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Science Without Numbers caused a stir in philosophy on its original publication in 1980, with its bold nominalist approach to the ontology of mathematics and science. Hartry Field argues that we can explain the utility of mathematics without assuming it true. Part of the argument is that good mathematics has a special feature ("conservativeness") that allows it to be applied to "nominalistic" claims (roughly, those neutral to the existence of mathematical entities) in a way that generates nominalistic consequences more easily without generating any new ones. Field goes on to argue that we can axiomatize physical theories using nominalistic claims only, and that in fact this has advantages over the usual axiomatizations that are independent of nominalism. There has been much debate about the book since it first appeared. It is now reissued in a revised contains a substantial new preface giving the author's current views on the original book and the issues that were raised in the subsequent discussion of it.
Introduction: On the Phenomenology of History
1. The Phenomenological Question
2. Representation, Memory, Experience
3. Phenomenological Perspectives: an Outline
Chapter I: The Varieties of Experience
1. On the Concept of Experience and its Curious Fate
2. Experience and Innocence: The Empiricists
3. Experience in Kant and Hegel
4. So Far: Three Concepts of Experience
5. Dilthey, Husserl and a New Word: Erlebnis
6. From Mysticism to Pragmatism: Buber, James, Dewey
7. Taking Stock Again: How Many Concepts of Experience?
8. Experience and Foundationalism
9. Summing Up: Four Concepts of Experience
Chapter II: Experience and History
1. The Two Relevant Senses of Experience
2. Husserl on Temporality
3. Time and Experience
4. Intentionality
5. Objects, Events, World
6. Others and The Human World
7. Experience and Historicity
8. Being with Others
9. "We " and Community
10. Community and Historicity
11. History and Retrospection
12. The Experience of Historical Events
13. Levels of Temporality
14. The Significance of These Examples
Chapter III: Experience and The Philosophy of History
1. Taking Stock
2. Experience, Representation, Memory
3. Narrative Representation
4. Experience and Memory
5. What Kind of Philosophy of History Is This?
6. The Epistemology of History
7. The Metaphysics of History
Chapter IV: The Metaphysics of History and Its Critics
1. The Project of Re-reading the Philosophy of History
2. The Rise and Fall of the Classical Philosophy of History:
The Standard View
3. Hegel and his Alleged Predecessors
4. Hegel's Lectures and Their Reception
5. Twentieth Century Reactions
Chapter V: A Phenomenological Re-reading of the Classical Philosophy of History
1. Danto and "Metaphysics of Everyday Life "
2. Narrative and Everyday Life
3. Practical Narrative
4. Narrative and The Classical Philosophy of History
5. Narrative and The Social
6. The Project of Re-reading
7. Marx and Marxists
8. Hegel's Lectures Again
9. History and the Phenomenology of Spirit
10. Hegel as Reformer
11. Hegel and Beyond
12. Conclusion
Chapter VI: Phenomenologists on History
1. The Emergence of Nineteenth Century Historicism
2. Historicism and Marxism
3. Husserl and Dilthey
4. Husserl's Response to Historicism
5. Husserl's Crisis and a Different View of History
6. Philosophy of History in the Crisis
7. Phenomenology and The Epistemology of History
8. Phenomenology and Historicity in the Crisis
9. Coda: French Phenomenology of History
10. Conclusion
Chapter VII: Space, Time and History
1. Time Zones: Phenomenological Reflections on Cultural Time
a. Space and Place, Home and Beyond
b. Lived Space, Lived Time
c. The Universal Now
d. Time and The Other
e. Local Time, East and West
f. Conclusion: Cultural Time and the Contemporary World
2. Place and Time: On the Interplay of Historical Points of View
a. Place
b. The Reality of Others
c. Time
d. "Virtual History "
e. Narrative
f. Conclusion
Chapter VIII: Experience, Narrative and Historical Knowledge
1. History, Fiction and Human Time
a. Questioning the Distinction Between History and Fiction
b. A Response
c. Fiction and Falsehood
d. Knowledge and Imagination
e. Narrative and Reality
f. An Example
g. Conclusion
2. Narrative Explanation
3. Epistemology and Ontology of Narrative
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Description
Science Without Numbers caused a stir in philosophy on its original publication in 1980, with its bold nominalist approach to the ontology of mathematics and science. Hartry Field argues that we can explain the utility of mathematics without assuming it true. Part of the argument is that good mathematics has a special feature ("conservativeness") that allows it to be applied to "nominalistic" claims (roughly, those neutral to the existence of mathematical entities) in a way that generates nominalistic consequences more easily without generating any new ones. Field goes on to argue that we can axiomatize physical theories using nominalistic claims only, and that in fact this has advantages over the usual axiomatizations that are independent of nominalism. There has been much debate about the book since it first appeared. It is now reissued in a revised contains a substantial new preface giving the author's current views on the original book and the issues that were raised in the subsequent discussion of it.
