Oliver Schlaudt

Mohsen Sakhri

Louis Couturat (1868–1914) was an outstanding intellectual of the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. He is known for his work in the philosophy of mathematics, for his critical and editorial work on Leibniz, for his attempt to popularise modern logic in France, for his commitment to an international auxiliary language, as well as for his extended correspondence with scholars and mathematicians from Great Britain, the United States, Italy, and Germany. From his correspondence we know of four unpublished manuscripts on logic and its history, which were largely complete and some of which must have been of considerable size. We publish here for the ?rst time in a critical edition the only one of these manuscripts that has been rediscovered: the Traité de Logique algorithmique, presumably written in the years 1899–1901. It is a highly interesting document of the academic reception and popularisation of symbolic logic in France. It provides evidence of the discussions and controversies which accompanied the creation of logic as a new branch of science. At the same time it completes the picture of Couturat’s work, which has been opened up to systematic study by the publication of important parts of his correspondence during the last decade. We append the article on Symbolic Logic of 1902 which Couturat wrote in collaboration with Christine Ladd- Franklin for Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology.

Louis Couturat -Traité de Logique algorithmique

Nadine de Courtenay

Olivier Darrigol

Systems of units still fail to attract the philosophical attention they deserve, but this could change with the current reform of the International System of Units (SI). Most of the SI base units will henceforth be based on certain laws of nature and a choice of fundamental constants whose values will be frozen. The theoretical, experimental and institutional work required to implement the reform highlights the entanglement of scientific, technological and social features in scientific enterprise, while it also invites a philosophical inquiry that promises to overcome the tensions that have long obstructed science studies.

Philosophical, Historical and Sociological Issues

The Reform of the International System of Units (SI)

Philosophy of Economics: A Heterodox Introduction provides an introduction to the philosophy of economics through the prism of heterodoxy. Heterodox economics covers a range of approaches and schools of thought but what they have as a common denominator is the conviction that economic phenomena cannot be understood, and thus must not be studied, in isolation from their relevant context. Conversely, the current form of neoclassical economics emerged from the conviction that there is something like economic rationality sui generis which can be treated independently from all other aspects of our world, social or natural. Heterodox approaches challenge this conviction, from a variety of angles: the economic actor is not isolated, but lives in society which shapes him; market goods are only one kind of goods among others, constituting a larger set with ambiguous and shifting inner frontiers; production of goods takes place within nature, is subjected to physical laws and induces in most cases ecologically problematic fluxes of matter (e.g. waste); finally, the whole economic process in general is not in equilibrium, but shows secular trends through which it is connected to the historical world. This book demonstrates the vitality of these heterodox challenges from a philosophical point of view because not only do they formulate new hypotheses within economics, but they challenge economic theory on a much more fundamental level: how is the economy situated in the world, and which are the right methods for its investigation? This book is an ideal introduction for anyone seeking alternative or critical perspectives on the philosophy of economics and economic theory.

Oliver Schlaudt

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