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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Logic
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.
This book focuses on logic and logical language. It examines
different types of words, terms and propositions in detail. While
discussing the nature of propositions, it illustrates the
procedures used to determine the truth and falsity of a
proposition, and the validity and invalidity of an argument. In
addition, the book provides a clear exposition of the pure and
mixed form of syllogism with suitable examples. The book
encompasses sentential logic, predicate logic, symbolic logic,
induction and set theory topics. The book is designed to serve all
those involved in teaching and learning courses on logic. It offers
a valuable resource for students and researchers in philosophy,
mathematics and computer science disciplines. Given its scope, it
is an essential read for everyone interested in logic, language,
formulation of the hypotheses for the scientific enquiries and
research studies, and judging valid and invalid arguments in the
natural language discourse.
ways of doing it, but it is wrong to project it far into the past:
it did not exist at the turn of the century and only became clearly
apparent after the Second World War. I recently taught at an
American university on the his tory of philosophy from Balzano to
Husserl. The course title had to come from a fixed pool and gave
trouble. Was it philosophical logic, the nine teenth century, or
phenomenology? A logic title would connote over this period Frege,
Russell, Carnap, perhaps a mention of Boole: not continental
enough. The nineteenth century? The century of Kant's successors:
Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Feuer bach, Marx, Nietzsche? What have
they to do with Balzano, Lotze, Brentano, Meinong, Husserl and
Twardowski? Even tually 'Phenomenology' was chosen, misdescribing
more than half of the course. That illustrates the problems one
faces in trying to work against the picture of the period which is
ingrained in minds and syllabuses. This book arises from my efforts
to combat that picture. I backed into writing about the history of
recent philosophy rather than setting out to do so. The beginning
was chance. In Manchester in the early seventies, at a time when
most English philosophy departments breathed re cycled Oxford air,
the intellectual atmosphere derived from Cambridge and Warsaw,
spiced with a breath of Freiburg and Paris."
Logical consequence is the relation that obtains between premises
and conclusion(s) in a valid argument. Orthodoxy has it that valid
arguments are necessarily truth-preserving, but this platitude only
raises a number of further questions, such as: how does the truth
of premises guarantee the truth of a conclusion, and what
constraints does validity impose on rational belief? This volume
presents thirteen essays by some of the most important scholars in
the field of philosophical logic. The essays offer ground-breaking
new insights into the nature of logical consequence; the relation
between logic and inference; how the semantics and pragmatics of
natural language bear on logic; the relativity of logic; and the
structural properties of the consequence relation.
This book attempts to explicate and expand upon Frank Ramsey's
notion of the realistic spirit. In so doing, it provides a
systematic reading of his work, and demonstrates the extent of
Ramsey's genius as evinced by both his responses to the Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus, and the impact he had on Wittgenstein's later
philosophical insights.
This book examines the nature, sources, and implications of
fallacies in philosophical reasoning. In doing so, it illustrates
and evaluates various historical instances of this phenomenon.
There is widespread interest in the practice and products of
philosophizing, yet the important issue of fallacious reasoning in
these matters has been effectively untouched. Nicholas Rescher
fills this gap by presenting a systematic account of the principal
ways in which philosophizing can go astray.
The present volume of the "Handbook of the History of Logic" is
designed to establish 19th century Britain as a substantial force
in logic, developing new ideas, some of which would be overtaken
by, and other that would anticipate, the century's later
capitulation to the mathematization of logic.
"British Logic in the Nineteenth Century" is indispensable reading
and a definitive research resource for anyone with an interest in
the history of logic.
- Detailed and comprehensive chapters covering the entire range of
modal logic
- Contains the latest scholarly discoveries and interpretative
insights that answer many questions in the field of logic
Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, first published in
1921, has had a profound influence on modern philosophic thought.
Prototractatus is a facsimile reproduction of an early version of
Tractatus, only discovered in 1965. The original text has a
parallel English translation and the text is edited to indicate all
relevant deviations from the final version.
This book features more than 20 papers that celebrate the work of
Hajnal Andreka and Istvan Nemeti. It illustrates an interaction
between developing and applying mathematical logic. The papers
offer new results as well as surveys in areas influenced by these
two outstanding researchers. They also provide details on the
after-life of some of their initiatives. Computer science connects
the papers in the first part of the book. The second part
concentrates on algebraic logic. It features a range of papers that
hint at the intricate many-way connections between logic, algebra,
and geometry. The third part explores novel applications of logic
in relativity theory, philosophy of logic, philosophy of physics
and spacetime, and methodology of science. They include such
exciting subjects as time travelling in emergent spacetime. The
short autobiographies of Hajnal Andreka and Istvan Nemeti at the
end of the book describe an adventurous journey from electric
engineering and Maxwell's equations to a complex system of computer
programs for designing Hungary's electric power system, to
exploring and contributing deep results to Tarskian algebraic logic
as the deepest core theory of such questions, then on to
applications of the results in such exciting new areas as
relativity theory in order to rejuvenate logic itself.
Individual objects have potentials: paper has the potential to
burn, an acorn has the potential to turn into a tree, some people
have the potential to run a mile in less than four minutes. Barbara
Vetter provides a systematic investigation into the metaphysics of
such potentials, and an account of metaphysical modality based on
them. In contemporary philosophy, potentials have been recognized
mostly in the form of so-called dispositions: solubility,
fragility, and so on. Vetter takes dispositions as her starting
point, but argues for and develops a more comprehensive conception
of potentiality. She shows how, with this more comprehensive
conception, an account of metaphysical modality can be given that
meets three crucial requirements: (1) Extensional correctness:
providing the right truth-values for statements of possibility and
necessity; (2) formal adequacy: providing the right logic for
metaphysical modality; and (3) semantic utility: providing a
semantics that links ordinary modal language to the metaphysics of
modality. The resulting view of modality is a version of
dispositionalism about modality: it takes modality to be a matter
of the dispositions of individual objects (and, crucially, not of
possible worlds). This approach has a long philosophical tradition
going back to Aristotle, but has been largely neglected in
contemporary philosophy. In recent years, it has become a live
option again due to the rise of anti-Humean, powers-based
metaphysics. The aim of Potentiality is to develop the
dispositionalist view in a way that takes account of contemporary
developments in metaphysics, logic, and semantics.
Deflationist accounts of truth are widely held in contemporary
philosophy: they seek to show that truth is a dispensable concept
with no metaphysical depth. However, logical paradoxes present
problems for deflationists that their work has struggled to
overcome. In this volume of fourteen original essays, a
distinguished team of contributors explore the extent to which, if
at all, deflationism can accommodate paradox. The volume will be of
interest to philosophers of logic, philosophers of language, and
anyone working on truth.
Contributors include Bradley Armour-Garb, Jody Azzouni, JC Beall,
Hartry Field, Christopher Gauker, Michael Glanzberg, Dorothy
Grover, Anil Gupta, Volker Halbach, Leon Horsten, Paul Horwich,
Graham Priest, Greg Restall, and Alan Weir
It is the aim of the present study to introduce the reader to the
ways of thinking of those contemporary philosophers who apply the
tools of symbolic logic to classical philosophical problems. Unlike
the "conti nental" reader for whom this work was originally
written, the English speaking reader will be more familiar with
most of the philosophers dis cussed in this book, and he will in
general not be tempted to dismiss them indiscriminately as
"positivists" and "nominalists." But the English version of this
study may help to redress the balance in another respect. In view
of the present emphasis on ordinary language and the wide spread
tendency to leave the mathematical logicians alone with their
technicalities, it seems not without merit to revive the interest
in formal ontology and the construction of formal systems. A closer
look at the historical account which will be given here, may
convince the reader that there are several points in the historical
develop ment whose consequences have not yet been fully assessed: I
mention, e. g., the shift from the traditional three-level
semantics of sense and deno tation to the contemporary two-level
semantics of representation; the relation of extensional structure
and intensional content in the extensional systems of Wittgenstein
and Carnap; the confusing changes in labelling the different kinds
of analytic and apriori true sentences; etc. Among the
philosophically interesting tools of symbolic logic Lesniewski's
calculus of names deserves special attention."
Composition is the relation between a whole and its parts-the parts
are said to compose the whole; the whole is composed of the parts.
But is a whole anything distinct from its parts taken collectively?
It is often said that 'a whole is nothing over and above its
parts'; but what might we mean by that? Could it be that a whole
just is its parts? This collection of essays is the first of its
kind to focus on the relationship between composition and identity.
Twelve original articles-written by internationally renowned
scholars and rising stars in the field-argue for and against the
controversial doctrine that composition is identity. An editor's
introduction sets out the formal and philosophical groundwork to
bring readers to the forefront of the debate.
Axiomatic Formal Ontology is a fairly comprehensive systematic
treatise on general metaphysics. The axiomatic method is applied
throughout the book. Its main theme is the construction of a
general non-set-theoretical theory of intensional entities. Other
important matters discussed are the metaphysics of modality, the
nature of actual existence, mereology and the taxonomy of entities.
Roy T Cook examines the Yablo paradox-a paradoxical, infinite
sequence of sentences, each of which entails the falsity of all
others later than it in the sequence-with special attention paid to
the idea that this paradox provides us with a semantic paradox that
involves no circularity. The three main chapters of the book focus,
respectively, on three questions that can be (and have been) asked
about the Yablo construction. First we have the Characterization
Problem, which asks what patterns of sentential reference (circular
or not) generate semantic paradoxes. Addressing this problem
requires an interesting and fruitful detour through the theory of
directed graphs, allowing us to draw interesting connections
between philosophical problems and purely mathematical ones. Next
is the Circularity Question, which addresses whether or not the
Yablo paradox is genuinely non-circular. Answering this question is
complicated: although the original formulation of the Yablo paradox
is circular, it turns out that it is not circular in any sense that
can bear the blame for the paradox. Further, formulations of the
paradox using infinitary conjunction provide genuinely non-circular
constructions. Finally, Cook turns his attention to the
Generalizability Question: can the Yabloesque pattern be used to
generate genuinely non-circular variants of other paradoxes, such
as epistemic and set-theoretic paradoxes? Cook argues that although
there are general constructions-unwindings-that transform circular
constructions into Yablo-like sequences, it turns out that these
sorts of constructions are not 'well-behaved' when transferred from
semantic puzzles to puzzles of other sorts. He concludes with a
short discussion of the connections between the Yablo paradox and
the Curry paradox.
Leibniz published the Dissertation on Combinatorial Art in 1666.
This book contains the seeds of Leibniz's mature thought, as well
as many of the mathematical ideas that he would go on to further
develop after the invention of the calculus. It is in the
Dissertation, for instance, that we find the project for the
construction of a logical calculus clearly expressed for the first
time. The idea of encoding terms and propositions by means of
numbers, later developed by Kurt Goedel, also appears in this work.
In this text, furthermore, Leibniz conceives the possibility of
constituting a universal language or universal characteristic, a
project that he would pursue for the rest of his life. Mugnai, van
Ruler, and Wilson present the first full English translation of the
Dissertation, complete with a critical introduction and a
comprehensive commentary.
When asked in 1962 on what he was working Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz
replied: Several years ago Polish Scientific Publishers suggested
that I pre pare a new edition of The Logical Foundations of
Teaching, which I wrote 1 before 1939 as a contribution to The
Encyclopaedia of Education. It was a small booklet covering
elementary information about logical semantics and scientific
methodology, information which in my opinion was necessary as a
foundation of teaching and as an element of the education of any
teacher. When I recently set to preparing the new edition, I
rewrote practically everything, and a booklet of some 100 pages
swelled into a bulky volume almost five times bigger. The issues
have remained practically the same, but they are now analysed much
more thoroughly and the threshold of difficulty is much higher now.
The main stress has been laid on the methods used in the empirical
sciences, and within that field, on the theory of measurement and
the methods of statistical inference. I am now working on the last
chapter of the book, concerned with explanation procedures and
theory construction in the empirical sciences. When that book,
which I intend to entitle Pragmatic Logic, is com pleted I intend
to prepare for the press Vol. 2 of my minor writings, 2 Language
and Cognition, which will cover some of my post-war pa pers."
1. STRUCTURE AND REFERENCES 1.1. The main part of the dictionary
consists of alphabetically arranged articles concerned with basic
logical theories and some other selected topics. Within each
article a set of concepts is defined in their mutual relations.
This way of defining concepts in the context of a theory provides
better understand ing of ideas than that provided by isolated short
defmitions. A disadvantage of this method is that it takes more
time to look something up inside an extensive article. To reduce
this disadvantage the following measures have been adopted. Each
article is divided into numbered sections, the numbers, in boldface
type, being addresses to which we refer. Those sections of larger
articles which are divided at the first level, i.e. numbered with
single numerals, have titles. Main sections are further subdivided,
the subsections being numbered by numerals added to the main
section number, e.g. I, 1.1, 1.2, ..., 1.1.1, 1.1.2, and so on. A
comprehensive subject index is supplied together with a glossary.
The aim of the latter is to provide, if possible, short defmitions
which sometimes may prove sufficient. As to the use of the
glossary, see the comment preceding it."
This book is the first to provide a critical history of analytic
philosophy from its inception in the late nineteenth century to the
present day. Quentin Smith focuses on the connections between the
four leading movements in analytic philosophy -- logical realism,
logical positivism, ordinary language analysis, and linguistic
essentialism -- and corresponding twentieth-century theories of
ethics and of religion. Through a critical evaluation of each
school's theoretical positions, Smith counters the widespread view
of analytic philosophy as indifferent to important questions about
fight and wrong and human meaning. He argues that analytic
philosophy throughout its history has revolved around the central
issues of existence, and he offers a new ethics and philosophy of
religion.
The author develops a positive ethical theory based on a method
of ethics first formulated by Robert Adams. Smith's theory belongs
to the tradition of perfectionism or self-realization ethics and
builds on Thomas Hurka's recent theory of perfectionism. In his
consideration of philosophy of religion, Smith concludes that there
is a sound "logical argument from evil" that takes into account
Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense and undermines monotheism,
paving the way to a naturalistic pantheism.
"Smith's book is original not only in intent but frequently in
the detailed argument involved in evaluating the merits of the
philosophies of language and their implications for ethics and
philosophy of religion". -- John F. Post, Vanderbilt University
Terence Parsons presents a new study of the development and logical
complexity of medieval logic. Basic principles of logic were used
by Aristotle to prove conversion principles and reduce syllogisms.
Medieval logicians expanded Aristotle's notation in several ways,
such as quantifying predicate terms, as in 'No donkey is every
animal', and allowing singular terms to appear in predicate
position, as in 'Not every donkey is Brownie'; with the enlarged
notation come additional logical principles. The resulting system
of logic is able to deal with relational expressions, as in De
Morgan's puzzles about heads of horses. A crucial issue is a
mechanism for dealing with anaphoric pronouns, as in 'Every woman
loves her mother'. Parsons illuminates the ways in which medieval
logic is as rich as contemporary first-order symbolic logic, though
its full potential was not envisaged at the time. Along the way, he
provides a detailed exposition and examination of the theory of
modes of common personal supposition, and the useful principles of
logic included with it. An appendix discusses the artificial signs
introduced in the fifteenth century to alter quantifier scope.
This monograph is a detailed study, and systematic defence, of the
Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), first conceived by C.D. Broad.
The book offers a coherent, logically perspicuous and ideologically
lean formulation of GBT, defends it against the most notorious
objections to be found in the extant philosophical literature, and
shows how it can be derived from a more general theory, consistent
with relativistic spacetime, on the pre-relativistic assumption of
an absolute and total temporal order. The authors devise
axiomatizations of GBT and its competitors which, against the
backdrop of a shared quantified tense logic, significantly improves
the prospects of their comparative assessment. Importantly, neither
of these axiomatizations involves commitment to properties of
presentness, pastness or futurity. The authors proceed to address,
and defuse, a number of objections that have been marshaled against
GBT, including the so-called epistemic objection according to which
the theory invites skepticism about our temporal location. The
challenge posed by relativistic physics is met head-on, by
replacing claims about temporal variation by claims about variation
across spacetime. The book aims to achieve the greatest possible
rigor. The background logic is set out in detail, as are the
principles governing the notions of precedence and temporal
location. The authors likewise devise a novel spacetime logic
suited for the articulation, and comparative assessment, of
relativistic theories of time. The book comes with three technical
appendices which include soundness and completeness proofs for the
systems corresponding to GBT and its competitors, in both their
pre-relativistic and relativistic forms. The book is primarily
directed at researchers and graduate students working on the
philosophy of time or temporal logic, but is of interest to
metaphysicians and philosophical logicians more generally.
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