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 1973. This book is directed to the student of philosophy whose background in mathematics is very limited. The author strikes a balance between material of a philosophical and a formal kind, and does this in a way that will bring out the intricate connections between the two. On the formal side, he gives particular care to provide the basic tools from set theory and arithmetic that are needed to study systems of logic, setting out completeness results for two, three, and four valued logic, explaining concepts such as freedom and bondage in quantificational logic, describing the intuitionistic conception of the logical operators, and setting out Zermelo's axiom system for set theory. On the philosophical side, he gives particular attention to such topics as the problem of entailment, the import of the Loewenheim-Skolem theorem, the expressive powers of quantificational logic, the ideas underlying intuitionistic logic, the nature of set theory, and the relationship between logic and set theory. There are exercises within the text, set out alongside the theoretical ideas that they involve.

Originally published in 1962. A clear and simple account of the growth and structure of Mathematical Logic, no earlier knowledge of logic being required. After outlining the four lines of thought that have been its roots - the logic of Aristotle, the idea of all the parts of mathematics as systems to be designed on the same sort of plan as that used by Euclid and his Elements, and the discoveries in algebra and geometry in 1800-1860 - the book goes on to give some of the main ideas and theories of the chief writers on Mathematical Logic: De Morgan, Boole, Jevons, Pierce, Frege, Peano, Whitehead, Russell, Post, Hilbert and Goebel. Written to assist readers who require a general picture of current logic, it will also be a guide for those who will later be going more deeply into the expert details of this field.

Originally published in 1985. This book is about a single famous line of argument, pioneered by Descartes and deployed to full effect by Kant. That argument was meant to refute scepticism once and for all, and make the world safe for science. 'I think, so I exist' is valid reasoning, but circular as proof. In similar vein, Kant argues from our having a science of geometry to Space being our contribution to experience: a different conclusion, arrived at by a similar fallacy. Yet these arguments do show something: that certain sets of opinions, if professed, show an inbuilt inconsistency. It is this second-strike capacity that has kept transcendental arguments going for so long. Attempts to re-build metaphysics by means of such transcendental reasoning have been debated. This book offers an introduction to the field, and ventures its own assessment, in non-technical language, without assuming previous training in logic or philosophy.

Originally published in 1966. Professor Rescher's aim is to develop a "logic of commands" in exactly the same general way which standard logic has already developed a "logic of truth-functional statement compounds" or a "logic of quantifiers". The object is to present a tolerably accurate and precise account of the logically relevant facets of a command, to study the nature of "inference" in reasonings involving commands, and above all to establish a viable concept of validity in command inference, so that the logical relationships among commands can be studied with something of the rigour to which one is accustomed in other branches of logic.

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.

Originally published in 1937. A short account of the traditional logic, intended to provide the student with the fundamentals necessary for the specialized study. Suitable for working through individualy, it will provide sufficient knowledge of the elements of the subject to understand materials on more advanced and specialized topics. This is an interesting historic perspective on this area of philosophy and mathematics.

Originally published in 1941. Professor Ushenko treats of current problems in technical Logic, involving Symbolic Logic to a marked extent. He deprecates the tendency, in influential quarters, to regard Logic as a branch of Mathematics and advances the intuitionalist theory of Logic. This involves criticism of Carnap, Russell,Wittgenstein, Broad and Whitehead, with additional discussions on Kant and Hegel. The author believes that the union of Philosophy and Logic is a natural one, and that an exclusively mathematical treatment cannot give an adequate account of Logic. A fundamental characteristic of Logic is comprehensiveness, which brings out the affinity between logic and philosophy, for to be comprehensive is the aim of philosophical ambition.

Originally published in 1990. A common complaint of philosophers, and men in general, has been that women are illogical. On the other hand, rationality, defined as the ability to follow logical argument, is often claimed to be a defining characteristic of man. Andrea Nye undermines assumptions such as: logic is unitary, logic is independent of concrete human relations, logic transcends historical circumstances as well as gender. In a series of studies of the logics of historical figures Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Abelard, Ockham, and Frege she traces the changing interrelationships between logical innovation and oppressive speech strategies, showing that logic is not transcendent truth but abstract forms of language spoken by men, whether Greek ruling citizens, imperial administrators, church officials, or scientists. She relates logical techniques, such as logical division, syllogisms, and truth functions, to ways in which those with power speak to and about those subject to them. She shows, in the specific historical settings of Ancient and Hellenistic Greece, medieval Europe, and Germany between the World Wars, how logicians reworked language so that dialogue and reciprocity are impossible and one speaker is forced to accept the words of another. In the personal, as well as confrontative style of her readings, Nye points the way to another power in the words of women that might break into and challenge rational discourses that have structured Western thought and practice.

This Handbook explores the history of mathematics under a series of themes which raise new questions about what mathematics has been and what it has meant to practice it. It addresses questions of who creates mathematics, who uses it, and how. A broader understanding of mathematical practitioners naturally leads to a new appreciation of what counts as a historical source. Material and oral evidence is drawn upon as well as an unusual array of textual sources. Further, the ways in which people have chosen to express themselves are as historically meaningful as the contents of the mathematics they have produced. Mathematics is not a fixed and unchanging entity. New questions, contexts, and applications all influence what counts as productive ways of thinking. Because the history of mathematics should interact constructively with other ways of studying the past, the contributors to this book come from a diverse range of intellectual backgrounds in anthropology, archaeology, art history, philosophy, and literature, as well as history of mathematics more traditionally understood.
The thirty-six self-contained, multifaceted chapters, each written by a specialist, are arranged under three main headings: 'Geographies and Cultures', 'Peoples and Practices', and 'Interactions and Interpretations'. Together they deal with the mathematics of 5000 years, but without privileging the past three centuries, and an impressive range of periods and places with many points of cross-reference between chapters. The key mathematical cultures of North America, Europe, the Middle East, India, and China are all represented here as well as areas which are not often treated in mainstream history of mathematics, such as Russia, the Balkans, Vietnam, and South America. This Handbook will be a vital reference for graduates and researchers in mathematics, historians of science, and general historians.

This book provides the first English translation of the Greek text of the Spherics of Theodosios (2nd-1st century BCE), a canonical mathematical and astronomical text used from as early as the 2nd century CE until the early modern period. Accompanied by an introduction to the life and works of Theodosios and a contextualization of his Spherics among other works of Greek mathematics and astronomy, the translation is followed by a detailed commentary, and an accessible English paraphrase accompanied with mathematically generated diagrams. The volume has a broad appeal to both general and specialist readers who do not read ancient Greek – allowing readers to understand the mathematical and astronomical principles and methods used by ancient and medieval readers of this important text. The paraphrase with its mathematical diagrams will be useful for readers with a scientific and mathematical background. This study of one of the canonical mathematical and astronomical texts of the ancient Greco-Roman, classical Islamic, and medieval Christian worlds provides an invaluable resource for historians of science, astronomy, and mathematics, and scholars of the ancient and medieval periods.

This book contains more than 15 essays that explore issues in truth, existence, and explanation. It features cutting-edge research in the philosophy of mathematics and logic. Renowned philosophers, mathematicians, and younger scholars provide an insightful contribution to the lively debate in this interdisciplinary field of inquiry. The essays look at realism vs. anti-realism as well as inflationary vs. deflationary theories of truth. The contributors also consider mathematical fictionalism, structuralism, the nature and role of axioms, constructive existence, and generality. In addition, coverage also looks at the explanatory role of mathematics and the philosophical relevance of mathematical explanation. The book will appeal to a broad mathematical and philosophical audience. It contains work from FilMat, the Italian Network for the Philosophy of Mathematics. These papers collected here were also presented at their second international conference, held at the University of Chieti-Pescara, May 2016.

David Corfield provides a variety of innovative approaches to research in the philosophy of mathematics. His study ranges from an exploration of whether computers producing mathematical proofs or conjectures are doing real mathematics to the use of analogy; the prospects for a Bayesian confirmation theory; the notion of a mathematical research program; and the ways in which new concepts are justified. This highly original book will challenge philosophers as well as mathematicians to develop the broadest and most complete philosophical resources for research in their disciplines.

Originally published in 1985. This study concerns the problem of treating identity as a relation between an object and itself. It addresses the Russellian and Fregean solutions and goes on to present in the first part a surfacist account of belief-context ambiguity requiring neither differences in relative scope nor distinctions between sense and reference. The second part offers an account of negative existentials, necessity and identity-statements which resolves problems unlike the Russell-Frege analyses. This is a detailed work in linguistics and philosophy.

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 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 1988. This text gives a lucid account of the most distinctive and influential responses by twentieth century philosophers to the problem of the unity of the proposition. The problem first became central to twentieth-century philosophy as a result of the depsychoiogising of logic brought about by Bradley and Frege who, responding to the 'Psychologism' of Mill and Hume, drew a sharp distinction between the province of psychology and the province of logic. This author argues that while Russell, Ryle and Davidson, each in different ways, attempted a theoretical solution, Frege and Wittgenstein (both in the Tractatus and the Investigations) rightly maintained that no theoretical solution is possible. It is this which explains the importance Wittgenstein attached in his later work to the idea of agreement in judgments. The two final chapters illustrate the way in which a response to the problem affects the way in which we think about the nature of the mind. They contain a discussion of Strawson's concept of a person and provide a striking critique of the philosophical claims made by devotees of artificial intelligence, in particular those made by Daniel Dennett.

Originally published in 1934. This fourth edition originally published 1954., revised by C. W. K. Mundle. "It must be the desire of every reasonable person to know how to justify a contention which is of sufficient importance to be seriously questioned. The explicit formulation of the principles of sound reasoning is the concern of Logic". This book discusses the habit of sound reasoning which is acquired by consciously attending to the logical principles of sound reasoning, in order to apply them to test the soundness of arguments. It isn't an introduction to logic but it encourages the practice of logic, of deciding whether reasons in argument are sound or unsound. Stress is laid upon the importance of considering language, which is a key instrument of our thinking and is imperfect.

This book offers a detailed account and discussion of Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics. In Part I, the stage is set with a brief presentation of Frege's logicist attempt to provide arithmetic with a foundation and Wittgenstein's criticisms of it, followed by sketches of Wittgenstein's early views of mathematics, in the Tractatus and in the early 1930s. Then (in Part II), Wittgenstein's mature philosophy of mathematics (1937-44) is carefully presented and examined. Schroeder explains that it is based on two key ideas: the calculus view and the grammar view. On the one hand, mathematics is seen as a human activity - calculation - rather than a theory. On the other hand, the results of mathematical calculations serve as grammatical norms. The following chapters (on mathematics as grammar; rule-following; conventionalism; the empirical basis of mathematics; the role of proof) explore the tension between those two key ideas and suggest a way in which it can be resolved. Finally, there are chapters analysing and defending Wittgenstein's provocative views on Hilbert's Formalism and the quest for consistency proofs and on Goedel's incompleteness theorems.

Research in mathematics is much more than solving puzzles, but most people will agree that solving puzzles is not just fun: it helps focus the mind and increases one's armory of techniques for doing mathematics. Mathematical Puzzles makes this connection explicit by isolating important mathematical methods, then using them to solve puzzles and prove a theorem. Features A collection of the world's best mathematical puzzles Each chapter features a technique for solving mathematical puzzles, examples, and finally a genuine theorem of mathematics that features that technique in its proof Puzzles that are entertaining, mystifying, paradoxical, and satisfying; they are not just exercises or contest problems.

This Element shows that Plato keeps a clear distinction between mathematical and metaphysical realism and the knife he uses to slice the difference is method. The philosopher's dialectical method requires that we tether the truth of hypotheses to existing metaphysical objects. The mathematician's hypothetical method, by contrast, takes hypotheses as if they were first principles, so no metaphysical account of their truth is needed. Thus, we come to Plato's methodological as-if realism: in mathematics, we treat our hypotheses as if they were first principles, and, consequently, our objects as if they existed, and we do this for the purpose of solving problems. Taking the road suggested by Plato's Republic, this Element shows that methodological commitments to mathematical objects are made in light of mathematical practice; foundational considerations; and, mathematical applicability. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Luck permeates our lives, and this raises a number of pressing questions: What is luck? When we attribute luck to people, circumstances, or events, what are we attributing? Do we have any obligations to mitigate the harms done to people who are less fortunate? And to what extent is deserving praise or blame affected by good or bad luck? Although acquiring a true belief by an uneducated guess involves a kind of luck that precludes knowledge, does all luck undermine knowledge? The academic literature has seen growing, interdisciplinary interest in luck, and this volume brings together and explains the most important areas of this research. It consists of 39 newly commissioned chapters, written by an internationally acclaimed team of philosophers and psychologists, for a readership of students and researchers. Its coverage is divided into six sections: I: The History of Luck II: The Nature of Luck III: Moral Luck IV: Epistemic Luck V: The Psychology of Luck VI: Future Research. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, from the problem of moral luck, to anti-luck epistemology, to the relationship between luck attributions and cognitive biases, to meta-questions regarding the nature of luck itself, to a range of other theoretical and empirical questions. By bringing this research together, the Handbook serves as both a touchstone for understanding the relevant issues and a first port of call for future research on luck.

This book studies the important issue of the possibility of conceptual change--a possibility traditionally denied by logicians--from the perspective of philosophy of mathematics. The author also looks at aspects of language, and his conclusions have implications for a theory of concepts, truth and thought. The book will appeal to readers in the philosophy of mathematics, logic, and the philosophy of mind and language.

Connecting Humans to Equations: A Reinterpretation of the Philosophy of Mathematics presents some of the most important positions in the philosophy of mathematics, while adding new dimensions to this philosophy. Mathematics is an integral part of human and social life, meaning that a philosophy of mathematics must include several dimensions. This book describes these dimensions by the following four questions that structure the content of the book: Where is mathematics? How certain is mathematics? How social is mathematics? How good is mathematics? These four questions refer to the ontological, epistemological, social, and ethical dimension of a philosophy of mathematics. While the ontological and epistemological dimensions have been explored in all classic studies in the philosophy of mathematics, the exploration of the book is unique in its social and ethical dimensions. It argues that the foundation of mathematics is deeply connected to human and social actions and that mathematics includes not just descriptive but also performative features. This human-centered and accessible interpretation of mathematics is relevant for students in mathematics, mathematics education, and any technical discipline and for anybody working with mathematics.

This book is meant as a part of the larger contemporary philosophical project of naturalizing logico-mathematical knowledge, and addresses the key question that motivates most of the work in this field: What is philosophically relevant about the nature of logico-mathematical knowledge in recent research in psychology and cognitive science? The question about this distinctive kind of knowledge is rooted in Plato's dialogues, and virtually all major philosophers have expressed interest in it. The essays in this collection tackle this important philosophical query from the perspective of the modern sciences of cognition, namely cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Naturalizing Logico-Mathematical Knowledge contributes to consolidating a new, emerging direction in the philosophy of mathematics, which, while keeping the traditional concerns of this sub-discipline in sight, aims to engage with them in a scientifically-informed manner. A subsequent aim is to signal the philosophers' willingness to enter into a fruitful dialogue with the community of cognitive scientists and psychologists by examining their methods and interpretive strategies.