Hans Reichenbach: Logical Empiricist

✍ Scribed by Wesley C. Salmon (auth.), Wesley C. Salmon (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 794
• Series: Synthese Library 132
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Logical empiricism - not to be confused with logical positivism (see pp. 40-44) - is a movement which has left an indelible mark on twentieth­ century philosophy; Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953) was one of its found­ ers and one of its most productive advocates. His sudden and untimely death in 1953 halted his work when he was at the height of his intellectual powers; nevertheless, he bequeathed to us a handsome philosophical inheritance. At the present time, twenty-five years later, we can survey our heritage and see to what extent we have been enriched. The present collection of essays constitutes an effort to do just that - to exhibit the scope and unity of Reichenbach's philosophy, and its relevance to current philosophical issues. There is no Nobel Prize in philosophy - the closest analogue is a volume in The Library of Living Philosophers, an honor which, like the Nobel Prize, cannot be awarded posthumously. Among 'scientific philosophers,' Rudolf Carnap, Albert Einstein, Karl Popper, and Bertrand Russell have been so honored. Had Reichenbach lived longer, he would have shared the honor with Carnap, for at the time of his death a volume on Logical Empiricism, treating the works of Carnap and Reichenbach, was in its early stages of preparation. In the volume which emerged, Carnap wrote, "In 1953, when Reichenbach's creative activity was suddenly ended by his premature death, our movement lost one of its most active leaders.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xi
The Philosophy of Hans Reichenbach....Pages 1-84
Inference, Practice and Theory....Pages 85-128
Relative Frequencies....Pages 129-167
The Probabilities of Theories as Frequencies....Pages 169-185
Reichenbach, Reference Classes, and Single Case ‘Probabilities’....Pages 187-219
Reichenbach’s Entanglements....Pages 221-237
Reichenbach on Convention....Pages 239-250
Hans Reichenbach’s Relativity of Geometry....Pages 251-265
Elective Affinities: Weyl and Reichenbach....Pages 267-304
Reichenbach and Conventionalism....Pages 305-320
The Geometry of the Rotating Disk in the Special Theory of Relativity....Pages 321-339
Two Lectures on the Direction of Time....Pages 341-366
What Might be Right about the Causal Theory of Time....Pages 367-383
Concerning a Probabilistic Theory of Causation Adequate for the Causal Theory of Time....Pages 385-402
Why Ask, ‘Why?’? An Inquiry Concerning Scientific Explanation....Pages 403-425
Hans Reichenbach on the Logic of Quantum Mechanics....Pages 427-474
Reichenbach and the Logic of Quantum Mechanics....Pages 475-512
Reichenbach and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics....Pages 513-566
Causal Anomalies and the Completeness of Quantum Theory....Pages 567-604
Metaphysical Implications of the Quantum Theory....Pages 605-623
Consistency Proofs for Applied Mathematics....Pages 625-636
A Generative Model for Translating from Ordinary Language into Symbolic Notation....Pages 637-654
Laws, Modalities and Counterfactuals....Pages 655-696
Reichenbach’s Theory of Nomological Statements....Pages 697-720
Appreciation and Criticism of Reichenbach’s Meta-Ethics: Achilles’ Heel of the System?....Pages 721-730
Back Matter....Pages 731-791

✦ Subjects

Philosophy of Science; History