Toward a Theory of the Pragmatic A Priori. From Carnap to Lewis and Beyond

Rudolf Carnap and the Legacy of Logical Empiricism 16:113 - 132 (2012)
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Abstract

The aim of this paper is make a contribution to the ongoing search for an adequate concept of the a priori element in scientific knowledge. The point of departure is C.I. Lewis’s account of a pragmatic a priori put forward in his "Mind and the World Order" (1929). Recently, Hasok Chang in "Contingent Transcendental Arguments for Metaphysical Principles" (2008) reconsidered Lewis’s pragmatic a priori and proposed to conceive it as the basic ingredient of the dynamics of an embodied scientific reason. The present paper intends to further elaborate Chang’s account by relating it with some conceptual tools from cognitive semantics and certain ideas that first emerged in the context of the category-theoretical foundations of mathematics.

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Thomas Mormann
Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München (PhD)

Citations of this work

C. I. Lewis, Kant, and the reflective method of philosophy.Gabriele Gava - 2019 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27 (2):315-335.

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