Calculemus
Leibniz on the payoff of having a precise formal system:
If controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two accountants. For it would suffice to take their pencils in their hands, and say to each other, ‘Let us calculate.’
(heard in the Blackburn & Bos course on Computational Semantics–more on that course and the others when I have a chance to stop and breathe)
emma :: Jul.06.2007 :: philosophy :: 5 Comments »
Is that quote referring to his Monadology? My impression of Leibniz is that history has lumped him into the same category as every other philosopher who thought they had it all figured out — they didn’t actually solve anything. If the Monadology is read at all anymore it’s more often read for historical context than philosophical insight. I don’t think the pursuit is necessarily misguided and I haven’t had a chance to read the Monadology yet myself, but from the little I know about Leibniz’s metaphysics, he would have benefitted greatly from the 200 years of physics research that postdated his project. That suggests to me that we’re either incapable of ever constructing a lasting metaphysics (making the kind of metaphysical calculus he hoped for an impossibility) or if we are capable, the real work of figuring things out is going to come from physics not from philosophy. Science uncovers the truth, philosophy interprets it from a cultural point of view (which will always be relative, subjective, disputable). But that’s just my opinion.
That’s a wonderful quote.
andrew,
youre a bit all over the place. care to say anything about the leibniz quote itself?
leibniz is, as usual, being ridiculous
Basically just that it sounds like a nice idea, but I think it’s thoroughly impractical. The idea that you can calculate philosophical problems numerically like an accountant and expect to arrive at one answer that everyone is happy with is, in my opinion, a pipedream. Why? Well, there’s a pretty key difference between logical argument and mathematics — the terms of mathematics are defined by the natural world. They are fixed and unchanging. Presumably universal. Logic is a tool for dealing with arguments rationally, but it’s only useful once you’ve fixed your terms artificially. Words are not like numbers. They don’t have fixed meanings. The connotations, if not the denotations themselves, are always in flux. Ask a dozen different people who speak the same language what a word means and you’ll get more than one answer — without even going into the unspoken meanings associated with words that people don’t communicate. Logic is no good if your terms are constantly futzing about. So you’re going to have to first fix a definition that you are going to use and as soon as you’ve done that you’ve seperated yourself from the real world and entered a self-contained “logical” world of your own creation. That can be useful for solving certain problems but if you’re then going to convince people of your conclusion you’ve got to first convince them to accept the same artifically fixed definitions that you’ve used and there being no objective fact of the matter in this, there’s always going to be dispute.
I’m not against logic by any means, computational or otherwise. I just think it should be recognized that it’s a tool which can help you uncover the truth if you use it properly, but it’s not the truth itself.