The Politics of Formalization: Liberation or Oppression?

Catarina Dutilh Novaes

doi:10.5007/1808-1711.2026.e114121

Authors

Catarina Dutilh Novaes Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7347-3795

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2026.e114121

Keywords:

Formalization, Technology, Enlightenment, Feminism, Logic

Abstract

Techniques of formalization are widely used in philosophy and other disciplines as tools for analysis and research. While epistemological and methodological aspects of formalization have received quite some attention in the meta-philosophical literature, the politics of formalization—the entanglements of formalization with power relations, and in particular the impact of formalization for projects of liberation or oppression—has received comparatively little attention. To discuss the politics of formalization, the starting point of this paper is the idea that formalization can be understood as a technology; as such, the existing literature on the political import of technologies (from philosophy of technology and science and technology studies) can suitably inform an analysis of the politics of formalization. I then discuss different views on the politics of formalization: as instruments for liberation (Neurath, Carnap) or as tools of oppression (Horkheimer and Adorno, Nye). Next, I argue that the social and political conditions under which formalization has acquired the outlines now familiar to us—namely, Enlightenment movements, the European colonial expansion, and the birth of capitalist societies—invite a reflection on how this historical background may have affected the development of formalization techniques in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. To conclude, I sketch the contours of a social (and political) history of formalization against the background of the pervasiveness of algorithmic rules in the past centuries, drawing in particular on the work of Lorraine Daston.

References

Anderson, E. 2011. Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/feminism-epistemology/

Awodey, S.; Reck, E. 2002. Completeness and Categoricity. Part I: Nineteenth-century Axiomatics to Twentieth-century Metalogic. History and Philosophy of Logic 23: 1–30.

Beaney, M. 2017. Analytic Philosophy: A Very Short introduction (Vol. 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780198778028.001.0001

Beaney, M.; Chapman, S. 2026. Susan Stebbing. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2026/entries/stebbing/

Berlin, I. 2013. Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas. Second edition with a New foreword by Mark Lilla. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400843237

Bijker, W. E.; Hughes, T. P.; Pinch, T. J. (Eds.). 2012. The social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology (Anniversary ed). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Bristow, W. 2023. Enlightenment. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/enlightenment/

Brun, G. 2008. Formalization and the Objects of Logic. Erkenntnis 69(1): 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-008-9112-3

Buchak, L. 2017. Decision Theory. A. Hájek & C. Hitchcock, Eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199607617.013.40

Carnap, R. 1947. Meaning and Necessity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Carnap, R. 1963. Replies and Systematic Expositions. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, pp.859–1013. Chicago: Open Court.

Carus, A. 2008. Carnap and Twentieth-Century Thought: Explication as Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clark, A.; Chalmers, D. 1998. The Extended Mind. Analysis 58(1): 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/58.1.7

Coninx, S. 2023. The dark side of niche construction. Philosophical Studies 180(10–11): 3003–3030. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-023-02024-3

Dale, G. 2023, February 20. The Technocratic Socialism of Otto Neurath. Jacobin.

Daston, L. 2022. Rules: A short history of what we live by. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Dos Santos, C. F. 2026. Logics as Cognitive Tools. In S. Molick (Ed.), Demarcating Logic and Science, Vol. 80, pp. 1–27. Cham: Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-25674-4_1

Dutilh Novaes, C. 2012. Formal Languages in Logic—A Philosophical and Cognitive Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dutilh Novaes, C. 2015. The formal and the formalized: The cases of syllogistic and supposition theory. Kriterion 131: 253–270.

Dutilh Novaes, C. 2020a. Carnapian explication and ameliorative analysis: A systematic comparison. Synthese 197: 1011–1034.

Dutilh Novaes, C. 2020b. The Dialogical Roots of Deduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dutilh Novaes, C.; Reck, E. 2017. Carnapian explication, formalisms as cognitive tools, and the paradox of adequate formalization. Synthese 194: 95–215.

Ficara, E. 2024. Logic and Discrimination. History and Philosophy of Logic 45(1): 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/01445340.2023.2282420

Frege, G. 1967. Begriffsschrift, a formula language, modeled upon that of arithmetic, for pure thought. In J. van Heijenoort (ed.), From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, pp. 1–82. Harvard University Press.

Friedman, B.; Hendry, D. 2019. Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Friedman, M. 2000. A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger. Chicago: Open Court.

Galiston, P. 1996. Constructing modernism: Cultural location of Aufbau. In R. Giere; A. Richardson (eds.), Origins of Logical Empiricism, pp. 17–44. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Ganeri, J. 2001. Introduction: Indian Logic and the Colonization of Reason. In J. Ganeri (ed.), Indian Logic—A Reader. London: Routledge.

Hansson, S. O. 2000. Formalization in Philosophy. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 6(2): 162–175. https://doi.org/10.2307/421204

Hao, K. 2025. Empire of AI: Dreams and nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI. New York: Penguin Press.

Hass, M. 2002. Fluid thinking: Irigaray’s critique of formal logic. In R.J. Falmagne; M. Hass (eds.), Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic, pp. 71–88. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Headrick, D. R. 1981. The tools of empire: Technology and European imperialism in the 19. century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Horkheimer, M.; Adorno, T. W.; Schmid Noerr, G. 2002. Dialectic of enlightenment: Philosophical fragments. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Hughes, T. P. (with American Council of Learned Societies). 1993. Networks of power: Electrification in Western society, 1880-1930. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Jeffrey, R. 1992. Probability and the Art of Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kant, I. 1996. An answer to the question: What is Enlightenment?. Trans. M. J. Gregor. In Practical Philosophy, pp. 11–22. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kidd, I. J.; Medina, J.; Pohlhaus, G. (eds ). 2017. The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice. London: Routledge.

Krämer, S. 2003. Writing, Notational Iconicity, Calculus: On Writing as a Cultural Technique. Modern Languages Notes (German Issue) 118(3): Article 3.

Liao, S.; Huebner, B. 2021. Oppressive Things. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103(1): 92–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12701

Lilley, K. D. 2020. Surveying Empires: Archaeologies of Colonial Cartography and the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. In A. J. Kent; S. Vervust; I. J. Demhardt; N. Millea (Eds.), Mapping Empires: Colonial Cartographies of Land and Sea, pp. 101–120. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23447-8_6

Lin, H. 2022. Bayesian Epistemology. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-bayesian

MacKenzie, D. A. 2004. Mechanizing proof: Computing, risk, and trust. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Mangraviti, F. 2024. The Contribution of Logic to Epistemic Injustice. Social Epistemology 38(5): 619–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2023.2291775

Mejias, U. A.; Couldry, N. 2024. Data grab: The new colonialism of big tech and how to fight back. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Mills, C. 2005. “Ideal Theory” as Ideology. Hypatia 20(3): 165–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2005.tb00493.x

Mormann, T. 2012. Carnap’s boundless ocean of unlimited possibilities. In P. Wagner (ed.), Carnap’s Ideal of Explication and Naturalism, pp. 63–78. London: Palgrave Mcmillan.

Mugnai, M. 2010. Logic and Mathematics in the Seventeenth Century. History and Philosophy of Logic 31: 297–314.

Neurath, O. 1983. The Lost Wanderers of Descartes and the Auxiliary Motive: (On the Psychology of Decision). In O. Neurath, Philosophical Papers 1913–1946, pp. 1–12. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6995-7_1

Nguyen, C. T. 2026. The score: How to stop playing somebody else’s game. 1st printing. New York: Penguin Press.

Nye, A. 1990. Words of Power. London: Routledge.

Okruhlik, K. 2004. Logical Empiricism, Feminism, and Neurath’s Auxiliary Motive. Hypatia 19(1): 48–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2004.tb01268.x

Pettigrew, R. 2022. Epistemic risk and the demands of rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pettigrew, R. (Forthcoming). Formal methods. In Cambridge Handbook of Analytic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://philarchive.org/rec/PETFM

Plumwood, V. 1993. The politics of reason: Towards a feminist logic. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71: 436–462.

Porter, T. M. 2020. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. New paperback edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Reisch, G. A. 2005. How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science. To the Icy Slopes of Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sachs, C. 2011. What is to be overcome? Nietzsche, Carnap, and modernism as the overcoming of metaphysics. History of Philosophy Quarterly 28: 303–318.

Saint-Croix, C. (Forthcoming). Alienation, Idealization, and Modeling. Hypatia. https://philarchive.org/rec/SAIAIA-3

Saint-Croix, C.; Cook, R. T. 2024. (What) Is Feminist Logic? (What) Do We Want It to Be?. History and Philosophy of Logic 45(1): 20–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/01445340.2023.2295192

Scott, J. C. 2020. Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. Veritas paperback edition. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Staal, F. 2007. Artificial Languages Between Innate Faculties. Journal of Indian Philosophy 35(5–6): 577–596. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-007-9024-6

Stebbing, L. S. 1939. Thinking to Some Purpose. London: Penguin.

Stebbing, L. S. 2022. Thinking to Some Purpose. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/b22927

Steinberger, F. 2017. Frege and Carnap on the normativity of logic. Synthese 194(1): Article 1.

Sterelny, K. 2010. Minds: Extended or scaffolded? Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9(4): 465–481. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-010-9174-y

Stinchcombe, A. L. 2001. When formality works: Authority and abstraction in law and organizations. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Strawson, P. F. 1963. Carnap’s views on constructed systems versus natural languages in analytic philosophy. In P. A. Schilpp (ed.), The philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, pp. 503–518. Chicago: Open Court.

Tanesini, A. 2025. Social epistemology: The niches for knowledge and ignorance. Cambridge: Polity.

Tarski, A. 1956. The concept of truth in formalized languages. In Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, pp. 152–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tetrick, L. E.; Camburn, M. K. 2004. Organizational Structure. In Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology, pp. 747–753. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-12-657410-3/00525-0

Timms, R.; Spurrett, D. 2023. Hostile Scaffolding. Philosophical Papers 52(1): 53–82. https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2023.2231652

Titelbaum, M. G. 2022. Fundamentals of Bayesian epistemology. 1: Introducing credences / Michael G. Titelbaum. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Trischler, H.; Bud, R. 2018. Public technology: Nuclear energy in Europe. History and Technology 34(3–4): 187–212. https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2018.1570674

Uckelman, S. 2024. John Eliot’s Logick Primer: A Bilingual English-Massachusett Logic Textbook. History and Philosophy of Logic 45(3): 278–301. https://doi.org/10.1080/01445340.2023.2207244

Uckelman, S. 2025. Logic as Liberation, or, Logic, Feminism, and Being a Feminist in Logic. In Logica Yearbook 2023, pp. 145–162. London: College Publications.

Uebel, T. 2004a. Carnap, the Left Vienna Circle, and Neopositivist Ant-Metaphysics. In S. Awodey; C. Klein, Carnap Brought Home. The View from Jena, pp. 247–277. La Salle: Open Court.

Uebel, T. 2004b. Education, Enlightenment and Positivism: The Vienna Circle’s Scientific World-Conception Revisited. Science & Education 13(1–2): 41–66. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SCED.0000018469.45137.30

Vrahimis, A. 2020. Scientism, Social Praxis, and Overcoming Metaphysics: A Debate between Logical Empiricism and the Frankfurt School. HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 10(2): 562–597. https://doi.org/10.1086/710184

Whitehead, A. N. 2023. An Introduction to Mathematics (First American edition, revised and reset). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195002119.001.0001

Wilczek, F. 2004. The Dirac Equation. International Journal of Modern Physics A 19(supp01): 45–74. https://doi.org/10.1142/S0217751X04018592

Winner, L. 1980. Do Artifacts Have Politics? Daedalus 109(1): 121–136. JSTOR. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024652

Yap, A. 2010. Feminism and Carnap’s Principle of Tolerance. Hypatia 25(2): 437–454. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2009.01080.x