Herbert Hochberg

The book contains the first systematic study of the ontology and metaphysics of Gustav Bergmann, tracing their development from early (1940s) criticisms of Carnap's semantical theories in Introduction to Semantics, to their culmination in his 1992 New Foundations of Ontology. This involves a detailed study of the implicit metaphysical doctrines in Carnap's important, but long neglected, 1942 book and their connection to his influential views on reference, truth and modality, (including, contrary to current opinion, Carnap's initiating the development of predicate modal logic) that culminated in Meaning and Necessity. In dealing with various fundamental issues in ontology and metaphysics, the book discusses relevant views of major philosophers, such as Russell, Moore, Bradley, Wittgenstein, Meinong, Brentano, Husserl, Broad, McTaggart, and Quine, and of contemporary and recent figures, including D. M. Armstrong, D. Lewis, S. Kripke, J. Searle, W. Sellars, D. Davidson, J. J. C. Smart, and H. Feigl. Building on the critical studies of Bergmann, Carnap and such other philosophers, the author argues for a form of Logical Realism derived from important, but long misunderstood and ignored, aspects of Russell's theories of descriptions, reference and truth.

Bergmann, Carnap and Logical Realism

The Positivist and the Ontologist

Rudolf Carnap

Otto Neurath

John Von Neumann

Marguerite Young

Max Black

Herbert Feigl

Reinhardt Grossmann

Erwin Tegtmeier

Philipp Frank

Wilfrid Sellars

Alexius Meinong

Adolf Grünbaum

Gustav Bergmann

William Henry Hay

William Smith Heald

Edwin Bonar Allaire

May Brodbeck

Rosaria Egidi

Alan Michael Hausmann

Philosophers discussed include Franz Brentano, Kurt Gödel, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Correspondents include May Brodbeck, Herbert Feigl, John von Neumann, and Marguerite Young.

Papers of Gustav Bergmann

The book contains studies in ontology and analysis that focus on the 'revolt against idealism' of Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein in the early part of the 20th century and the resulting development of analytic philosophy and revival of realism.

The Revival of Realism

Russel, Moore and Wittgenstein

Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein

Hochberg's masterful essays present studies in ontology and analysis that focus on the "revolt against idealism" strongly identified with the brilliant trio of Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein in the early part of the twentieth century. The chapters focus upon the development of analytic philosophy and revival of realism. The volume is at once a history of a special period, time, and place in the evolution of the analytic tradition, an examination of influences upon and differences among these three major figures, and a close reading of their primary works. The author takes up the problems posed by reference and predication, truth, facts, causality, dispositions, intentionality, propositions, particulars and universals, the analytic-synthetic distinction, logicism. abstract entities, and materialism. The essays present a systematic analysis of such issues in the context of classical works of these three Cambridge philosophers, who were all critical to the development of modern philosophy. For those who wish to understand the essential contours of the work of these exemplars of the analytic tradition, there can be no more impressive work. Hochberg is more than a commentator; he is a participant in major debates within philosophy. Indeed, his critique of materialism and defense of realism rests on a sophisticated examination of the status of mental states or phenomenal objects in the world, and the inability of all varieties of reductionism to explain the universe. The materialist is in the same situation as the extreme idealists: denial either of mental states or physical states. For Hochberg, the old argument that only physical or mental states are real has littleto do with the phenomena about us. The great strength of Cambridge philosophy is in mov

Russell, Moore and Wittgenstein

Herbert Hochberg

About

Books

Join the club