Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr.
B.A., Pitzer College, 2002
M.A., UC Riverside, 2006
HMNSS 3213
sanchezjr.robert@gmail.com
Interests:
- History of Analytic Philosophy
- Latin American Philosophy
- Existentialism
Dissertation: I am examining whether and how Wittgenstein’s religious/existential “point of view” influenced his (and consequently our) understanding of modern logic—focusing specifically on the enigmatic nature of his criticisms of Frege and Russell. Along the way, I compare Wittgenstein’s Tractatus to Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous literature and the life of Socrates, arguing that like them, it is ironic in form and content. The aim of the Tractatus is to return the reader to what Wittgenstein took, on my reading, to be the fundamental question of philosophy (including logic): Why are we interested in this stuff at all? In sum, I argue that Wittgenstein’s religious “point of view” of logic culminated in the effort to show that what counts as logic reflects our interest in it, and is otherwise uninformative, as Kant believed.
To attune the reader to the possibility that personal or cultural interests shape what counts as logic, I look at a parallel case in colonial New Spain first. As professors of philosophy and theology were sent to Mexico in order to educate the settlers, and eventually the pagans, they were invested with the responsibility of developing the curriculum, including and especially the logic textbook. Influenced by recent refinements of Aristotelian logic, these Scholastic philosophers found themselves embroiled in endless technicalities, which began to undermine their pedagogical aims. Young students, however bright, were turned away from philosophy, and thus theology, in light of the endless tedium of Scholasticism. In response to the decline in interest in logic, what few professors remained repented their sin of indulging in fruitless complications, and began to reshape its domain.