Okay, so hello and welcome to the third session of the seminar, Carnap's Enigma. And yes, please take it away. Many thanks. Hello, everyone. So as I was talking about, you know, hopefully this session we are going to wrap up this whole contextualization of the book, right? And from next session, we are going to start getting into the nitty-gritty stuff. I wish that this course was 12 sessions, but I mean, first of all, we are only covering basically
half of the book, right? I mean, with regard to response, I might actually offer another course to get into the technical details at the end of this book, also through the problems of philosophy as a different course for the spring summer semester. Regardless of that, so what is really important, I think that we have had, we have read, you know, quite a few pages of this book now, I will try to first, this session, try to make a very, very, you know, short, compressed summary of what he's trying to do in these pages, right,
which is also the core of the project, and then come back to the introduction, really contextualization of Carnap's decision, philosophical decisions, for the construction of a future philosophy in the context of these predecessors such as for Sarah Weyinger, Marburg School, Russell, so on and so forth. So maybe we should start with our presentation and then I will start. Hey, oh, sorry. I was just going to ask if you were there. Fine. I am in fact here.
So I don't, I never have made a PowerPoint presentation. So instead I just made a like short document and I'll show you. I have never made PowerPoint representation either in my life. Really me? It is the most awkward experience for me. I think that if you think in run on sentences and not bullet points, bullet points, it's very hard. Yes. Sarah, I'll share the link. One second. My old company, you weren't allowed to make PowerPoint presentations. One second. All right, here, I'll put it in the chat and there we go.
killing us. I sense it. It's in the chat window. Okay. Someone open it, please. Oh, on a screen. That's more exclusive. You have to scan everyone's microphone. No worse than me in terms of technological lamerism. Oh, so here, I'll surrender my screen one second. I hope nothing terrible happens. This always fills me with fear. One second. I mean, do you really, can't open it on your, what if, whatever. Okay. It's more than one page, so it'll be quite difficult if it's only on one screen that you have no control of. Don't worry, don't worry. Okay.
Lauren, I think that you can just like run with it and then people if they want to actually like track what you're talking about uh they can click there yes you just you read it i will yeah you can just uh you can just talk from your mind yeah that's no problem um so google doc it's not a powerpoint though is it that's it yeah it's just a google uh okay you have around like 10 minutes
so if you want to know how you are with time i will write it down on the chat okay okay i'm so sorry. So I wrote this document, mostly about this idea of relational frames between the like observed language and the theoretical language. So the strict partitioning of languages is something that's more from later Carnap. But I also sort of look at its seeds in in the reading that we had this week. And so basically I describe how it's somewhat underdetermined, the relationship between
psychological and physical objects, at least in this reading, but that how Carnap describes, he keeps talking about describing a basis of reality, that the theoretical language forms a basis of reality, and that theoretically you can construct all the different spaces of objects with one space and then science becomes a relational language which uh which solves the problem of uh the railroad uh stations uh rather than being a language of objects and something i found interesting is it reminded me of shannon's ideas on entropy like shannon wrote his master's thesis close to when carnap was writing like shortly afterwards um probably one of the best master's theses in the history of science um but like it is almost like a more sophisticated idea of shannon's
that came much later, which is that he really wanted this optimal compressibility of human knowledge. Like you don't have to call on these disjoint sets to define objects in case of relations not being sufficient. Instead, he realized that you could only get this optimal compression by creating a single basis, like a single object space. And then, And then, so I found that very, very interesting, but there was still this sort of lack of a notion of constitution of theoretical reality via observational reality. Like that there's almost this, it's he's almost more Kantian than Kant where there's this other Copernican turn
where this sort of prior to constitution self becomes a noumena um becomes a sort of unknown and uh i one of the things that i explored is that i found it interesting that like um my apology my apology lauren because this is an important statement would you be able to repeat it one more time oh that there's he he almost like becomes what's missing or something like if there's a point of tension or some sort of disavowed area of this, this like paradigm of thinking. It's that there's observed reality in this nominalistic sense. There's this constructed reality, but there's this disappeared self. And so you have no discussion of the constitution of that constructed reality.
And so the self becomes a kind of noumena, this pre-constitutional self becomes a kind of noumena. and it's there's a I feel like a tension there and this is very interesting because this I was interested in this idea of intuitive physics so sorry analytic and synthetic geometry in the in artificial intelligence now we call analytic geometry more like an intuitive physics it's not quite because intuitive physics implies there's relations which Carnap wouldn't allow like there's causal um there's there's a relational algebra with intuitive physics uh but that um like so so Carnap doesn't exactly describe that uh he describes an analytic um geometry but it would
just be uh propositional values and it would have no relations like there's no uh notion of a ball rolls down a hill or you know uh an object won't go through another object but this area this naive physics has become, it's extremely difficult to computationally model, and it's become of huge interest in robotics and in artificial intelligence. So there's this kind of uninterrupted intellectual thread between these conversations and conversations that I actually work in professionally. And the thing that I find interesting is that science has become, it's almost the opposite of the, like what Carnap was possibly trying to distance himself from, because science in a way has become so divorced from observational reality, experimental physics, that sort of thing, that when a
scientist works with a computer science algorithm, it's almost like a psychoanalytic relationship. It's largely unknowable what the other person is thinking, but you have these flashes of insights and this analogical thinking. And I argue that there's almost two cultures in science, one that's almost strictly analogical and intuitive, and then another which is sort of this a posteriori science that re-inscribes that into the syntactic geometry that Carnap describes. So there's this, there's what is the public-facing culture of science and there's how science actually proceeds which is in flashes of inexplicable intuition that's usually extremely observational world-based,
if that makes sense. And then the last thing that I say is that probably the most powerful idea of what I get from Carnap is that he turns theory in itself into a kind of technology. By defining theoretical world as not having sort of this plateness realism or this explicit tie to empirical observation, it becomes its own kind of technology. And there's this notion of kind of the of Levy-Strauss where it's like one could use these statistical models that maximize the likelihood of observations which she describes and it really problematizes I guess the distinction between what is engineering and what is theoretical science in a very interesting way.
Is that it, Lauren? Super, excellent. Really some gems in your presentations. I mean, I mean, sometimes, okay, the same thing about Delsha last presentation, last session. My apologies if I can't, you know, I am taking notes as you are talking. So I can only address a couple of issues. But if you think that if, for example, some of the stuff that are pressing questions comes up,
as I'm teaching the course, please bring them back because I think that Delsha's presentation was great and yours also. I mean, there are some really good stuff here. So first, relation between physical and psychological objects is underdetermined, right? Now, Do you see, this is actually, I don't think it's true really. As I mentioned, that Karna has, I mean, the whole idea of the constitution system is also what you might call to be an epistemological system.
Like it possess different epistemological layers hierarchies, right? And of course, concepts. Now the thing is that, what are concepts or objects? Now this is really actually interesting that, let's think about this. So Carnap doesn't really want to say both. First of all, what is constitution? Constitution is completely about logical relations, right? Logical relations. So this is this is actually the linchpin of his idea of future
philosophy, to reinvent philosophy according to certain kinds of logical constitution, logical construction. So it seems that as you know basically, who's that? the one that we, I made his text available, the Richardson, yes. According, you know, so he also talks about this. It seems that Kaurna absolutely hates this idea of objects being constituted and concepts are also being constituted. That's just like, how can it be, you know, if they are both constituted so what are we doing here right so he it is but nevertheless what he tries to do in
afbaho is exactly this to show the physical objects right are constituted and they can also be talked about in terms of psychological objects and also concepts are also constituted why precisely because for him these are two interpretive modes of a speech about the same topic what is this topic he doesn't actually want to talk about physical objects or psychological objects or any of these kinds of stuff all he wants to talk about is about the constitution itself through which we can have physical objects, psychological objects, so on and so forth,
as determined, as determined demarcations, right? So constitution for him is important. Neither physical or psychological object, physical objects, psychological objects, nor the distinction between object construction, physical object construction, or concept formation. That is not, that's why he's not really, he's something else, he's like this mutated cat, right, because that would be just cat, right, if we are going to talk about this. But that is not his intention. He tries to put all of his emphasis not in the distinction between physical and psychological objects, nor on the distinction between physical object construction, object construction, and
concept formation, a lot of current. What he wants to do is to put all of his emphasis on the idea of constitution, within which all such distinctions simply, they don't dissolve, but they basically become trivialized as interpreted modes of the same thing, logical structure or logical relations of the world, right? Because a structure for Karna is essentially relational at the end of the day. You know, it's this famous example that in terms of science, we can think about it in terms of train stations, right? Train stations, one after another, train running
through them. We can talk about train, we can talk about, you know, this is specific station, that is specific station, but no, what is important is the relation, is the trajectory, is the relations, dynamic relations between these stations that the train traverses. and that is the structure pure relationality which is the structure itself and science science science's idea of objectivity is precisely this relationality with regard to either psychological objects or physical objects or or other kinds of objects.
And then Karnap would say that any sort of, basically, material relation that cannot be decomposed into this relation, pure relational ones, is actually a metaphysical object, which he calls pseudoprogrammatic. Basically, it is foreclosed to the scientific enterprise. So that's one. Second, formal, you talked about Shannon and the idea of formal compressibility, right? But of course, you probably already know that formal compressibility was distilled as a
thesis in computation, computer science and information theory by Ray Salomonov, Raymond Solomonov. Raymond Solomonov was a student of Carnap. He essentially, I mean the whole idea of formal induction, which is basically the idea of maximum compressibility for a data set of models, comes from Solomonov. Solomonov participated when Carnap was in the United States. Solomonov came to his seminars and for a year or two he was basically a student of Carnap on these topics. This was during the time that Carnap had basically was preparing what became logical foundations
of probability, right? So Carnap, so there is actually a connection between Carnap and these kinds of people. But the thing is that Karna was, I think, and something, this is something that I have also criticized Karna for, but then the more I read of Karna and how he approached this, I don't think that he's, he wouldn't, he would actually balk at people like Shannon Solomanov, Paul Viteni, who is like extremists in these areas, and the idea of AGI as pure compressibility of information, precisely because it would have
used Paul Wittany's idea that... So Paul Wittany actually has, you know, he was a computer scientist, wrote this book on the application, on the use and application of basically Solomanov induction or something like that with a Chinese scholar in computer science. I think Paul Whitney rightly argued that all methods of formal induction or compressibility a measure for AGI or AI or intelligence are based on this idea that simplicity is a law
of universe. Simplicity, right? Simplicity. So we know that simplicity, Orocom's razor, Orocom's razor is a cornerstone of all such formal definitions of compressibility and induction. Karnoff would have said that that is just metaphysical bullshit, that there is no such a thing that tell us. Basically, simplicity is a law of universe or it's intrinsic to the undergirding of the universe. It is merely an epistemological, epistemologically useful practice, but to basically ontologize it or to reify it would basically expel doom for his project.
So that's number second. Preconciled self becomes the nominal self. I don't think that Karnam ever actually has idea of a pre-constituted self, right? You see, the kind of portions of self that he's talking about are elementary experiences, right? At that level, you can say that there is no self, right? And he doesn't pretend that as if we could attribute a knowing self to such things, right? is not going to be the new you, right? To think that bundles of sense data means to have a self or to have a mind or to have a structure.
No, that is absolutely not his business. He has learned the lesson that a structure can only be structured to the extent that it basically explicitly define relations between sense data, not as one data, but as a community of data. According to certain kinds of logical relations, that are what you want to call to be universal. So I don't think that Carnap's can be said that he has an idea of a preconsitive self.
Essentially, this also, this, I mean, one of the things, I mean, does anyone know that Carnap, just like Kant, talks about other minds, like aliens and stuff? And that was one of the greatest parts of this project. It was part of his rejection of metaphysics. So the thing is that, so, you know, good philosophers always talk about the possibility of other minds. We're not talking about vegetables. We're talking about intelligent sapiens like us, right? My apologies to those who pursue vegetable studies in universities.
is, regardless of the snide comments here. Yes, so Carnap, so Carnap, he says in Af-Pau, is that essentially you can't have an object without a knowing self, namely a Kantian agent, right? And this is by, of course, Carnap would never say that self is pre-constituted. Self is always constituted. Self is like this extended hierarchy of various objects and types and relations between them that he tries to reconstruct, right? That's all part of the project of logical structure
of the world, to show that we can logically reconstruct the view of the world, of the reality, in the very way that we could explain it in psychological terms, right? But with better definition, with better accuracy, so on and so forth. And in fact, he tries to show that any sort of psychological account of the world that cannot be logically reproduced or reconstituted actually is part of metaphysical project, not scientific or philosophical one, right? So that is one of the things. And with regard to this, he talks about the idea of other minds. He says that, you know, everything that we ever going to talk about is
according to the knowing object, which is the measure of us to talk about other kinds of stuff. But here a problem arises. So if Carnap thinks that objects are dependent upon, objects, including other minds, are dependent upon the existing knowing self as the measure, right? then does it mean that basically if we take the existing self away, we no longer have a reality? Cardiff actually talks about this. He says that, look, if you tomorrow, if tomorrow every human being, every organism, in fact, gets decimated by some sort of catastrophe,
stars will still move, galaxies evolve and get extinguished, so on and so forth. What he taught, and he says that it is something that is scientific and testable. How is it testable if we are going, if there is no more subjects, right, to test the fact of extinction? Carnap's answer is quite simple, precisely because we are making such conclusions through confirmed laws of nature. So anything that is not within the purview of the confirmed
laws of nature, even the most grotesque, basically, conclusions that we can, in fact, derived from the laws of nature is a metaphysical travesty. It is not part of philosophy or science. So that's that. The question of naive physics, that's a really fantastic question. I think that what naive physics is one of the most under-recognized topics in the history of philosophy and only recently has been paid attention to by people like Mark Wilson, right, in physics avoidance. Naive physics is absolutely naive physics precisely because, you know, we are talking about, you know,
certain kinds of things that we are not allowed to do in terms of pure theoretical physics. But nevertheless, we do it. We pretend as if it is just fine. That's the whole point of naive physics, more or less. And there is there is this book by, I always forget his first name, Vandaloy, called Concepts of the Space, where he tries to actually talk about naive physics in relation to naive language. Naive language, what is naive language? Naive language is not that is against physics or just like naive physics is not against physics.
Naive language is also about this. It's that it is not about, it's not against language, it is about the certain kinds of concepts that we can pull off without transgressing the fundamental laws or logical structures of language. The same thing that we do with naive physics. I mean, naive physics, a great example that I have are these basically engineering tales, right? Engineering entails in physics and as an engineer i know that i completely agree with mark wilson
that a majority of engineers actually do not want to deal with physical messy physical problems at fine-grained details essentially they want to have a coarse graining mechanism that allows them to bypass some of the messy ones and still produce a physically, a respectable, a respectable result or thesis that can be what? Be accommodated by the current physical theories that we have. So that's that. theory as cognitive technology that i think that is a magnificent thesis yes theory is a
cognitive technology and this is why that i think that people who claim themselves to be theorists usually neither understand nor appreciate the fact of what it means to wield a cognitive technology You know, this is something that, yes, absolutely. I think that whether you like it or not, I think that Karnak believes in this. The theory is a cognitive technology. He's an enlightenment monger, right? So for him, this is actually a very important thesis. Yes, that's, I think that's a really important thing to highlight.
Amrisa, Lauren had a comment on the chat. So Lauren, I think you can. She has a comment about naive physics. Sorry. I can't. My apologies, Lauren. I have very bad eyes. I can't. Would you be able to read it for me? Oh, yeah. I'm going to say it. But so what I was saying about this, like I wasn't associating Carnot's observational reality with a pre-constituted self. I was saying that it was missing. So I think we like politically disagree. I see. I see. Yes, my apologies. No, it's OK. So the reason why I'm interested,
the reason why I thought naive physics sort of was a specific area that was interesting in this sense, the importance of not excluding this kind of self, I guess it's very cognitivist self is that in machine learning, which isn't artificial general intelligence, it's more like just engineering, the idea of naive physics is that it seems, there's this whole sort of empiricist rationalist debate going on in ML. And the rationalists have on their side this idea of naive physics, which is, it's like the physics we seem to know without this constitutional system. So like prior to, you know, and this isn't properly formulated in Carnot
because he would say that anything relational is in his constitutional system. But like, it seems like it occurs prior to this basis that he constructs within scientific knowledge that it's like almost like a prior. And I know that he also was a big advocate for Bayes and stuff, but it's like this, there's something prior to knowledge construction, but maybe after observation. After observation. Not only observation, after basically scientific experimentation and hypothesis formation. Majority of naive physics, I mean, I have a good example of what naive physics actually look like. These children cartoons about crazy professor
who basically put stuff together, pipes and plants and planks and whatever you name it, without actually having, basically, as you said, a very idea of this kind of bottom-up theoretical structuring in physics, like the dynamic structuration of physical theories. And, but that, but this is why that naive physics is not really part of physics as a science, but that of engineering, meaning that it has a pragmatic value. Well, so what I'm, what like my,
when I worked on this problem, what it was interesting to us is that like, when a robot or something has to explore a room, there's thousands, like it's incredibly data expensive. It has to take so many samples and it takes a really long time. And it's because it lacks this notion of naive physics. And so it lacks this, like it can't efficiently learn these rules where- Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Absolutely. This is a good, fantastic, fantastic example. This is what I really suggest if any of you are interested in this topic, check Mark Wilson's book, Physics Avoidance. Essentially, majority of the time that we are trying to talk about a real breathing, talking agent, robots, master, or an engineer, we are talking about an agent
or a policy or a form of a strategy to avoid physics in a proper sense and hence naive physics. Like, for example, why is that? So according to the, so, you know, early Karna would come and tell you that, you know, you have to account for all these relations between this and that, you know, then we are going to delete some of these relations, some of these Rs, retain some other, you know. So he's just trying to do his job, you know, in terms of explaining how science actually is being constituted, right? But maybe in the time of he wrote of BAU, someone says that exactly what Lauren says,
that there is this robot who is coming and trying to navigate the space. This huge amount of relationality. Karam says that that's not my deal. Right? OK, that's not your deal. Good, fine. But it kind of is his deal. So essentially, I think that he also talks about this but very in a very vague sense that the whole point is that you have to have a system kind of forgetting mechanism right think about the evolutionary function of forgetting meaning calling data deleting certain kind of data you know that is the whole that we are not always talking about compression in the quantitative sense that shanov uh solomon of
Atten or Vitani we're talking about. We are talking about qualitative compression of data such that a robot can navigate by forgetting some unuseful information. I mean one of the greatest things that embodied in activists nor scientists have been talking about, if Dilsha is here is going to be proud of me, is this, that we don't need to index all relations. In fact, our evolutionary story shows, Freud even knew that, that the healthy psyche, the healthy knowing subject is not the one that takes in, but filters out,
but filters out. Shall we have a small break and then come back and start full throttle? Okay. Thank you for the feedback, Reza. Absolutely. My pleasure. It was really great. Magnificent. Thank you so much. May I ask a couple of questions? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. My apologies. No, no, no, no problem. It's just something. It's just something I wrote. I'll just look for them here because I would probably forget
if I had to keep them in mind. So I just wrote them, wrote them in the chat. I will read him or read her. So first you mentioned a lot about a lot about in the beginning of your comment on Lawrence's great presentation, you mentioned the difference between construction and constitution and just a clarification, I was wondering if we could rephrase this as a difference between construction as a inevitably a psychological, even a rational psychology in the sense of... Rational psychology, yes. transcendental psychology of the neo content so if we could differentiate if we could rephrase this difference between construction and constitution as a difference between a psychological story
and an epistemological story logical epistemological logical as it is conceived by by kahuna in the alphabet yes absolutely yes that is that is extremely important and absolutely you are like yes definitely this would be the first question and the second one is one that i come that i confess that it's a bit well i don't know it's it's out there but it kind of it kind of points towards a a very very un uh like unbased reading of the of the off ball that i would like to make someday which is that that there is no subject in the off ball and there's only there's only bodies based on the there is only bodies okay this is
actually a very controversial but very exciting thesis based on section 65 which is my favorite section which is on the lack of ecocentricity of the given but I believe it's not really a like if I had to write a paper i wouldn't do it no i think that you should do it you know sometimes sometimes if you have an exciting idea backed up with certain kinds of evidences you should pursue it even if you get humiliated by critics and oh yeah it would be a very free interpretation it would be superb actually no i think that there is actually there is a lot into this yeah my question
just so I finally made it, the second and last question would be then, if there is no sense in talking about a pre-constituted self in the alphabet and simply something, another element of the constitution system, which whether it works or not because of all the formal problems, there is at least an attempt to constitute the very subject that is then retrospectively associated with the given with the basis if there is no sense in talking about uh subject it is at that point there is no subject right yes there first there there would be only bodies and how and how this affects to be honest with you i don't think that there would be even a self here
like it would be something like metzinger's being no one thomas metzinger is being no one a phenomenal phenomenological self-model phenomenal self-model rather than being a proper self in a Kantian sense like an aperceptive sense sensing self or or worse even subject which is like extremely loaded doesn't this makes it makes it difficult your your approximation of the alphabet and for certain phenomenology in so far as it's interested yes I think that that complicates the relation between wholesale and car. I have been talking about, thinking about this problem, but not in the clear problem that you
put forward. I'm not going to steal it from you, but unless it's a magnificent question. If you want to, I greatly appreciate someone who has the courage to develop this line of reading. Definitely Carnap. I mean, I think that this is the whole point. I mean, that's one of the things that I think that Carnap more and more, as he philosophically matures, he creates certain kinds of philosophical thesis that align themselves with certain kinds of AI. thesis, right? In the sort of philosophy of mind and philosophy in general, precisely because he as he starts certain kinds of gestures, as you mentioned, in Afbao that logical reconstitution
or logical construction of the world is essentially the logical constitution of the knowing subject, but without the subject in it. That's the interesting, you know, thesis, and it's quite actually controversial, but this is why he's not a Nohokantian anymore. even though he tries to inherit the problems from the Marburgers, Kuhl, Husserl, so on and so forth, but he seems to be doing something fundamentally different than that. I mean, he probably couldn't, I mean, maybe, maybe not,
I don't know, he probably couldn't even imagine that his idea of future philosophy actually coincides with future of philosophy. in a sense, a philosophy without subjects, in the canonical sense that we have been talking about, usually after the initiation of Kant's critical philosophy, but without succumbing into the pre-critical philosophy, right? And that's really actually, I think it's a very, very revolutionary thesis. If someone can write a book on this, definitely i'm going to read it thank you thank you thank you for for your answers absolutely my pleasure
so there's like can i ask you something quickly sure absolutely i was wondering because i know that And I mean, it's a whole field that I'm not into. So analytic philosophy as such is not a field I'm incredibly well versed in. But I'd be really curious because he keeps referring back to Russell and Whitehead, right? and I'd be really curious what his take would have been on the Whitehead of process and reality
I would just be really really curious um what the kind of because I mean in that approach Whitehead is arguably a lot more relation a lot more radically relational and uh concerned with the kinds of ways that constitute um entities that one may speak of etc I think that is on the surface though. You see, because the kind of relations that Whitehead is talking about are not kind of relations that Carnarv is talking about, namely logical relations. There is an ontological and perhaps even metaphysical weight, the kind of relations
of Whitehead. I haven't read Processing Reality for ages. But I would say, okay, this is something, I mean, I leave it to other students, other friends to say something. But I'd say, Carla wouldn't be too keen on it. Yeah, that's my impression as well. Yeah, yeah. obviously obviously it's a very different take on relationality as such um so it's not it's not the same domain it's not the same sphere so to say right um but i just find it interesting because i mean he uses so many categories of thought that kind of touch on kind of white yes obviously
read process and reality well it'd be interesting it'd be interesting what he'd have to say definitely. But of course, the thing is that he was always keen on Russell. The reason that just because Principle Mathematica is co-written by Whitehead and Russell, doesn't mean that he actually is so interested in Whitehead, right? I mean, one of the things that he wanted to out-Russell Russell. You know? Well, if you out-Russell Russell, then you're definitely not interested in Whitehead. Yes, that's what I was trying to imply. Anything from our lurking friends?
Anza, Andy, Sophie, Oliver, anyone? I'll say something. Sure, absolutely. I don't know how related it is, but I was curious about the relationship between Carnap and Laruel. I was reading something about, I'm not, I don't know a lot about Laro's project, but in like my past We are on the same boat. I only have read, you know, some early essays, some of the ideas about decision Yeah, it's something about the, something about his concept of like decision reminds me of the way in which constitution functions in
in Carnap in the sense that a subject isn't supposed before the decision. The real as given in the last instance, I think is the way that... Yes. Yeah, it seems... I don't know. I mean, it seems like it has an affinity to this way that Carnap is thinking about subjectivity and the logical construction of the condition. Look, I mean Andy, yes definitely so. I mean now that you are talking about yes,
but I think that is incidental in a sense. I think that with both Laruel and Carnap, they you should understand where they are coming from and essentially the projects are anti-foundationalists, right? Anti-foundationalists. So they want to get rid of the given. What's that? Given without givenness, Laruel and this kind of stuff. So that's the part of the anti-foundationalism. That, you know, that there are certain kinds of, yes, I mean, and they both claim both Laruel and Karna that they are doing some sort of future philosophy right non-standard philosophy in case of Karna future philosophy which is like a more boisterous right
and the whole point I have looked at it that within the history of philosophy whenever we see see a claim being made in terms of future philosophy, right? It is always a claim or a a claim accompanied by a critique of the role of philosophy or some of its concepts as foundation as taken for granted, as natural, right, in the philosophical canon. So, Larwell attacks them from a certain perspective and in terms of decisionality, the decisional dimension of
philosophy, trying to show that philosophy is already, you know, unconsciously built upon certain kind of foundations, right? And he's trying to, like, pull the carpet under your feet, right, in terms of philosophy, which would be the non-standard philosophy carpet, you know? And with Carnot, it's a constitution system. Yes, I think that this is a gesture that comes with certain kinds of what you might call to be renewal. when philosophers think about renewal, fundamental renewal, radical, not fundamental, radical renewal of the discipline of philosophy,
there is a certain kind of gesture to criticize or to provide radical criticisms with regard to the status, philosophical concepts or even the practice of philosophy which we have taken for granted so this is why anti-foundationalism anti-foundational gestures are i think shared among all of these but i wouldn't say that for example like put carna and laruel the same I think that it's not that they're going to kill each other.
I don't think they have anything to say to each other. Like it would be just like Carl App doing, checking on his phone, and L'Arwell is basically doing something else. It wouldn't be any kind of real conversation. But of course, the task of philosophy, the history of philosophy, is to precisely to shed light on these shared interests, which to many philosophers, they don't appear as if shared interests. But we can retrospectively look into, for example, our royal cardinal and see that, oh, yes, they share something, right? Like, for example, Kant and someone else, Plato and someone else.
And then through this kind of binocular vision, we can create something better, a third synthesis, right? So yes, I think that, is it, are you telling me that this is going to be your final paper? Well, we'll see. We'll see if I come around to it. I mean, I'm very interested in, I know they come from radically different perspectives. Yes, yes. But I mean, look, I mean, we should understand what philosophy is. Sometimes we try to get too much from philosophy and ask too much from individual philosophers. Every individual philosopher always thinks he or she is right. That is our task to be right, right?
it's our task but the thing is that only history of philosophy and philosophy is the only thing that has such a rich history that never closes its circle of revenge, it comes back and look into these you know possible conversations even if they didn't happen like we can talk about Carnap versus Kant you know How cool is that? And this is what the philosophers do. But we should always have the humility to understand that even though we always think as individual philosophers, we are right,
but in time we will be undone by new questions coming from different forms of synthesis. made by different generations. This is why that philosophy is really, if you think about it, is the very idea of humanity. Thanks, yeah. Absolutely. Can I ask a question if there's time for it? Absolutely, absolutely Oliver. It's just, I'm curious as in, extension of this talk about La Roelle,
and Lauren earlier mentioned the Bricoleur and Levi Strauss. And I'm just curious if there's, you mentioned this idea of synthesizing philosophical views, and I'm curious if Carnap had any relation to such structuralists who actually lived at the same time as he did either, like. No, no, they didn't. No. No? No. I mean, and this Prague school and all this, it's a completely different thing. Right, right. Well, of course, precisely because the idea of the structuralism
they are talking about is either quite what you might call to be coming from a certain kind of historical materialist, social materialist, or other kinds, metaphysical, semiotics, so on and so forth. Karna is convinced that only the idea of logical structure is the way to move forward. But I mean, in the sense that he says that the logical account of the world is also supposed to be able to account for so-called cultural objects. I mean, that would...
Absolutely, yes. That essentially he tries to tell us that, look, I am not as bad as Frigge, who says that everything is logical. I would say that structures, all structures, if they are really structures, are of logical relations. But nevertheless, for something to be a structure, it needs to have some sort of ingredient. So he basically then introduced Erlep's elementary experiences. And that's is Kantian, coming from Kantian or Neokantian and fidelity, right? So he's not, is, is,
and of course, then there is something actually interesting happens. And I want someone to make a presentation for this question. Either Jean-Pierre, you, any person auditing or not, or with us today. This is the whole point. So, we're talking about the structure and relations so he's talking about says that all such all is what we call as a logical as a structure of the world the structure of reality is are constituted by logical relations in fact constitution is that of logical relations so then
you think that, oh, it's just like a bad Freakianism, right? No, it is not actually, precisely because he's bringing something into the fold and inject it, and that's basically the idea of elementary experiences, sense. Part of it is being brought by way of Poincare, Hugo Dingler, um uh mach phenomenon max phenomenalism so on and so forth since that since that are not as individuals in startup but the community of that of sense data because you can never you can never actually talk about sense data as one single thing you can only talk about a community of
sense data talk about the similarities between them and within the similarity of the sense data that we can constitute it toward a logical reconstruction a logical reconstitution so that's that's basically what sermons uh project here uh i mean sorry carnapp's projects here the thing however it becomes a little bit I wouldn't say questionable. What should concern us? So Karnab is very specific that sense data as a community, not as single points of sensations
or sense data are fundamental to this constitution system. And in fact, they're non-logical ingredients of the constitution system. One, he tries to, his entire philosophy, in fact, as Goodman has talked about it and recent commentators, is essentially to show that the myth of the given is false. there is no foundation, ultimate foundation. But nevertheless, he's going and choose to have heirlobs, elementary experiences, as the, you know, basic elements, elements in the Markian sense
of his constitution system. So how can we say that Carnap is not a philosopher who is peddling the myth of the given or a variation of it, right? Because isn't it the whole point of the myth of the given to think about sense having a foundational, preconceptual privilege, right? Well, of course, Carnac would say that, no, the thing about sense is that it's also logical.
I mean, when we are looking at it, when we are trying to posit its primary or elementary status, we are actually making a logical act, which is the idea of founding in a logical sense a la frige, a la frige, founding in a logical sense, founding something, founding. So my homework for you, whoever is going to be the next victim, is that talk about, let's talk about the idea of elementary experiences, which is a non-logical component
of Carnap within the system of Af-Bowl, within this constitutional system. Where does it fall? Is it part of the myth of the given? Is it something else? Are there some other intricacies that are going into this thesis that we are not aware of? So on and so forth. I think that's a good philosophical homework. Reza, can I make a quick question? Absolutely. I was thinking about the quasi-analytical methods that Mormon talks about in his paper
on synthetic geometry and in this method it kind of approaches meaning in terms of a web of similarities in a non-homogeneous set, but the criteria for recognizing the similarities are not given in advance, are they? Because in a geometrical system, the points and lines in a synthetic geometrical system, in this case, the points of and lines are not? They're always a priori. They're always a priori, actually.
OK. This part of, I remember I mentioned very vaguely that article in a collection that Hantika had written about synthetic geometry and its role in Afbao. Absolutely, yes. No. the reduction to pure relations does not suggest that pure relations are elementary in the in the sense of the myth of the given. There are actually a priori such all such basically ideas about what a relation even in the most basic idea of similarities are
a priori and of course this is this i'm going getting a little bit controversial here some philosophy other philosophers saying that no actually they are not in off power at least So that's that I think that yes that's a that's a good question that's something that should be taken into account for anyone any poor person who's going to make the presentation next week, and who would that be. Yes, the presentation. Okay. Okay. Cassio, okay. How about both of you
create 10 minutes presentation, but really 10 minutes, no more than that. That's a lot. Next session on this issue. I think that this issue is really one of the most fundamental ones in Colorado. is a relation with the myth of the given. Through the choice of heirlobs or elementary experience, heirlobs is short for elementary experience, elementary in the sense of Marx's idea of elements in phenomenonism. Namely, a sense that or a community of them
in certain kind of relations, right? that I think is really important shall I start we have one hour what is happening to these classes these days okay So, as I mentioned, first, like, really encapsulate the idea of what he's trying to do here in the pages that we have been talking about, right? So,
Right, we have been talking about Neokantians, Kantians, phenomenologists, fictionalists, conventionalists, inspirations, and influences of Carnap. But I think that we should actually understand that the title already shows this. the logical structure of the world. It doesn't say logical, logical, epistemological structure. Right. Even though in the introduction, it says that this project, this book is a logical and epistemological one.
But, you know, is is is on the side of logical. With understanding that he can actually supplement this logical view of reality with also an epistemological one, which is intrinsic to it, right? It's not an auxiliary dimension. So where does this logical, basically, description or structure of the world come from. I mean, the groundwork had already been laid out by Frigge, but the real
contribution was by Russell. And essentially, we should understand that Russell's position within a bow is uh and the significance of his position is undeniable and you cannot get rid of it so we can say that it is completely inspired by russell's description of the aim and method of future philosophy Future philosophy in the sense that I was talking about, namely reinventing philosophy
and philosophy of problems through a certain kind of methodology handed to us by the likes of Frike. Russell's also, Russell's idea of external world program also is part of that kind of tradition. So what Carnap is trying to do, before writing Althbau is that he's making many attempts at analyzing concepts of ordinary language in the realm and even earlier texts. He makes numerous attempts at analyzing concepts of original language relating to things in
our environment and their observable properties and relations, and at constructing definition of these concepts with the help of symbolic logic, La Frigge. Initially, Carnap, because of his Novocantian alliances, he is concerned with the formation of concepts of material things out of perception, material things out of perception. His aim at that point is the description of this genetic process, right?
Psychological facts concerning the formation of concepts of material things. In Afpau, it becomes different. It becomes a matter of rational reconstruction rather than the genetic process. What do we mean by rational reconstruction? In Carnarv's own word, it means a schematized description of an imaginary procedure consisting of rationally prescribed steps, which would lead to essentially the same results as the actual psychological process. that's actually quite I mean it sounds very trite but when you think about it a schematized
description of an imaginary procedure right he doesn't want to talk about a step-by-step algorithm but merely a certain kind of rational laws rational laws which allow us to say that basically create the same effects, the same results
which could be and are created by the actual and existing psychological processes with regard to objects and the world right so this is this is something that basically brings us back to uh to what we were talking about, the role of the subject. Is it necessary in Afbawa? Is it necessary or not? Something, so this is really a course, a core statement in Carnap's project.
So, for example, material things are usually immediately perceived as, for example, three-dimensional bodies, while on the other hand in the systematic procedure they are to be constructed out of temporal sequence of continuously changing forms into dimensional visual fields. So what Carnap tries to do first is analysis in a customary way in the most basic sense proceeding from complexes to a smaller and yet a smaller component.
For example, he starts from material bodies, material bodies that we see, you know, around us, to instantaneous visual fields, right? Instantaneous visual fields, I'm going to talk about this, would be the community of sense data, right? Instantaneous visual fields, then to color patches, and finally to single-pot positions in visual fields. Thus the analysis, namely the breakdown of of the experience of a material body into a single point data
is very in tandem with what Ernst Mark called the elements, elements, hence the word elementary experiences or air labs in Afbau in Carnap's book. This use of method probably was influenced by monk and phenomenalist philosophers. But according to Carnap, he was the first one who took the doctrine of these philosophers seriously, leading him to introduce a nun in terms of vocabularies of the constitution
system. So we have logical, he introduced into this logical vocabularies and non-logical vocabulary, which are that of the earlapse, you know, community of sensory data, what, experiences, elementary experiences. And the question that I asked you as the, you know, homework was that, what is the position, what is exactly the status of this elementary data, elementary experience in Carnap's constitution system. And usually translators recently are not translating it to a data,
because data in Greek means the given. So they didn't want to create that kind of of basically resurrect the idea that as if Carnap was, you know, Carnap's constitution system is based on the logic of the given. They translated the word acquaintance. I don't know whether it is working or not, but but nevertheless something you can think about it as well. So for example, according to this new system
the Carnap had invented and laid out, statements such as a material body is a complex of visual, tactile, and other sensations was not really satisfactory. For the description of a tile structure of any complex of sensations and tactile visuals, so on and so forth, A new logic of relations should have been introduced. And this is where Russell's and Whitehead program
in Principa Mathematica comes to the picture. But the thing is that as Kardap knows, This idea of logic of relations, right? To understand the idea of a complex, the construct of complexes, in terms of logic of relations, is not a matter of, like Kant, to talk about basically one single perceptive agent, one individual.
according to Karlaff it should have been accounted by the idea of a total construction what he meant by total construction that it should have been accounted not by a single individual whether you say a subject and a perceptive self but also a perceptive self perceptive you know self in a thing that we in a sense that we were talking about and also intersubjective self right which brings him to categorize this into
auto psychological psychological and intersubjective categories so this hierarchization or categorization of various forms of what we mean by an individual, by a knowing self, that goes into that goes into afbāo leads to a certain kind of decomposition of what we
know as a knowing self. This is what you might call to be logical functional decomposition of the self. To show that each part of what we understand as individual, whether in terms of basically auto-psychological elementary experiences or individual experiences or intersubjective concepts and language are all partial solutions to the understanding of what? Of the knowing self, the knowing subject. And hence, by extension, there are partial solutions
to the problem of science versus metaphysics to the extent that everything, according to Carnap, everything that is not part of the knowing self structured by the knowing self, is a structure by knowing self, a structure being the knowing self is not part of the scientific, of sciences. It's a metaphysical or pseudo-problematic one. So this becomes, so we see that basically his idea of the self or individual or subject,
I mean, I don't want to, I kind of want to a little bit make these concepts fuzzy. I know that there are distinctions between them, but I just want to kind of like for people who are not familiar with the technical distinctions between such concepts, understand that Carnap's idea is trying to basically show that if we can, if we can show that different levels of encounters of an individual with the world, which makes that individual an individual,
can be said to be different layers of logical relations, namely a constitution systems, then we can say that this can also be applied to the very world that this individual, this subject, or this self, constructs, right? constructs, meaning that precisely because of the idea that, you know, and if we can show that, if we can show that, if we can show that, which means that all metaphysical problems, insofar as they do not require the intervention of a knowing subject,
become now pseudo problems so he's doing uh he's doing the devil's work here he's trying to undermine the traditional logical epistemological dimension of subjects or individual self as i said that I apologize for putting these words in the same set, but for now, to show that this kind of logical decomposition or logical reconstruction will lead to a new vision of the world,
and wishes that of the sciences rather than metaphysics. Any question here before I move forward? Yes, brother, can I ask a question, please? Sure, that's right. Absolutely. you talked about rational reconstruction. Isn't the same as explication? No, rational reconstruction is actually very different from explication. Rational reconstruction is the earlier version of explication, right? So I mean.
Actually, I read a paper. I don't remember the name of it. those who are trying to distinguish between rational construction and explication. He said that rational construction is mostly one-way street. You try to do away with one vocabulary instead in place of another more sophisticated vocabulary. In explication, it's more dialogical and dialectical. You are not a reductionist in the final analysis. yes i don't know yes one that one one that's one also with regard to explication we are also dealing with uh the principle of tolerance namely using of logic you can you can use any sort of
logic for the task of explication as long as basically it can be presented as a logic right whereas whereas uh here in in this one no you don't have the logical uh the principle of tolerance yeah so in alpha we don't have explication no no absolutely no no zero no not not in a robust sense that he's talking about later on no But of course, I mean, there is a genealogy, right, that we can trace it back to some of the stuff that he's talking about in our file, but no, I don't think. That would be just too much of a switch.
Any more questions? If you don't, then I need one minute, maybe two minutes to check on something. Anything? No, no, no, please. No, no, my apologies. No, no, go on. I don't know how to formulate the question or I'm trying to work out to what extent is relevant here, but I was just going back to something you were saying a while ago and I put it in the chat, but, you know, to do it, the translation around around acquaintance, right? And it just kind of like something flashed in my head when
you mentioned that because I know this was also something that the earlier Wittgenstein and Russell also tried to talk about at various points as kind of expressing the relation between like objects in a pictorial kind of representation that is a pictorial aspect. and yeah early early we'd get a science picture yes yeah like the links in the chain thing um where he's saying that there are like aspects of the relations that uh don't need to be and cannot be pictured as such and then you know um i was just thinking about that in relation to this question of again you know how do we think about the earth bow in relation to the question of the myth of the given um you know there seems to be an appeal to the givenness of those links in the chain they're
not like explicated as something as far as I can remember although it's been a long time since I've you know gone through uh yeah and that whole kind of um I I mean generally understood um of bow's early interpretations by some people uh where that Carnap is essentially doing like bidding for the myth of the given, right? You know, it's a givenist. But Nelson Goodman, even though he's criticizing Karna on many issues, he shows that absolutely Karna is the first actually modern philosopher who starts to fight the myth of the given. And anything that comes after that,
including Sellars' explicit understanding of the myth of the given in various forms, is actually coming from car nap. The thing is that one of the things that I think is really important for anyone who's going to do the homework, I mean, I know already who's going to do that, but this is the whole point. Why do you think that, so I'm going to talk about this. Why do you think that car nap starts to take as the most fundamental not a single sense data
not like a point in a visual field in a space and time but a community of them of course that basically opens him and renders him susceptible to Nelson Goodman's critique of imperfect community. Like in the sense that, you know, when we have points in a visual field, one is not enough. You have to have a relations of similarity between them. So that relation of similarity, I think, is the root of acquaintance. It is not the datum, mainly the given itself. The relation itself is logically founded. Did I just actually
goddamn solve the problem that I was going to pit against you? That is essentially, that is one of the, but I think that there are so many more subtle and sinister problems that crop up when we say that, how can a relation of similarities, of simple similarities between you know, a bunch of air labs, points of experience, like visual points of, you know, registers on a visual field can be put together. Can it be really logically founded? and if it can be logically founded then what would be exactly the role of experience or sensory data
in in Carnap's view look remember last time that I was talking about with regard to Poincare and Hugo Dingler, right? So Hugo Dingler is a conventionalist. It's like rules. Rules are the most, conventions are the most parts, most important part. So and basically Poincare wants to say, adds an addendum saying that you need to have also empirical demarcations, by empirical data and it's the it's the it's the collection of conventions and empirical data that
to which we can always talk about experience you know otherwise we cannot but it's here it seems that so we can connect tries to do that that it seems that, and that also can be a critique of Poincare. I don't know. I haven't thought about it. So if elementary relations, you know, similarity relations between elementary experiences are logical, then what makes this whole constitution system founded on experience and not pure logic right then you someone would say that well it's that's
the whole point of transcendental logic but then I would say that how are you going to define transcendental logic at this very basic sort of similarity relations I think these are unanswered questions to be honest with you. I mean I am in the dark trying to write a book on this. I'm going to steal every sort of feedback that you give me, publish it under my name. So with that said, two minutes I will be back.
So as I mentioned with regard to the problem of, I mean, the project of principle mathematical, that the description of title structure of any complex, for that you needed a new logical relations, right? And the thing is that with regard to the reconstruction or reconstitution of the logic of all reality of our world, Carnap think that this kind of logical relation,
this is some new logical relation could not be simply be reached by one individual. Namely, the idea of one subject wouldn't suffice to basically, to philosophically explain what's going on in this uh in in in how we see the world you know and our place in it right um so of course that required a certain kind of change in the approach or methodology and that was this change
with Carnap's basically movement toward gestalt psychology but of course the traditional gestalt psychology of people like Kohler, Karnak was quite aware of his work, usually was about this, was about analyzing material things, right, into separate sense data. So he had to kind of move toward
better source of Gestalt psychology, where instead of analyzing material things like you know the idea of this house the idea of this tree into simple sense data right single individual sense data since givens for for Karnat became something else and that was you know his his initiation to to more kind of like advanced form of psychology by way of Husserl, a way of other people like Wertheimer, so on and so forth, was that separate sense data
is never adequate for this form of analysis or reduction of a house into elementary experiences, right? So we can create a kind of a constitution system out of this by way of logical relations. His idea, according, based on these new forms of new geshsal theory, was simple as that, that what he really needs are not separate sense data, but instantaneous total experience
or instantaneous community of elementary experiences. Like, for example, think about this, that within the constitutional system Carnap is talking about is like, you know, a tree can be turned into something else, a bunch of haptic sensory stuff, then they can be decomposed to further patches. Those patches can be turned into cliques. Those cliques can be turned into rudimentary groups. Those rudimentary groups can be turned into groups across different senses, like visual fields. Like for example, the idea of the tree, when I see the observation of a tree,
experiential observation of tree, it can be decomposed or analyzed into points in visual fields, points in visual field. So according to this new commitment to the new Gestalt theories, Karnak believed that we can't simply turn this tree into, decompose this tree into ultimately separate points in visual fields if tree was just a visual, you know, register. But of course you can say about the same thing about smells and other kinds of sensory practices.
Precisely because sense data are always coming in a community. In fact, to talk about sense data is to talk about a community of them. And a community of them, what is this community? What makes this a community, a community of sense data. Well, a community of sense data is a community by virtue of the similarity of relations between points of elementary experiences, such as points of visual fields, like registering. So this is before color. This is before patches of movements and stuff. We are talking about pure reduction here, elementary experiences.
Now the thing is that Karnab understood that experiences cannot be reduced to one single unit or separate units, but always a community of them. You know, and to talk about basically experience in the sense of community is the very definition of abstraction in a modern sense. Abstraction. So what he was trying to do was to abstract the elements in the Markian sense, the elements
of any possible experience. What is these elements? These elements can only be elements insofar as they are communities of instantaneous experiences or elementary experiences, rather than single sense data. Then this becomes basically a scaffolding for what becomes one of the main methods and central topics of AftBow, what he calls quasi-analysis,
Quasi-analysis. So what is quasi-analysis? This is something that we are going to work with as we move forward. Quasi-analysis is exactly the idea that on the basis of similarity relations among experiences, we can logically construct entities you know logically or material entities materials
of which such experiences are components so essentially that's what uh what i was talking about like a tree a material thing you know in a very rudimentary in a very rudimentary i'm saying material here as i mentioned you know i don't balk at my use of words at this point you're using merely vague words I am going to give a quasi-analysis of a tree that is outside I can see it by basically creating a constitution system
that is sourced from similarity relations among elementary experiences, right, by way of the logical construction system or logical constitution system. On the basis of certain primitive relations among experiences, the method of quasi-analysis then leads a step by step to various sensory domains, first to the visual domain, then the position of the visual field, then the colors and their similarity system, then the temporal order and the like. Later, perceived things in three-dimensional perceptual space are constructed. Among them, that particular thing, which is
usually called my own body and the bodies of other persons. Still later, the so-called other minds are constructed. That is to say, mental estates are ascribed to other bodies in view of their behavior in analogy to experience of one's own mental estates. Now, this is, I think, is a fundamentally revolution. and this is actually quite Kantian at this point, you know, but Kant never talked about it. Look, as I mentioned, I just didn't want to overemphasize this idea, this old brief comment of Carnap on the possibility of other minds.
You know, so how can we ever going to talk about other minds, about other forms of intelligence, sapiens, sapiens, right? His position is not, it's very similar to Kant, but it's not Kantian at all. Nevertheless, it is about the thesis that is being shared within Kant and Karnap that any sort of thing that we are ever going to talk about the kinds of minds can always be reduced logically, so to speak, to the kind of experience that
we have among ourselves, you know, as concept mongers and mind, the minded and mind-engagents like humans. So why, I mean this is really, I mean fantastic inhumanist thesis here, already is trying to put it forward, like how can you ever say that, why do you think that the relation between one human subject to another is not that of the human to an alien, right? Any answer to this? Any comment?
Like, why are we always talking about us versus them, right? Human versus aliens, right? Karnav wants to show that if you really think about the very constitution of you as a subject in the world, because subject is only part of the world and is a specific and is a specifically designed or designated epistemologically and logically. If you can't say that I can't tell if, or let me actually reframe this question.
if for some reason you think that how you approach the problem of an alien or a future AGI for that matter with regard to the human and don't think that that kind of relation doesn't hold up between one human and another then think twice because that is the very definition of being a subject that's that's fucking revolutionary
like you're saying that anything that I'm talking about So I'm talking about aliens, disconnected aliens, aliens 300 billion years from now might actually arise, not even aliens, extraterrestrials. He tries to tell you that, sure, OK, this is all good and great, but all such aliens are actually founded logically But what we have now, what is that?
Human as a logical construct. And to the extent that you have that, you can actually trivialize their lavish speculations about future intelligence, reduce it to the very, what? the very relations that we hold among ourselves as subjects, as individuals. Why is that I don't find Anza or Gabriel or Sepide or Delshad as aliens? If you can't answer that question,
then you are not in the business of philosophy. Anyone? Gabriel, you seem to be the most controversial Carnapian amongst us. So maybe you should make some sort of a statement for this. Well, I don't know. I was perhaps I was thinking again on on the on the on Carnap's letter to Feigl that I've that's someone posted on Twitter
which basically defends that the concept of human well that the concept the phenomenal syntax that we used to describe that we used to describe our cognitive apparatus is fundamentally revisable and i was thinking if in the sense the concept of human itself shouldn't be taken as revisable and if so then such a such a such a description such such a description uh such a such an encounter with aliens even if were they even if were they somehow different from us wouldn't that would in principle allow us for to for us to to
extend the concept of human in such a way as to right right conclude both absolutely absolutely you see i to be honest with you when i wrote labor of the inhuman if you have read it i never thought about this but now that i'm you know i've read corner for the past six or seven years. I think that that's actually the idea of rationalist inhumanism. That, you know, in the human, we can always discover the alien.
And that's actually, I think that is actually quite an emancipatory thesis, not just philosophically lavish and boisterous and edgy but it's an emancipatory sort of philosophical position if you if you handle it carefully as a fragile object but isn't isn't this idea of revisability that gabriel you mentioned i'm thinking about this in connection to the discussion on the myth of the given before. I mean, being aware of what is, if we take that kind of,
if he's aware of what it's going to be later on, the myth of the given, is it that fact that forces him to such a heuristic or pragmatist stance of the elementary experience that it's- He's not pragmatist, though, by any sense. He really hates pragmatism, actually. But I mean, in the sense that the given is mainly a utility in order to be able to say anything about the world. In defense of Oliver's reading of the alphabet as pragmatism,
Philip Frank, which was quite fond of pragmatism, and in fact apparently translated Bergson's introduction to William James was in fact referenced by Philip Frank which I just like to quote because it's a hilarious fact that the logical positivists were in fact aware of pretty much all reading, all philosophy, all philosophy being written contemporary to them but anyway Philip Frank apparently immediately after reading Alphabau wrote to Carnap calling him a pragmatist I find this particularly interesting Philip Frank supposedly reads pragmatism into Carnap despite
Carnap at that time not being aware of as far as I'm aware Carnap actually is not pragmatist, he doesn't know shit about pragmatism no yeah, he definitely isn't aware of at least before his... But the thing is, I mean, there are quite actually good stuff that I can actually share that even if Karnab was aware of pragmatism, he would say that big deal. He thinks that pragmatism is trivial. I mean, would have laughed at Brandon probably. Which makes me angry in a certain kind of sense. But I think that he has actually a good, you know, a very great point.
Now, what is really a thesis of pragmatism? What is it? I mean, in terms of not in terms of language, you meaning as use, but in terms of encounters with reality, right? What is it trying to do? What is its beef with empiricism or rationalism or other kinds of stuff? What can it offer? I think that is something I would really like to let me write this here. Carnap's beef. It pragmatism. I only meant pragmatism in the sense that about the idea of revisability.
oh oh yes i mean what revisability is not exclusive to pragmatism is it i mean increases have their own revisability i mean as long as you have a semblance of the idea of rationality and certain kind of ideas between like a coordination or triangulation between concept for formation and object construction and these kinds of stuff, you always have revisability. I think that revisability is the cornerstone of what we call a logical epistemological project, right? But to have a logical epistemological project, as Karnav has shown, doesn't mean
that you need to be a pragmatist to be to have revisability as as which is which is extremely important by the way so is this i'm sorry if it's okay that i absolutely absolutely no no no don't worry don't worry is it exactly this this uh this sense of revisability that's supposed to explain his notion of the quasi-analysis and the quasi-object? Yes, I mean yes and no. I don't think that he wants to simply talk. Yeah, I think that his quasi-analysis doesn't give him revisable, right? I mean
I mean, he thinks that the whole idea of constitution system allows you to be in the realm of revisability. So quasi-analysis is merely about the idea of how we can go back and forth between a material thing and elementary experiences as a community of sense data. You can get to some sort of kind of idea of revisability, but I don't think that quasi-analysis by itself lead to this idea that, oh, it's like, you know, basically thesis is about revisability.
No, I think that the whole idea of project itself as logical epistemological and hence a constitutional system in the way that he has been talking about in terms of vocabulary, logical and experiential ones renders it what? Revisable. By definition. last thing you you summed before you summed this relationship between sense as community as abstraction so i'm just curious if you could clarify the the difference then between abstraction and and constitution itself well constitution is a system right constitution is a system to show that
every sort of upper bound or lower bound elements that we have cannot be defined other than by the way that they relate to one another in terms of a constitution right relations of structures that we can be constructed so in that sense it is different in a sense from elementary experiences or community of them because community of experiences we are talking about it yes uh they can they can that that was actually one of the questions, part of the question that I was asking, that on what account,
by virtue of what questions, by virtue of what account, can we say that the community of elementary experiences are not foundational in the sense of the given? Right? Well, Carnap's idea is that precisely because you can't even have that without the constitutional system in the sense that I've mentioned. Relation between the lower bound and upper bound, a stepwise rational reconstruction. I don't think that Kana by any means would concede that, would say that the community of elementary experiences are given or that they are constitutional.
Second, I think is obvious precisely because constitution is not a thing, it's a rational procedure, right? It's a logical procedure. A community of relations cannot speak for how they are constructed and how they can be constructed toward something else. Such as a bunch of points registered on the visual field being constructed toward a patch of color. Or for that matter, a material entity such as a tree. Thanks.
So, hmm. Yes. Sorry. You asked about, you know, what's the kind of speech. Yes. Yes. Okay. Now, may I talk about, may I actually talk about this next session. would you be able to, what is the, what is the corner piece with pragmatism? I will, I will talk about it the beginning of next session, if you don't mind. Because, because I, my, my, my, my sincere apologies. I just want to simply finish at least the introduction to this past few pages that we have read, and we didn't do any sort of introduction. As always, we are behind.
But yes, if yes, the quote, it will come, it will come. What is this being with pragmatism? I will, of course, I will talk about it. Actually, let me just in case you forget about it. okay my apologies my apologies um so
so within within this within this project i mean at least within the framework of the what we have already read from off-bowl. Carnap's system of concepts was constructed on a phenomenalistic basis. The basic elements were experiences, in the sense that I mentioned. Yet, He also indicates the possibility of constructing a total system of concepts on a physicalistic basis. The main motivation for his choice was a phenomenalistic basis.
that intention to represent not only the logical relations among the concepts, but also equally important epistemological relations. The system is intended to give, though not a description, is still a rational reconstruction of the actual process of the formation of concepts. The choice of a phenomenalistic basis was influenced by some radical empiricists and positivist German philosophers of the end of the last century.
For the construction of scientific concepts on the phenomenal basis, Connacht finds fruitful suggestions in the work of Mark and Avernarius, and above all in the logical constructions made by Russell. With respect to the problem of the basis, his attitude was again ontologically neutral. For him, it was simply a methodological question of choosing the most suitable basis for the system to be constructed, either a phenomenalistic or a physicalistic basis.
The ontological thesis of the traditional doctrines of either phenomenalism or materialism remain, for Karna, entirely out of consideration. This neutral attitude toward various physical forms of language, based on the principle that everyone is free to use a language most suited to its purpose, has remained the same throughout his life. from Aufbau to logical syntax and beyond. Think about this. Within Aufbau, for the construction of the world of physics
on the basis of the temporal sequence of sensory experiences, it has the following method. A system of ordered quadruples of real numbers serve as a system of coordinates of a space-time point. To these quadruples, sensory qualities, for example, color are assigned first, then numbers as values of physical state magnitudes, so on and so forth. These assignments are made according to general rules of maximization. For example, the assignment should be in accordance with the experience as far as possible. There should be a minimum of change in the course of time and a maximum of regularity.
As Quine has pointed out, this procedure is different from the method of concept formation used elsewhere. In the course of Karna or in the course of L in Kantian literature, right? In general, Carnap introduced concepts by explicit definitions. But here the physical concepts were introduced instead of the- on the basis of general principles of correspondence, simplicity and analogy. Kokarna, the procedure of the construction of physical world anticipates the method,
which he recognized explicitly much later, namely the method of introducing theoretical terms by postulates and rules of correspondence. Now, so, so we have a certain kind of system of concept formation, a la object construction. I talked about that these two are two different interpretive modes of a speech with regard to the idea of constitution par excellence. So, um, Karnak actually talks about this early on. Let me see it. um hmm yeah page if you go to page
page eight roman numerals this is that in the sequel i want to indicate in what aspects i have changed my position since I wrote the Afbal. I shall concentrate on the most important points. A detailed description of the developments of my philosophical thoughts and position is given in my intellectual autobiography." The talks a little bit, and then it says that one of the most important changes is the realization that the reduction of higher level concepts, or that matter of objects, as I mentioned. It's not that is a line in distinction between these two, it simply says that there are these two interpretive modes of speech
for one universal idea of constitution, right? Generally more lib- so it says that- sorry- one of the most important changes is the realization that there- that reduction of higher level concepts to lower level ones, cannot always take the form of explicit definitions. Generally, more liberal forms of concept introduction must be used. Actually, without clearly realizing it, I already went beyond the limits of explicit definitions in the construction of the physical world. For example, for the correlation of colors with the space-time points, only general principles, but no clear operating rules were given. The procedure is related to
the method of introducing concepts through postulates, to which I shall return later. So, you see that it's already, as I mentioned, that Carnot is a very strange philosopher. I mean, maybe he's not a strange philosopher, it's just like a very self-conscious philosopher, that he's saying something in his book, in our Bible, or in one of his things. And of course, it's not as if he's coming back and adds something to it that he never said it in the first place. What he's trying to do is to make explicit what he has already said with regard to constitution system. Is it really pure reduction in the sense of reduction to explicit definitions,
that every concept or object can be turned into explicit definitions? No. Is it going to be pure reduction in that sense? It says that no. In fact, reduction requires certain kinds of, sometimes addition of certain kinds of new concepts. So for example, when we are, we have level one at the bottom, level four at the top. From level four, we are going to level two. Does it mean that statements that have been made within level four can all be simply turned into statements or more explicit definitions made in level two?
No, he doesn't think that that's the course of reduction within a constitution system as a logical epistemological project. He thinks that when we are reducing such statements from level four to level two, we sometimes also add new concepts. These new concepts, however, are not concepts par excellence, they are postulates. So that's also an interesting thing with regard to Carnap's idea that people think that positivism, always positivism, logical empiricism is a reduction, is a bad reductionist form of philosophy. No, no, actually it's an engineering problem, philosophical engineering problem, so to speak.
you know sometimes you have to invent new concepts for you to move from level four to level two i think we are over our time so any questions and stuff yeah i think that the questions can go on the email uh did ever if someone did not get included on the list please let me know on facebook here wherever you prefer to let me know and And yeah, if you guys have any questions, you guys can send it there. And my apologies. I know that some questions are going in the sidebar. It's just really hard for me. I have to remove my glasses, break my face two centimeters
away from this way to be able to read them. If you can, actually repeat these questions that you have posted in the sidebar. And if I haven't answered them, would you be able to email them to me? I think you are getting everybody that is on the Google Classroom is getting like a saved version of the chat. So they get sort of like a notes of that. So I think that if people can actually, if you have a question, you can go back there and like either formulate it through the email chain or bring it back on the next session. Or even if Reza has some time, he take a look over there so the it's a storage and being automatically posted on the classroom absolutely
any questions before uh we move forward uh with uh selecting next victim which basically we have selected them already One of the things that, as I mentioned, I think I'm going to make your job easy. I think it would be rude to ask everyone to do a video presentation and also an essay. I mean, even academia doesn't do that. So I think that decide, make a 15-minute video presentation or just write an essay.
15,000 to 2,000 words max, max. I don't have time to read all of this stuff. of course as always i will i will give you feedback either most probably through a skype you know that's my best way or if not possible i will just email feedback and if you prefer it i can also cc other people so they can basically contribute yes i think no not 15 000 words i said that 1500
do you want to give me a heart attack do we have next week uh it's casio and jess right presenting yes okay cool Gabriel soon is coming for him. He has been naughty with his controversial statements lately. I've been saving my comments on my last academic comments on Karnath for this occasion, for an opportunity to discuss Karnath with everyone here in the new center. So I've been,
I have quite a, I have a reserve of polemical comments on Carnot and positivism in general. I mean this is something that I wanted to recommend, so I've been reading, I mean it's not really like connected to our class but I think that all of them Karas and Sibaudi that we have been reading and of course those that i had uh shared with you friedman richardson so on so forth and there is another great philosopher who has been working on car nap particularly against sellers kenneth westfall i i see someone posted a con a an article of him
yes that was that was called i think called call sax yes yes yes i've i have to take a look at them at that one that's how promising in any case my apologies as always we are short on time so on so forth um i hope that you will have a great day wherever you are play free so on and so forth riza can i have an off-top question absolutely uh i've sent you out an invitation for shelter in places for next week i was wondering if you had to just see it oh i i saw it and then i
thought that so basically i i was very sleepy uh i wanted to go to bed i saw it is from our friend yes uh nachayev's friend yeah nikita so uh he uh yes i saw the email i then i woke up and all right it was a dream yes uh well when is it really it's next week like uh on tuesday sure okay good thank you so much absolutely thank you so much have a great day and ciao bye