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Prof. Gila Sher (San Diego): Invariance as a Basis for Necessity and Laws (Online)

Research Seminar Theoretical Philosophy Forschungsseminar

abstract:

Many philosophers are baffled by necessity. Humeans, in particular, are deeply disturbed by the idea of necessary laws of nature. In this paper I offer a systematic yet down to earth explanation of necessity and laws in terms of invariance. The type of invariance I employ for this purpose generalizes an invariance used in meta-logic. The main idea is that properties and relations in general have certain degrees of invariance, and some properties/relations have a stronger degree of invariance than others. The degrees of invariance of highly-invariant properties are associated with high degrees of necessity of laws governing/describing these properties, and this explains the necessity of such laws both in logic and in science. This non-mysterious explanation has rich ramifications for both fields, including the formality of logic and mathematics, the apparent conflict between the contingency of science and the necessity of its laws, the difference between logical-mathematical, physical, and biological laws/principles, the abstract character of laws, the applicability of logic and mathematics to science, scientific realism, and logical-mathematical realism.

 

about the speaker:

I am a professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, USA. I received my B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and my PhD from Columbia University, New York City, USA. My research interests include epistemology, truth, and the foundations of logic. I am an editor of the Journal of Philosophy. My publications include, among others:

1. The Bounds of Logic. MIT Press, 1991.
2. Epistemic Friction: An Essay on Knowledge, Truth, and Logic. Oxford University Press, 2016. 3. “Did Tarski Commit ‘Tarski's Fallacy’?” Journal of Symbolic Logic 61, 1996.
4. “Is There a Place for Philosophy in Quine's Theory?” Journal of Philosophy 96, 1999.
5. “The Formal-Structural View of Logical Consequence”. Philosophical Review 110, 2001.
6. “In Search of a Substantive Theory of Truth”. Journal of Philosophy 101, 2004.
7. “Is Logic in the Mind or in the World?”. Synthese 181, 2011.
8. “The Foundational Problem of Logic”. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 19, 2013.
9. “Truth and Scientific Change”. Journal of General Philosophy of Science 48, 2017.
10. “Quine vs. Quine: Abstract Knowledge and Ontology”. Quine, Structure, and Ontology. Ed. F. Janssen-Lauret. Oxford University Press, 2020.

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Details

02.11.2021, 18:30 Uhr - 20:00 Uhr
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