This book is designed to explain the technical ideas that are taken for
granted in much contemporary philosophical writing. Notions like
"denumerability," "modal scope distinction," "Bayesian
conditionalization," and "logical completeness" are usually only
elucidated deep within difficult specialist texts. By offering simple
explanations that by-pass much irrelevant and boring detail,
Philosophical Devices is able to cover a wealth of material that is
normally only available to specialists.
The book contains four sections, each of three chapters. The first
section is about sets and numbers, starting with the membership relation
and ending with the generalized continuum hypothesis. The second is
about analyticity, a prioricity, and necessity. The third is about
probability, outlining the difference between objective and subjective
probability and exploring aspects of conditionalization and correlation.
The fourth deals with metalogic, focusing on the contrast between syntax
and semantics, and finishing with a sketch of Godel's theorem.
Philosophical Devices will be useful for university students who have
got past the foothills of philosophy and are starting to read more
widely, but it does not assume any prior expertise. All the issues
discussed are intrinsically interesting, and often downright
fascinating. It can be read with pleasure and profit by anybody who is
curious about the technical infrastructure of contemporary philosophy.
