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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Logic
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Writing is essential to learning. One cannot be educated and yet
unable to communicate one's ideas in written form. But, learning to
write can occur only through a process of cultivation requiring
intellectual discipline. As with any set of complex skills, there
are fundamentals of writing that must be internalized and then
applied using one's thinking. This guide focuses on the most
important of those fundamentals.
Ludwig Wittgenstein's brief Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
is one of the most important philosophical works of the twentieth
century, yet it offers little orientation for the reader. The
first-time reader is left wondering what it could be about, and the
scholar is left with little guidance for interpretation. In
Tractatus in Context, James C. Klagge presents the vital background
necessary for appreciating Wittgenstein's gnomic masterpiece.
Tractatus in Context contains the early reactions to the Tractatus,
including the initial reviews written in 1922-1924. And while we
can't talk with Wittgenstein, we can do the next best thing-hear
what he had to say about the Tractatus. Klagge thus presents what
Wittgenstein thought about germane issues leading up to his writing
the book, in discussions and correspondence with others about his
ideas, and what he had to say about the Tractatus after it was
written-in letters, lectures and conversations. It offers, you
might say, Wittgenstein's own commentary on the book. Key Features:
Illuminates what is at stake in the Tractatus, by providing the
views of others that engaged Wittgenstein as he was writing it.
Includes Wittgenstein's earlier thoughts on ideas in the book as
recorded in his notebooks, letters, and conversations as well as
his later, retrospective comments on those ideas. Draws on new or
little-known sources, such as Wittgenstein's coded notebooks,
Hermine's notes, Frege's letters, Hansel's diary, Ramsey's notes,
and Skinner's dictations. Draws connections between the background
context and specific passages in the Tractatus, using a
proposition-by-proposition commentary.
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
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.
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."
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."
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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."
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