P. Mancosu

La prochaine séance du séminaire général de l'IHPST se tiendra le jeudi 22 mai (à l'IHPST) de 11H à 13H. Paolo Mancosu (Université de Berkeley) fera une conférence sur le sujet suivant :
"Quine and Tarski on nominalism"

Le même jour à l'ENS, salle Weil à 16h, se tiendra la première séance de son séminaire sur les théories de la vérité.

Abstract (Quine and Tarski on nominalism):

Quine and Tarski were kindred philosophical spirits. They rejected the
analytic/synthetic distinction and shared a strong distaste for modal
notions. Moreover, both had nominalistic leanings. In this talk I
trace the nominalistic engagement of these two giants of contemporary
analytic philosophy. Using recently discovered materials from the
Quine archive at Harvard, I begin by describing Quine's engagement
with nominalism up to 1940. I will then summarize the impact of the
1940-1941 discussions on nominalism between Carnap, Quine and Tarski
and mention their influence on Goodman. The third part of the talk
will be on Quine's allegiance to nominalism and his subsequent
reluctant acceptance of Platonism. The fourth part of the talk will
then focus on Tarski's defense of nominalism in Amersfoort in 1953.
Finally, I will compare Quine's and Tarski's approaches to nominalism
with some contemporary nominalistic programs (Field, Hellman etc.)