Olga Pombo

Neurath and the Unity of Science: An Introduction

Otto Neurath was one of the central figures in the Unity of Science movement in the twentieth century. We believe that reconsidering Neurath’s views on the possibility and the desirability of what he sometimes called a unitary science is not only historically interesting, but that it is also directly relevant to contemporary philosophy of science. Thanks, in large part to Quine’s influential promotion of some Neurathian themes, Neurath’s fallibilist view of science has played a central role in the formation of modern naturalism.

Unity of Science and Encyclopaedia: From the Idea to the Configurations

Unity of Science is a regulative idea and a task. That is why it has been grasped through the most extreme metaphors of an invisible totality and has given rise to some epistemological programmes and even intellectual movements. But, before to mount up to such exemplary issues, I will pay attention to the deep, institutional configurations of Unity of Science (Library, Museum, “Republique des Savants”, School and Encyclopaedia) and to their polyhedric articulations. More than a game of complementarities, what seems to be interesting is to show that their structured relationship is endowed with important descriptive and normative capacity.

Neurath and the Encyclopaedic Project of Unity of Science

Underlying the arguments I will try to put forward, there is a claim and a hypothesis. My claim: Neurath’s encyclopaedism deserves to be though out as an important and specific program inside neopositivism. We know that neopositivist program for unity of science was not homogeneous, that there are three slightly yet important perspectives needing to be though out in its specific difference: Carnap corresponding to the logical development, Morris to the more pragmatic tendency, and Neurath performing the encyclopaedic trend. My hypothesis: Neurath’s encyclopaedism is of great significance for the formulation of a contemporary conception of unity of science. A statement which assumes that nowadays encyclopaedia becomes more and more the very model of science and thus that our actuality is giving reason to Neurath.

Three roots for Leibniz's contribution to the computational conception of reason

The aim of this paper is to show that Leibnizs contribution to what we may call today the computational conception of reason must be inscribed in three different roots: 1) the combinatory tradition coming from the XIII century, 2) XVII century attempts at constructing an artificial universal and philosophical language, and 3) the Hobbesian conception of reason.

Operativity and Representativity of the Sign in Leibniz

In opposition to, or in the line of, philosophy cannot grow except inside a tradition. This is precisely the issue with contemporary research on diagrammatic thinking. We all agree that it is essential to go back to Peirce or Husserl not only to recognize important roots, to honour significant predecessors, but to recover their insights, to make use of their hypothesis, to recuperate the conceptual instruments that they have been able to put forward. What I propose here is to go back even more in time, to go back to Leibniz. Not to claim for Leibniz as a predecessor of cognitive semantics or of present-day diagrammatic research, but to recall what Leibniz thought out in this respect, to bring into play the conceptual devices he put up, to bear in mind the distinctions he was able to constitute.

Epistemología de la interdisciplinariedad. La construcción de un nuevo modelo de comprensión

Se examina la complejidad del advenimiento de la interdisciplinariedad, partiendo de las dificultades para arribar a una definicion, y a acuerdos basicos sobre terminos. Se describe el uso del concepto en una variedad de marcos y situaciones, que conduce al abuso de la palabra. Se definen cuatro contextos fundamentales: epistemologico, pedagogico, mediatico y empresarial/tecnologico, y se senala que es un termino al que se suele recurrir cuando se encuentran los limites del conocimiento. Se formulan breves apuntes sobre la evolucion de la ciencia desde sus origenes, y su evolucion hacia la especializacion y, mas recientemente, la institucionalizacion, rasgos que se erigen en dificultades para la aplicacion de enfoques interdisciplinarios, aunque se senala que muchos de los grandes creadores cientificos del pasado se han caracterizado por superar los limites de la especializacion. Por ultimo, se ensayan clasificaciones de interdisciplinariedad de acuerdo con el tipo de interacciones que se establecen entre diversas ramas de la ciencia, y de acuerdo tambien con las diferentes practicas emergentes de estos tipos de interacciones. Se senala, a su vez, el papel fundamental que la interdisciplinariedad traza para el ser humano, y la funcion de la relacion observador/observado.