Moritz Cordes

Center for Advanced Internet Studies Bochum
  •  8
    In his book Meinungsverschiedenheiten (engl.: Disagreement) Marc Andree Weber defends a probability based conception of epistemic peerhood. Starting from this conception he proves the equal weight thesis, which prescribes that one should allocate the same weight to the beliefs of epistemic peers as to one's own beliefs. – In the present article I provide a much shorter proof. For that purpose I first formalize Weber's definition and thesis and I close the argumentative gap between the two of the…Read more
  •  21
    Pseudosentences, Auto-Misunderstanding, and Formalization
    In Michael Nathan Goldberg, Andreas Mauz & Christiane Tietz (eds.), Missverstehen -- Zu einer Urszene der Hermeneutik., Brill | Schöningh. pp. 45-69. 2023.
    In the early Analytic Philosophy, the concept of a pseudosentence was used as a polemical device. To try and formalize a sentence without success was a means to ›debunk‹ it as a pseudosentence. The classical example is Heidegger’s dictum of the nothing which noths. But, according to Carnap, not only did Carnap not understand what Heidegger said, but also Heidegger himself must have misunderstood his own utterances! Does Carnap's diagnosis remain intact if one admits the possibility of a misunder…Read more
  •  22
    The question of how to arrive at questions is ambiguous. I will concentrate on two readings: (i) How should one set up a formal syntax that accomodates questions? (ii) How does one, while working in a suitable formal language, arrive at a situation where one is allowed to or even must ask a certain question? In other words: How is the asking of questions regulated within a given formal language? I will propose an answer to question (i) and consider the field of possibilities of answering (ii).
  •  70
    Asking and Answering: Rivalling Approaches to Interrogative Methods (edited book)
    Narr Francke Attempto. 2021.
    Questions are everywhere and the ubiquitous activities of asking and answering, as most human activities, are susceptible to failure – at least from time to time. This volume offers several current approaches to the systematic study of questions and the surrounding activities and works toward supporting and improving these activities. The contributors formulate general problems for a formal treatment of questions, investigate specific kinds of questions, compare different frameworks with regard …Read more
  •  15
    Sebastian Luft: Philosophie lehren - ein Buch zur philosophischen Hoschuldidaktik (review)
    with Moritz Cordes and Victoria Oertel
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 75 171-175. 2021.
  •  47
    Calculizing classical inferential erotetic logic
    Review of Symbolic Logic 14 (4): 1066-1087. 2021.
    This paper contributes to the calculization of evocation and erotetic implication as defined by Inferential Erotetic Logic (IEL). There is a straightforward approach to calculizing (propositional) erotetic implication which cannot be applied to evocation. First-order evocation is proven to be uncalculizable, i.e. there is no proof system, say FOE, such that for all X, Q: X evokes Q iff there is an FOE-proof for the evocation of Q by X. These results suggest a critique of the represented approach…Read more
  •  22
  •  59
    Analysis of (')Pseudoproblems(')
    History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 22 (1): 137-159. 2019.
    Pseudoproblems, pseudoquestions, pseudosentences (etc.) constitute an iridescent group of concepts which were prominently used by the Vienna Circle (including Wittgenstein). In the course of an explication this paper presents a compilation of the many different meanings that were given to these expressions. This includes the more prominent Viennese approaches as well as a more recent one by Roy Sorensen. A novel proposal concerning the use ofthe term is made, suggesting that nothing is just a ps…Read more
  •  33
    Freges Urteilslehre. Ein in der Logik vergessenes Lehrstück der Analytischen Philosophie
    XXIII. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft Für Philosophie 28. September - 2. Oktober 2014. 2014.
    Frege's philosophy of language includes detailed views on judgments. His formal logic - the Begriffsschrift - documents some of these views in the introduction and treatment of the judgment stroke. In current logic such an expression is either entirely ignored or, appearing as turnstile, plays an fundamentally different role. In this paper I put forward four claims: (i) Considering Frege's Begriffsschrift, it is methodologically palpable why the judgment stroke was omitted in nearly all logical …Read more
  • In a recent essay Jürgen Ludwig Scherb strives for a benevolent reconsideration of Heidegger's famous phrase 'the nothing noths' (,das Nichts nichtet'). In 1932 Rudolf Carnap attacked this expression for being meaningless and a pseudo-sentence. Using Stanislaw Lesniewski's ontology. Scherb reconstructs 'the nothing noths' in the tradition of Desmond Paul Henry. My text tries to show that attempts to rehabilitate Heidegger's dictum by just providing such a reconstruction must fail. Indeed, all th…Read more
  •  50
    Edgar Morscher: Die wissenschaftliche Definition (review)
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 72 443-446. 2018.
  •  57
    Explication
    with and and Geo Siegwart
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2018.
    This encyclopedia article provides a procedural account of explication outlining each step that is part of the overall explicative effort (2). It is prefaced by a summary of the historical development of the method (1). The latter part of the article includes a rough structural theory of explication (3) and a detailed presentation of an examplary explication taken from the history of philosophy and the foundations of mathematics (4).
  •  89
    The constituents of an explication
    Synthese 197 (3): 983-1010. 2020.
    The method of explication has been somewhat of a hot topic in the last 10 years. Despite the multifaceted research that has been directed at the issue, one may perceive a lack of step-by-step procedural or structural accounts of explication. This paper aims at providing a structural account of the method of explication in continuation of the works of Geo Siegwart. It is enhanced with a detailed terminology for the assessment and comparison of explications. The aim is to provide means to talk abo…Read more
  •  46
    Ein Redehandlungskalkül: Folgern in einer Sprache
    XXII. Deutscher Kongress Für Philosophie. 2011.
    Wir stellen einen pragmatisierten Kalkül des natürlichen Schließens vor, der sich dadurch auszeichnet, dass Ableitungen reine Folgen objektsprachlicher Sätze sind und ohne graphische oder andere Kommentarmittel auskommen.
  •  310
    We argue that the need for commentary in commonly used linear calculi of natural deduction is connected to the “deletion” of illocutionary expressions that express the role of propositions as reasons, assumptions, or inferred propositions. We first analyze the formalization of an informal proof in some common calculi which do not formalize natural language illocutionary expressions, and show that in these calculi the formalizations of the example proof rely on commentary devices that have no cou…Read more
  •  34
    Rudolf Carnaps verschiedene Scheinproblemkonzeptionen
    Kriterion - Journal of Philosophy 1 (25): 2-18. 2011.
    This paper is a review of Rudolf Carnap's changing attitudes towards the conceptualisation of pseudo-problems. For that purpose his early works are divided into four phases each of which display subtle dierences with respect to the role pseudo-problems play in Carnap's epistemology and philosophical methodology. Based on a number of short texts by Carnap, an attempt is made to give provisional denitions of 'pseudo-problem' and related expressions.
  •  36
    Deduktive Begrundung Zu einem Explikationsvorschlag von Reinhard Kleinknecht
    Conceptus: Zeitschrift Fur Philosophie 39 (95): 31-60. 2010.
    In his paper "Deduktive Begründung und deduktive Ableitung" Reinhard Kleinknecht offers an explication of the concepts of deduetive reason and deductive argument respectively. To this end, he provides seven conditions that he sees as individually necessary and jointly sufficient for being a deductive reason. We argue that some of his conditions are far too restrictive and that his concept of deductive argument is therefore to narrow to capture the usual practice of deductively establishing propo…Read more
  •  1758
    Scheinprobleme - Ein explikativer Versuch
    Dissertation, University of Greifswald. 2016.
    The traditional use of the expression 'pseudoproblem' is analysed in order to clarify the talk of pseudoproblems and related phenomena. The goal is to produce a philosophically serviceable terminology that stays true to its historical roots. This explicative study is inspired by and makes use of the method of logical reconstruction. Since pseudoproblems are usually expressed by pseudoquestions a formal language of questions is presented as a possible reconstruction language for alleged pseudopro…Read more
  •  424
    Building on the work of Peter Hinst and Geo Siegwart, we develop a pragmatised natural deduction calculus, i.e., a natural deduction calculus that incorporates illocutionary operators at the formal level, and prove its adequacy. In contrast to other linear calculi of natural deduction, derivations in this calculus are sequences of object-language sentences which do not require graphical or other means of commentary in order to keep track of assumptions or to indicate subproofs.
  •  696
    Building on the work of Peter Hinst and Geo Siegwart, we develop a pragmatised natural deduction calculus, i.e. a natural deduction calculus that incorporates illocutionary operators at the formal level, and prove its adequacy. In contrast to other linear calculi of natural deduction, derivations in this calculus are sequences of object-language sentences which do not require graphical or other means of commentary in order to keep track of assumptions or to indicate subproofs. (Translation of ou…Read more