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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Logic
This is the first textbook that approaches natural language
semantics and logic from the perspective of Discourse
Representation Theory, an approach which emphasizes the dynamic and
incremental aspects of meaning and inference. The book has been
carefully designed for the classroom. It is aimed at students with
varying degrees of preparation, including those without prior
exposure to semantics or formal logic. Moreover, it should make DRT
easily accessible to those who want to learn about the theory on
their own. Exercises are available to test understanding as well as
to encourage independent theoretical thought. The book serves a
double purpose. Besides a textbook, it is also the first
comprehensive and fully explicit statement of DRT available in the
form of a book. The first part of the book develops the basic
principles of DRT for a small fragment of English (but which has
nevertheless the power of standard predicate logic). The second
part extends this fragment by adding plurals; it discusses a wide
variety of problems connected with plural nouns and verbs. The
third part applies the theory to the analysis of tense and aspect.
Many of the problems raised in Parts Two and Three are novel, as
are the solutions proposed. For undergraduate and graduate students
interested in linguistics, theoretical linguistics, computational
linguistics, artificial intelligence and cognitive science.
Suitable for students with no previous exposure to formal semantics
or logic.
This book provides a systematic analysis of many common
argumentation schemes and a compendium of 96 schemes. The study of
these schemes, or forms of argument that capture stereotypical
patterns of human reasoning, is at the core of argumentation
research. Surveying all aspects of argumentation schemes from the
ground up, the book takes the reader from the elementary exposition
in the first chapter to the latest state of the art in the research
efforts to formalize and classify the schemes, outlined in the last
chapter. It provides a systematic and comprehensive account, with
notation suitable for computational applications that increasingly
make use of argumentation schemes.
This book offers a comprehensive account of logic that addresses
fundamental issues concerning the nature and foundations of the
discipline. The authors claim that these foundations can not only
be established without the need for strong metaphysical
assumptions, but also without hypostasizing logical forms as
specific entities. They present a systematic argument that the
primary subject matter of logic is our linguistic interaction
rather than our private reasoning and it is thus misleading to see
logic as revealing "the laws of thought". In this sense,
fundamental logical laws are implicit to our "language games" and
are thus more similar to social norms than to the laws of nature.
Peregrin and Svoboda also show that logical theories, despite the
fact that they rely on rules implicit to our actual linguistic
practice, firm up these rules and make them explicit. By carefully
scrutinizing the project of logical analysis, the authors
demonstrate that logical rules can be best seen as products of the
so called reflective equilibrium. They suggest that we can profit
from viewing languages as "inferential landscapes" and logicians as
"geographers" who map them and try to pave safe routes through
them. This book is an essential resource for scholars and
researchers engaged with the foundations of logical theories and
the philosophy of language.
This collection presents the first sustained examination of the
nature and status of the idea of principles in early modern
thought. Principles are almost ubiquitous in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries: the term appears in famous book titles, such
as Newton's Principia; the notion plays a central role in the
thought of many leading philosophers, such as Leibniz's Principle
of Sufficient Reason; and many of the great discoveries of the
period, such as the Law of Gravitational Attraction, were described
as principles. Ranging from mathematics and law to chemistry, from
natural and moral philosophy to natural theology, and covering some
of the leading thinkers of the period, this volume presents ten
compelling new essays that illustrate the centrality and importance
of the idea of principles in early modern thought. It contains
chapters by leading scholars in the field, including the Leibniz
scholar Daniel Garber and the historian of chemistry William R.
Newman, as well as exciting, emerging scholars, such as the Newton
scholar Kirsten Walsh and a leading expert on experimental
philosophy, Alberto Vanzo. The Idea of Principles in Early Modern
Thought: Interdisciplinary Perspectives charts the terrain of one
of the period's central concepts for the first time, and opens up
new lines for further research.
Peirce's Speculative Grammar: Logic as Semiotics offers a
comprehensive, philologically accurate, and exegetically ambitious
developmental account of Peirce's theory of speculative grammar.
The book traces the evolution of Peirce's grammatical writings from
his early research on the classification of arguments in the 1860s
up to the complex semiotic taxonomies elaborated in the first
decade of the twentieth century. It will be of interest to academic
specialists working on Peirce, the history of American philosophy
and pragmatism, the philosophy of language, the history of logic,
and semiotics.
Lacan and the Formulae of Sexuation provides the first critical
reading of Lacan's formulae of sexuation, examining both their
logical consistency and clinical consequences. Are there two
different entities named Man and Woman, separated by the gulf of
sexual difference? Or is it better to conceive of this difference
as something purely relative, each human being situated on a sort
of continuum from more or less 'man' to more or less 'woman'?
Sigmund Freud established the strange way through which sexuality
determines being human: his concept of drive was no longer the
heteronormative sexual instinct used by the psychiatrists of his
time. With his provocative formula according to which 'there is no
sexual relationship', Lacan has reinforced this perspective,
combining logic and sexuality through the invention of a new
operator, the concept 'not all', which points to a form of
incompleteness at stake in his 'formulae of sexuation'. This book
examines how these formulae have been constructed, and how we
should read them in connection with, on one hand, their own logical
consistency (a logical square different from Aristotelian
tradition) and, on the other hand, a 'part object' in a very
different sense to Melanie Klein's. The book also investigates the
underlying logic of clinical vignettes, so much in favour in
psychoanalytical literature today. The book represents essential
reading for Lacanian psychoanalysts, as well as researchers at the
cross-section of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and gender studies.
The limit of language is one of the most pervasive notions found in
Wittgenstein's work, both in his early Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus and his later writings. Moreover, the idea of
a limit of language is intimately related to important scholarly
debates on Wittgenstein's philosophy, such as the debate between
the so-called traditional and resolute interpretations,
Wittgenstein's stance on transcendental idealism, and the
philosophical import of Wittgenstein's latest work On Certainty.
This collection includes thirteen original essays that provide a
comprehensive overview of the various ways in which Wittgenstein
appeals to the limit of language at different stages of his
philosophical development. The essays connect the idea of a limit
of language to the most important themes discussed by
Wittgenstein-his conception of logic and grammar, the method of
philosophy, the nature of the subject, and the foundations of
knowledge-as well as his views on ethics, aesthetics, and religion.
The essays also relate Wittgenstein's thought to his
contemporaries, including Carnap, Frege, Heidegger, Levinas, and
Moore.
Originally published in 1973. This book presents a valid mode of
reasoning that is different to mathematical probability. This
inductive logic is investigated in terms of scientific
investigation. The author presents his criteria of adequacy for
analysing inductive support for hypotheses and discusses each of
these criteria in depth. The chapters cover philosophical problems
and paradoxes about experimental support, probability and
justifiability, ending with a system of logical syntax of
induction. Each section begins with a summary of its contents and
there is a glossary of technical terms to aid the reader.
Originally published in 1981. This is a book for the final year
undergraduate or first year graduate who intends to proceed with
serious research in philosophical logic. It will be welcomed by
both lecturers and students for its careful consideration of main
themes ranging from Gricean accounts of meaning to two dimensional
modal logic. The first part of the book is concerned with the
nature of the semantic theorist's project, and particularly with
the crucial concepts of meaning, truth, and semantic structure. The
second and third parts deal with various constructions that are
found in natural languages: names, quantifiers, definite
descriptions, and modal operators. Throughout, while assuming some
familiarity with philosophical logic and elementary formal logic,
the text provides a clear exposition. It brings together related
ideas, and in some places refines and improves upon existing
accounts.
This book addresses the argument in the history of the philosophy
of science between the positivists and the anti-positivists. The
author starts from a point of firm conviction that all science and
philosophy must start with the given... But that the range of the
given is not definite. He begins with an examination of science
from the outside and then the inside, explaining his position on
metaphysics and attempts to formulate the character of operational
acts before a general theory of symbolism is explored. The last
five chapters constitute a treatise to show that the development
from one stage of symbolismto the next is inevitable, consequently
that explanatory science represents the culmination of knowledge.
Originally published in 1968. This is a critical study of the
concept of 'rule' featuring in law, ethics and much philosophical
analysis which the author uses to investigate the concept of
'rationality'. The author indicates in what manner the modes of
reasoning involved in reliance upon rules are unique and in what
fashion they provide an alternative both to the modes of
logico-mathematical reasoning and to the modes of scientific
reasoning. This prepares the groundwork for a methodology meeting
the requirements of the fields using rules such as law and ethics
which could be significant for communications theory and the use of
computers in normative fields. Other substantive issues related to
the mainstream of legal philosophy are discussed - theories of
interpretation, the notion of purpose and the requirements of
principled decision-making. The book utilizes examples drawn from
English and American legal decisions to suggest how the positions
of legal positivism and of natural law are equally artificial and
misleading.
Originally published in 1966. This is a self-instructional course
intended for first-year university students who have not had
previous acquaintance with Logic. The book deals with
"propositional" logic by the truth-table method, briefly
introducing axiomatic procedures, and proceeds to the theory of the
syllogism, the logic of one-place predicates, and elementary parts
of the logic of many-place predicates. Revision material is
provided covering the main parts of the course. The course
represents from eight to twenty hours work. depending on the
student's speed of work and on whether optional chapters are taken.
Originally published in 1965. This is a textbook of modern
deductive logic, designed for beginners but leading further into
the heart of the subject than most other books of the kind. The
fields covered are the Propositional Calculus, the more elementary
parts of the Predicate Calculus, and Syllogistic Logic treated from
a modern point of view. In each of the systems discussed the main
emphases are on Decision Procedures and Axiomatisation, and the
material is presented with as much formal rigour as is compatible
with clarity of exposition. The techniques used are not only
described but given a theoretical justification. Proofs of
Consistency, Completeness and Independence are set out in detail.
The fundamental characteristics of the various systems studies, and
their relations to each other are established by meta-logical
proofs, which are used freely in all sections of the book.
Exercises are appended to most of the chapters, and answers are
provided.
Originally published in 1967. The common aim of all logical enquiry
is to discover and analyse correctly the forms of valid argument.
In this book concise expositions of traditional, Aristotelian logic
and of modern systems of propositional and predicative logic show
how far that aim has been achieved.
Originally published in 1931. This inquiry investigates and
develops John Cook Wilson's view of the province of logic. It bases
the study on the posthumous collected papers Statement and
Inference. The author seeks to answer questions on the nature of
logic using Cook Wilson's thought. The chapters introduce and
consider topics from metaphysics to grammar and from psychology to
knowledge. An early conception of logic in the sciences and
presenting the work of an important twentieth century philosopher,
this is an engaging work.
Our experience of objects (and consequently our theorizing about
them) is very rich. We perceive objects as possessing individuation
conditions. They appear to have boundaries in space and time, for
example, and they appear to move independently of a background of
other objects or a landscape. In Ontology Without Boundaries Jody
Azzouni undertakes an analysis of our concept of object, and shows
what about that notion is truly due to the world and what about it
is a projection onto the world of our senses and thinking. Location
and individuation conditions are our product: there is no echo of
them in the world. Features, the ways that objects seem to be,
aren't projections. Azzouni shows how the resulting austere
metaphysics tames a host of ancient philosophical problems about
constitution ("Ship of Theseus," "Sorities"), as well as
contemporary puzzles about reductionism. In addition, it's shown
that the same sorts of individuation conditions for properties,
which philosophers use to distinguish between various kinds of odd
abstracta-universals, tropes, and so on, are also projections.
Accompanying our notion of an object is a background logic that
makes cogent ontological debate about anything from Platonic
objects to Bigfoot. Contemporary views about this background logic
("quantifier variance") make ontological debate incoherent. Azzouni
shows how a neutral interpretation of quantifiers and quantifier
domains makes sense of both philosophical and pre-philosophical
ontological debates. Azzouni also shows how the same apparatus
makes sense of our speaking about a host of items-Mickey Mouse,
unicorns, Martians-that nearly all of us deny exist. It's allowed
by what Azzouni shows about the background logic of our ontological
debates, as well as the semantics of the language of those debates
that we can disagree over the existence of things, like unicorns,
without that background logic and semantics forcing ontological
commitments onto speakers that they don't have.
Patrick Aidan Heelan's The Observable offers the reader a
completely articulated development of his 1965 philosophy of
quantum physics, Quantum Mechanics and Objectivity. In this
previously unpublished study dating back more than a half a
century, Heelan brings his background as both a physicist and a
philosopher to his reflections on Werner Heisenberg's physical
philosophy. Including considerably broader connections to the
contributions of Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, and Albert Einstein,
this study also reflects Heelan's experience in Eugene Wigner's
laboratory at Princeton along with his reflections on working with
Erwin Schroedinger dating from Heelan's years at the Institute for
Advanced Cosmology in Dublin. A contribution to continental
philosophy of science, the phenomenological and hermeneutic
resources applied in this book to the physical and ontological
paradoxes of quantum physics, especially in connection with
laboratory science and measurement, theory and model making, will
enrich students of the history of science as well as those
interested in different approaches to the historiography of
science. University courses in the philosophy of physics will find
this book indispensable as a resource and invaluable for courses in
the history of science.
This collection addresses metaphysical issues at the intersection
between philosophy and science. A unique feature is the way in
which it is guided both by history of philosophy, by interaction
between philosophy and science, and by methodological awareness. In
asking how metaphysics is possible in an age of science, the
contributors draw on philosophical tools provided by three great
thinkers who were fully conversant with and actively engaged with
the sciences of their day: Kant, Husserl, and Frege. Part I sets
out frameworks for scientifically informed metaphysics in
accordance with the meta-metaphysics outlined by these three
self-reflective philosophers. Part II explores the domain for
co-existent metaphysics and science. Constraints on ambitious
critical metaphysics are laid down in close consideration of logic,
meta-theory, and specific conditions for science. Part III
exemplifies the role of language and science in contemporary
metaphysics. Quine's pursuit of truth is analysed; Cantor's
absolute infinitude is reconstrued in modal terms; and sense is
made of Weyl's take on the relationship between mathematics and
empirical aspects of physics. With chapters by leading scholars,
Metametaphysics and the Sciences is an in-depth resource for
researchers and advanced students working within metaphysics,
philosophy of science, and the history of philosophy.
Originally published in 1966 On the Syllogism and Other Logical
Writings assembles for the first time the five celebrated memoirs
of Augustus De Morgan on the syllogism. These are collected
together with the more condensed accounts of his researches given
in his Syllabus of a Proposed System of Logic an article on Logic
contributed to the English Cyclopaedia. De Morgan was among the
most distinguished of nineteenth century British mathematicians but
is chiefly remembered today as one of the founders of modern
mathematical logic. His writings on this subject have been little
read, however since apart from his Formal Logic, they lie buried
for the most part in inaccessible periodicals. De Morgan's own
later amendments are inserted in the text and the editorial
introduction gives a summary of the whole and traces in some detail
the course of the once-famous feud with Sir William Hamilton of
Edinburgh.
Ascriptions of mental states to oneself and others give rise to
many interesting logical and semantic problems. Attitude Problems
presents an original account of mental state ascriptions that are
made using intensional transitive verbs such as "want," "seek,"
"imagine," and "worship." Forbes offers a theory of how such verbs
work that draws on ideas from natural language semantics,
philosophy of language, and aesthetics.
"Exploring Hegels philosophical psychology to uncover viable
remedies to the chief dilemmas plaguing contemporary philosophy of
mind, Hegel and Mind exposes why mind cannot be an epistemological
foundation nor reduced to discursive consciousness not modelled
after computing machines"--Provided by publisher.
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