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I should add as a postscript to my earlier post on the
roots and legacy of formalism, that a fuller version
of Michael Friedman's account of Kant and his formalist
legacy is provided in Friedman's highly regarded book
_Kant and the Exact Sciences_ Cambridge: Harvard U. Press,
1992. I might also recommend in the general area also
J. Alberto Coffa's _The Semantic Tradition from Kant to
Carnap_, as well as Morris Kline's well known _Mathematics:
The Loss of Certainty_. For those interested in the what
is perhaps the most important episode in the revolt against
the formalist program -- beginning in Plato and stretching
to Frege -- I couldn't recommend more highly Erich Reck's
seminal article "Frege's Influence on Wittgenstein: Reversing
Metaphysics via the Context Principle", in _Early Analytic
Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Leonard Linsky_ La Salle: Open
Court, 1996. Books by Shanker, Monk, and Hacker (just out)
on Wittgenstein's up-ending of the formalist project in logic,
language, and mathematics, are also highly recommended. In
the philosophy of science, I might recommend Walter Weimer, _Notes
on the Methodology of Scientific Research_ and Frederick Suppe,
_The Structure of Scientific Theories_.
I'd welcome recommended additions from those with further
thoughts on helpful books and articles on the history of the
formalist project in logic, math, epistemology, and the social
sciences.
Greg Ransom
Dept. of Philosophy
UC-Riverside
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http://members.gnn.com/logosapien/ransom.htm
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