Subtraction is a procedure for exhibiting this constitutive “gap” between thought and reality. In Alain Badiou’s ontological writings - where subtraction has been most rigorously explored and formalized - it is pursued in tandem with a rati…ry and reality because it is possible to permutate even the Lord’s Theory, shuffling around the meanings of the symbols to produce a distinct but equally true and empirically adequate theory.[^3] However, subtraction goes further than Putna…lae of bricolage and “demontology,” untying even the minimal conceptual framework with which SP originally sought to regiment our relation to the deep future. Its scope is correspondingly indeterminate, perhaps closer to hand, and philosoph…
Hilary Putnam
philosopher · 7 mentions across 4 readings
In this course
Putnam appears primarily as a reference point for semantic indeterminacy—his work on the underdetermination of theory by evidence (the idea that multiple incompatible theories can be equally empirically adequate) establishes a philosophical baseline that the course readings then move beyond. Badiou's concept of subtraction, as deployed in these texts, goes further than Putnam's position by not merely accepting the gap between symbol and referent but formalizing it as an ontological procedure, making indeterminacy constitutive rather than merely epistemological. His presence here marks a shift from mid-century analytic philosophy toward more radical treatments of the thought-reality distinction within contemporary theory.
Mentioned in 4 readings
Reality can be studied at different levels, so forms of “levelism” have often been advocated in the past.[^1] In the 1970s, levelism nicely dovetailed with the computational turn and became a standard approach both in science and in philoso…Hughes, P., & Brecht, G. (1976). Vicious circles and infinity: A panoply of paradoxes. London: Cape. Originally published: Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975.
Kant, I. (1998). Critique of pure reason repr. w. corr. (trans: Guyer, P., & Woo…
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People mentioned in the same passages — sorted by co-occurrence weight.
Alain Badiou 3Allen Newell 2David Marr 2Paul Oppenheim 2Daniel Dennett 2Graham Harman 1Levi Bryant 1Nick Srnicek 1Oliver Feltham 1Ray Brassier 1Tracy McNulty 1A. Iles 1G. Di Giovanni 1Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1John Niemeyer Findlay 1M. Artiach 1Robert Lucas 1Allen W. Wood 1Dennis Macko 1George Brecht 1Grover Maxwell 1Herbert Feigl 1Immanuel Kant 1J. A. Scott Kelso 1Jancis Robinson 1Michael Scriven 1Mihajlo D. Mesarovic 1Patrick Hughes 1Paul Guyer 1Roberto Poli 1