Irad Kimhi, Dr.

Project

Logical Form and the Nature of Philosophical Activity

Central to my work are the following propositions:
1) The basic truth-bearers are representational actions such as assertions and the mental actions that they express.<br>
2) In specifying the logical form and content of a representational act, we identify the position in space of intentional actions that the agent comes to occupy by performing this act. Hence, logical investigation is not the study of a system of sentences or propositions, but of the internal form of our life.
3) A meta-representation - that is to say a representation of representational action; thinking about thinking ( is a repetition that displays a form.
For example, when I represent another person as saying or believing something, I present his action by doing the same thing myself. I thus present myself as if I am located in his position in the space of action. Thus, such imitative repetitions display the logical form and content of actions.
My work up to now has focused on the nature of representational actions. This work is still unpublished. I wish to dedicate my stay at the Wissenschaftskolleg to the study of meta-representational actions and form-displaying activities. I would like to explore the idea that the aim of philosophical reflection is to allow perspicuous form-displaying activity.

Recommended Reading
Kimhi, Irad. The Logical Gesture: An Introduction to New Thinking. In preparation.

Colloquium, 06.06.2006

The Law of Non-Contradiction is Not a Law.

"It is impossible that the same thing will be affirmed and denied of the same thing in the same
time and in the same way."
Aristotle calls this law the most firm and intelligible principle. This particular
formulation of the law of non-contradiction appears to specify a limit on what is possible to
believe or to think.
There are three traditional ways to understand the necessity expressed by this
formulation of the law:
(1) the law is a law of nature, and thus expresses a natural or empirical
necessity,
(2) the law is an instance of a logical truth, and thus expresses a logical necessity,
(3) the law is a normative law of thoughts-- a demand to which all intellectual activities must
conform.

I shall discuss the dual concepts of affirmation and denial and some of their history.
There is, I shall try show, a different way (different from (1) (2) and (3)) associated with
Spinoza to see the law. Spinoza's discussion of affirmation will allow us to see that "this law
is not a law but life", and thus "life as it is lived in the village at the foot of the hill on which
the Castle is built."