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Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”)

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On G.F.W. Hegel’s The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 and The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25. “Logic” for Hegel isn’t about symbolic logic; it’s about how thought interacts with the world. Our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical categories bear the same relations to each other as the the categories themselves do. Just take Hegel’s many, many words for it! With guest Amogh Sahu.

End song: “Procrastination” by Steve Petrinko from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Hear Mark interview Steve on Nakedly Examined Music.

Episode 134: Hegel on Thought & World (or “Logic”) (Citizen Edition)

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On G.F.W. Hegel’s The Science of Logic (1812–1816), §1–§129 and The Encyclopaedia Logic (1817) §1–§25. “Logic” for Hegel isn’t about symbolic logic; it’s about how thought interacts with the world. Our thoughts about fundamental metaphysical categories bear the same relations to each other as the the categories themselves do. Just take Hegel’s many, many words for it! This is the first of two discussions on the Logic. With guest Amogh Sahu.

End song: “Procrastination” by Steve Petrinko from The MayTricks’ Happy Songs Will Bring You Down (1994). Hear Mark interview Steve on Nakedly Examined Music.

From Technologist to Humanist: Google’s “In-House” Philosopher

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I had been thinking about the PEL debate on the value of higher education, and came across this compelling story by Damon Horowitz. Did you know that Google has an “in-house philosopher”? Horowitz shares his personal story of self-transformation in this article for the Chronicle of Higher Education. With a background in software engineering, he had developed a career in Continue Reading …

Bertrand Russell’s Very Short Introduction to His Ontology

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Watch in YouTube For those who can’t get enough Bertrand Russell, here’s an introduction to logical analysis from his History of Western Philosophy. In this concluding chapter, Russell explains his own philosophy, as inspired by Frege, so even critics of Russell-as-historian shouldn’t object. I was particularly taken with Russell’s ontology, via Einstein. Russell succinctly and I think fairly summarizes a Continue Reading …

Topic for #38: Russell on Math and Logic

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What is a number? Is it some Platonic entity floating outside of space and time that we somehow come into communion with? We’ll be following up our foray into analytical philosophy with Frege with some Bertrand Russell: specifically his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919), which is the much shortened, non-technical version of his famous Principia Mathematica(written with Whitehead). Frege and Continue Reading …

Yet More on Logic: Quantification

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Against both my better judgment and the hue and cry of many, I will continue my semi-informed-by-past-years-of-studying “exposition” of predicate logic which I started here.  If I accomplish nothing else, I will give Burl something to complain about for the next week or so. In the previous installment, we talked about how syllogistic statements about “all x’s” assert the truth Continue Reading …

Logicomix!

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In the recent Frege episode, Mark related the famous anecdote of how Bertrand Russell, the man who “discovered” Frege, later confounded him by pointing out a paradox apparent within his logical system. As Wes recounted, Russell’s own attempt to ground mathematics in logic was also later frustrated by a young Kurt Gödel, whose early incompleteness theorems crippled the central purpose of Principia Continue Reading …

Episode 34: Frege on the Logic of Language (Citizens Only)

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Discussing Gottlob Frege’s “Sense and Reference,” “Concept and Object” (both from 1892) and “The Thought” (1918).

What is it about sentences that make them true or false? Frege, the father of analytic philosophy who invented modern symbolic logic, attempted to codify language in a way that would make this obvious, which would ground mathematics and science. Applying his symbolic system to natural language forced him to invent strange entities like “thoughts” and “senses” that are neither physical nor psychological, and we pretty much spend this episode kvetching about the metaphysical implications of this and the fact that Frege didn’t care about them.

PREVIEW-Episode 34: Frege on the Logic of Language

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On Gottlob Frege’s “Sense and Reference,” “Concept and Object” (both from 1892) and “The Thought” (1918). With guest Matt Teichman.

What is it about sentences that make them true or false? Frege, the father of analytic philosophy who invented modern symbolic logic, attempted to codify language in a way that would make this obvious, which would ground mathematics and science. Applying his symbolic system to natural language forced him to invent strange entities like “thoughts” and “senses” that are neither physical nor psychological, and we pretty much spend this episode kvetching about the metaphysical implications of this and the fact that Frege didn’t care about them.

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About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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