Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau

How can perceptual experience reveal the truth to us? How can it bear for us on what (or how) to think? Consider a way for something to relate to something such that, depending on how A is, for A so to relate to B may be, eo ipso, for B to be true. There is such a relation, for example, between the thought that Sid drinks and Pia writes and the thought that Pia writes. Here the way that first item must be is specifiable. The way it is: being true. The relation is thus truth-transmitting. In such a relation B, a potential truth, must be something conceptually structured. Now an idea: So, too, A; there are such relations only between conceptually structured things. An idea with some currency. On it, the conceptual is, so to speak, unbounded. In Wittgenstein’s mocking words, “one cannot step outside it, one must always turn back again. There is no outside, outside there is no air to breathe” (Investigations §103). But this idea misconceives radically the business of representing-as, and it is disastrous. For, first, it erases the conceptual altogether. Second, it encourages a sort of desperate reverse-psychologism, with which empirical psychological theses masquerade as conceptual necessities. So the conceptual is bounded. Some relations are, not truth-transmitting, but truth yielding. All this the present brief.

Millikan’s teleosemantic approach constitutes a powerful framework for what evolutionary biologists call an “ultimate” (as opposed to a “proximate”) explanation of the continued reproduction and proliferation of intentional conventional linguistic signs. It thereby aims at explaining the stability of human verbal ostensive communication. This evolutionary approach needs to be complemented by particular proximate psychological mechanisms. Millikan rejects the kind of mentalistic psychological mechanisms posited by the Gricean tradition in pragmatics, according to which the task of the hearer is to recognize the speaker’s intentions. Instead Millikan has persistently argued that verbal understanding is an extended form of perception. My paper is a critical assessment of Millikan’s thesis that verbal understanding of a speaker’s utterance enables the hearer to perceive whatever the speaker’s utterance is about. I argue that Millikan’s thesis rests on two fundamental assumptions. First, Millikan’s notion of extended perception of the world is itself an extension of her semiotic approach according to which the process of ordinary perception (in humans and non-human animals) involves the translation of what she calls locally recurrent natural signs. Secondly, Millikan argues that only humans have the further capacity for flexible extended perception of what she calls detached signs, as opposed to attached signs or location-reflexive signs.

Die Welt ist ein zentrales Anliegen der Frühphilosophie Wittgensteins. In seinen Notizbüchern von 1914-18, im Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, und in seiner „Vorlesung zur Ethik“ kommt Wittgenstein immer wieder auf den Begriff der Welt zurück. Dann wird es vergleichsmäßig still zu diesem Thema. Aber auch in Wittgensteins späteren Denken spielt der Begriff der Welt eine Rolle, insbesondere in Über Gewissheit, wo von anderen Welten und Weltbildern die Rede ist. „Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.“ Was bedeutet der erste Satz des Tractatus? Was heißt es, dass die Welt meine Welt ist? Warum kommt das Subjekt nicht in der Welt vor? Warum kann es in der Welt keine Werte geben? Was sind die ethischen Implikationen dieser Weltauffassung? Was heißt es, wie Wittgenstein zum Abschluss des Tractatus schreibt, die Welt richtig zu sehen? Und wieso muss man dazu erst einmal die philosophischen Sätze aufgeben?

Traditional accounts of the perception/cognition divide tend to draw it in terms of subpersonal psychological processes, processes into which the subject has no first-person insight. Whatever betides such accounts, there seems to also be some first-personally accessible difference between perception and thought. At least in normal circumstances, naïve subjects can typically tell apart their perceptual states from their cognitive or intellectual ones. What are such subjects picking up on when they do so? This paper is an inconclusive search for an answer. At its end, I conclude, without joy, that we may have to simply accept the perception/cognition distinction as a primitive and inexplicable bright line within the sphere of conscious phenomena.

How do you know the posture of your limbs? Do I feel it or do I directly know it? In this paper I will describe Wittgenstein´s and Anscombe’s theory, according to which bodily sensations play no epistemic role. They famously claimed that the sense of position - the ability to report how the limbs are located - does not depend on sensations of position. In this sense, bodily knowledge differs from perceptual knowledge. I know that the sky is blue in virtue of having a visual experience of the blueness of the sky but I know that my legs are crossed independently of the sensation I may have of them being that way. Why is there such a difference? What reasons do Wittgenstein and Anscombe have to deny that bodily sensations play an epistemic role? They claim that the kind of content that bodily sensations are endowed with cannot explain the beliefs that we form about our bodily posture. On their view, it is not fine-grained enough compared to the richness of our bodily knowledge. In addition, it would not be separately describable from the beliefs themselves. I will argue that these objections do not suffice to show that bodily sensations play no epistemic role.

I have argued that early vision is cognitively impenetrable because its processes do not operate over cognitive contents. Recently it has been argued that pre-cueing guided by cognitively driven attention affects early vision rendering it cognitively penetrated. Since the signatures of these effects are found in early vision, early vision is directly affected by cognition since its processes use cognitive information. Here, I defend the cognitive impenetrability. First, I define early vision and cognitive penetrability. I argue that a set of perceptual processes is cognitively penetrated only if cognition undermines the epistemic role of these processes in grounding empirical beliefs. Second, I discuss the problems cognitive penetrability causes for the epistemic role of perception and relate them to the impact of cognitive penetrability on the sensitivity of perception to the data. Third, I examine the epistemic role of early vision and argue that the cognitive effects underpinning pre-cueing do not undermine this role and, thus, do not render early vision cognitively penetrable. In addition, they do not entail that early vision uses cognitive information; they are indirect effects similar to the shifts of overt or covert attention.

This edited volume on the philosophy of perception is based on the papers presented at the Wittgenstein Symposium 2017 (Kirchberg, Austria). It covers a wide range of recent topics in the philosophy of perception, from realism and objectivity in perception, intentionality and content, the distinction between perception and cognition, the cognitive penetrability of perception to the epistemology of perception. The volume contains papers by Tyler Burge, Howard Robinson, Olivier Massin, Michael Schmitz, Michael Tye, Marcello Fiocco, Guillaume Frechette, Sofia Miguens, Uriah Kriegel, Pierre Jacob, Mark Kalderon, Berit Brogaard, Athanassios Raftopoulos, Ophelia Deroy, Charles Travis, Johannes Roessler, Philipp Berghofer, Harald Wiltsche, Frederique de Vignemont, Romana Schuler, Ulrich Arnswald, David Stern and Hans Sluga.

Der logische Empirismus war durch eine Reihe von Merkmalen gekennzeichnet, die sich auch in der Philosophie des Geistes wiederfinden: die Verwendung logischer Methoden zur Analyse von Begriffen, die anti-metaphysische Einstellung und die empiristische Auffassung von Bedeutung (empiristisches Sinnkriterium). An die Stelle der traditionellen Theorien über das Verhältnis von Körper und Geist sollte eine Analyse von psychologischen Begriffen und deren Verhältnis zu physikalischen Begriffen treten, an die Stelle philosophischer Thesen über das Leib-Seele Problem eine Analyse der empirisch testbaren Behauptungen der Wissenschaften (Psychologie, Physiologie). Die wichtigsten Beiträge des logischen Empirismus zur Philosophie des Geistes sind durch diese Merkmale geprägt, insbesondere der Physikalismus und die Identitätstheorie.

Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau provides us with a history of Waismann’s time in the Vienna Circle. Waismann is often taken to have reported Wittgenstein’s ideas to the Circle. Limbeck-Lilienau however stresses that these reports not only shaped central discussions within the Circle, mainly between him and Rudolf Carnap, but that Waismann’s contributions went beyond mere reporting in trying to improve upon the philosophical outlook emerging from the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The paper works out the conflict between Waismann’s and Carnap’s views on language and physicalism and documents its uptake in Waismann’s Principles of Linguistic Philosophy.

In the 1950s, after a year in Vienna, Arthur Pap published a monograph on the most recent developments in analytic philosophy (Analytische Erkenntnistheorie, 1955), a book which can be read as a strong criticism of logical empiricism. I reconstruct the historical context in which the book was written and analyze Pap’s criticism of a core thesis of the logical empiricists: the linguistic theory of logical necessity. Against Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann, Pap argues for an absolute notion of necessity as a property of propositions conceived as abstract entities independent of language and linguistic conventions. I analyze Pap’s arguments against the logical empiricists as well as Rudolf Haller’s reaction to Pap’s criticism. Pap’s arguments can be seen as an attempt to give to analytic philosophy a re-orientation quite at odds with logical empiricism.

In the genealogy of logical empiricism, the so-called “First Vienna Circle” (Neurath, Frank, Hahn) has been considered an essential episode, connecting the philosophy of Mach and the French conventionalists with the later logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle around Schlick. The present paper makes three claims: (1) We make the historical claim that the lack of archival sources on the “First Vienna Circle” does not allow a reliable reconstruction of such a discussion group, and even allows some doubts about its existence, at least as a regular discussion group. (2) We emphasize the interaction of the young Neurath, Hahn and Frank, in Vienna around 1910, with a group of philosophers strongly influenced by Meinong and claim that this interaction was very advantageous for a reception of the new symbolic logic and especially of Russell´s philosophy of logic and mathematics. New archival sources permit us to reconstruct such an interaction. (3) We claim that this Meinongian context in Vienna shaped some philosophical positionss of Neurath and Hahn, especially their view of the nature of logic and mathematics. We claim that at least Neurath, but probably also Hahn, endorsed a logical realism similar to that of Russell and Meinong. It was only after the reception of the Tractatus in the Vienna Circle that such a logical realism was unanimously rejected by the logical empiricists. Besides the obvious influence of Mach and the French conventionalists on the young Neurath, Hahn and Frank, this heritage from the Meinong school should be taken into account in an evaluation of the early philosophies of our mentioned trio.

French scholars have recently been particularly active in making the texts and ideas of logical empiricism accessible to French readers. But they have also increasingly contributed to the historical research on the development of logical empiricism and to the study of the different positions. I have already considered some of these French contributions to the understanding of the philosophy of the Vienna Circle. Jacques Bouveresse, Christian Bonnet and Pierre Wagner have been particularly important in the recent interest on the part of French philosophers in logical empiricism, a philosophic movement which seemed not to fi t so well in the context of French thought. Pierre Wagner has now published two volumes collecting new papers by French and Anglo-American scholars on logical empiricism. The first volume presents different facets of a central problem in the philosophy of mathematics of logical empiricism: how can mathematics as a formal system without content be applied to experience in the different natural sciences? The second book features papers on different central issues of Carnap’s Logical Syntax of Language

In recent years, one can discern an increasing interest in the philosophy of the Vienna Circle and logical empiricism in France, an interest that is vividly testified by the mere fact that three books on the subject have appeared in a single year. Before addressing them one by one, let me give a brief overview of the history of this reception. After a long time of ignorance, renewed interest in this philosophical movement slowly began already in the 1980s, when the first books appeared, mainly those by Pierre Jacob and Antonia Soulez . Till the seventies French philosophy of science not only ignored logical positivism, but often consciously rejected it. Different reasons can be given for this attitude. A first phase of reception initiated in the thirties by the two Congresses for the Unity of Science in Paris was interrupted by World War II and did not continue afterwards. After the Second World War, French philosophy of science was dominated by a historically oriented “épistemologie” highly critical towards the logical reconstructions and the ahistoric attitude of analytic philosophy. Following Auguste Comte, philosophers like Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem analyzed science through a historical reconstruction of the products of science and refused to suppose a unified scientific method that could explain scientific rationality, and they ignored the instruments of modern logic. In their books, we find only some negative remarks about logical positivism without any substantive confrontation with this philosophy or its later analytic developments. In the sixties, this negative attitude towards logical positivism was fueled by the usual political clichés against “positivism,” especially by Marxist philosophers such as Louis Althusser who was strongly influenced by the “épistemologie” of Bachelard

Logical empiricism and pragmatism shared an empiricist orientation, a close interest in the sciences and their methods, and skepticism about propositions which cannot be empirically tested or verified. Both movements came into direct contact in the first half of the 1930s, shortly after the beginning of the so-called public phase of logical empiricism . Around 1930, Schlick and Feigl went to the United States and philosophers in the pragmatist tradition began to pay attention to the new Viennese movement. Only with the rise of this mutual interest did Carnap become acquainted with pragmatism. Contrary to other logical empiricists , there are almost no traces in Carnap’s earlier philosophy of an interest for pragmatism. We will focus here on the historic episode of Carnap’s encounter with pragmatism. This will permit to clear more general claims about the relation of logical empiricism and pragmatism. We can find contradictory claims on this relation in the recent literature on the history of philosophy of science and of analytic philosophy. On the one hand the differences and conflicts between logical empiricism and pragmatism are emphasized and the progressive divergence between these two movements is pointed out.2 On the other hand the literature points out the pragmatic elements in Carnap’s philosophy which facilitated a convergence with pragmatism.3 First, we claim here that in the 1930s it is the convergence between pragmatism and logical empiricism that was prevailing and that it found its expression in Carnap’s support of a “scientific empiricism” as conceived by the pragmatist Charles Morris. The strong impetus for an internationalization of scientific philosophy in the Unity of Science movement placed the project of an alliance of different empiricist movements at the forefront. Secondly we claim that Carnap’s convergence with pragmatism is due to a liberalization of empiricism which took already place in the Vienna Circle, independently of any direct pragmatist influence. With this liberalization of empiricism the convergence with pragmatism became much easier than it would have been with an empiricism as defended in Carnap’s Aufbau. We will show in a first section that Carnap’s encounter with pragmatism was initiated by the pragmatist’s criticism of verificationism and of the empricism of the Aufbau. In a second section we will describe Carnap’s encounter with philosophers of the pragmatist tradition and his attempt to convince them that the pragmatist’s criticism did not apply any more to his new position of the early 1930s . As response some pragmatists proposed models for a convergence of logical empiricism with pragmatism.4 In a final section we will show that in Carnap’s response to the pragmatists, he supported such a convergence

Logical empiricism and pragmatism shared an empiricist orientation, a close interest in the sciences and their methods, and skepticism about propositions which cannot be empirically tested or verified. Both movements came into direct contact in the first half of the 1930s, shortly after the beginning of the so-called public phase of logical empiricism. Around 1930, Schlick and Feigl went to the United States and philosophers in the pragmatist tradition began to pay attention to the new Viennese movement. Only with the rise of this mutual interest did Carnap become acquainted with pragmatism. Contrary to other logical empiricists, there are almost no traces in Carnap’s earlier philosophy of an interest for pragmatism. We will focus here on the historic episode of Carnap’s encounter with pragmatism. This will permit to clear more general claims about the relation of logical empiricism and pragmatism. We can find contradictory claims on this relation in the recent literature on the history of philosophy of science and of analytic philosophy. On the one hand the differences and conflicts between logical empiricism and pragmatism are emphasized and the progressive divergence between these two movements is pointed out.2 On the other hand the literature points out the pragmatic elements in Carnap’s philosophy which facilitated a convergence with pragmatism.3 First, we claim here that in the 1930s it is the convergence between pragmatism and logical empiricism that was prevailing and that it found its expression in Carnap’s support of a “scientific empiricism” as conceived by the pragmatist Charles Morris. The strong impetus for an internationalization of scientific philosophy in the Unity of Science movement placed the project of an alliance of different empiricist movements at the forefront. Secondly we claim that Carnap’s convergence with pragmatism is due to a liberalization of empiricism which took already place in the Vienna Circle, independently of any direct pragmatist influence. With this liberalization of empiricism the convergence with pragmatism became much easier than it would have been with an empiricism as defended in Carnap’s Aufbau. We will show in a first section that Carnap’s encounter with pragmatism was initiated by the pragmatist’s criticism of verificationism and of the empricism of the Aufbau. In a second section we will describe Carnap’s encounter with philosophers of the pragmatist tradition and his attempt to convince them that the pragmatist’s criticism did not apply any more to his new position of the early 1930s. As response some pragmatists proposed models for a convergence of logical empiricism with pragmatism.4 In a final section we will show that in Carnap’s response to the pragmatists, he supported such a convergence.