Collected Papers on Epistemology, Philosophy of Science and History of Philosophy

These two volumes contain all of my articles published between 1956 and 1975 which might be of interest to readers in the English-speaking world. The first three essays in Vol. 1 deal with historical themes. In each case I as far as possible, meets con have attempted a rational reconstruction which, temporary standards of exactness. In The Problem of Universals Then and Now some ideas of W. V. Quine and N. Goodman are used to create a modern sketch of the history of the debate on universals beginning with Plato and ending with Hao Wang's System L. The second article concerns Kant's Philosophy of Science. By analyzing his position vis-a-vis I. Newton, Christian Wolff, and D. Hume, it is shown that for Kant the very notion of empirical knowledge was beset with a funda mental logical difficulty. In his metaphysics of experience Kant offered a solution differing from all prior as well as subsequent attempts aimed at the problem of establishing a scientific theory. The last of the three historical papers utilizes some concepts of modern logic to give a precise account of Wittgenstein's so-called Picture Theory of Meaning. E. Stenius' interpretation of this theory is taken as an intuitive starting point while an intensional variant of Tarski's concept of a relational system furnishes a technical instrument. The concepts of inodel world and of logical space, together with those of homomorphism and isomorphism be tween model worlds and between logical spaces, form the conceptual basis of the reconstruction.

1. The Problem of Universals Then and Now. - 1. The Problem. - 2. Platonism and Nominalism. - 3. Historical Background. - 4. Epistemological Discussion of Platonism and Nominalism. - 5. Constructive Conceptualism. - 6. The Three Ontological Positions. - 7. Summary. - 2. Towards a Rational Reconstruction of Kant s Metaphysics of Experience. - I: Kant s Riddle of Experience. - 1. On Rational Reconstructions of Philosophical Theories. - 2. The Place of Kant s Theory of Experience within His Theoretical Philosophy. - 3. Synthetic a priori Propositions. - 4. The Existential Hypothesis in Kant s Fundamental Question. - 5. The Influence of Isaac Newton, Chr. Wolff and D. Hume upon Kant s Conception of Science. - 6. Kant s Antinomy of Experience. - 7. Kant s Project for a Solution: Synthetic a priori Statements as the Way out of the Dilemma. - 8. A Remark on the Relation between the `Regressive and the `Progressive Argument. - II: The Logical Structure of the Progressive Argument. - 1. The Aim of the Progressive Argument. - 2. Kant as a Rationalist Precursor of the Theory of Eliminative and Enumerative Induction. - 3. Kant s Theory of Structural Reduction or a priori Elimination (The Modal Argument). - 4. Empirical Confirmation and Consolidation. - 5. The Gap in Kant s Argument. - 6. Concluding Remarks. - 3. A Model Theoretic Explication of Wittgenstein s Picture Theory. - 1. Introduction. - 2. Intensional Relational Systems, Model Worlds, Categorical Identity. - 3. Isomorphism, Homomorphism, Picture, Truth and Falsity. - 4. Logical Spaces, Isomorphism between Logical Spaces, Logically Adequate and Inadequate Pictures. - 5. Application of the Picture Theory to Language. - 4. Phenomenalism and Its Difficulties. - 1. Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics and Phenomenalism. - 2. ACharacterization of Phenomenalism. - 3. Motives for Phenomenalism. - 4. Difficulties in Carrying out the Phenomenalistic Programme. - 5. Conclusion. - 5. Ontology and Analyticity. - 1. The Ontological Problem. - 2. The Problem of Analytic Statements. - 3. Concluding Remarks. - Index of Names.