Restructuring Enlightenment (Session 1)

Hello everyone and welcome to the first session of restructuring enlightenment from Carnap's Aufbau to conceptual engineering with Reza Nagaristani. I'll just give a brief description of the course before we get started and then I'll hand it over to Reza. As a direct continuation of the enigma of Carnap's Aufbau, this eight session course will continue to chart the development of Rudolf-Pant-Carnap's thought from the problems arising in Aufbau to to their solutions in light of Carnap's subsequent works, starting from the logical syntax of language to logical foundations of probability. All in all, the aim of this seminar is to make an overall survey of Carnap's main philosophical ambition that begins to crystallize with the Aufbau and the unity of science, that

is, a philosophy equipped sufficiently to rethink and restructure the Enlightenment as a project of systematic universalism, where the unity of all sciences and the translatability between statements made within psychological, physical, and cultural domains have not only profound implications for philosophy and science, but also for an egalitarian universalist politics. From the cautious pluralist attitude of Carnap with regard to the constitution systems in the Aufbau to his paradigms of conceptual engineering and the principle of tolerance, Carnap shows his philosophy to be a new philosophy aimed at rekindling the enlightenment. and that reinvigoration of the Enlightenment, which is at once constructive critical philosophy, is reinvented anew and the project of Enlightenment is restructured in accordance with

the developments in areas encompassing science and engineering, economy, and politics. So without further delay, I'll hand it over to Reza. Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much. Hello everyone. So this is our first session. As usual, we always start the class with people introducing themselves, talking a little bit of their background, where they're coming from, and why they have taken the course. And I think today what we are going to do is going to briefly talk about the trajectory that this course is going to take with regard to the

topics that we are going to cover down the line. You know, essentially where we are coming from with regard to Karna and where his philosophy is headed after Aufbau, which was the previous seminar. Then we will, again, in a kind of like a compressed way, we talk about some of the main issues that are significant with regard to Carnap's philosophies, connections or links with the Project of Enlightenment. We will highlight these, briefly talk about

them and next session we will start um you know our more systematic uh course uh starting from um sort of uh the kind of problems uh within off-bow of which Karnap becomes aware and lead ultimately to his next major work, logical syntax of language. And of course, logical syntax of language, we talk about this, that how it breaks away from that epistemological concerns or no Kantian core of off-bow,

which is like the early Karnak, and moves toward the logic of tolerance, conceptual engineering, and all that jazz basically, the enlightenment that Karras, Andrew Karras thinks that these are basically the core of a renewed enlightenment within Karnak's philosophy. And we will of course, down the line will assess whether they are really the core of enlightenment or simply modified modules of the old enlightenment right instead of being a radical breakthrough right so

so I think that's yes so we start with I guess everyone introducing themselves. I don't know who wants to start. And you can pass the mic. I can just go through the list. Would that be easier? Sure, that would be magnificent, yes. OK, so I'll just read them in order to have them. Arman, do you want to go ahead? Sure. Hello, everyone. I'm Arma, I'm from Iran. I don't have much of a background really in anything, but I'm here for, of course, both Karnav and how Senegalistan thinks about Karnav,

but also the reconstruction or re-enjury concept, which I think is very interesting. And as a follower of Reza's line of thought, I think this Platonistic project is very, is a broad interesting project that he picks up from Karna to this day. And I'm here for that because I think it has a very, it has very broad, broader implications that only philosophy. So that's it. Alessia? Thank you, Armand. Okay, please. Yes. Yeah, I also don't really have any kind of like philosophical ground. I don't have any specific training, but have a general interest.

um and yeah that's my second experience second time taking uh classes at the new school so I'm I don't know just uh just just interested in general in um in philosophy and the classes that um I was finding on the website so I don't know not really sure what what to say you know at this point. So I anticipate some difficulties, but I'm excited as well. So what sorts of what sorts of philosophy are you familiar with? Yeah, that's a good question. What do you mean exactly? For example, just thinkers or, you know, a specific school of thought.

um yeah well I recently started reading one of your books um which is Cyclonopedia and um I would that was exciting I've been reading a bit of Delos but it's hard to read um to read him without a proper um philosophical background so I then I started you know decided to go um back to the creed philosophy and started you know kind of like educating myself that's the best yes yeah starting from the beginning so um yeah so i would say i've been reading things here and there but then realizing that i need you know like more information to understand the newer

concepts so i was constantly going back and like reading i see yeah things myself so it's not that I really have any foreign idea of what kind of philosophy I'm interested in. Sure, sure. No, that's good. That's magnificent. That's great. My suggestion would be that I'm absolutely stick with your way of doing philosophy. I mean, you can always, I mean, to be honest with you, with philosophy, in terms of, there are two ways to do it. One, as you're doing it chronologically either backward or forward right or uh starting from uh hedging the funds as in your cognitive funds on for example different periods like for example the greeks

plato and aristotle medieval platinus renaissance descartes spinoza modern hegel cant and then uh 20th century, I don't know, whatever you like to pick. That would be also a good way to kind of having a kind of forming a synoptic view of philosophy, my way of approaching works from different periods, understanding that philosophy is proud of its history. And it is essentially the history of philosophy that's important, not the philosophers, right? So that actually, that idea that you will start from the history of philosophy rather than a specific, you know, period,

that's also a very good way to look at it. Plus, you don't get bored. That plotting yourself through second book of Metallistics by Aristotle is actually not a good idea. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good suggestion. So I mean, I tried to read not only philosophy, but things, you know, like around it, some kind of studying history of arts and some cultural, you know, aspects around those periods. And like, I don't know, that's just, yeah, I guess just gives it. Sure, definitely modern philosophy should be, if particularly about it said that history of art modern philosophy you should definitely start work on it. Kant

would be basically the main figure. Look I mean you don't need to these books are difficult all of the philosophy is difficult. No but if you are reading like them like novel yeah everything is so simple but when you get to to the nitty-gritty of philosophical arguments and start to really tackle them like a philosopher, then they actually extremely difficult, very difficult. But good thing is that majority of these works, major works in the history of philosophy right now have hundreds of secondary literature, which are actually, some of them are quite useful.

So you can always supplement it with these commentaries or secondary literature. I will. Thank you. Absolutely. Should I stay? Should I go? No. Anyway, I'll see how it goes. I'm excited. Absolutely. Absolutely. My pleasure. Thank you. The next person is Brian. yeah hi i'm uh brian kobalars i we know each other yeah we've spoken on twitter a couple times oh we have seen each other in new york have we yeah yes you came to my one of my talks i think

labor of the inhuman if i remember correctly i'm not sure i've maybe it was a while ago but um yes Yeah, well, it's nice to see you again, man. I have an undergrad in philosophy. I'm mulling over whether or not I want to go to grad school. Confusing question. I'm here because I'm interested in conceptual engineering. I have been interested in it now for about five years. I've spoken to a couple of the people spearheading it in the ivory tower the academies and I was president at the NYU symposium in 2017 and yeah I'm just I basically have an unhealthy relationship with conceptual engineering and I want to be even more unhealthy and learn more

and just lose my mind and yeah that's why I'm here excellent Ryan thank you So next person is Connor. Hello, I'm Connor. I'm currently enrolled an undergrad degree for mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio. But most of my side time is spent with philosophy and it's like nothing serious. It's really just being like. What are you doing here? What are you doing here? um i'm interested in karnat because i read too much marks in high school and um i think that um um i'm like the uh what's the quote from the it's like the man who builds this house on sand i need

a firm foundation um and that example would be god but this one would be karnat right so the thing is that karnat actually is the one who builds the house well um hopefully this house will be a better structure because uh i've been reading some stuff and i really don't enjoy the uh like the reduction of all like philosophy to like marxology which is fun sometimes to learn this is actually worse you you get the reduction of everything into something called the given the heirloom elementary experience that's that logic I've also been watching a lot of nothing serious, a lot of random lectures, been really enjoying that. Fantastic. I love hearing his voice. His voice is fantastic. Yes, his voice is superb. And the beard, of course, the dignity of me.

Thank you so much, Connor. Cassia. Hi, everyone. My name is Cassia. I'm based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have a background in philosophy, I'm a graduate student and also have a background in noise and experimental music. And currently I'm writing a master's thesis in which I investigate the conditions through which the contrast and just the position of counterfactual models of sociality and mind and our own can generate enough friction to completely transform our transcendental structures of experience, dismantling belief systems and word pictures such as capitalism and patriarchy.

And for this I use mostly Reza's intelligence and spirits, xenofeminism, and Mateen's conception of alienation in social dissonance. Thank you so much, Cassia, and great to have you again. Dilshad. Thank you. I think Dilshat is on a surgery, that's why. Oh, hello, how are you? My name is Dilshat, I'm a medical doctor. I have no background in philosophy. I took Reza's previous seminar on Carnap, so I hope to continue the series of lectures as well. So, looking forward to it. Absolutely. When he says that I don't have any degree in philosophy,

philosophy, it means that I actually can do philosophy better than other philosophers. Definitely not. I'm just an autodidact. So those are more dangerous people. Are you there, Edna? Sorry. Yeah, I'm here. Sorry. Hi everyone, my name is Edna. I'm from Mexico City. I'm a student of philosophy in undergrad school. What else? I don't have too much to say. I translated the last year, an interview of Reza,

the one called Engineering the World, Craft in the Mind, and it's in my book, and that's it. Thank you so much. I'm grateful to have you again. Absolutely. Thank you. Felipe? Felipe? Hi, hi everyone. I don't have an academic background, but in the last couple of years I started watching stuff from the New Center Archive and accompanying the rise of the new rationalism and fell in love with it. So right now I'm here and I'm nurturing, when time permits, a very unhealthy love for philosophy

and mathematics. And I will probably enroll in an undergrad in philosophy here in Portugal in September while I do this certificate program. I'm overall interested in philosophical pedagogies. And well, I'm halfway through the Aufbau. I feel a bit unsure of tackling the rest of Carnap's work right now, but why the hell not? Thank you so much, Paul. Thanks. Absolutely magnificent to have you here. Maria? you're still on mute Maria we can't you

can you hear me now yes sorry for the sound I'm very glad to see everyone my name is Maria I'm an art critic, so that means that I am more or less familiar with a few of the Marxians thought, but not the rest of the philosophy. And I wanted to set it straight. And the current seminar helped me to understand that we do not exactly have to write arbitrary things somehow loosely based on Freud. We may make a system. This was a huge, I don't know, huge inspiration for me.

Yes, actually, today, by the way, it's really good to have you here, first of all, again. Thank you. Now I'm reading Kazeer and trying to understand his debate with Warburg and how I can make use of it. Any of you, Maria, I don't know, have you, any of you seen this book that came from Urbanomic on Jean Cavallier? There is apparently Jean Cavallier and Kazirier and Karner, they go into some sort of conference and they meet. I don't know. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm sure that it's going to be a horrendous outcome out of it. Two German logical empiricists meet some Frenchies.

That's not a really great idea. Or Heideggerians for that matter. But yes, that's magnificent. Yeah. In fact, there's something I want to actually talk about. There is this book. It's a very obscure German philosopher, right? His name is Zien. Sophie, is it Zien? Z-I-E-H-N, something like Zien? never no i don't know what you mean the pronunciation how do you pronounce it in germany what zian yeah it's it's yeah yeah let me let me actually give you the um but does it begin with s

with z z zian no i don't know it doesn't sound german at all uh it's um one second It's Z I E H E N. Z. She's not done. Z. I don't know. Z. I don't know. Okay, I spell it again. Can you. Z I E H E N. Yes, Z I E H E N. z-i-e-h-e-n yes that's i don't know what that is what is he a philosopher he's a philosopher yes

he he wrote one book on experience and cognition and a massive book uh called system simply called system. Yeah, yeah. I think he's German because all of his books are in German. ZYEN BASZETTEN- Ah, ZYEN. I'm sorry. I thought ZYEN. No, ZYEN. Yeah, that's German. ZYEN BASZETTEN- Okay. Thank you, Sophie. Sorry. So, yeah, so he writes this book. There are fragments of it in English and some other languages,

but I haven't seen it only translated. It is actually one of the main influences on Carnap and later system theory, you know, from Bert Lanfi to Lohmann and all of the, this is really the germ of, because you see, obviously throughout the whole German idealism or German philosophy, high German philosophy, there was this high emphasis on systematicity, right? But this the first book that actually makes the concept of system explicit. I will talk about it and you can actually research a little bit about this. It's a really good book,

really good book. Our next friend. Yeah, the next person is Sebastian. Hi, I'm Sebastian from Mexico. I study literature in an undergraduate level. I write about contemporary art and poetry. I'm interested in reza talk. That's why I'm here. I am not familiar with analytic philosophy, but I'm going to do it with this course and my other readings. and that's all I'm happy to hear. That's great. I think that you will suffer this class very much

for it being analytic philosophy. But don't worry, suffering, that's good, yes. As long as you enrolled for it and you're basically loving it, that's fine. Suffering is good while you love it. Thanks. Vincent? Hi, my name is Vincent. I am based in Manila. I have an undergrad in language and literature. I'm also kind of a philosophy dilettante, but I'm curious about a continuation where Carnap's Aufbau might left off based on the previous seminar. Currently, I'm interested in the design and fixing of concepts in relation to world making and a kind of universalist policy.

by the way, Vincent, I, my apologies, I have been super overwhelmed. I have read your essay. I have put my dairy paws all over it. I will send it to you, the feedback, and then maybe we can actually meet I will tell you some some of my feedback. Thank you. Sophie. Hi, I'm Sophie. I studied philosophy years ago in my 20s, early 20s didn't really finish it, and went on with art and I'm now doing art and I'm also reading still philosophy and I'm especially

now interested in the later Karnab and also in conceptual engineering and yes that's why. Thank you. So he's a great artist. We met in CalArts. Zanubio? Hi, can you guys hear me? Yeah, okay. So I'm Zanubio, I'm from Brazil and I'm finishing an undergraduate degree in design, so I'm turning a designer researcher, but I've had some basic background in chemical engineering and physics in my early beginnings at the university,

but I've dropped out. And right now, I'm holding on to not changing again my kind of career to to philosophy, but I'm going to keep to doing design and bringing this new. Design is actually a superb discipline that goes with philosophy really well. I mean, people always say that mathematics goes with philosophy really well. But I think that design is one of those undervalued disciplines that actually is like a weird sister with philosophy, right?

They can go, they can come hand in hand. I mean, I have a few friends who are, they got their PhD in design, right? And they basically turn into philosophy of design. And they have done magnificent, wonderful jobs, really great stuff. Yeah, it's absolutely, you shouldn't go to philosophy. I mean, all your forts in design program, yes. Thank you. I think that's everyone, unless I've left anyone out. No, I think that's it. Let's have a rest for, I don't know, like five to 10 minutes,

and then we come back. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

And you can start whenever you. Oh, I was waiting for you. I mean, I don't have anything else to say. Oh, OK. Well, you didn't introduce yourself, by the way. Oh, well, I mean, I don't really like doing it, to be honest. But yeah, I mean, I'm Enda. I've been in the previous classes. I guess I have a background in philosophy and in art. I'm kind of somewhere between the two, seeking out communism as the form of the good, or that kind of an approach, sort of political approach to philosophy or philosophical approach to politics, maybe.

But yeah, that's kind of what I'm here for. I mean, yeah, I have thoughts about Carnap and everything, but I'll save them for the seminar. Absolutely. Thank you so much. So coming back to our class, perhaps it's actually good to talk about a little bit about Afbau. You know, of course, we are going to talk about it more in details. I mean, this was, for those of you who didn't take the previous seminar, the previous seminar was on Avbau, logical structure of the world, right?

ConApp's first major work. Of course, we are going to, next session, we are going to talk about the problems that lead to its downfall. even for Carnac himself understands these shortcomings of his first major work. And his radical response to shortcomings paves the road for what Carnac becomes later, right, as a philosopher of tolerance, logical tolerance and conceptual engineering. Now, so perhaps it's best to talk a little bit about the status of logical empiricism

or logical positivist. I prefer the term logical empiricism, as I have talked about it in the previous seminar, rather than logical positivism. talking about its extremely controversial relation with other philosophies. Think about no rationalism is bad. Think that logical empiricism is worse. It's a brand of philosophy that doesn't want friends. In fact, friends are not good. It attacks every single philosophical school of its own time, right? And that's just not really a good idea in the history of philosophy. So, but nevertheless,

they do it systematically, like, and it's made of an extremely rich, intellectually rich philosopher, with, of course, different political inclinations, but mostly emancipatory. In in fact, all of them are imaginary, just that political inclinations can go from extremes of left to kind of a centrist liberalism, like Maurice Shevich, Nouroth being on the socialist side. And Karnak always trying to stay away from, philosophically speaking,

away from the hot air of political adventurism of his time. He's of course famous for being one of the first anti-segregationist philosophers in the US, anti-Nazi, anti-fascist, and so on, so forth. So his activism is quite impeccable for his time. So, yes, so why is that this sort of philosophy that is in fact emancipatory creates such a vehement negative response from literally from every other school of thought of its

its own time to the point that logical empiricism just means that you are knucklehead dogmatist and nothing more. It's just quite savage to the point that, so I mean, the first attack that comes to Vienna's circle is by none other than Quine, two dogmas of empiricism. which caricatures the position of Kornap to an extent. So they, so we should understand that, you know, coin is on their account. They are all analytic philosophers, right?

And in fact, Vienna Circle really, they founded what we now today know as analytic philosophy. So, Quine is definitely on their side as an analytic philosopher, but he also caricatures their position into dogmas. And of course, this gives a certain kind of currency to other people, continental or analytic, which absolutely hate logical empiricism, Carnap in particular.

They start to say that, look, if your greatest ally, which is Quine, has turned against you, then that means that you're really in deep trouble. So as metaphor, I can say this. The hatred of logical positivism started with two dogmas. Then came in the 1980s, that people were talking about 10 dogmas of logical empiricism, not just two dogmas. So there is actually an essay. I think it's called Seven Dogmas or Eight Dogmas of Empiricism. Yes. And of course, as I mentioned, people also then become the Frenchies and the Heideggerians

who absolutely have zero knowledge of what these people are doing. And basically really, you know, dismiss them as being extremely dogmatist, parochial, pig-headed, so on and so forth, right? And this is kind of like a cautionary lesson for all of you are trying to do philosophy, systematic philosophy, and you go on Twitter and attack your enemies, uh you bully them, and so on and so forth. I should listen to my own lessons. And um so this is so we are going to talk about this and why is

is that such a systematic form of philosophizing creates such a devastating form of controversy and caricaturization in the history of philosophy to the extent that when you want to insult a philosopher or a position that said, oh, this is a positivist. This is positivist. They're not positivists. Like only pigs are positivists, aren't they? We are going to talk about this, but that would be also a kind of the arch of the narrative of the entire seminar that to show, not by excusing Carnot position or the entire Vienna

circle, but by demonstration showing that such criticisms are vastly watered down. Meaning that in fact, you could actually attack them far more vehemently, far more aggressively, but for all wrong reasons, unfortunately. So, let's start with Carnaps of Bauer. Please, those of you who have always been in my classes, whenever you want, because I'm

reading the texts and can't see you, just turn on your mic and ask me a question. you for example uh wants you know an explanation even if look this is most important thing majority of the questions are not about real uh oh what do you mean by this argument and that but sometimes the concepts like a simple concept we don't know that concept right um just turn on your mic uh ask me that Reza what does that mean it just doesn't we are doing philosophy I mean not all of us know everything I mean even professional most professional philosophers sometimes don't

know certain kinds of concepts and even in their own discipline right so absolutely feel free interrupt me whenever you want if there is a time that I don't want to be interrupted I will say it loud and clear, but that's not the time, right? So, it's, I think, the idea of, the core idea of the logical structure of the world, which is is popularly known as aft-bow or structure, was founded on one single main problem in

philosophy. This is a philosophy, as I mentioned, philosophy is nothing but its own history, So this philosophical problem that's becomes the core of of Paul and to a great deal, the core of Vienna circles work, is something that is inherited from the 19th century German philosophy. It is the child of German idealism, 19th century German philosophy. Southwestern, no Kantianism, school of thought, but also,

you know, even people like Schelling, you know, those sorts of, you know, German idealists. So what is this problem or this issue, this concern? The problem can be characterized as the polarity between Leaven and Geist, life and spirit or life and mind. that literally everything that happens during the phase of high German philosophy is about

a clash, not negative, not merely negative, but rather dialectical, dialectical clash between leaven and Geist, life and spirit, life and mind. Philosophy of life and philosophy of mind in the vein of German idealism. And Aufbau begins with this issue, this main concern, that it has inherited from a long tradition of German philosophy.

This becomes, as I mentioned also, the core of any sort of philosophy, not just Vienna Circle, any sort of philosophy that's arise at the beginning of the 20th century. There are essentially a reaction to the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic when Noah Kantianism was the leading major academic form of philosophy or school

of thought in Germany. Right? Karnab being one of the most ambitious of all bunch in the Vienna Circle, had his mind early on, from even before writing off Baal, on precisely resolving the polarity, resolving this conflict, eternal conflict, between Lebanon and Geist, life and spirit. Of course, for those of you who were present in the previous seminar, we mentioned that

his major attempt, first major attempt to resolve this conflict between life and spirit life and mind, was engineered by way of a certain form of eclecticism that he's outsourcing his philosophy to various schools of thoughts. some of which he actually vehemently hates. Or at least things that are basically not worthy of the name philosophy.

But nevertheless, he outsources his philosophy in order to resolve this issue by way of myriads of schools of thoughts. We talked about Noelkantianism, Machian philosophy, phenomenalism, phenomenology, Weingers, counterfactuals, as if thought experiments, so on and so forth. he's doing it all. And then, but these are all, however, this eclecticism is not a sort

of arbitrary whimsical strategy that you launch simply, that you can simply resolve the eternal clash between Levin and Geist by way of resorting to a rabid pluralism. Right, that's not exactly his, yes, he's a pluralistic thinker in a methodological sense, but that's not really his main strategy, precisely because all of these methods and the schools of thoughts that he inherits and he tries to outsource his philosophy to, in order to resolve the problem,

ultimately need to be integrated by the new tool of the new for a new philosophy. And what is that? It's Frege's or post-Fregeian concept of logic. Logic is the integrative tool, hence logical construction of the world, right? That ultimately logical integration of all experiences. That's the key for karma. So pluralism, in this sense, is not pluralism for the sake of pluralism, neither in the realm of methodology

nor in the realm of attaining the solution to the problem of the clash between life and mind. but rather it is what you might call to be a necessary step to address different facets of the set clash. But only under the supervision of a renewed philosophy. Bootstrapped from its old metaphysical quagmire

by a tool called logic. Right. Can I ask a question here, Reza? Absolutely. So in the previous seminar and in the introduction of the one which I was reading at the start as well, you were using the word constitution system. And in the book, it speaks of a constructional system. Constitution.

Okay, and I'm kind of curious as to like, you know, is this a purpose of sort of use of this term? Because I've seen it also in Kassarer where he's talking about a constitution system, but it seems more in a kind of, I guess, less as a constructive procedure as much as something that might be based on a kind of, like a Kantian sort of understanding. or something like this? You see, the early version, the early version, I mean, the one that at least in Karnab, in Afao, that we are dealing with, is absolutely constitution. And it is, for some honest,

unspeakable reason, has been translated as construction, yeah, logical construction of the world. but no it's um it's actually constitution precisely because yes constitution why because remember enough wow our ground zero element is experience experience is what constitutes everything else right in in karni the thing is that however, this session, this seminar, I'm going to use the word construction. And I'm going to explain why. Precisely because the role of experience, the constitutive role of

experience for all human sciences is being replaced by the role of construction. Construction in the sense that logic is finally freed from the clutches of human intuition and experience. Right? So I was trying to do a weasel move and kind of like do a flash forward, why I'm using the word construction here instead of constitution that I used to use previous session for Afbau. I'm using the word construction here so I can prepare unsuspected minds

for what is yet to come. So, sorry, yes. So, essentially, we should understand off-bowl at the very least is under three major influences. Levin's philosophy, philosophy of life, Neokantianism of Hermann Cohen and Paul Nator, which basically plays a major role in Aufbau.

Remember, Aufbau is a book that purports to be an epistemological, logical project about the world, about any statement that we can ever make about the world. So, those of you who didn't take the previous seminar, Aufbau has one single formula in the broadest sense. It is a book, a project, which has a two-fold characteristics or characterization.

It is epistemological and logical. Epistemological in the sense that it ought to answer to the question of human experience, of what we have, of the world that we experience around us. And also it ought to address or respond to the question of logic. How will we, how we construct or how we construct experience, how, how experiences are being constituted and how we can reconstruct them, we can restructure them, such that we can actually talk about, Felipe has this experience of the world, and now we can scientifically talking about

that specific experience of Felipe, like seeing a red dot turning into purple, and not something else and not something else. For us to do that, you need to have a logical pole of this project and not just the epistemological one. Logical reconstruction of any sort of experience is the most necessary aspect of talking about any sort of experience. Because Because if you can't logically reproduce an experience, then most probably you didn't have that experience to begin with. It's just think about this, a naive example I'm using here, a comparative and might be

misleading, but for now we hold on to it. about this, that there is no scientific fact if it cannot be scientifically reproduced. Have you ever heard that, you know, thing, you know, that look, this is pseudoscience because we cannot scientifically reproduce it, reconstruct it, right? The same thing can be said about experience. If you can't logically reconstruct experience, then most probably it is not an experience. It's a pseudo-problem of experience. Questions? Heckling?

Yeah, I have a kind of a weird idea, I don't know if this would be a philosophical problem, but could we, without having this basic concept of conceptual engineering I've read, I've listen to, could we not reconstruct an experience, but kind of make different experiences or not renewed, but very, not very different, like putting the, bringing the basics, the

the basic, say, kind of blocks of experience we have, like construct this logical or with this logic and make something without kind of a, I don't know in Kantian terms, maybe a synthetic a priori or something like that. Zenobia, my apologies. I want to be very outspoken, frank. I know that why you are trying to do this. Let me do the vulgar version of it for everyone.

Can we have a goddamn new experience after all? But of course, the idea of a new experience is vulgar, precisely because today, oh, I have a new experience, right? without any sort of criteria of what new what experience might be right simple as that having all that um what you might call to be careful thoughtful factors involved can we have actually a new experience right of the world of the furniture of the world yes that is the whole point though. Kant himself thinks that there is no experience if he does not have an epistemological input. Simple number one thesis of Kant. Now Carnot goes even further. That is not an experience

if it cannot be logically reconstructed. That doesn't mean that we cannot have a new experience, But for something to be called experience and not something else, it should have epistemological import, allocant. But for something to be called an objective experience of the world, it ought to be logically reconstructable. Of course, we are coming back to this with regard to the issue of conceptual engineering, that conceptual engineering is kind of like a lubricant for having new experiences.

My apologies, that sounded wrong. I'm going to get canceled again. It's only been an hour, hour and a half after this. I'm not supposed to make a Stalin joke, so I'm only doing lubricant jokes these days. So any questions? Arman has been, you know that Arman is a good friend of mine. Arnon has been quite suspiciously silent. Yes, actually, no, I had a question. Of course, you said, yes, I had a question, but I don't know if I can yet articulate it properly. That was why I was hesitant to ask it, but I would try.

In what you said about logically reconstructing experience and it's different, and the difference between the epistemological approach to it and the logical approach to it. Something that when we use the experience as if it is something we encounter in the world through our senses and stuff like that, then we try to logically reconstruct that we wouldn't be come to at the end an epistemological level of the question for example let's say I experienced no no no I think that enough I see what you are trying to do

you are trying to look that ultimately if it is experience even if the logical reconstruction of it should be subjected to epistemological inquiry epistemological testing right that's a fairly kantian position though but the thing is that that is a fundamentally also a wrong-headed position that kind of realizes this with regard to our file that first of all when we are saying that logical reconstruction of experience in order for it we can call it an objective experience because remember the question of experience is a question that is ought to be understood in terms

of objectivity of experience right can't 101 critical pure reason and the objectivity kind of tries to hijack it in uh on behalf of the logical reconstruction and not epistemology that objectivity comes from the logical reconstruction now the thing is that In Aufbau, even in Aufbau, as we talked in the last seminar, the sort of logical relations and logical reconstructions that we deal with early on for elementary experiences, like for example,

a spatiotemporal similarity relations are extremely rudimentary. They don't even have have what you might call to be epistemological import. They are basically quality classes that are, that are being organized, that are being organized by way of logic as a tool. I will talk about this that in fact, Karnam has an essay, under-recognized essay called Chaos. I have forgotten the full title of it, Chaos.

So chaos is really about this. Chaos is that at what level we can say that our project of reconstruction of experience begins. Or we can say that we have an experience of the world. Whatever. It says chaos. What is chaos? Conflux of sensory data. Sensory data that can be ordered, hence transition from chaos to order, which is the main motif of our flow. from, from having nothing to say about the world to saying statements, objective, factual

statements about the world. That transition, transition from chaos to order in, in the Kantian sense, from the conflux of sensory data to objective and critical political judgments about the world, statements. Now, this transition at the most elementary, primitive level is conducted by creating quality classes of similarity relations, and

between sensory data. That itself is a logical task and not an epistemological task. So essentially this later on becomes a big, what you might call to be, revelation for Karna, that he He had it already, the answer to all of this. That it is logic that ultimately makes experience. By attaching or by ordering chaos, and chaos would be the sensory data

and their relations, similarity relations in the first place. Sorry, is logic absent in the chaos? Logic is absolutely absent in the chaos. Logic is the ordering transition in early Karna. And Brian, I think I found one classic question. Yeah, I was wondering then, could we then like, could we then say that we could start the other way with logic that then would allow us to experience something unexperienced before. That is absolutely the whole case. That's a more mature corner beginning from the logical syntax.

So it's about conceptual engineering would be rearranging those preconditions of experience in a Kantian sense, such that we may then have a new experience. Absolutely. and allows us precisely because it shows us the possible ways of reconfiguring these chaotic elements. It also points to the limits of experience, transcendental experience, trying to mark or test its own limits. From Carnap's perspective, it is impossible to do that. And that is one of the main issues that he has with Neokantians and Kant in particular, that transcendental experience cannot be the source of

its own critique. It's blind to its own pitfalls, its own shortcomings. Epistemology is blind to blights of its own shortcomings in this sense as well. It's logic that takes a new role. So this is this is the moment that Carnac, beginning from the logical syntax of language which we will talk about, begins to simultaneously move away both from his Freedian dogmatism

and from his Noah Kantian influences. The question from Felipe. Hi. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't know if this is a jump, but by distinguishing early Carnot from later Carnot, so when he at first classified the ordering of experience, the ordering of the previous conflicts of sensory data. From that to the later Carnot, which is the one who talks about conceptual engineering as the reordering of those initial conditions,

can we say that this conceptual engineering through logic is the self-correcting facet of reason this specifically this or this is just a I wouldn't I wouldn't say it's self-correcting I don't maybe maybe maybe it is but we are going to when we get to the logical syntax of language we are going to read this magnificent essay by Steve Audi and Andrew Karras called The Dream of Infinite Ocean. It's on Carnap's logical syntax of language versus Wittgenstein's idea of language, which they call

it the Kantian straitjacket or Wittgensteinian prison. I would say that this is not even self-correcting precisely because you see when we are saying you know transcendental structure, transcendental philosophy, and transcendental logic by extension as an extension of it, already have this idea of self-correction, self-correcting reason. We have it in Sellars, we have it in Noah Kantianism, so on and so forth. But the thing is that, as I mentioned just to Brian and Armand, is that one of the main issues here is that how can experience, transcendental

experience rectify its own shortcomings. If you are already in a prison, right? If you have, if, if the view of experience being the primary is itself parochial, how that sort of parochialism can unparochialize itself, right? That's something that's kind of begins to work from after off-bottom by showing that you can't expect objective experience to criticize its own shortcomings,

It's own pitfalls. You need to bring an element which is not experiential, but out of which all experiences are constructed. Or by way of which, not out of which, my apologies, by way of which all experiences have been constructed. I think Connor has a question there as well. Hello. I was wondering, I don't know if this is off topic or taking us away from anything, but how fair would it be to compare the project of rational reconstruction to, I'm sorry to bring this back to Brandon because everything I'm kind of obsessed with him right now.

Meaning use analysis, like in his from his John Locke lectures where it's like a strict vocabulary describes another ascribes another like a set of practices and abilities to describe other things would you like say that rational reconstruction with like logic that's not rational reconstruction though rational reconstruction in Karna is a very specific project that intermediates between off bowels epistemic logical dimensions and later conceptual engineering rational reconstruction yeah, I mean, in Brandome is a different meaning in Brandome's sense, but in Carnar, rational because structure is fundamentally different. We will talk about this, but yeah,

I know what you're talking about in terms of that conceptual, say conceptual engineering. These are two different, fundamentally two different categories. uh yes um conceptual engineering or explication is absolutely that uh but it's even more than more than that precisely because there is an element of tolerance logical tolerance meaning that you can make your own concept i can make my own concept it's just that if you are going to make your own concept you'd better be prepared

to put every in extreme case in extreme case this usually doesn't happen but you should be prepared in extreme case and you should get you should have read it already to make the syntax the logical syntax of your language as explicit and as clear as possible. You cannot just make some new concepts without clearing or putting on the table the toolbox you use to create that kind of concept, and that would be logical syntax. Essentially, this is, I think, people care says that Carnap is

a hero of pragmatism, right? And I don't believe in this. Actually, Carnap hated the pragmatism for the most part. Pragmatism, he thought it's wishy-washy. You know, oh, we have the meaning as used when you are saying use what sort of or this kind of explicitation of vocabularies what sort of tools are you using to explicitize a vocabulary what sorts of tools are you making methods uh for syntax in this logical syntax are you has gone to your concept is it kosher or not right, philosophically kosher or not. So in fact, I think Mormon, with another great commentator

on Karnab, is right. I think the idea, I mean, this is, this is every, I think that I feel that once in a while, history of philosophy usually tends to people who have been wronged to bring them back. And Carnap is absolutely one of them. Absolutely he has been wrong in the history of philosophy, caricaturized by people who absolutely don't know nothing about him. But they actually make really ridiculous ideas in order to basically dredge him up from the, you know, from the swamp of philosophical history by saying that, oh, he's one of the greatest pragmatists of all time.

No, goddamn Carnap is not pragmatist. You don't need to over inflate Carnap's pragmatic commitments to render him as a martyr of American pragmatism. He's not. Could I ask on this point, unless anyone else had something, whether this is kind of, you know, kind of speaks about the functionalization of the concept or object, which is not a reification, but a kind of, you know, yeah, I guess like a, it has a functional role within a constitution or a constructional kind of system, right? That's a logical rule, that has logical role

that only becomes palpable with logical syntax. The functional role has always been the logical role. And the thing that Kana thinks that this large, this functional role had been hamstrung by his misguided overemphasis on epistemology. I don't know Kantianism, right? it we are going to talk about but that's let me functional okay my apologies one second give me one second one minute actually i will be back

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. My apologies, sincere apologies.

Any more questions before I move forward? Sophie, I have a job for you. You are going to pronounce this title for us in German. Okay. Yeah. I'm embarrassed to read it. Here.

Okay, I understand. Erkenntnistheorie auf psychophysiologischer und physikalischer Grundlage. goodness tell us your version of translation oh my goodness oh um it's like a cognitive theory or or uh yeah yeah cognition theory um of psycho physio like body physical logical and and

this is why no one should learn German they can't even translate their own titles I mean I don't understand there are like three words in one in this yes that's a problem but it makes sense somehow. Yes, yes. Thank you so much. So yeah, I was saying that the three main influences of Kaurapinaw, one was, as I mentioned, Neokantianism. The other one was, what was it, the life philosophy,

philosophy of wine, you know. And the last one is a sort of a Mackian, Ernst Mack, Mackian monism, and which is, whose main provenance during the time of Carnap's early age, early philosophical works is Theodor Zien. And this is his book, his main book. We can call it just simply cognitive theory, cognitive theory, right? Now, it seems that, you know, it's just, as I mentioned, he's outsourcing his philosophy too much in order

to resolve the clash between life and spirit. But actually, it is not, precisely because all of these, what you might call to be all of these schools of thought, Levin's philosophy, Hermann Cohen, Nothorp's Novocantineism and the Machian monism, their ultimate goal is to shed light precisely on the clash between life and spirit. There are what you might call to be different apertures

opened up to the same problem. Now, the before I think it is actually not published um the the the his work called uh chaos corrupts chaos uh i mean it's published now but at the time it was not published it was an unpublished manuscript and they they are the main these influences are the main uh uh driving forces of uh chaos which you might call to be the aura of bow you know the original of power before even of wow was written uh sophie this is the thing you are going to read for us

again don't worry we are going to pay you new center money is good oh it's easy from and chaos to wait from chaos to world from chaos to world yes that that i mentioned to you uh that this is simply the ultimate ambition of collapse of battle from chaos to world from chaos to system ordered reality a structuration a structured reality but a structure not in a sense that what you might call to be fascism or fascistic dogmatic kind of worldview where basically

we everything that we have is is super chaotic and we are move we are going to make an order new order out of this, a new world order. No, essentially what he's interested in is the old fashioned good tried and true enlightenment. What is the project of enlightenment? that science ultimately or sciences allow us to make a transition from a confused world conception

to increasingly more robust subtle world conceptions. Give me some money for standing him like this. Go on, Cassia. My apologies. Reza, can this problem of the clash between life and experience be translated somehow in trying to think the relations, the possible relations that we can envision between formal languages, the use of formal languages and the use of natural language? Because this confusion

and ambiguity of natural language is a great concern of Carnot in the early works. Yes, yes, absolutely. So yes, in fact, it starts from experience to kind of a logically, logically reconstruct experience in Afbau. But later on, it becomes from natural language to formal language, from formal language to something better, explication, whereby you can actually create, explicate the concept of probability. And through the explication of the concept of probability,

re-understand the nature of language itself, natural language, logical probability 101. So you see that there is a twist in this. It's not simply saying that, oh, well, you know, we are moving from natural language clunkiness of natural language to formal language. Quine also has it. But with Carnap there is a certain ingenuity, ingenious twist at the end. The transition from natural language, the vagueness or in in in in exact concepts forced in natural language to formal language where you can make potentially more

exact concept coincides with the possibility of an account of a machine that can capture all the richness of national language and even more and even more that that's the computational thesis that is at the late chapters of logical foundations of probability we are talking about it we are going to talk about that why then carna seems to be quite aware that if this is the course of enlightenment that what you just said is the

course of enlightenment ultimately moving from inexactitude given to us by way of natural languages experience or the manifest image a la cellars toward more exact scientific this that coincides with AI artificial intelligence in the strongest possible sense And that's, I think, is not a haphazard result. I think that most probably Carnap had already thought about it, because this is exactly the thesis that Solominov, who used to attend

Carnac seminars in the US later on develops into Solominov's account of universal or optimal learning machine. The need for the classical idea of subject in the Kantian sense is finally rendered redundant. Not object, simply objects in its entirety, but the Kantian idea of subjects in that specific sense that Karnab had been using since Afbawr or chaos is being rendered redundant.

We don't need it. We can actually, all of the stuff that the subject could do, that we attribute it to subjects such as having experience having authenticating experiences to factual as a matter of factish statements can be done by a machine a machine that reconstructs the principles of having experience in the first place sorry why wouldn't call the machine a subject and we would get rid of the subject because that would create a lot of confusion you know right no he's on a shit list of every person who actually believes in in canadian subjects at this point so he doesn't

want to basically does that again and the idea remember um i don't know what you actually watch all of the sessions of the previous seminar there was a session that by the way where is gabriel gabriel neves he asked a question really great question that do you really think i said that well i have to think about it he said do you really think the collapse of bow ultimately leads to the redundancy of subject David Kasher, And do you believe in that? Arun Karolikovic, I think so. Yeah. David Kasher, It does. David Kasher, Wouldn't be, wouldn't it be wrong to call it that?

Arun Karolikovic, It's what you might call to be, it creates an extremely, it doesn't, it doesn't get rid of the subject, it creates an extremely deflationary account of subjectivity. David Kasher, Yes. Yes. Wouldn't what finally comes out of Alfvau as the result of the project, wouldn't we call that a subject? I mean, the whole construction of the constitution system, isn't the goal of it to explicate this very term of subject? Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, yeah, absolutely. This is definitely so. I mean, it's all about explication at this point. So yes, universal learning machine in a Carnap sense, it doesn't

call it universal learning machine, it's just called it, I forgot Sophie, I will, Sophie's missing in action, I will send it to Sophie. There is actually quite a nice word for it. Yes, I think that yes, if you're talking about explicating the concept of subjects such that we are not talking about the commonsensical idea of subject, nor we are talking about Kantian subject, but rather the Kantian subject itself is comprised of different levels of activities and characterization. And in that sense, yes, Carnaps doesn't actually get rid of the idea of

subject but rather explicate replace the replace the explicando which we call the subject with an explicato a more exact concept which called subject two or subject three as a you know of a subscript marker for it. Let's hold on. We have great people who might have problem with some of these. We are not going to go all the way in doing stuff,

naughty stuff, in high philosophy. Some people are autodidact here, including myself, and we need to explain it in simple terms. So, Alicia, any questions here? I know, I'm sorry, we have got overboard with this super technical stuff, but please ask us a couple of questions. So I know that you can actually getting the links. You don't need to at this point, you don't need to get the full picture. Right. But nevertheless, it's important for you to get vignettes of this discussion.

And of course, you can always integrate them as you move forward. Yeah, thank you for your attention. I feel like I might need to, you know, digest that a little bit. I feel like it kind of overall makes sense. I guess when it gets into details, I'll like start Googling stuff. Is there, for example, a concept, a line of thought, even the simplest one just doesn't matter. Like even a word. For example, you have a little... Yeah, I actually have a... Go on, go on then, please. Yeah, sorry. Just wanted to clarify the concept that you used for it. So when you talked about the clash of life and spirit.

So what was the word for life? And I'm curious. Sophie, how are you doing? Drawing again? It's Leven? Leven, yeah. Leven, Leven. Leven, not Leven, Leven. okay okay okay okay cool this is why you should not learn german it's not going to be working well yes life and a spirit but i mean a spirit in the sense i mean the word geist is extremely complex mind collective intelligence collective intellect all of this stuff uh i mean

Sophie, what is exactly Geist in German? Sophie is our Siri that is specifically made in German language. I think you explained it quite well, no? The collective consciousness. Yeah, collective consciousness or self-consciousness. Thank you. I promised asking more silly questions. but these are important these are absolutely important thank you so much Sophie thank you Sophie yeah don't worry you are going to have a by the way I haven't responded to your email now I'm going to respond to your email

right about the readings yeah Yes, I mean, so there are these kinds of stuff that are going already in Carnap's work. My apologies. Bill Chad has a question, Reza, if you've got a minute. Sure, sure. Yeah, hi, Reza, sorry. I had two questions. and one suggestion. No, you can't have two questions and one suggestion. You can only have one question. Go on now. No, I'm just kidding.

Okay, okay. The distinction you draw between life and mind, I'm curious about the exact definition of what it means. What do you mean by life and what do you mean by mind? Because I'm sure you're aware of the pragmatist distinction of erlebnis and erfaring if I'm pronouncing them correctly you know the different pragmatists talk about erlebnis in the sense of experiential life and erfaring in terms of like what Brandams calls the thought cycle test operation test cycle so I'm curious about whether do you mean by life in terms of experience no no no

That would be just pragmatism. That's not German idealism. That's absolutely not. Essentially, this is, I would say, that the complete misrepresentation of German philosophy, that unfortunately, Brandon tries to hijack the richness of this dialectical clash between life and mind in the name of American pragmatism, and particularly his own brand. I love Brandon. I love Brando, but unfortunately that is not the case. So do you mean by life in purely biological? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Life actually in German idealism absolutely has nothing to do with biology.

It has organicism, it has organicism, but that is not really fully what you might call to be, can be subsumed within biological theories of, that we have at this point. No, it is definitely, what you might call to be life, both life and mind are instances of the holistic philosophy. all right but obviously this brings a question then why is that you know if they are both holistic

philosophy then why is that they are in a clash because they they have specificities and the task of german philosophy for a great long time is to highlight the specificities of these two interconnected holes, life and mind. It's not as if life is against mind or mind against life, but the German philosophy, high German philosophy, begins with this idea, and this is before the rise of German romanticism, in fact, that even though they are are sharing the same ground, have some commonalities, both holistic concepts.

But obviously we cannot simply equate life with mind, because that would create a massive amount of philosophical confusion. So German philosophy begins with this idea that insofar as we cannot align the distinction between these two holes characterized as such, and of course, these characterizations do change in the high German philosophy, then how can we integrate them at the end of the day? Integration rather than fusion, that's important one. Mind is different from life. That doesn't mean that they cannot be integrated, though.

But as I said, integration is not fusion. It's not that we are going to turn them into one thing. Can I go to the second question? Sure, sure. In the previous seminar, I read a few papers by Andrea Karras and another philosopher Jeffrey something I don't remember his second name you know the even the title of the the people were called you know Carnap's Voluntarism they continuously ascribe his philosophical inclinations as as Voluntarist and I remember we asked you it's not really Voluntarism to be honest with you in fact I would say it's completely the opposite um it starts from

from what extremely, look, the, both on the philosophical and political level, the project of Vienna Circle begins with a volunteeristic position, right? But I would say that middle And late Karna, no, absolutely not. That doesn't really hold any ground, that sort of. Because, I mean, isn't it the whole point of conceptual engineering and post-logical syntax, the idea that we basically, that experiences are being made by something fundamentally impersonal,

right, called logic and being reconstructed. That is against any sort of voluntaristic thesis, right? And the thing is that this is something that Karras hasn't done that. To be honest with you, Karras is a really good reader, but as I mentioned, is getting a little bit too overexcited about Carnap's political agenda and so on and so forth. Yeah, exactly. Doesn't matter, though. Doesn't matter. I remember your answer. You said, you know, volunteerism requires some symbol of intersubjectivity. but for Carnap you know the auto psychological determination is what constitutes you know intersubjectivity itself but intersubjectivity comes later so absolutely and in the later works

also that look intersubjectivity when we are talking about intersubjectivity we also need from if we are becoming mature Carnapians we have to we have to explicate it what do we mean by intersubjectivity at what level? When we were saying intersubjectivity, do we mean something like this shoddy Habermasian rational communication? Or do we mean something more like a Kantian idea of intersubjectivity, that every objective claim is intersubjective? That's also Hoster theses, right? Or do we mean intersubjectivity as being determined by logic? So Karnap is

on the latter. This doesn't mean that he's, he's, he doesn't, he basically gets rid of the pieces of intersubjectivity in its entirety. No, it doesn't. It's just that his intersubjectivity It takes place at a certain level that does not allow those or certain kinds of voluntarism that we usually associate with intersubjectivity as an explanandum, meaning an inexact, colloquial, common sense idea of intersubjectivity, whether philosophically or not.

I don't think that Kana is a volunteeristic thinker at all, but that doesn't make him a philosopher that wants to basically throw the baby with the bathwater with regard to the question of intersubjectivity. last point sorry sorry i'm the last one to tell you how to teach but if it's not too much can you please when during the lectures can you share the points that you are you know teaching from because sometimes it's difficult to concentrate on what you are saying because you know okay how about

this from next session not this session uh this from next session i would create you know i i know what i'm going to talk about even though probably all of you have noticed that i'm a freer styler when it comes to teaching i i don't want a script i think that's that's just not that's rude to people yeah i understand just for example i will i will i will definitely i know yeah so i want to to say that I know what I'm going to talk about, even though I give myself some liberty to how do it. But I will definitely make a list, like four or five max per session. These are the kind of stuff that I'm going to talk about, like the punchlines.

I will definitely include some Stalin jokes too. people have told me that I shouldn't actually make jokes, Stalin jokes, but they didn't say to me that I cannot make jokes about Stalin jokes, whatever they might be. I think Maria has had a hand up there that Maria wants to ask the question. Yeah, I wanted to ask where we can find the life philosophy in Carnap. I thought it might be perhaps how we perceive things and quasi analysis. It's some kind of colloquial agreement between people, but I understand it incorrectly, of course, because this is a Heideggerian understanding of

of talks between people and why we cannot assess truth. This is the Heideggerian reading of life philosophy, but Carnapis is different. And I wanted to understand how different it is in what aspects. Essentially, this is a really tricky question. Really good question. Yeah, Heidegger is a bloated living philosopher, right? Living philosopher. Sophie is now looking at me weirdly. In the sense that he wants to talk about life as if we had a concept of life. As if a concept of life was given to us

in the fact of having an experience. But that's obviously nonsense. Right? How can the concept of life can be given to us by something that is going to become life for us, the concept of life. That would be just a vicious circle. So what we are going to do, it begs the question. So what Karna was trying to do is saying that, look, our idea, this is actually, it's already, you see, philosophers, when they are good, when they are great, actually,

I have noticed that they have a gift, the Socratic gift, the Platonic gift, that even if you're talking out of, my apologies, your butthole, when you are young, but nevertheless, you are talking about certain kinds of main important issues. For so many years you forget about them but they always come back and haunt you. And then you notice that this has always been the motif, the underlying problems of your own work. But that

doesn't happen until a philosopher becomes mature intellectually, not by age but by intellect. The same thing about Carnap. So Carnap already sees all of us in Afbā, it's just that he doesn't have a way to articulate them as the main issues, as the underlying issues behind all of his works. It is only later after negating his earlier works that he comes back and rescues some of the most important parts of his earlier philosophy. The same thing about this,

about the question of life. The question of life for him happens, as I said, on two different levels, one at a very basic level, meaning that we have sense data. That's life. If you have sense data, you're a living creature. But sense data doesn't tell us anything about what life is, does it? It's chaos. as he says, chaos. You need to bring it into an ordered system, namely a world.

And only then you can reflect back on what life is. Stage one of this project. Stage two, Let's assume that we indeed create that sort of organization, that orderly world that could reflect on the relations and relata between the sensory data. that we created experience and then we could reflect upon the experiences that we have as humans regardless our cultures but then we can have through the same kind of systematicity

create a sort of reflective perspective apertures camera on our experiences which are quite context sensitive, culturally and politically. And that this becomes the fundamental aspects of the late Karmann, to move from experience one to experience two to experience three, which is from completely context insensitive to completely context sensitive experience, culturally and politically, that this is a trajectory

of really the enlightenment, to shed more lights. Not just, my apologies, not just to shed more lights on the experiences we have bottom up, but also being capable historically, relatedly to criticize and if possible, change the very experience of the world we had. I have a follow-up question to this, if it's okay. If I'm not misunderstanding what's going on here,

you could maybe make the analogy with what Carnap is doing and what Carnap conceives philosophy to be as in some sense, building of the armature that is kind of like both retrospective to experience, but also conditions the possibility of future experience in the sense. And of course, I'm not saying that there is some kind of primordial experience that happens before any of this, it's always kind of along a continuous line. But nonetheless, I'm not sure, other than in terms of like negative constraints on, you know, what the possibility of future different new experiences might be, does this philosophy have anything to say in terms of practices, or is that, would that be the same thing or am I being quite like...

No, no, I mean you're bringing a question, this is, I think that this question is hard to answer. Do you know why I actually saw that you brought John Dewey as a pragmatist, a critique of Carnar. Look, Carnap for all of his life stick to a very systematic distinction between theory and practice. Absolutely under no circumstance he would have given this away because that's Carnap. That's not a goddamn pragmatist.

honest with you, I am on side of Karnat on this level. I'm a Platonist, so what does Plato actually talks about? You know, what does the distinction between theory and practice translate to mature Plato, the king of all philosophers? What is it? He basically identifies this distinction between technique and episteme, know-hows and know-whats. So in everything that we do, in fact in how we concept, make a concept about a thing, about an object, like pendulums we go back and forth between know-hows and know-whats.

Some of our know-whats, how we know that this is such and such kind of object, requires know-hows of how we are going to deploy some sort of concept, so on and so forth, and the other way around. Know-hows and know-whats can always decompose to one another, most probably, and the thing with pragmatism is that majority of the know-whats can be decomposed to know-hows. Ultimately, all know-whats can be decomposed to know-hows. But unfortunately, or fortunately, actually fortunately, they don't want to turn this into some sort of that every sort of criteria of speaking about the world as we know it can be simply reduced to the techniques of knowing the world.

Otherwise, there would be Latourians. Because isn't it the whole idea of Latour, you know, that every know what's knowing what about the world will be ultimately reduced to knowing how to approach the world simply to tools and toolboxes and stuff. So pragmatism doesn't want to do that. But I think that Conap was too polite to put an end to this charade of American pragmatism by saying that what is your safety trigger for the pragmatist thesis to not in fact fall

into Latourian pitfalls. For that every know-whats episteme to be reduced into techne, to know-hows. And simply, you will no longer ask questions about the world, but you simply think that techniques is your final solution to approaching the world. I think the Carnap is far more subtle. And I absolutely take side with Carnap for even wrong-headedly, even wrong-headedly. But I don't think, I don't know, well, the man is dead. Would be magnificent if we could ask him this question.

But I would say that I actually think that the fact that he sticks to the hard distinction, not hard distinction, to the distinction, to a distinction between theory and practice to his depth is absolutely magnificent. I think that any person for the sake of creativity, for the sake of making, for resolving the problem, problem tries to lower the boundaries between the two, will end up doing some really shoddy philosophy. By that I mean Harman level of shoddiness.

So Reza, how can we then interpret your claim in Intelligence and Spirits about the coincidence of ethics and logic as both a system of recognitions and a system of cognitions? That's a, that's a, you know, that whenever I actually, someone asked me about that, so Reza, what do you think about your, this thing, and, you know, now I'm thinking, oh shit, I'm now in trouble now. I wanted to tell Cassia that, look, this book came in 2018.

And sorry, I think that it's a shit book. I'm not going to talk about it, as always. But the thing is that I think this is actually an interesting question. I need to think about this. But let's look about this with regard to the question of Vienna Circle. Vienna's position with regard to the question of ethics. Obviously, there are people like Maurice Schellick, Norath, Feigl, even Karner. They hated the idea of morality, moral philosophy.

I mean, moral philosophy in the technical sense, moral philosophy. But nevertheless, they had an idea of ethics. So of course, we are going to take this whole introduction because we are running out of time to the next session. One of the things is that early Karna, like really baby Karna was into value theory, axiology, really, theory of value theory, axiology. But the thing is that he, that was Rickert, Rickert influenced Karna. He fundamentally put it behind.

But then he came back to Rickert and started to think about value theory, the same thing as Herbert Feigl and a bunch of others. For them, this became the whole idea of the Vienna Circle, the idea of logical reconstruction of experience and so on and so forth. was not excluding the sort of social, political, mutual recognition, the activist part of the

a circle. In fact, in his own autobiography, Carnap talks about this. And he references Feigl, Herbert Feigl, his friends, where it's a book where Feigl actually comes up with the term later Carnap uses, it's called scientific humanism. Scientific humanism. Scientific humanism is what you might think about this idea of cognitive, recognitive. Humanity taken into a political stratosphere.

This is what they talk about. I apologize for one sec. So this is 1949 Feigl's work. He says that scientific humanism is a moral position comprised of the following four principles. One, human living conditions and life should be improved. Two, whatever can be done to improve human living conditions alive is a task of human beings themselves. In quotes, man has no supernatural protectors or enemies.

That's actually quite promiscuous in its, you know, the fact that humans are alone in in this task should be heralded, should be hailed as a positive constraint, as an enabling constraint. You don't want gods or nature being the one who dictates. So that's Promethean 101. So number three, many sufferings can be avoided. Four, science is one of the most valuable

instruments in the improvement of human living conditions and life. Now, the other principles identify whose task this is, what can be achieved, and the importance of science in this endeavor. Carnap himself writes, mankind is able to change the conditions of life in such a way that many of the sufferings of today may be avoided and the external and internal situation of life for the individual, the community, and finally for humanity as a whole will be essentially improved. scientific humanism considers science one of the most valuable tools in achieving these aims.

Hence Carnap continues all deliberate actions, presuppose knowledge of the world, that the scientific method is the best of acquiring knowledge, and that therefore science must be regarded as one of the most valuable instruments for the improvement of life and collectivity. Now, this is, see, this is just like early in the 20th century. I'm going to talk about this more as we are moving forward. But yes, this idea of scientific humanism is precisely what captures elements of Vienna Circles vision version of ethics, where you need,

even though you have distinguished between theory and practice, but nevertheless, you need to create a certain kind of practice that make what is already implicit in society, namely mutual recognition, cognition, mutual recognition, concretely explicit. But the thing is that Carnap never talks about any of this, right? But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about it. Carnap, in fact, has something that he talks about that with regards the principle of tolerance that look not all everyone should do the political work. Some

people should, you know, will always be in their in their recluse mode away from human society. Some people will do this rather than other. Some people will never actually publish any philosophical work. But that is the whole beauty of it. Because Conor takes the idea of cognitive division of labor seriously. And he wants to say that you cannot do any of sorts of political projects, transgenerational projects without a very strict mode of cognitive division of labor. The cognitive division of labor is absolutely important

for Carnac, particularly late Carnac. Look, I don't need to know everything about science to do my philosophy, nor an artist should know everything about philosophy or science, but nevertheless, we can build bridges. That is the whole point. Building bridges between forms or modes of cognitive labor, that's the final end of enlightenment. And I think that will be it. for today. I think there's a question from Arman here. That's all right, Reza. Sure, absolutely.

If it ran out of time, I can ask it the next time. That's okay. Or on a private chat. Or a private chat. That's okay. By the way, I don't know. Should I ask it or should I, should we stop? Yeah, absolutely. No, no, no, absolutely. Okay. My question is about the relation, exactly what you said about the bridging and the relation between or the bridge between practice and theory. But what I don't understand is when you build a theory to explicate the practice and even correct the practice in a way,

No. I don't know. Theory or logic. I don't know how to get a word for it. Theory or logic. I'm trying to say, I'm trying to talk about these two levels that you were talking about between the distinction between theory. Armand, there is something very subtle point here that actually logic is not theory. Sure. logic is a meta theory right that comes back to this so it's a meta theory that can not only change the status of theory but also by extension the change the status of uh practice essentially corner practice doesn't doesn't want to be in that old kantian pigeonhole

where basically say that oh theory changes the practice but what if the goddamn theory is itself constrained or limited in its own and it's blind to its own limitations so we have a triangle we have a triad we have we have no more no more a two pole that have a feedback loop right Now we have a tree out of three out of. Well, OK, so in this tree, but logic is the principle, right? For both practice and theory, as I understand you. Meta theoretical, I wouldn't say principle, but yes, if you are fine with that word, take it with a grain of salt. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. OK, OK, thank you.

friends enemies uh if not if not at the very end uh i should just mention that we should kind of set up presentations um oh presentation i forgot about that one yeah and i don't think we have too many in this class either. Which means that everyone is going to be tortured. But I can set up a spreadsheet for that, but I think it would be good to get the first people committed now because always when you do the spreadsheet. People who usually don't look at me while we are talking about presentations, they should be the first victims.

And the first one, I can say that, Connor, do you want to be the first victim? We need one presentation and one respondent, I think, if that makes maybe two. One is enough. One is enough. We don't want to go to the deep boundaries of Duluth's coldness and cruelty at this point. It's too early to be sadistic. I haven't been waking up before this time for a while now so this is torturing um this is a clerical question but um so for uh assigned reading or if there is any assigned

reading where would I find oh assigned reading I haven't um found a good way to basically um get the text for the next sessions. Give me a Saturday max Sunday, I will send everyone an email with assigned reading. But it obviously would be something about, you know, the sort of glaring problems in Afgavu that Karnab becomes aware of and becomes obsessed with them, tries to resolve It makes sense. And then for the presentation, I'm not really sure about what the I watched some of the lectures

from last course, but I'm not sure about what the standards are like. What would you like? And do you want to give him a little bit of a tip? Yeah, sure. I mean, I think I think it's not really very strict. Right. But it would be best if you could kind of like summarize whatever the reading material is as part of that. And then if you have other things you want to say about it, I think that format generally tends to work. Look, Connor, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. I could do it. I could do it. It's fine. It's perfect. We're great. Okay, okay. And we also need one person to respond to Connor, if that's all right. Yes. Who wants to respond to Connor? Someone really nasty.

Brian, do you want to do that? With a bit of Loda, Hentika, Karnam, both at the same time. I don't know if I'm nasty enough. Yes. Unfortunately not. Enda, do you want to do that yourself? I don't mind. Yeah, I can go. Yeah, if you'd like, I'm happy to do it. Oh, okay. Excellent. Magnificent. And the only other admin thing to mention is that we have a Discord channel set up. So if people haven't been put on that, it's basically like a methadone clinic for Twitter users. So you can kind of like, we can have like an, you know, an additional conversation during the week.

If people have like other questions and stuff, we can use it for that. What is this Discord thing? I haven't got anything. Okay, well, I'll send you the... Not that I'm going to join, but I just, yeah, I don't know what it is. It's like a server where you can basically have a bunch of conversations and a bunch of channels. So you can kind of, it's kind of like an informal chat space, I guess. A Slack with voice. Yeah, well, you can use voice, but it's more like, I think most people use just like messaging and stuff on it. I see, I see. I hope for like if people have like questions as well about some of the stuff we talked about today and they want to like pursue further discussion outside of class, we can use it for that.

Excellent. I'll send you, you can decide whether you want to join or not Reza, I'll get them to sign you. Most probably not, but nevertheless. Shit posting on Twitter. I can't go on Twitter, I'm busy these days. I only go to self promote once in a while. Anyway, thank you so much, everyone. Please let me know. Most important thing, always ask questions. It really doesn't matter. Look, I know that this is going to go on YouTube. So some of you might have felt that, oh, you know, we don't want to end up on YouTube.

but all the next sessions will be private. So any sort of question you have, please bring it on. We are going to, we don't want to go too fast to leave some of our friends behind, Right? So, and of course, if you want me to slow down my teaching speed, or for example, talk a little bit more context, always, you know, just say something either here or privately,

whatever you're comfortable with. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great day, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye.