“Time of the Magicians” – philosophy's great decade?
theguardian.com
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To be blunt and opinionated, I see the 1890s as asking the questions which we would answer in the 1930s. We found that set theory has gaping holes, and the answer turned out to be that all maths has gaping holes. We found that classical mechanics can't describe ovens, and it turns out that we need QM for describing lots of low-level physical phenomena.
Logic is often classed as a branch of philosophy, and that covers the Gödel work, and more, mentioned.
There is plenty of writing, much of it by real philosophers, about how foundational work in QM, for example, did have profound philosophical implications and did influence the development of philosophy.
The physicists who invented QM had many discussions about its philosophical implications, and these discussions have been studied by philosophers and influence philosophy.
The division separating “philosophy” from mathematics, physics, and even logic is recent and arbitrary.
And finally, if an academic philosopher finds math too hard, that is not a good reason to disqualify it from being considered “philosophy”.
Of the logicians/computational theorists I mentioned, three have their own entries [1][2][3] and are each associated with their own philosophical bodies of work. Von Neumann lacks his own page, but makes up for it by being a recurring secondary character in stories of Russell and Gödel.
The QM physicists fare similarly, but are not credited as Great Men. I am okay with this. Bohr is discussed alongside his Copenhagen school [4], Heisenberg alongside his Uncertainty Principle [5]; but Pauli does not get a full page, being split between [4] and [6], a second Bohr page.
While I haven't shown that these folks are central to philosophy, I think that I've shown that some philosophers definitely consider them to be directly influential upon some part of the practice.
[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel/
[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing/
[3] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tarski/
[4] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/
Whatever meaning you're using, there is something called "Tarski's theory of truth", it uses formal tactics extensively, and describes how to do formal semantics for a language.
Edit: https://www.logicmatters.net/resources/pdfs/godelbook/GodelB... is quite good and includes Tarski's results. There's also GEB, of course.
Tarski's work described a criterion for a theory of truth for a language, and showed how to give a compositional semantics for some formal languages. As you noted, that language does not define its own truth predicate, to avoid paradox, but this is a formal analysis of truth. His work, along with Gödel's, ended the logicist program, but not formal treatments of semantic concepts.
P.S. Don't assume what others have or haven't read. I can't claim any expertise, but I took a graduate seminar on the theory of truth taught by Anil Gupta. That doesn't mean I'm right, of course.
1) A quantum state can exist in a superposition of different states, but once measured, it collapses into one and only one state. If measured again it will still be in that state. So it is "concrete" in that sense.
2) "Contextual" is a word usually used to describe language, not physical measurements. However, if you mean that the state of a system depends on the state of every other system around it, then that, too, is not correct. Special relativity and the speed-of-light speed limit place hard constraints on what can affect an event at a specified time and place.
On your (1), the typical interpretations for QM say that the wavefunction is not ontic, and this is directly traceable to the Copenhagen school of thought. QM is best done when we consider that our knowledge of systems is always partial; it turns out that often, the system itself is also partial about knowledge of own state. I greatly enjoyed reading [0] recently for a coverage of a toy theory exploring this distinction in more detail.
On your (2), quantum contextuality [1] means something more subtle than your phrasing; it means that the state of a system is not the entirety of what is measured by an observer. To use your phrasing and state something very strong, the Free Will Theorem [2] says that the state of a system informs, but can never totally control, the way that a particle chooses to reply to an observer taking a measurement. This both opens the door for new avenues in free-will philosophy while slamming shut the idea that e.g. determinism can be meaningful or possible.
[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0401052
I would just point out that,
a) it's not observer dependent, it's measurement dependent. If you collapse a wave-function in a superposition of states into state A, when I measure it, it will be state A as well. In that sense it is very concrete.
b) surely you can see my confusion at your statement on contextual vs. quantum contextuality. For latter is a technical term, but the former was used in a non-technical way.
It also saw the flowering of both modern literature and modern physics (perhaps only Einstein's great achievements are particularly notable by omission for being slightly earlier).
I don't know enough about art to comment on that.
Certainly it's hard to think of a more obvious recent period of intellectual brilliance than that of the time between the wars, the 20s in particular.
Pretty good decade for physics though; haven't had one like that since then.
But then there was what we now call World War I, which was remarkably destructive and killed of much of an entire generation of young men. And that in turn lead to the Communist revolution in Russia, and great political instability in Germany, which had been seen as the most civilized of nations, which lead to the rise of the Nazis, and also the Fascist regime in Italy. In addition modern developments such as radio and the automobile produced considerably cultural disruption.
All this produced great confusion and despair among much of the intellectual class, and a great many abandoned Liberalism and Enlightenment philosophy. The book in question discusses three philosophers who searched for alternatives, and one who stuck with the Enlightenment.
What will happen in the 2020s-2030s? What will become the new replacement of Neoliberalism? From time to time, I find myself considering this question. The historical background now is remarkably similar. I bet some Hacker News headlines (e.g. "UK votes to leave EU") we've seen has already appeared in a 2060 exam on the early 2010s-2030s, not unlike the our impression of early 1910s-1930s history.
All liberals, from classical liberals to metaliberals, believe in basic tenets of freedom which are required to have a consenting and aware government, like free speech and freedom to keep private property. Neoliberals are right-of-center liberals who focus on fiscal power, consumerist economy, and free markets.
The main distinction worth highlighting is that neoliberalism does not view it as a problem when large piles of money participate in politics. After all, free markets imply that market leaders must know something about something and aren't merely lucky; therefore they are worth putting in charge of government. In Hong Kong, we see this taken to an extreme, with banks directly voting to choose legislators, but we also see variants all over the world, like the infamous Citizens United vs FEC decision in the USA which allows corporations to directly steer political action committees.
Liberalism is the ACLU; neoliberalism is Disney. The ACLU works to defend everybody's rights; Disney just wants to make money.
I hesitate to take this into what might be an irrelevant and contentious side road, but I just want to remark that the ACLU is not considered an organization that defends “everybody’s“ rights by everybody. They’ve historically done a fantastic job at defending freedom of speech, press, and assembly, and also 4th amendment rights. Aside from that, it depends on the cultural background of whatever lawyers happen to have influence in the organization. I don’t think most gun owners would say the the ACLU is interested in defending them against the government’s infringement of their rights to keep and bear arms, for example. And, more recently, they’ve taken stances that some people consider misogynistic, by telling women that they have no right to women-only spaces, for example. Women have increasing reason to feel that the ACLU is not defending their rights, in this sphere. So are they a good example of Liberalism? I guess it’s complicated.
In the context of 20th century liberalism, some rights are more broadly accepted than others. Freedom of speech, press, free assembly, political association, rule of law, religion, property etc... these are the core freedoms.. the liberties liberalism refers to. Gun rights are somewhat unique to America so IDK how to treat them.
Other rights... these are not necessarily "liberal" rights. Socialism, for example, always criticised liberals for leaving workers rights and economic rights out of the equation. The ones that exist in law came about later, from socialist (progressives in US terms) agitations that came from "left" of the liberals.
Women only spaces, other such rights... I'm not sure how they relate to liberalism. Feminism generally has not been a purely liberal movement. It had/has many camps and influences.
Liberalism does not mean support for every right. In fact, early liberalism opposed the "rights and privileges" of monarchs, clergy and the aristocracy. Those rights, for example, are part of the UK constitution, but liberals are against them.
For a deeper look, try this Marxist approach, "The Problem With Human Rights" [0]. As both they and I want to emphasize, the goal isn't to take away rights or to disenfranchise people, but to explore exactly what we mean when we say that people are endowed with inalienable rights and what we want governments to do about it.
Tied to, yes. But the liberals were using a framework that already existed.
The concept of rights was already used in a constitutional way referring to the "divine and privileges" of the King, the "rights and privileges" of Clergy, the Church, Aristocracy & such.
Rights were already seen as the basis of politcal systems.
Marxism is pretty vast, so almost anything can be marxist. That said, Marx himself didn't speak about rights positively, and was critical of liberalism. His premise was that rights don't matter. Material conditions matter.
> Human rights today have the kind of status that the divine right of kings had in the Middle Ages. They are so deeply ingrained in our political thinking that imagining a society without them seems almost impossible.
And then:
> That human rights "simply follow from the definition of justice" [quoting John Rawls] is at the very least a strange claim, because the notion of "justice" has been theorized at least since the ancient Greeks, whereas the doctrine of human rights was not fully formulated until the 17th Century.
The Greeks?
> Ancient Greek philosophers commonly saw what is right, what is lawful, as being determined by the moral order of the world itself. What is right was not to be found in individuals but in the harmonious order of things.
Continuing on the Greeks and Romans (Hellenistic tradition):
> What was due to a person was determined not by the individual rights they possessed, but by their position in the larger community, and their relationship to the other members of the community. The point of such distributive justice was to aim at social harmony, something that can only be understood in light of the community as a whole; rather than in terms of isolated individual rights.
What changed? Christianity. Ensoulment and God crowded out the harmony of the community.
> Because of [the arguments of Christians], gradually, the moral law came to be seen not as something inherent in the order of things, but something stemming from the Will of God. The importance of order is replaced by the importance of will. [...] The result is a morality built on universal abstract rights which emanate from the will of each individual by virtue of a shared human essence.
And that's just the first quarter of the video. Go watch; it's very informative and lays out its sources and citations in a way that are easy to examine for yourself.
I personally think political ideologies are just less complete than their self perception. Liberalism, as a political/historical phenomenon just is what it is. It recognised certain things as "rights of man." Some evolved, others got added. Mostly though, what they invented then is what liberalism is today.
Much of liberalism was related to politics of the day. Monarchism, clericalism, etc. Freedom of religion, association, speech and such were issues of the day. Feminism's boom years were still hundreds of years away. I can't really think of any (old) liberals who even talked about women's issues.
It's not necessarily a question of opposing rights. It's about what rights you recognise or don't.
In Scotland, the "right to roam" exists... which allows you to access private property like farms. In the US, "gun rights" exist.
You could theoretically have any political rights in your version of liberalism. It just happens to have happened, that liberalism converged on a certain set of rights early on and stuck with that.
Neoliberalism in particular is much more common as an epitaph than a self description.
Broadly, liberalism referred to the rational, secular and mostly republican political philosophies of the 18th century. Rousseau, Locke (not a republican), etc. These are strongly associated with the French and American revolutions. ATT "liberal" meant people would have a say in government. Republican had a stronger anti-monarchist connotation, especially after the French Revolution. It meant abolishing the monarchy, aristocracy and limiting the church's power.
Liberalism became the most dominant political philosophy. Even dissident political ideas like communism, corporatism and 19th century conservatism tended to be derivations and/or responses to liberalism.
"Classical Liberals" usually refers to early 20th century people. Much of it is anticommunist, pro-capitalist ideas responding to the explosion of revolutionary Marxism. Many of these created philosophies that pull history, economics and politics into one framework. This was Marx' format, and it became a template of sorts.
This is when people start using "capitalism" in a positive way, describing themselves as capitalists. Marx used the term "capitalist" to mean people with capital, not people with certain beliefs. "Capitalism," implied that capitalists had usurped power and were the ones in charge. Kind of like the term "corporate lobbyist" today.
The nomenclature always seems odd to me, since "classical liberals" come later.
"Neoliberalism" usually refers to free market, antisocialist politics of the 70s onwards. In earlier decades its associated strongly with Reagan and Tatcher. De-unionisation, free trade, and lower taxes & privatisation. David Ricardo is (early 18th century) had a lot of influence.
From the 90s on, neoliberalism refers to pro-market, centre-left politics. By this point, no one calls themselves a neoliberal.. especially the centre left who hate the term. It's associated refers to Clinton, Bush, Blaire, Angela Merkel etc. Most western politicians really.
The idea, broadly, is that the free market makes wealth.. which can then be used to better society. The term itself is almost always used in dissent, considering neoliberalism to be the incumbent system. This kind of completes the cycle. Marx used "capitalism" as an epitath to criticise liberalism. Classical liberals adopted the term. Then they get called neoliberals.
The lines dividing all these are very fuzzy. In its most common current usage, it means politcal "centrist," more or less.
It's more about de facto politics than abstract political philosophies.
BTW: It had been more fun to ask, 'Am I Running Somebody Down To Be Right ?' ^^
Of these, only Heidegger and Wittgenstein are really giants in the field. Benjamin had influence in only a rather circumscribed subfield of philosophy: critical theory. Cassirer is virtually unknown.
So I'm really not sure why this is supposed to make the 20's "philosophy's great decade".
Arguably, Heidegger and Wittgenstein are enough.. but, really, you could easily find many other decades in history when other giants of philosophy lived.
How about the decades when Socrates and Plato lived? Or Plato and Aristotle? There probably were no more influential Western philosophers in history than these, and not only did they live at the same time and know each other, but they were each other's teachers and students.
Or how about the decades of Sartre, Camus, Foucault, Russell, Chomsky, and Popper?
Or those of Rousseau, Voltaire, Hume, and Kant? Or of Marx, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche?
If we expand our horizons to include non-Western philosophy, the choice of "great decades" become even greater. For instance, Confucious was a contemporary of Lao Tzu, and their influence is arguably as great as any of the Western philosophers mentioned earlier.
We could go on and on and on. The 1920s weren't that special.
Benjamin gets short shift in this essay which is unfair; outside the philosophy departments he’s been more influential than he is here credited with.
Popper in particular feels like a hole in that list. If we scoot the decade a few years forward (say 1924-1934), he fits. Seems fair, considering he was busy fleeing nazism att and published soon after.
That said, there is something to it. The pre-WWII era was philosophically charged, and a lot of today's philosophical perspectives derive from that time. You might even throw in Keynes & Ayn Rand. Maybe Hayek. Rand isn't often quoted or referred to, but its hard to deny influence. A lot of "modern"communist thinkers like Trotsky & Luxembourg are most known from this period. They obviously have a following. Whether or not you'd strictly call those philosophers is debatable but..
I'd also say that much of it seems dated and naive from our vantage 100 years later. I'm not sure any of them are destined to be a plato, or even a Nietzsche.