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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Logic
This book brings together an influential sequence of papers that argue for a radical re-conceptualisation of the psychology of inference, and of cognitive science more generally. The papers demonstrate that the thesis that logic provides the basis of human inference is central to much cognitive science, although the commitment to this view is often implicit. They then note that almost all human inference is uncertain, whereas logic is the calculus of certain inference. This mismatch means that logic is not the appropriate model for human thought. Oaksford and Chater's argument draws on research in computer science, artificial intelligence and philosophy of science, in addition to experimental psychology. The authors propose that probability theory, the calculus of uncertain inference, provides a more appropriate model for human thought. They show how a probabilistic account can provide detailed explanations of experimental data on Wason's selection task, which many have viewed as providing a paradigmatic demonstration of human irrationality. Oaksford and Chater show that people's behaviour appears irrational only from a logical point of view, whereas it is entirely rational from a probabilistic perspective. The shift to a probabilistic framework for human inference has significant implications for the psychology of reasoning, cognitive science more generally, and forour picture of ourselves as rational agents.
Timothy Williamson is one of the most influential living philosophers working in the areas of logic and metaphysics. His work in these areas has been particularly influential in shaping debates about metaphysical modality, which is the topic of his recent provocative and closely-argued book Modal Logic as Metaphysics (2013). This book comprises ten essays by metaphysicians and logicians responding to Williamson's work on metaphysical modality, as well as replies by Williamson to each essay. In addition, it contains an original essay by Williamson, 'Modal science,' concerning the role of modal claims in natural science. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
Reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: A Beginners Guide is written for anyone who faces the challenge of reading Philosophical Investigations. John J. Ross guides the reader slowly through each relevant section of text, explaining and elaborating key ideas, and providing the philosophical and biographical background that illuminates the problems Wittgenstein is addressing. Reading Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is designed to be used in the examination of the Investigations as a whole or in part; the reader can focus solely on Mathematics or Psychology, if needed. While Ross does address some of the philosophical controversies surrounding Wittgenstein's ideas, the discussions are appropriate for an undergraduate, so the book can be used fruitfully by anyone with that level of education who has an interest in Wittgenstein's seminal work.
This book presents an interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as a priori psychologism. It groups Kant's philosophy together with those of the British empiricists-Locke, Berkeley, and Hume-in a single line of psychologistic succession and offers a clear explanation of how Kant's psychologism differs from psychology and idealism. The book reconciles Kant's philosophy with subsequent developments in science and mathematics, including post-Fregean mathematical logic, non-Euclidean geometry, and both relativity and quantum theory. It also relates Kant's psychologism to Wittgenstein's later conception of language. Finally, the author reveals the ways in which Kant's philosophy dovetails with contemporary scientific theorizing about the natural phenomenon of consciousness and its place in nature. This book will be of interest to Kant scholars and historians of philosophy working on the British empiricists.
"Counterfactuals" is David Lewis's forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary-to-fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds. Since its original publication in 1973, it has become a classic of contemporary philosophy, and is essential reading for anyone interested in the logic and metaphysics of counterfactuals. The book also includes an appendix of related writings by Lewis.
The problem of determinism arises in all the major areas of philosophy. The first part of this book, first published in 1991, is a critical and historical exposition of the problem and the most important ideas and arguments which have arisen over the many years of debate. The second part considers the various forms of determinism and the implications that they engender.
The question of causality has haunted the history of Western metaphysics since the time of the Pre-Socratic philosophy. Hand-in-hand with attempts to address this question is the promise of unlocking larger and more complicated questions pertaining to human freedom. But what of novelty? In this brilliant extended essay Donald A. Crosby contends that though novelty can't be comprehended without efficient causality, causality requires a concept of novelty; without it cause and effect relations are unintelligible and, indeed, impossible. Crosby, in an excellent, strong, and controversial way makes the claim that freedom is consciously directed novelty. In this way, novelty is distinctive; it is not to be mistaken with either unexpected intersections of causal chains or chaos. Crosby exposes the reality of novelty throughout the book and how it applies to time, possibility, forms of materiality and embodiment, the emergence of life from nonlife, the evloution and nature of consciousness, the methods and goals of education, the character of human history and the task of historians, and also the traits of a good society. In situating novelty so firmly in the crevices of daily life, Crosby connects it to our concept of ourself, our freedom, and how we understand our relationship to the world. Through masterful readings of Isaiah Berlin, Buber, Descartes, Plato, Smart, Whitehead, and especially Henri Bergson Donald Crosby sheds new light on an elusive yet foundational concept in the history of Western thought. This book is essential to process philosophy, humanism, existentialism, philosophy of mind and consciousness, and continental thought in general.
John Pollock aims to construct a theory of rational decision making for real agents--not ideal agents. Real agents have limited cognitive powers, but traditional theories of rationality have applied only to idealized agents that lack such constraints. Pollock argues that theories of ideal rationality are largely irrelevant to the decision making of real agents. Thinking about Acting aims to provide a theory of "real rationality."
This volume gathers selected papers presented at the Fourth Asian Workshop on Philosophical Logic, held in Beijing in October 2018. The contributions cover a wide variety of topics in modal logic (epistemic logic, temporal logic and dynamic logic), proof theory, algebraic logic, game logics, and philosophical foundations of logic. They also reflect the interdisciplinary nature of logic - a subject that has been studied in fields as diverse as philosophy, linguistics, mathematics, computer science and artificial intelligence. More specifically. The book also presents the latest developments in logic both in Asia and beyond.
This volume is the first of its kind in which phenomenologists from the West joint hands with specialists from mainland China and Hong Kong to discuss the heritage of Husserl's Logical Investigations. Whereas all Western contributors to the present volume are scholars who possess indubitable authority in phenomenology, their Chinese counterparts are much less well-known in the Western academic arena. Yet the latter's contributions are of the utmost interest. From them readers will learn of the early reception of Husserl's Logical Investigations in China. They will also understand in what way Husserl's doctrine of intentionality of consciousness in the Logical Investigations has paved the way to Scheler's phenomenology of feeling, to a novel phenomenological explication of religious experience, as well as to the little known young Foucault's tentative formulation of a paradoxical phenomenology of the dream...
Originally published in 1937. This book is a classic work on the philosophy of time, looking at the pshychology, physics and logic of time before investigating the views of Kant, Bergson, Alexander, McTaggart and Dunne. The second half of the book contains more indepth consideration of prediction, the concepts of past and future, and reality.
Originally published in 1991. A multidisciplinary guide in the form of a bibliography of selected time-related books and articles divided into 25 existing academic disciplines and about 100 subdisciplines which have a wide application to time studies.
Originally published in 1980. What is time? How is its structure determined? The enduring controversy about the nature and structure of time has traditionally been a diametrical argument between those who see time as a container into which events are placed, and those for whom time cannot exist without events. This controversy between the absolutist and the relativist theories of time is a central theme of this study. The author's impressive arguments provide grounds for rejecting both these theories, firstly by establishing that 'empty' time is possible, and secondly by showing, through a discussion of the structure of time which involves considering whether time might be cyclical, branching, beginning or non-beginning, that the absolutist theory of time is untenable. This book then advances two new theories, and succeeds in shifting the traditional debate about time to a consideration of time as a theoretical structure and as a theoretical framework.
Originally published in 1964. This lively, challenging book, written with enthusiasm, conviction and clarity, sets out to elucidate the shadowy concept of Time. This involves central philosophical issues, which are vigorously discussed. Also relativity theory, in a clear-cut exposition, is made intelligible in a new light. All who are interested in science and its philosophical implications will find this book highly controversial but certainly readable. The author believes philosophy to be important, not only for its professionals, but for everyman. He believes that the fact that this is no longer realised shows that something is wrong with professional philosophy; he also indicates what this is. The book ends, surprisingly but pertinently, with a bold plunge into the questions of telepathy, precognition and psychical research generally. Whilst the phenomena are reasonably admitted, trenchant criticism of their significance confronts parapsychologists.
This collection of classic and contemporary essays in philosophy of language offers a concise introduction to the field for students in graduate and upper-division undergraduate courses. It contains some of the most important basic sources in philosophy of language, including a number of classic essays by philosophers such as Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Kripke, Grice, Davidson, Strawson, Austin, and Putnam, as well as more recent contributions by scholars including John McDowell, Stephen Neale, Ruth Millikan, Stephen Schiffer, Paul Horwich, and Anthony Brueckner, among others, who are on the leading edge of innovation in this increasingly influential area of philosophy. The result is a lively mix of readings, together with the editors' discussions of the material, which provides a rigorous introduction to the subject.
Papers in the collection concentrate on different issues relevant for contemporary research within semantics, such as the linguistic and philosophical status of representations, reference theory and indexicals, situation semantics, formal semantics, normativity of meaning and speech acts, and different approaches to context and contextualism. The authors investigate the links between semantics and syntax, and between semantics, pragmatics, and speech act theory, and demonstrate that it is possible to integrate findings from different disciplines. Recent studies often advocate a 'pragmatic turn' in the study of meaning and context; however, the papers in the volume show that semantics and meaning remain in the center of research carried out within contemporary linguistics and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language. The volume includes contributions by: Brian Ball (St Anne's College, Oxford), John Collins (University of East Anglia), Luis Fernandez Moreno (Complutense University of Madrid), Chris Fox (University of Essex), Filip Kawczynski (University of Warsaw), Katarzyna Kijania-Placek (Jagiellonian University), Joanna Klimczyk (Polish Academy of Sciences), Paul Livingston (University of New Mexico), Mark Pinder (University of Bristol), Ernesto Perini-Santos (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), Tabea Reiner (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Munich), Stefan Riegelnik (University of Zurich), Arthur Sullivan (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Massimiliano Vignolo (University of Genoa), and Marian Zouhar (Slovak Academy of Sciences). The volume should be of interest to linguists, philosophers of language, and philosophers in general.
Why We Argue (And How We Should): A Guide to Political Disagreement in an Age of Unreason presents an accessible and engaging introduction to the theory of argument, with special emphasis on the way argument works in public political debate. The authors develop a view according to which proper argument is necessary for one's individual cognitive health; this insight is then expanded to the collective health of one's society. Proper argumentation, then, is seen to play a central role in a well-functioning democracy. Written in a lively style and filled with examples drawn from the real world of contemporary politics, and questions following each chapter to encourage discussion, Why We Argue (And How We Should) reads like a guide for the participation in, and maintenance of, modern democracy. An excellent student resource for courses in critical thinking, political philosophy, and related fields, Why We Argue (And How We Should) is an important contribution to reasoned debate. What's New in the Second Edition: Updated examples throughout the book, including examples from the 2016 U.S. election and first years of the Trump presidency; Expanded coverage of dialectical fallacies, including coverage of new types of fallacies and of sites where such fallacies thrive (e.g., cable news, social media); Revised For Further Thought questions and definitions of Key Terms, included at the end of each chapter; The addition of five new chapters: Deep Disagreement Argument by Analogy Argument between the Ads The Owl of Minerva (or weaponizing metalanguage) Argumentative Responsibility and Repair.
Originally published in 1973, this book shows that methods developed for the semantics of systems of formal logic can be successfully applied to problems about the semantics of natural languages; and, moreover, that such methods can take account of features of natural language which have often been thought incapable of formal treatment, such as vagueness, context dependence and metaphorical meaning. Parts 1 and 2 set out a class of formal languages and their semantics. Parts 3 and 4 show that these formal languages are rich enought to be used in the precise description of natural languages. Appendices describe some of the concepts discussed in the text.
suchquestionsforcenturies(unrestrictedbythecapabilitiesofanyhard- ware). Theprinciplesgoverningtheinteractionofseveralprocesses,forexample, areabstractansimilartoprinciplesgoverningthecooperationoftwolarge organisation.Adetailedrulebasedeffectivebutrigidbureaucracyisvery muchsimilartoacomplexcomputerprogramhandlingandmanipulating data. Myguessisthattheprinciplesunderlyingoneareverymuchthe sameasthoseunderlyingtheother. Ibelievethedayisnotfarawayinthefuturewhenthecomputerscientist willwakeuponemorningwiththerealisationthatheisactuallyakindof formalphilosopher! TheprojectednumberofvolumesforthisHandbookisabout18.The subjecthasevolvedanditsareashavebecomeinterrelatedtosuchanextent thatitnolongermakessensetodedicatevolumestotopics.However,the volumesdofollowsomenaturalgroupingsofchapters. Iwouldliketothankourauthorsarereadersfortheircontributionsand theircommitmentinmakingthisHandbookasuccess. Thanksalsoto ourpublicationadministratorMrsJ.Spurrforherusualdedicationand excellenceandtoKluwerAcademicPublishersfortheircontinuingsupport fortheHandbook. DovGabbay King'sCollegeLondon x Logic II IT Natural Program Artificialin- Logic p- language controlspec- telligence gramming processing ification, verification, concurrency Temporal Expressive Expressive Planning. Extension of logic poweroftense power for re- Time depen- Horn clause operators. currentevents. dent data. with time Temporal Specification Eventcalculus. capability. indices. Sepa- of tempo- Persistence Eventcalculus. rationofpast ral control. throughtime- Temporallogic fromfuture Decisionprob- the Frame programming. Problem.Tem- lems. Model checking. poral query language. temporal transactions. Modal logic. generalised Actionlogic Beliefrevision. Negation by Multi-modal quantifiers Inferential failure and logics databases modality Algorithmic Discourse rep- New logics. Generaltheory Proceduralap- proof resentation. Generic theo- of reasoning. proachtologic Direct com- remprovers Non-monotonic putation on systems linguisticinput Non- Resolving Loopchecking. Intrinsiclogical Negation by monotonic ambigui- Non-monotonic discipline for failure.Deduc- reasoning ties. Machine decisionsabout AI. Evolving tivedatabases translation. loops. Faults and com- Document insystems. municating classification. databases Relevance theory Probabilistic logicalanalysis Realtimesys- Expert sys- Semantics for and fuzzy oflanguage tems tems.Machine logicprograms logic learning Intuitionistic Quantifiers in Constructive Intuitionistic Horn clause logic logic reasoning and logicisabetter logic is really proof theory logical basis intuitionistic.
From the point of view of non-classical logics, Heyting's implication is the smallest implication for which the deduction theorem holds. This book studies properties of logical systems having some of the classical connectives and implication in the neighbourhood of Heyt ing's implication. I have not included anything on entailment, al though it belongs to this neighbourhood, mainly because of the appearance of the Anderson-Belnap book on entailment. In the later chapters of this book, I have included material that might be of interest to the intuitionist mathematician. Originally, I intended to include more material in that spirit but I decided against it. There is no coherent body of material to include that builds naturally on the present book. There are some serious results on topological models, second order Beth and Kripke models, theories of types, etc., but it would require further research to be able to present a general theory, possibly using sheaves. That would have postponed pUblication for too long. I would like to dedicate this book to my colleagues, Professors G. Kreisel, M.O. Rabin and D. Scott. I have benefited greatly from Professor Kreisel's criticism and suggestions. Professor Rabin's fun damental results on decidability and undecidability provided the powerful tools used in obtaining the majority of the results reported in this book. Professor Scott's approach to non-classical logics and especially his analysis of the Scott consequence relation makes it possible to present Heyting's logic as a beautiful, integral part of non-classical logics."
Brimming with visual examples of concepts, derivation rules, and proof strategies, this introductory text is ideal for students with no previous experience in logic. Symbolic Logic: Syntax, Semantics, and Proof introduces students to the fundamental concepts, techniques, and topics involved in deductive reasoning. Agler guides students through the basics of symbolic logic by explaining the essentials of two classical systems, propositional and predicate logic. Students will learn translation both from formal language into English and from English into formal language; how to use truth trees and truth tables to test propositions for logical properties; and how to construct and strategically use derivation rules in proofs. This text makes this often confounding topic much more accessible with step-by-step example proofs, chapter glossaries of key terms, hundreds of homework problems and solutions for practice, and suggested further readings.
Regarding Santayana it has been claimed that he lacks a system while contradicting himself in outrageous ways. An attentive analysis of his complete oeuvre, however, reveals something else entirely. It is not easy to classify a thinker as a Platonic materialist, an ironic nihilist, a spiritual atheist, and a conservative without political commitment, but, if one respects his own language, one discerns an astonishing, little-known Santayana, whose philosophical leitmotif consists in: 1) detecting the numerous "false steps," logical and moral, supplied by the imagination when it confuses things with the names that designate them, or the world with the feelings that it provokes in the human animal-these errors assume diverse faces: pantheism, moralism, egotism, subjectivism, transcendentalism, Platonism, Puritanism, and utopianism; 2) avoiding these illusions in such a way as to keep the spiritual door open as a form of life to be lived out in an honest fashion; 3) recognizing the natural origin of these temptations and asking oneself what moves humans to succumb imperceptibly to these mistakes, at times tragic, at others comical, and what precautions one can take to remain cognizant of the deceitful leaps that can hijack one's life; and 4) proposing as an alternative the radical distinction between essence and existence, which leads him to distinguish four realms of being: the realm of essence, the realm of matter, the realm of truth, and the realm of spirit. Essence as logical identity, matter as contingent existence, truth as frozen history, and spirit as the flames that part from contingency and approximate the eternal. An attempt has been made in this book to expand on and clarify these questions.
A new pragmatic approach, based on the latest developments in argumentation theory, analyzing appeal to expert opinion as a form of argument. Reliance on authority has always been a common recourse in argumentation, perhaps never more so than today in our highly technological society when knowledge has become so specialized--as manifested, for instance, in the frequent appearance of "expert witnesses" in courtrooms. When is an appeal to the opinion of an expert a reasonable type of argument to make, and when does it become a fallacy? This book provides a method for the evaluation of these appeals in everyday argumentation. Specialized domains of knowledge such as science, medicine, law, and government policy have gradually taken over as the basis on which many of our rational decisions are made daily. Consequently, appeal to expert opinion in these areas has become a powerful type of argument. Challenging an argument based on expert scientific opinion, for example, has become as difficult as it once was to question religious authority. Walton stresses that even in cases where expert opinion is divided, the effect of it can still be so powerful that it overwhelms an individual's ability to make a decision based on personal deliberation of what is right or wrong in a given situation. The book identifies the requirements that make an appeal to expert opinion a reasonable or unreasonable argument. Walton's new pragmatic approach analyzes that appeal as a distinctive form of argument, with an accompanying set of appropriate critical questions matching the form. Throughout the book, a historical survey of the key developments in the evolution of the argument from authority, dating from the time of the ancients, is given, and new light is shed on current problems of "junk science" and battles between experts in legal argumentation. |
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