Dynamics of Reason
On the philosophy of MICHAEL FRIEDMAN
11.-12. december
Carlsberg Akademi
København
REGISTRATION:
REGISTRATION BY MAIL 24TH OF NOVEMBER AT THE LATEST:
kvr[@]ruc.dk
PROGRAMME:
11TH OF DECEMBER
9.00 - 9.30 REGISTRATION AND COFFEE
MORNING SESSION: "THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY"
9.30 - 10.45 MICHAEL FRIEDMAN
"HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE DYNAMICS OF REASON"
10.45- 11.00 BREAK
11.00 - 12.15 ALFRED NORDMAN
12.15 - 13.15 LUNCH
AFTERNOON SESSION: "KANT AND CASSIRER ON PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE"
13.15 - 14.30 KLAUS FROVIN JØRGENSEN
"KANT'S SCHEMATISM AND CONSTRUCTION IN INTITION"
14.30 -14.45 BREAK
14.45 -16.00 CLAUS FESTERSEN
"FRIEDMAN, CASSIRER, AND THE DYNAMICS OF
MATHEMATICS"
16.00 -16.15 BREAK
16.15- 17.30 MORTEN HAUGAARD JEPPESEN
"A BLIND, BUT INDISPENSABLE FUNCTION"
12TH OF DECEMBER
MORNING SESSION: "NEW INTERPRETATION OF CASSIRER'S PHILOSOPHY"
9.30-10.45 STEVE LOFTS
"THE LIMITS OF REASON: DECONSTRUCTION AS A SYMBOLIC
FORM"
10.45-11.00 BREAK
11.00-12.15 ESTHER OLUFFA PEDERSEN
"CASSIRER'S INTERPRETATION OF KANT IN THE CONTEXT OF
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SYMBOLIC FORMS"
12.15-13.15 LUNCH
AFTERNOON SESSION: "A PRIORI PRINCIPLES IN EMPIRICAL SCIENCES"
13.15-14.30 AUD SISSEL HOEL
"TECHNIQUES OF IDEATION: A DYNAMIC APPROACH TO THE
PROBLEM OF MEDIATION"
14.30-14.45 BREAK
14.45-16.00 MICHAEL FRIEDMAN
"THE DYNAMICS OF REASON RECONSIDERED"
ORGANIZED BY:
THE DANISH RESEARCH SCHOOL IN
PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY OF IDEAS
AND HISTORY OF SCIENCE
(PHIS),
LEARNING LAB DENMARK, THE DANISH UNIVERSITY
OF EDUCATION & SECTION FOR PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
STUDIES, ROSKILDE UNIVERSITY CENTER.
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ABSTRACTS:
MICHAEL FRIEDMAN
Professor of Humanities, Dept. of Philosophy, Stanford University
"HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE DYNAMICS OF REASON"
On my approach to post-Kuhnian philosophy, the relationship
between history and philosophy of science plays a central role. In
particular, by tracing out the development of scientific philosophy
from Kant to the present, together with the developments in the
sciences themselves during this same period, I hope to defend a
relativized version of the Kantian constitutive a priori appropriate
to our own time. Since the particularities of the historical
development are essentially contingent, however, it might seem
that no such notion of historically relativized transcendental
constitutive principles is possible. I show how my historical
argument contains an answer to this problem.
ALFRED NORDMAN
Professor of philosophy, Technische Universität, Darmstadt
The title and abstract will be published as soon as possible.
KLAUS FROVIN JØRGENSEN
Assistant professor, Section of Philosophy and Science Studies,
Roskilde University
"KANT'S SCHEMATISM AND `CONSTRUCTION IN INTUITION'"
Kant's general notion of schema has in recent years been subject to an
increasing interest and analysis. The increasing amount of work on this
important area of the Kantian epistemology owes a great debt to Friedman's
analysis of Kant's understanding of geometry and physics. Now, according to
Kant a concept can be schematised by an agent precisely when the agent has
access to a rule-governed cognitive procedure which puts him in a position
where he in a confident way can subsume objects under the concept.
Schematism can taken as a foundation for most of Kant's epistemology
ranging from empirical concepts and pure concepts to mathematical
concepts. Such an interpretation of Kant's theory of knowledge is not
compatible with a Platonic view of mathematics. According to one such view,
mathematics is abstract and timeless but can be described using classical first
order logic. Now, Kant's philosophy of geometry has been critized for many
obscurities. But it was Russell claimed that it was the lack of modern logic
that caused these problems and Friedman has continued this analysis.
In my talk I will try to discuss some of the problems which arise when one
takes Russell's approach and compare it with an interpretation of Kant's
theory of knowledge centered around Schematism. Within such an
interpretation the notion of construction and construction in intuition cannot
be given up. It is the at the heart of Kant's theory but, on the other hand,
incompatible with a timeless and Platonic view of mathematics.
CLAUS FESTERSEN
M.Sc., Ph.d.-student, Section of Philosophy and Science Studies, Roskilde University
"FRIEDMAN, CASSIRER, AND THE DYNAMICS OF MATHEMATICS"
In his recent book Dynamics of Reason (2001) Michael Friedman articulates and
defends an hierarchical account of physical theories against the naturalistic
challenge of Quine's anti-apriorist conception of scientific knowledge. In
particular, Friedman argues that our physical theories should not be viewed
as a flat web of interconnected beliefs in which all parts function
symmetrically and, for this very reason, equally face the tribunal of
experience (to use Quine's figure of speech). Instead, a physical theory
consists of three asymmetrically functioning parts. The first level contains the
purely mathematical part of the theory and constitutes what Friedman
designates the space of logical possibilities. The third level uses these
mathematical representations to formulate properly empirical laws
describing concrete empirical phenomena. However, according to Friedman,
for this to be possible in the first place, coordinating principles are necessary
whose function is to set up an assignment between the mathematical part and
concrete empirical phenomena in such a way that the laws have definite
empirical meaning. These coordinating principles comprise the second part
of the theory and constitute the space of empirical possibilites. Therefore,
Friedman argues against the naturalistic predicament, they are best viewed as
relativized (i.e. theory-specific) a priori principles.
The second major point of Friedman's book is to explain how this neo-
Kantian conception of physical theories enables us to understand and
characterize the historical development of mathematical natural science as a
progressive, rational process. Here, however, Friedman mainly tries to clarify
the inter-theoretical development of the relativized a priori principles. In
other words, he focuses his attention on describing the dynamics of the space
of empirical possibilities. For that reason, from my point of view, he neglects
to give a much needed account of the dynamical expansion of the space of logical possibilities. Friedman's most explicit reason for this omission is that
he considers an explanation of the rational character of this development to
be more or less unproblematic. But, a closer look at the history of
mathematics reveals that such an account does not only face minor obstacles.
Therefore, in my talk I want to show how we (at least) can begin bypassing
these obstacles with the help of Cassirer's most mature conception of
mathematics and its rational development articulated in his still quite
unknown book Ziele und Wege der Wirklichkeitserkenntnis published
posthumously 1999. In this way, I hope to contribute to the completion and
refinement of Friedman's project.
MORTEN HAUGAARD JEPPESEN
Associate Professor, Ph.D., Department of the History of Ideas,
University of Aarhus
"A BLIND, BUT INDISPENSABLE FUNCTION"
Right at the outset of Critique of Pure Reason Kant makes two basic
epistemological claims. First that all cognition must begin with an object
being given to the mind through intuition, and second that this intuitively
given is not in itself sufficient for cognition, but is further dependant upon
being taken up and worked through by discursive concepts belonging to the
understanding. The role of the imagination is, as it were, to `glue' these two
together - especially in the form of what Kant calls `schemata'; but the notion
of such schemata has often been met with suspicion. For - given Kant's own
epistemological premises - it is not at all obvious that this unification of
intuitions and concepts can actually be achieved. In this paper I will examine
and (try to) defend the role of imagination in Kant's First Critique.
STEVE LOFTS
Associate professor, Dept. of Philosophy and Religious Studies
King's University College at the University of Western Ontario
"THE LIMITS OF REASON: DECONSTRUCTION AS A SYMBOLIC FORM"
This paper will provide a reading of Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms
from the perspective of Derrida and post-structuralism arguing: 1) that the
Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is a form of structuralism; 2) that the
dynamics of reason found in Cassirer's philosophy continuously lead reason
to its limits, in fact to its own deconstruction; and finally 3) that this autodeconstruction
of reason should to be understood as a symbolic form.
ESTHER OLUFFA PEDERSEN
Ph.d.-student, Section of Philosophy, University of Copenhagen
"CASSIRER'S INTERPRETATIONS OF KANT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE
PHILOSOPHY OF SYMBOLIC FORMS"
In the Kant-monograph Kants Life and Work, published 1918, Cassirer presents
some very intriguing interpretations of Kant's critical philosophy. A new line
of thought is laid on the Critique of Pure Reason through the introduction of
the metaphor of the torch of critical reason. By bringing in this picture Cassirer
comes at odds with the traditional neo-Kantian understanding of Kant's first
critique as an explanation of the conditions of possibility of natural science.
He develops this unorthodox interpretation even further in the discussion of
Kant's third critique, The Critique of Judgement.
It is my aim in the paper to show how Cassirer's interpretation of Kant
through the looking glass of the metaphor the torch of critical reason leads up
to and to a high degree determines the theoretical questions asked in the
project of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Thus my thesis is that a critical
reassessment of the Kantian concept of experience in the first critique and a
reading of the third critique as laying a more profound ground for critical
philosophy were major factors for Cassirer's commencement on the project of
the cultural philosophy of symbolic forms. Another important impetus to the
project, off course, was the development of modern science, both the
humanities and the natural science. These threads will be connected in an
effort to show how Cassirer in the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms both was a
faithful successor and a sharp critique of the Kantian heritage.
AUD SISSEL HOEL
Associate Professor, Department of Art and Media Studies,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
"TECHNIQUES OF IDEATION: A DYNAMIC APPROACH TO THE
PROBLEM OF MEDIATION"
At present there is much talk about the material aspects of the media. There
is, however, a tendency in the current academic discourse to regard these
material aspects in isolation from, and even in opposition to, the meaning
aspect. I present an alternative approach in which the material aspects are
understood as intrinsically related to the meaning aspect; the different media
are regarded as different media technologies that involve different material
logics. The workings of the different media are explained, not in terms of
presentation or representation, but in terms of articulation. They intervene in
the world they express, and thus make it exist ("stand out"). The different
media are assumed to form different "families" that open up different
dimensions of meaning: language, image, number. The approach is inspired
by Cassirer, and consists in a further development, or rather, transformation,
of his philosophy of symbolic forms. The impetus to this transformation is
found in Cassirer's own texts, more precisely in his text "Form und Technik"
(1930). The observation that "logos" lies dormant in all tools or instruments
prepare the way for a parallel in function between instruments and symbolic
forms of expression. Next, this observation prepares the way for a new
approach to the problem of "accordance with the world".
MICHAEL FRIEDMAN
"THE DYNAMICS OF REASON RECONSIDERED"
I respond to the points that have come up during the conference, and
re-evaluate my approach in light of them.
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