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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Logic
Logic has attained in our century a development incomparably
greater than in any past age of its long history, and this has led
to such an enrichment and proliferation of its aspects, that the
problem of some kind of unified recom prehension of this discipline
seems nowadays unavoidable. This splitting into several subdomains
is the natural consequence of the fact that Logic has intended to
adopt in our century the status of a science. This always implies
that the general optics, under which a certain set of problems used
to be con sidered, breaks into a lot of specialized sectors of
inquiry, each of them being characterized by the introduction of
specific viewpoints and of technical tools of its own. The first
impression, that often accompanies the creation of one of such
specialized branches in a diSCipline, is that one has succeeded in
isolating the 'scientific core' of it, by restricting the somehow
vague and redundant generality of its original 'philosophical'
configuration. But, after a while, it appears that some of the
discarded aspects are indeed important and a new specialized domain
of investigation is created to explore them. By follOwing this
procedure, one finally finds himself confronted with such a variety
of independent fields of research, that one wonders whether the
fact of labelling them under a common denomination be nothing but
the contingent effect of a pure historical tradition."
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.
"Intuition" has perhaps been the least understood and the most
abused term in philosophy. It is often the term used when one has
no plausible explanation for the source of a given belief or
opinion. According to some sceptics, it is understood only in terms
of what it is not, and it is not any of the better understood means
for acquiring knowledge. In mathematics the term has also
unfortunately been used in this way. Thus, intuition is sometimes
portrayed as if it were the Third Eye, something only mathematical
"mystics," like Ramanujan, possess. In mathematics the notion has
also been used in a host of other senses: by "intuitive" one might
mean informal, or non-rigourous, or visual, or holistic, or
incomplete, or perhaps even convincing in spite of lack of proof.
My aim in this book is to sweep all of this aside, to argue that
there is a perfectly coherent, philosophically respectable notion
of mathematical intuition according to which intuition is a
condition necessary for mathemati cal knowledge. I shall argue that
mathematical intuition is not any special or mysterious kind of
faculty, and that it is possible to make progress in the
philosophical analysis of this notion. This kind of undertaking has
a precedent in the philosophy of Kant. While I shall be mostly
developing ideas about intuition due to Edmund Husser there will be
a kind of Kantian argument underlying the entire book."
One of the great minds of the English Renaissance, Francis Bacon
was a scholar, politician, and early advocate of scientific
thinking who set no limits on the scope of his enquiries. In these
compact and vibrant essays, Bacon addresses an astonishingly
diverse range of subjects including religion, politics, personal
relationships, morality and even architecture. Evident throughout
the volume is his considerable rhetorical skill, incisive wit, and
an unwavering belief in the power of reason.
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.
Spanning the period between Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge in
1929 and the first version of Philosophical Investigations in 1936,
Piotr Dehnel explores the middle stage in Ludwig Wittgenstein's
philosophical development and identifies the major issues which
engrossed him, including phenomenology, philosophy of mathematics
and philosophy of language. Contrary to the dominant perspective,
Dehnel argues that this period was intrinsically different from the
early and late stages and should not be viewed as a mere
transitional phase. The distinctiveness of Wittgenstein's middle
work can be seen in his philosophical thinking as it unfolds in a
non-linear trajectory: thoughts do not follow upon each other,
ideas do not appear sequentially one by one, and insights do not
form a straight chain. Dehnel portrays the diffused and
multifarious quality of Wittgenstein's middle thinking, enabling
readers to form a more comprehensive view of his entire philosophy
and acquire a better grasp of his conceptual trajectory, complete
with the intricacies and challenges that it poses.
The issue of a logic foundation for African thought connects well
with the question of method. Do we need new methods for African
philosophy and studies? Or, are the methods of Western thought
adequate for African intellectual space? These questions are not
some of the easiest to answer because they lead straight to the
question of whether or not a logic tradition from African
intellectual space is possible. Thus in charting the course of
future direction in African philosophy and studies, one must be
confronted with this question of logic. The author boldly takes up
this challenge and becomes the first to do so in a book by
introducing new concepts and formulating a new African
culture-inspired system of logic called Ezumezu which he believes
would ground new methods in African philosophy and studies. He
develops this system to rescue African philosophy and, by
extension, sundry fields in African Indigenous Knowledge Systems
from the spell of Plato and the hegemony of Aristotle. African
philosophers can now ground their discourses in Ezumezu logic which
will distinguish their philosophy as a tradition in its own right.
On the whole, the book engages with some of the lingering
controversies in the idea of (an) African logic before unveiling
Ezumezu as a philosophy of logic, methodology and formal system.
The book also provides fresh arguments and insights on the themes
of decolonisation and Africanisation for the intellectual
transformation of scholarship in Africa. It will appeal to
philosophers and logicians-undergraduates and post graduate
researchers-as well as those in various areas of African studies.
For the most part, the papers collected in this volume stern from
presentations given at a conference held in Tucson over the weekend
of May 31 through June 2, 1985. We wish to record our gratitude to
the participants in that conference, as well as to the National
Science Foundation (Grant No. BNS-8418916) and the University of
Arizona SBS Research Institute for their financial support. The
advice we received from Susan Steele on organizational matters
proved invaluable and had many felicitous consequences for the
success of the con ference. We also would like to thank the staff
of the Departments of Linguistics of the University of Arizona and
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst for their help, as weIl
as a number of individuals, including Lin Hall, Kathy Todd, and
Jiazhen Hu, Sandra Fulmer, Maria Sandoval, Natsuko Tsujimura,
Stuart Davis, Mark Lewis, Robin Schafer, Shi Zhang, Olivia
Oehrle-Steele, and Paul Saka. Finally, we would like to express our
gratitude to Martin Scrivener, our editor, for his patience and his
encouragement. Vll INTRODUCTION The term 'categorial grammar' was
introduced by Bar-Rillel (1964, page 99) as a handy way of grouping
together some of his own earlier work (1953) and the work of the
Polish logicians and philosophers Lesniewski (1929) and Ajdukiewicz
(1935), in contrast to approaches to linguistic analysis based on
phrase structure grammars."
Contemporary analytic philosophy can generally be characterized by
the following tendencies: commitment to first-order predicate logic
as the only viable formal logic; rejection of correspondence
theories of truth; a view of existence as something expressed by
the existential quantifier; a metaphysics that doesn t give the
world as a whole its due. This book seeks to offer an alternative
analytic theory, one that provides a unified account of what there
is, how we speak about it, the underlying logic of our language,
how the truth of what we say is determined, and the central role of
the real world in all of this. The result is a robust account of
reality. The inspiration for many of the ideas that constitute this
overall theory comes from such sources as Aristotle, Leibniz, Ryle,
and Sommers."
Games, Norms, and Reasons: Logic at the Crossroads provides an
overview of modern logic focusing on its relationships with other
disciplines, including new interfaces with rational choice theory,
epistemology, game theory and informatics. This book continues a
series called "Logic at the Crossroads" whose title reflects a view
that the deep insights from the classical phase of mathematical
logic can form a harmonious mixture with a new, more ambitious
research agenda of understanding and enhancing human reasoning and
intelligent interaction. The editors have gathered together
articles from active authors in this new area that explore dynamic
logical aspects of norms, reasons, preferences and beliefs in human
agency, human interaction and groups. The book pays a special
tribute to Professor Rohit Parikh, a pioneer in this movement.
Frontiers in Belief Revision is a unique collection of leading edge
research in Belief Revision. It contains the latest innovative
ideas of highly respected and pioneering experts in the area,
including Isaac Levi, Krister Segerberg, Sven Ove Hansson, Didier
Dubois, and Henri Prade. The book addresses foundational issues of
inductive reasoning and minimal change, generalizations of the
standard belief revision theories, strategies for iterated
revisions, probabilistic beliefs, multiagent environments and a
variety of data structures and mechanisms for implementations. This
book is suitable for students and researchers interested in
knowledge representation and in the state of the art of the theory
and practice of belief revision.
Klemens Szaniawski was born in Warsaw on March 3, 1925. He began to
study philosophy in the clandestine Warsaw University during World
War II. Tadeusz Kotarbinski, Jan Lukasiewicz, Maria and Stanislaw
Ossowskis, Wladyslaw Tatarkiewicz, and Henryk Hii: were among his
teachers. Sza- niawski was also a member of the Polish Home Army
(AK), one of the young- est. He was arrested and spent the last
period of the war as a prisoner in Auschwitz. After 1945, he
continued his studies in the University of L6dz; his Master thesis
was devoted to French moral thought of the 17th and 18th cen-
turies. Then he worked in the Department of Ethics in L6dZ. In
1950, he received his Ph. D. on the basis of the dissertation on
the concept of honour in knight groups in the Middle Ages; Maria
Ossowska was the supervisor. In the early fifties he moved to
Warsaw to the Department of Logic, directed by Kotarbinski. He took
his habilitation exams in 1961. In 1969 he became a professor.
Since 1970 he was the head of Department of the Logic at the Warsaw
University. In the sixties Szaniawski was also the Dean of the
Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology. In 1984 he was elected the
Rector Magnificus of the Warsaw University but the Ministry
overruled the autonomous democra- tic vote of the academic
community. He served as the President of the Polish (since 1977)
taking this post after Kotarbinski.
1. The ?rst edition of this book was published in 1977. The text
has been well received and is still used, although it has been out
of print for some time. In the intervening three decades, a lot of
interesting things have happened to mathematical logic: (i) Model
theory has shown that insights acquired in the study of formal
languages could be used fruitfully in solving old problems of
conventional mathematics. (ii) Mathematics has been and is moving
with growing acceleration from the set-theoretic language of
structures to the language and intuition of (higher) categories,
leaving behind old concerns about in?nities: a new view of
foundations is now emerging. (iii) Computer science, a no-nonsense
child of the abstract computability theory, has been creatively
dealing with old challenges and providing new ones, such as the
P/NP problem. Planning additional chapters for this second edition,
I have decided to focus onmodeltheory, the
conspicuousabsenceofwhichinthe ?rsteditionwasnoted in several
reviews, and the theory of computation, including its categorical
and quantum aspects. The whole Part IV: Model Theory, is new. I am
very grateful to Boris I. Zilber, who kindly agreed to write it. It
may be read directly after Chapter II. The contents of the ?rst
edition are basically reproduced here as Chapters I-VIII. Section
IV.7, on the cardinality of the continuum, is completed by Section
IV.7.3, discussing H. Woodin's discovery.
An introductory textbook, Logic for Justice covers, in full detail,
the language and semantics of both propositional logic and
first-order logic. It motivates the study of those logical systems
by drawing on social and political issues. Basically, Logic for
Justice frames propositional logic and first-order logic as two
theories of the distinction between good arguments and bad
arguments. And the book explains why, for the purposes of social
justice and political reform, we need theories of that distinction.
In addition, Logic for Justice is extremely lucid, thorough, and
clear. It explains, and motivates, many different features of the
formalism of propositional logic and first-order logic, always
connecting those features back to real-world issues. Key Features
Connects the study of logic to real-world social and political
issues, drawing in students who might not otherwise be attracted to
the subject. Offers extremely clear and thorough presentations of
technical material, allowing students to learn directly from the
book without having to rely on instructor explanations. Carefully
explains the value of arguing well throughout one’s life, with
several discussions about how to argue and how arguments – when
done with care – can be helpful personally. Includes examples
that appear throughout the entire book, allowing students to see
how the ideas presented in the book build on each other. Provides a
large and diverse set of problems for each chapter. Teaches logic
by connecting formal languages to natural languages with which
students are already familiar, making it much easier for students
to learn how logic works.
An introductory textbook, Logic for Justice covers, in full detail,
the language and semantics of both propositional logic and
first-order logic. It motivates the study of those logical systems
by drawing on social and political issues. Basically, Logic for
Justice frames propositional logic and first-order logic as two
theories of the distinction between good arguments and bad
arguments. And the book explains why, for the purposes of social
justice and political reform, we need theories of that distinction.
In addition, Logic for Justice is extremely lucid, thorough, and
clear. It explains, and motivates, many different features of the
formalism of propositional logic and first-order logic, always
connecting those features back to real-world issues. Key Features
Connects the study of logic to real-world social and political
issues, drawing in students who might not otherwise be attracted to
the subject. Offers extremely clear and thorough presentations of
technical material, allowing students to learn directly from the
book without having to rely on instructor explanations. Carefully
explains the value of arguing well throughout one’s life, with
several discussions about how to argue and how arguments – when
done with care – can be helpful personally. Includes examples
that appear throughout the entire book, allowing students to see
how the ideas presented in the book build on each other. Provides a
large and diverse set of problems for each chapter. Teaches logic
by connecting formal languages to natural languages with which
students are already familiar, making it much easier for students
to learn how logic works.
In Fallacies and Judgments of Reasonableness, Frans H. van Eemeren,
Bart Garssen and Bert Meuffels report on their systematic empirical
research of the conventional validity of the pragma-dialectical
discussion rules. The experimental studies they carried out during
more than ten years start from the pragma-dialectical theory of
argumentation developed at the University of Amsterdam, their home
university. In these studies they test methodically the
intersubjective acceptability of the rules for critical discussion
proposed in this theory by confronting ordinary arguers who have
not received any special education in argumentation and fallacies
with discussion fragments containing both fallacious and
non-fallacious argumentative moves. The research covers a wide
range of informal fallacies. In this way, the authors create a
basis for comparing the theoretical reasonableness conception of
pragma-dialectics with the norms for judging argumentative moves
prevailing in argumentative practice. Fallacies and Judgments of
Reasonableness provides a unique insight into the relationship
between theoretical and practical conceptions of reasonableness,
supported by extensive empirical material gained by means of
sophisticated experimental research.
Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche remain two of the most
interesting and compelling thinkers for contemporary readers.
Rejecting the dry, dispassionate tone of most academic philosophy,
these thinkers offer witty, penetrating critiques of many modern
values as well as passionately moving portraits of alternative
ideals. This work reveals that what Kierkegaard and Nietzsche most
fundamentally share, and what can be their greatest contribution to
contemporary ethics, is a method of illustrating and evaluating
different ways of life considered as a whole. In asking what way of
life is best, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche revive an ancient approach
to ethics largely neglected throughout the modern era. This work
offers a detailed elucidation of this method and of their
respective ideals, Kierkegaard's life of faith and Nietzsche's life
of individual sovereignty. These ideals are explored within each
thinker's typology of different ways of life and then compared and
contrasted with each other.
This wide-ranging book introduces information as a key concept not
only in physics, from quantum mechanics to thermodynamics, but also
in the neighboring sciences and in the humanities. The central part
analyzes dynamical processes as manifestations of information flows
between microscopic and macroscopic scales and between systems and
their environment. Quantum mechanics is interpreted as a
reconstruction of mechanics based on fundamental limitations of
information processing on the smallest scales. These become
particularly manifest in quantum chaos and in quantum computing.
Covering subjects such as causality, prediction, undecidability,
chaos, and quantum randomness, the book also provides an
information-theoretical view of predictability. More than 180
illustrations visualize the concepts and arguments. The book takes
inspiration from the author's graduate-level topical lecture but is
also well suited for undergraduate studies and is a valuable
resource for researchers and professionals.
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.
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