Kevin Scharp

Diagrams

Home Personal Research Teaching CV Diagrams

I am 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

Logical Approaches to Paradox

Combined Approaches to Paradox

Unified Theories of Truth

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

Principles of Truth – General

Donald Davidson

Below is a diagram of Davidson�s philosophical system.

Davidson

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 G�del, Escher, Bach

I also have a diagram of the �semantic network� of Hofstadter�s G�del, Escher, Bach.

GEB semantic network – the diagram

GEB semantic network – the Visio file

GEB semantic network – the jpeg file