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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Logic
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley provide a natural point of entry to
what for most readers will be a new subject. Plural logic deals
with plural terms ('Whitehead and Russell', 'Henry VIII's wives',
'the real numbers', 'the square root of -1', 'they'), plural
predicates ('surrounded the fort', 'are prime', 'are consistent',
'imply'), and plural quantification ('some things', 'any things').
Current logic is singularist: its terms stand for at most one
thing. By contrast, the foundational thesis of this book is that a
particular term may legitimately stand for several things at once;
in other words, there is such a thing as genuinely plural
denotation. The authors argue that plural phenomena need to be
taken seriously and that the only viable response is to adopt a
plural logic, a logic based on plural denotation. They expound a
framework of ideas that includes the distinction between
distributive and collective predicates, the theory of plural
descriptions, multivalued functions, and lists. A formal system of
plural logic is presented in three stages, before being applied to
Cantorian set theory as an illustration. Technicalities have been
kept to a minimum, and anyone who is familiar with the classical
predicate calculus should be able to follow it. The authors'
approach is an attractive blend of no-nonsense argumentative
directness and open-minded liberalism, and they convey the exciting
and unexpected richness of their subject. Mathematicians and
linguists, as well as logicians and philosophers, will find
surprises in this book. This second edition includes a greatly
expanded treatment of the paradigm empty term zilch, a much
strengthened treatment of Cantorian set theory, and a new chapter
on higher-level plural logic.
This book provides an epistemological study of the great Islamic
scholar of Banjarese origin, Syeikh Muhammad Arsyad al-Banjari
(1710-1812) who contributed to the development of Islam in
Indonesia and, in general, Southeast Asia. The work focuses on
Arsyad al-Banjari's dialectical use and understanding of qiyas or
correlational inference as a model of parallel reasoning or analogy
in Islamic jurisprudence. This constituted the most prominent
instrument he applied in his effort of integrating Islamic law into
the Banjarese society.This work studies how Arsyad al-Banjari
integrates jadal theory or dialectic in Islamic jurisprudence,
within his application of qiyas. The author develops a framework
for qiyas which acts as the interface between jadal, dialogical
logic, and Per Martin-Loef's Constructive Type Theory (CTT). One of
the epistemological results emerging from the present study is that
the different forms of qiyas applied by Arsyad al-Banjari represent
an innovative and sophisticated form of reasoning. The volume is
divided into three parts that discuss the types of qiyas as well
their dialectical and argumentative aspects, historical background
and context of Banjar, and demonstrates how the theory of qiyas
comes quite close to the contemporary model of parallel reasoning
for sciences and mathematics developed by Paul Bartha (2010). This
volume will be of interest to historians and philosophers in
general, and logicians and historians of philosophy in particular.
The quality of our lives is determined by the quality of our
thinking. The quality of our thinking, in turn, is determined by
the quality of our questions, for questions are the engine, the
driving force behind thinking. Without questions, we have nothing
to think about. Without essential questions, we often fail to focus
our thinking on the significant and substantive. When we ask
essential questions, we deal with what is necessary, relevant, and
indispensable to a matter at hand. We recognize what is at the
heart of the matter. Our thinking is grounded and disciplined. We
are ready to learn. We are intellectually able to find our way
about. To be successful in life, one needs to ask essential
questions: essential questions when reading, writing, and speaking;
when shopping, working, and parenting; when forming friendships,
choosing life-partners, and interacting with the mass media and the
Internet. Yet few people are masters of the art of asking essential
questions. Most have never thought about why some questions are
crucial and others peripheral. Essential questions are rarely
studied in school. They are rarely modeled at home. Most people
question according to their psychological associations. Their
questions are haphazard and scattered. The ideas we provide are
useful only to the extent that they are employed daily to ask
essential questions. Practice in asking essential questions
eventually leads to the habit of asking essential questions. But we
can never practice asking essential questions if we have no
conception of them. This mini-guide is a starting place for
understanding concepts that, when applied, lead to essential
questions. We introduce essential questions as indispensable
intellectual tools. We focus on principles essential to
formulating, analyzing, assessing, and settling primary questions.
You will notice that our categories of question types are not
exclusive. There is a great deal of overlap
This book applies the formal discipline of logic to everyday
discourse. It offers a new analysis of the notion of individual,
suggesting that this notion is linguistic, not ontological, and
that anything denoted by a proper name in a well-functioning
language game is an individual. It further posits that everyday
discourse is non-compositional, i.e., its complex expressions are
not just the result of putting simpler ones together but react on
the latter, modifying their meaning through feedback. The book
theorizes that in everyday discourse, there is no algebra of truth
values, but the latter can be both input and output of something
which has no truth value at all. It suggests that an elementary
proposition of everyday discourse (defined as having exactly one
predicate) can, in principle, be indefinitely expanded by adding
new components, belonging neither to subject nor to predicate, but
remain elementary. This book is of interest to logicians and
philosophers of language.
It is with great pleasure that we are presenting to the community
the second edition of this extraordinary handbook. It has been over
15 years since the publication of the first edition and there have
been great changes in the landscape of philosophical logic since
then. The first edition has proved invaluable to generations of
students and researchers in formal philosophy and language, as well
as to consumers of logic in many applied areas. The main logic
article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1999 has described the
first edition as 'the best starting point for exploring any of the
topics in logic'. We are confident that the second edition will
prove to be just as good. ! The first edition was the second
handbook published for the logic commu nity. It followed the North
Holland one volume Handbook of Mathematical Logic, published in
1977, edited by the late Jon Barwise, The four volume Handbook of
Philosophical Logic, published 1983-1989 came at a fortunate
temporal junction at the evolution of logic. This was the time when
logic was gaining ground in computer science and artificial
intelligence circles. These areas were under increasing commercial
pressure to provide devices which help and/or replace the human in
his daily activity. This pressure required the use of logic in the
modelling of human activity and organisa tion on the one hand and
to provide the theoretical basis for the computer program
constructs on the other.
This book repairs and revives the Theory of Knowledge research
program of Russell's Principia era. Chapter 1, 'Introduction and
Overview', explains the program's agenda. Inspired by the
non-Fregean logicism of Principia Mathematica, it endorses the
revolution within mathematics presenting it as a study of
relations. The synthetic a priori logic of Principia is the essence
of philosophy considered as a science which exposes the dogmatisms
about abstract particulars and metaphysical necessities that create
prisons that fetter the mind. Incipient in The Problems of
Philosophy, the program's acquaintance epistemology embraced a
multiple-relation theory of belief. It reached an impasse in 1913,
having been itself retrofitted with abstract particular logical
forms to address problems of direction and compositionality. With
its acquaintance epistemology in limbo, Scientific Method in
Philosophy became the sequel to Problems. Chapter 2 explains
Russell's feeling intellectually dishonest. Wittgenstein's demand
that logic exclude nonsense belief played no role. The 1919 neutral
monist era ensued, but Russell found no epistemology for the logic
essential to philosophy. Repairing, Chapters 4-6 solve the impasse.
Reviving, Chapters 3 and 7 vigorously defend the facts about
Principia. Studies of modality and entailment are viable while
Principia remains a universal logic above the civil wars of the
metaphysicians.
Of the four chapters in this book, the first two discuss (albeit in
consider ably modified form) matters previously discussed in my
papers 'On the Logic of Conditionals' [1] and 'Probability and the
Logic of Conditionals' [2], while the last two present essentially
new material. Chapter I is relatively informal and roughly
parallels the first of the above papers in discussing the basic
ideas of a probabilistic approach to the logic of the indicative
conditional, according to which these constructions do not have
truth values, but they do have probabilities (equal to conditional
probabilities), and the appropriate criterion of soundness for
inferences involving them is that it should not be possible for all
premises of the inference to be probable while the conclusion is
improbable. Applying this criterion is shown to have radically
different consequences from the orthodox 'material conditional'
theory, not only in application to the standard 'fallacies' of the
material conditional, but to many forms (e. g. , Contraposition)
which have hitherto been regarded as above suspi cion. Many more
applications are considered in Chapter I, as well as certain
related theoretical matters. The chief of these, which is the most
important new topic treated in Chapter I (i. e.
This volume offers English translations of three early works by
Ernst Schroeder (1841-1902), a mathematician and logician whose
philosophical ruminations and pathbreaking contributions to
algebraic logic attracted the admiration and ire of figures such as
Dedekind, Frege, Husserl, and C. S. Peirce. Today he still engages
the sympathetic interest of logicians and philosophers. The works
translated record Schroeder's journey out of algebra into algebraic
logic and document his transformation of George Boole's opaque and
unwieldy logical calculus into what we now recognize as Boolean
algebra. Readers interested in algebraic logic and abstract algebra
can look forward to a tour of the early history of those fields
with a guide who was exceptionally thorough, unfailingly honest,
and deeply reflective.
This volume examines the role of logic in cognitive psychology in
light of recent developments. Gonzalo Reyes's new semantic theory
has brought the fields of cognitive psychology and logic closer
together, and has shed light on how children master proper names
and count nouns, and thus acquire knowledge. The chapters highlight
the inadequacies of classical logic in its handling of ordinary
language and reveal the prospects of applying these new theories to
cognitive psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, the
philosophy of language and logic.
This volume deals with formal, mechanizable reasoning in modal
logics, that is, logics of necessity, possibility, belief, time
computations etc. It is therefore of immense interest for various
interrelated disciplines such as philosophy, AI, computer science,
logic, cognitive science and linguistics. The book consists of 15
original research papers, divided into three parts. The first part
contains papers which give a profound description of powerful
proof-theoretic methods as applied to the normal modal logic S4.
Part II is concerned with a number of generalizations of the
standard proof-theoretic formats, while the third part presents new
and important results on semantics-based proof systems for modal
logic.
Papers from more than three decades reflect the development of
thinkingover the dialogical framework that shapes verbal expression
of comprehending experience and that has to be exhibited in
responsible argumentations. With dialogical reconstructions of
experience owing to the methodical constructivism of the a
oeErlangen Schoola it is possible to uncover the origin of many
conceptual oppositions in traditional philosophical talk, like
natural vs. artificial/cultural, subjective vs. objective, etc.,
and to solve philosophical riddles connected with them.
By drawing on the insights of diverse scholars from around the
globe, this volume systematically investigates the meaning and
reality of the concept of negation in Post-Kantian
Philosophy-German Idealism, Early German Romanticism, and
Neo-Kantianism. The reader benefits from the historical, critical,
and systematic investigations contained which trace not only the
significance of negation in these traditions, but also the role it
has played in shaping the philosophical landscape of Post-Kantian
philosophy. By drawing attention to historically neglected thinkers
and traditions, and positioning the dialogue within a global and
comparative context, this volume demonstrates the enduring
relevance of Post-Kantian philosophy for philosophers thinking in
today's global context. This text should appeal to graduate
students and professors of German Idealism, Post-Kantian
philosophy, comparative philosophy, German studies, and
intellectual history.
This book features mathematical and formal philosophers' efforts to
understand philosophical questions using mathematical techniques.
It offers a collection of works from leading researchers in the
area, who discuss some of the most fascinating ways formal methods
are now being applied. It covers topics such as: the uses of
probable and statistical reasoning, rational choice theory,
reasoning in the environmental sciences, reasoning about laws and
changes of rules, and reasoning about collective decision
procedures as well as about action. Utilizing mathematical
techniques has been very fruitful in the traditional domains of
formal philosophy - logic, philosophy of mathematics and
metaphysics - while formal philosophy is simultaneously branching
out into other areas in philosophy and the social sciences. These
areas particularly include ethics, political science, and the
methodology of the natural and social sciences. Reasoning about
legal rules, collective decision-making procedures, and rational
choices are of interest to all those engaged in legal theory,
political science and economics. Statistical reasoning is also of
interest to political scientists and economists.
This book intends to unite studies in different fields related to
the development of the relations between logic, law and legal
reasoning. Combining historical and philosophical studies on legal
reasoning in Civil and Common Law, and on the often neglected
Arabic and Talmudic traditions of jurisprudence, this project
unites these areas with recent technical developments in computer
science. This combination has resulted in renewed interest in
deontic logic and logic of norms that stems from the interaction
between artificial intelligence and law and their applications to
these areas of logic. The book also aims to motivate and launch a
more intense interaction between the historical and philosophical
work of Arabic, Talmudic and European jurisprudence. The
publication discusses new insights in the interaction between logic
and law, and more precisely the study of different answers to the
question: what role does logic play in legal reasoning? Varying
perspectives include that of foundational studies (such as logical
principles and frameworks) to applications, and historical
perspectives.
Free logic - i.e., logic free of existential presuppositions in
general and with respect to singular terms in particular- began to
come into its own as a field of research in the 1950s. As is the
case with so many developments in Western philosophy, its roots can
be traced back to ancient Greek philo sophy. It is only during the
last fifty years, however, that it has become well established as a
branch of modern logic. The name of Karel Lambert is most closely
connected with this development: he gave it its name and its
profile as a well defined field of research. After a development of
fifty years, it is time to look back and take stock while at the
same time scanning for new perspectives. This is the purpose of the
papers collected in this volume. The first paper is written by
Karel Lambert himself who also comments on all the papers of the
other authors. In an introductory essay we give a survey of the
present status of and new directions in free logic."
Our conception of logical space is the set of distinctions we use
to navigate the world. In The Construction of Logical Space Agustin
Rayo defends the idea that one's conception of logical space is
shaped by one's acceptance or rejection of 'just is'-statements:
statements like 'to be composed of water just is to be composed of
H2O', or 'for the number of the dinosaurs to be zero just is for
there to be no dinosaurs'. The resulting picture is used to
articulate a conception of metaphysical possibility that does not
depend on a reduction of the modal to the non-modal, and to develop
a trivialist philosophy of mathematics, according to which the
truths of pure mathematics have trivial truth-conditions.
In 1911, Bertrand Russell began a historically formative
interchange about the nature of logic and cognition with his
student, Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1913, Russell set to work on a
manuscript, the "Theory of Knowledge", designed to move from the
analysis of perception to judgement and on to knowledge of the
world. After Wittgenstein interrupted Russell's daily writing with
a series of objections to his doctrine of judgement and conception
of logic, Russell abandoned his project in despair, leaving it
unfinished. His subsequent work can be understood largely as an
attempt to assimilate and respond to Wittgenstein's challenge in
1913. "Russell and Wittgenstein on the Nature of Judgement" is the
first book-length treatment of Russell's decisive 1913 exchanges
with Wittgenstein. Rosalind Carey incorporates little-known notes
and diagrams into a new analysis of the problems Russell was
facing. She also evaluates the numerous interpretations of
Russell's positions and Wittgenstein's objections to them. The
result is a new perspective on both these great thinkers, at a
crucial point in the development of twentieth-century philosophy.
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