In what follows I shall use my schema, sometimes only implicitly; and I shall refer to emergence, assuming that my schema makes this idea sufficiently respectable within what I hope will be a rational discussion. I propose to deal with some aspects of the growth of knowledge under four headings:
Realism and Pluralism: Reduction versus Emergence.
Pluralism and Emergence in History.
Realism and Subjectivism in Physics.
Realism in Logic.
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IDEAS
that is
DESIGNATIONS or TERMS
or CONCEPTS STATEMENTS or PROPOSITIONS
or THEORIES
may be formulated in
WORDS ASSERTIONS
which may be
MEANINGFUL TRUE
and their
MEANING TRUTH
May be reduced, by way of
DEFINITIONS DERIVATIONS
to that of
UNDEFINED CONCEPTS PRIMITIVE PROPOSITIONS
The attempt to establish (rather than reduce) by these means their
MEANING TRUTH
leads to an infinite regress
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To sum up. As a realist I look upon logic as the organon of criticisms (rather than of proof) in our search for true and highly informative theories - or at least for new theories that contain more information, and correspond better to the facts, than our older theories. And I look upon criticism, in its turn, as our main instrument in promoting the growth of our knowledge about the world of facts.
- A brief account of the history of logic, from the The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (edited by Ted Honderich), OUP 1997, 497-500.
- A biography of Peter Abelard, published in the Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 115, edited by Jeremiah Hackett, Detroit: Gale Publishing, 3-15.
- Philosophy in the Latin Christian West, 750-1050, in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, edited by Jorge Gracia and Tim Noone, Blackwell 2003, 32-35.
- Ockham wielding his razor!
- Review of The Beatles Anthology, Chronicle Books 2000 (367pp).
- A brief discussion note about Susan James, Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy.
- Review of St. Thomas Aquinas by Ralph McInerny, University of Notre Dame Press 1982 (172pp). From International Philosophical Quarterly23 (1983), 227-229.
- Review of William Heytesbury on Maxima and Minima by John Longeway, D.Reidel 1984 (x+201pp). From The Philosophical Review 96 (1987), 146-149.
- Review of That Most Subtle Question by D. P. Henry, Manchester University Press 1984 (xviii+337pp). From The Philosophical Review 96 (1987), 149-152.
- Review of Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages by Jorge Gracia, Catholic University of America Press 1984 (303pp). From The Philosophical Review 97 (1988), 564-567.
- Review of Introduction to Medieval Logic by Alexander Broadie, OUP 1987 (vi+150pp). From The Philosophical Review 99 (1990), 299-302.
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