Reduction - Abstraction - Analysis : Proceedings of the 31th International Ludwig Wittgenstein-Symposium in Kirchberg, 2008

Philosophers often have tried to either reduce "disagreeable" objects or concepts to (more) acceptable objects or concepts. Reduction is regarded attractive by those who subscribe to an ideal of ontological parsimony. But the topic is not just restricted to traditional metaphysics or ontology. In the philosophy of mathematics, abstraction principles, such as Hume's principle, have been suggested to support a reconstruction of mathematics by logical means only. In the philosophy of language and the philosophy of science, the logical analysis of language has long been regarded to be the dominating paradigm, and liberalized projects of logical reconstruction remain to be driving forces of modern philosophy. This volume collects contributions comprising all those topics, including articles by Alexander Bird, Jaakko Hintikka, James Ladyman, Rohit Parikh, Gerhard Schurz, Peter Simons, Crispin Wright and Edward N. Zalta. I.Reduction A PROOF OF NOMINALISM:AN EXERCISE IN SUCCESSFUL REDUCTION IN LOGIC JAAKKO HINTIKKA PRESERVATION OF EMPIRICAL SUCCESS AND INTERTHEORETICAL CORRESPONDENCE: JUSTIFYING REALISM WITHOUT THE NO MIRACLES ARGUMENT GERHARD SCHURZ EMPIRICAL ADEQUACY AND RAMSIFICATION, II JEFFREY KETLAND ELIMINATING MODALITY FROM THE DETERMINISM DEBATE?MODELS VS. EQUATIONS OF PHYSICAL THEORIES THOMAS MÜLLER DETERMINISTIC VERSUS INDETERMINISTIC DESCRIPTIONS:NOT THAT DIFFERENT AFTER ALL? CHARLOTTE WERNDL THE “MULTIREALIZATION” OF MULTIPLE REALIZABILITY HOLGER LYRE PESSIMISTIC META-INDUCTION AND THE EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF SCIENCE1 LUDWIG FAHRBACH WEAK PHYSICALISM AND SPECIAL SCIENCE ONTOLOGY JAMES LADYMAN ARE NATURAL KINDS REDUCIBLE?ALEXANDER BIRD ONTIC GENERATION: GETTING EVERYTHING FROM THE BASICS PETER SIMONS WHAT REDUCTIONISTS BELIEVE IN Christian Kanzian SUPERVENIENCE AND MORAL REALISM ALISON HILLS ALTERNATIVE REDUCTIONS FOR DYNAMIC DEONTIC LOGICS ALBERT J.J. ANGLBERGER II.Abstraction THE METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY OF ABSTRACTION* CRISPIN WRIGHT HOW ABSTRACTION WORKS LEON HORSTEN and HANNES LEITGEB THIN OBJECTS ØYSTEIN LINNEBO RUSSELL’S MANY POINTS THOMAS MORMANN FROM DESCRIPTIVE FUNCTIONS TO SETS OF ORDERED PAIRS1 BERNARD LINSKY DIAGONALIZATION, THE LIAR PARADOX, AND THE INCONSISTENCY OF THE FORMAL SYSTEM PRESENTED IN THE APPENDIX TO FREGE’S GRUNDGESETZE: VOLUME II ROY T COOK A PROBLEM AND A SOLUTION FOR NEO-FREGEANISM* MICHAEL GABBAY ED ZALTA’S VERSION OF NEO-LOGICISM –A FRIENDLY LETTER OF COMPLAINT Philip A. Ebert REPLY TO P. EBERT AND M. ROSSBERG’S FRIENDLY LETTER OF COMPLAINT EDWARD N. ZALTA III.Analysis ON THE BENEFITS OF AREDUCTION OF MODAL PREDICATES TO MODAL OPERATORS VOLKER HALBACH CALCULI OF INDIVIDUALS AND SOME EXTENSIONS: AN OVERVIEW* KARL-GEORG NIEBERGALL DEFINITE DESCRIPTIONS: LANGUAGE, LOGIC, AND ELIMINATION NORBERT GRATZL FROM LANGUAGE GAMES TO SOCIAL SOFTWARE ROHIT PARIKH ON THE RELATION BETWEEN GAMES IN EXTENSIVE FORM AND GAMES IN STRATEGIC FORM SIMON M. HUTTEGGER TWO ACCOUNTS OF SIMILARITY COMPARED LIEVEN DECOCK and IGOR DOUVEN CONTEXTUALISM, RELATIVISM, AND FACTIVITY.ANALYZING ‘KNOWLEDGE’ AFTER THE NEW LINGUISTIC TURN IN EPISTEMOLOGY ELKE BRENDEL The investigation of the mind has been one of the major concerns of our philosophical tradition and it still is a dominant subject in modern philosophy as well as in science. Many philosophers in the scientific tradition want to solve the ""puzzles of the mind"". But many philosophers in the very same tradition do regard these puzzles as puzzles of the brain. So, whilst the former think of the mental as something of its own kind, the latter deny that philosophy of mind has to do with anything else but the brain. And then there are those who think that reduction is the way to go: maybe the ment Publications of the series include the official proceedings of the ALWS-conferences and of their special workshops. The series is open also for other high-quality publications, especially on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and its influence on contemporary analytic philosophy.