth. The first part of the thesis sets out the theoretical background for LMC by describing its empiricist and naturalistic motivations, its historical background, and its modern variants. I argue that modern versions of LMC are able to respond to the Quinean and Kripean challenges that faced the theory’s positivist predecessors. The middle part of the thesis is devoted to describing the threat of object and truth conventionalism. I argue that the tight connection between an object’s conditions of existence and its modal properties means that conventionalism about modal properties leads to conventionalism about objects themselves. Similarly, the modal nature of a proposition’s truth conditions means that conventionalism about modal features of propositions leads to conventionalism about non-modal truth. The final chapters of the thesis present a way for LMC to respond to these threats. I argue that the theory should do away with the problematic ontology by rejecting modal features of objects and propositions, and providing truth conditions for modal sentences in terms of linguistic rules directly. After describing the metaphysics and semantics of this position, I conclude by responding to a number of potential objections for LMC, and by arguing that it satisfies the empiricist and naturalist desiderata by which it is motivated

The Methodological Roles of Tolerance and Conventionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics: Reconsidering Carnap\u27s Logic of Science

This dissertation makes two primary contributions. The first three chapters develop an interpretation of Carnap\u27s Meta-Philosophical Program which places stress upon his methodological analysis of the sciences over and above the Principle of Tolerance. Most importantly, I suggest, is that Carnap sees philosophy as contiguous with science—as a part of the scientific enterprise—so utilizing the very same methods and subject to the same limitations. I argue that the methodological reforms he suggests for philosophy amount to philosophy as the explication of the concepts of science (including mathematics) through the construction and use of suitably robust meta-logical languages. My primary interpretive claim is that Carnap\u27s understanding of logic and mathematics as a set of formal auxiliaries is premised upon this prior analysis of the character of logico-mathematical knowledge, his understanding of its role in the language of science, and the methods used by practicing mathematicians. Thus the Principle of Tolerance, and so Carnap\u27s logical pluralism, is licensed and justified by these methodological insights. This interpretation of Carnap\u27s program contrasts with the popular Deflationary reading as proposed in Goldfarb & Ricketts (1992). The leading idea they attribute to Carnap is a Logocentrism: That philosophical assertions are always made relative to some particular language(s), and that our choice of syntactical rules for a language are constitutive of its inferential structure and methods of possible justification. Consequently Tolerance is considered the foundation of Carnap\u27s entire program. My third chapter argues that this reading makes Carnap\u27s program philosophically inert, and I present significant evidence that such a reading is misguided. The final chapter attempts to extend the methodological ideals of Carnap\u27s program to the analysis of the ongoing debate between category- and set-theoretic foundations for mathematics. Recent criticism of category theory as a foundation charges that it is neither autonomous from set theory, nor offers a suitable ontological grounding for mathematics. I argue that an analysis of concepts can be foundationally informative without requiring the construction of those concepts from first principles, and that ontological worries can be seen as methodologically unfruitful

Moral Reality Revisited

Both the moral realist and the relational theses need clarification and motivation as much as they need defense. Because I have recently focused on the relational thesis, in this article I shall focus on the moral realist thesis. I shall ask three questions about the thesis. First, what does the thesis assert? This is a matter of clarifying what one means when one either asserts or denies that moral values are objective. Second, why should we care whether the moral realist thesis is true or false? I shall examine this question both in terms of the impact the truth or falsity of the thesis may have on our personal lives and in terms of its impact on how we should design and administer legal institutions. Third, what reason do we have to believe that the moral realist thesis is true? Over a decade ago I canvassed the reasons many have advanced for thinking the moral realist thesis to be false. Now I wish to make explicit the positive case for moral realism that was largely implicit in the earlier article