I’m a big fan of diagrams. Most of mine are done by hand, but I
have some digital ones that are here.
All of these are created with Visio Pro.
History of Western Philosophy
Two diagrams detailing the history of western
philosophy; the first runs from 600 B.C.E. to 600
C.E., and the second covers 600 C.E. to about 1935 C.E. They are based on Sociology of Philosophies by Randall
Collins. Each one is 4 feet
wide, and together, they are about 44 feet tall when the font is 12 point.
History
of Western Philosophy 1
History
of Western Philosophy 2
Truth
This sequence of
diagrams depicts the logical space of theories of truth. Theories of the nature of truth provide
analyses of the concept of truth, reductive explanations of the property of
being true, or non-reductive specifications of connections between truth and
other concepts. Philosophical
approaches to the aletheic paradoxes (e.g., the liar paradox, Curry’s paradox,
and Yablo’s paradox) specify some feature of our
concept of truth or natural language truth predicates that resolve the
paradoxes. Logical approaches to
the aletheic paradoxes offer artificial languages along with logical principles
and principles governing truth predicates, which together serve as models for
natural languages. A combined
approach includes both a philosophical approach and a logical approach. A unified theory of truth includes all
three elements. All these diagrams
show up in Replacing Truth (see under
“Research”)
Theories of the Nature of Truth
Philosophical Approaches
to Paradox
Combined
Approaches to Paradox
Below are two diagrams
of the relationships between principles of truth. The first depicts the work of Friedman and Sheard and the second is more general.
Principles
of Truth – Friedman and Sheard
Donald Davidson
Below is a diagram of Davidson’s philosophical
system.
Robert Brandom
Below is a diagram that incorporates all the
meaning-use diagrams in Brandom’s Between Saying and Doing.
Brandom
– Meaning and Use in BSD
Frege’s Begriffsschrift
The diagram of the inferential structure of Frege’s Begriffsschrift is the oldest digital diagram I have. The numbers refer to the propositions
of the Begriffsschrift.
Begriffsschrift
– one version of the diagram
Begriffsschrift – a version that is “zoomed in”
more
Begriffsschrift
– the original Visio file
Begriffsschrift
– the jpeg file
Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach
I also have a diagram of the “semantic network” of
Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach.
GEB semantic network
– the diagram
GEB semantic network
– the Visio file
GEB semantic network
– the jpeg file
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