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The concept of biopolitics was first outlined by Michel Foucault (2003, 2007, 2009) in his lectures at the Collège de France in the late 1970s in order to name and analyze emergent logics of power...

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Meaning and Argument shifts introductorylogic from the traditional emphasis on proofs to the symbolization of arguments. Another distinctive feature of this book is that it shows how the need for expressive power and for drawing distinctions forces formal language development. This revised edition includes expanded sections, additional exercises, and an updated bibliography. Updated and revised edition includes extended sections, additional exercises, and an updated bibliography. Distinctive approach in that this text is a philosophical, rather than mathematical introduction (...) tologic. Concentrates on symbolization and does all the technicallogic simply with truth tables and no derivations at all. Contains numerous exercises and a corresponding answer key. Extensive appendix which allows the reader to explore subjects that go beyond what is usually covered in an introductorylogic course. Features accompanying website at www.meaningargument.com. (shrink)

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Are skeptical arguments invalid because they trade on an ambiguity of the word "possible," asserting that it is possible that our experiences are not of anything outside our own minds and concluding that it is not certain that there is an external world outside our own minds? It is sometimes asserted that such arguments invalidly trade on an ambiguity of "possible" where the premise is true only in the sense "logically possible" while the inference is valid only in the sense (...) "empirically possible." However, once we distinguish different grammatical complements of the phrase "it is possible" we recognize that, when used with the same complement, "possible" is not ambiguous. So the claim that skeptical arguments trade on an ambiguity of "possible" fails. (shrink)

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In this volume, critical scholars and educational activists explore the intricate dynamics between the enclosure of global commons and radical visions of a common social future that breaks through the logics of privatization, ecological degradation, and dehumanizing social hierarchies in education. In its institutional and informal configurations alike, education has been identified as perhaps the key stake in this struggle. Insisting on the urgency of an education that breaks free of the bonds of enclosure, the essays included in this volume (...) weave together bright threads of radical thought into a vivid tapestry illustrating a critical framework for enacting a global educational commons. (shrink)

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This volume began as a remembrance of Alonzo Church while he was still with us and is now finally complete. It contains papers by many well-known scholars, most of whom have been directly influenced by Church's own work. Often the emphasis is on foundational issues inlogic, mathematics, computation, and philosophy - as was the case with Church's contributions, now universally recognized as having been of profound fundamental significance in those areas. The volume will be of interest to logicians, (...) computer scientists, philosophers, and linguists. The contributions concern classical first-orderlogic, higher-orderlogic, non-classical theories of implication, set theories with universal sets, the logical and semantical paradoxes, the lambda-calculus, especially as it is used in computation, philosophical issues aboutmeaning and ontology in the abstract sciences and in natural language, and much else. The material will be accessible to specialists in these areas and to advanced graduate students in the respective fields. (shrink)

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Geoffrey Hellman has argued that non-truth-functionality entails a change ofmeaning between classical and quantum logical connectives. This paper criticizes and significantly improves the argument.

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Jc Beall and Greg Restall (Logical Pluralism. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2006) propose a logical pluralism where the corresponding connectives in eachlogic mean the same thing. They contrast this with a Carnapian pluralism, where different logics have corresponding connectives which do not share meanings. I will show that due to the manner in which connectives are given theirmeaning by Beall and Restall, relevant negation and intuitionistic negation cannot mean the same thing. Thus, their pluralism is at least (...) partly Carnapian, as not all the logics involved can have their corresponding connectives share meanings. (shrink)

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Tractatus Logico-Pilosophicus, the only book published during Ludwig Wittgenstein's lifetime , has since attracted the imagination of generations of philosophers as a work of great philosophical genius. Nonetheless, even today, more than eighty years later, philosophers are struggling to reconcile its diverse themes within a single, coherent picture. The present work is an attempt to meet this challenge. ;Wittgenstein considered the single proposition as a concrete model for the fact. The challenge is to show how a system of propositions can (...) serve as a model of reality. My work concentrates on three pillars of thelogic of the Tractatus: the picture theory, negation as "reversal of sense," the independence of elementary propositions. Using a simple scenario of the ordering of objects or letters on a line, I examine the conflict generated by the attempt to adequately accommodate all three themes and offer my own solution. My solution brings implications to the problem of negation and to the Tractatus's thesis that the possibilities of logical space are spanned by the possible configurations of the ultimately simple objects. One such implication, which stands in contrast to the common reading, is that in atomic facts we have 'complex objects' as constituents. ;The resolution offered, furthermore, exposes an intrinsic difficulty in the Tractatus, for which I have reserved the term arbitrary choice. The difficulty is manifested in the lack of assurance---from the perspective oflogic---that a concept-word will preserve its 'standard'meaning when it is reapplied or when its scope of application varies. In this I uncover the seed of central themes in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, e.g. the rule-following argument, as present already in the Tractatus. ;In the concluding chapter, I suggest a new account for the nature of the proposition by connecting the analysis offered in the Tractatus with the subject of time and motion. The picture with which the work concludes then considers language not as corresponding to reality, but as engaged or synchronized with reality---if you will, it is a picture of language and reality in a dance. (shrink)

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What do the rules oflogic say about the meanings of the symbols they govern? In this book, James W. Garson examines the inferential behaviour of logical connectives, whose behaviour is defined by strict rules, and proves definitive results concerning exactly what those rules express about connective truth conditions. He explores the ways in which, depending on circumstances, a system of rules may provide no interpretation of a connective at all, or the interpretation we ordinarily expect for it, or (...) an unfamiliar or novel interpretation. He also shows how the novel interpretations thus generated may be used to help analyse philosophical problems such as vagueness and the open future. His book will be valuable for graduates and specialists inlogic, philosophy oflogic, and philosophy of language. (shrink)

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It is a commonplace of the history of analytic philosophy that Carnap swiftly adopted Tarskian semantics in the mid-1930s. There is no doubt that, in a very general sense, this is true. But to what extent are the innovative technical details characteristic of Tarski's method, specifically the handling of quantification by way of a satisfaction relation between formulas and variable assignments, reflected in Carnap's writings on semantics? Curiously enough, their essentials are in place just before Carnap took the purported Tarskian (...) turn, namely in the definition of analyticity he formulated some time between September 1932 and April 1933, but are missing from his publications on semantics after 1935 until the final chapter ofMeaning and Necessity of 1947, at which point we find Carnap reverting to the use of specifically Tarskian techniques in the context of his novel semantics for quantified modal languages. (shrink)

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Logical pluralism has been in vogue since JC Beall and Greg Restall 2006 articulated and defended a new pluralist thesis. Recent criticisms such as Priest 2006a and Field 2009 have suggested that there is a relationship between their type of logical pluralism and themeaning-variance thesis forlogic. This is the claim, often associated with Quine 1970, that a change oflogic entails a change ofmeaning. Here we explore the connection between logical pluralism and (...) class='Hi'>meaning-variance, both in general and for Beall and Restall's theory specifically. We argue that contrary to what Beall and Restall claim, their type of pluralism is wedded tomeaning-variance. We then develop an alternative form of logical pluralism that circumvents at least some forms ofmeaning-variance. (shrink)

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Quantumlogic as genuine non-classicallogic provides no solution to the "paradoxes" of quantum mechanics. From the minimal condition that synonyms be substitutable salva veritate, it follows that synonymous sentential connectives be alike in point of truth-functionality. It is a fact of pure mathematics that any assignment Φ of (0, 1) to the subspaces of Hilbert space (dim. ≥ 3) which guarantees truth-preservation of the ordering and truth-functionality of QL negation, violates truth-functionality of QL ∨ and $\wedge $ (...) . Thus, from within both the classical framework and that of any QL that preserves elementary set theory, two distinct (nonsynonymous) sets of connectives are discernible. Classical derivations of QM paradoxes are all available unless the language of QM is not classically closed. Maintaining this requires a strong and selfdefeating verification theory ofmeaning, the philosophical cornerstone of the Copenhagen interpretation to which QL was to provide an alternative. (shrink)

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Peter Ludlow shows how word meanings are much more dynamic than we might have supposed, and explores how they are modulated even during everyday conversation. The resulting view is radical, and has far-reaching consequences for our political and legal discourse, and for enduring puzzles in the foundations of semantics, epistemology, andlogic.

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Two chief problems of the theory of knowledge are the question ofmeaning and the question of verification. The first question asks under what conditions a sentence hasmeaning, in the sense of cognitive, factualmeaning. The second one asks how we get to know something, how we can find out whether a given sentence is true or false. The second question presupposes the first one. Obviously we must understand a sentence, i.e. we must know its (...) class='Hi'>meaning, before we can try to find out whether it is true or not. But, from the point of view of empiricism, there is a still closer connection between the two problems. In a certain sense, there is only one answer to the two questions. If we knew what it would be for a given sentence to be found true then we would know what itsmeaning is. And if for two sentences the conditions under which we would have to take them as true are the same, then they have the samemeaning. Thus themeaning of a sentence is in a certain sense identical with the way we determine its truth or falsehood; and a sentence hasmeaning only if such a determination is possible. (shrink)

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Most areas of philosopher Edmund Husserl’s thought have been explored, but his views onlogic, mathematics, and semantics have been largely ignored. These essays offer an alternative to discussions of the philosophy of contemporary mathematics. The book covers areas of disagreement between Husserl and Gottlob Frege, the father of analytical philosophy, and explores new perspectives seen in their work.

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In standard model-theoretic semantics, themeaning of logical terms is said to be fixed in the system while that of nonlogical terms remains variable. Much effort has been devoted to characterizing logical terms, those terms that should be fixed, but little has been said on their role in logical systems: on what fixing theirmeaning precisely amounts to. My proposal is that when a term is considered logical in model theory, what gets fixed is its intension rather than (...) its extension. I provide a rigorous way of spelling out this idea, and show that it leads to a graded account of logicality: the less structure a term requires in order for its intension to be fixed, the more logical it is. Finally, I focus on the class of terms that are invariant under isomorphisms, as they render themselves more easily to mathematical treatment. I propose a mathematical measure for the logicality of such terms based on their associated Löwenheim numbers. (shrink)

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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 philosophicallogic. It will be welcomed by both lecturers and students for its careful consideration of main themes ranging from Gricean accounts ofmeaning to two dimensional modallogic. The first part of the book is concerned with the nature of the semantic theorist's project, and particularly with the crucial concepts of (...) class='Hi'>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 philosophicallogic and elementary formallogic, the text provides a clear exposition. It brings together related ideas, and in some places refines and improves upon existing accounts. (shrink)

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Contemporary accounts oflogic and language cannot give proper treatments of plural constructions of natural languages. They assume that plural constructions are redundant devices used to abbreviate singular constructions. This paper and its sequel, "Thelogic andmeaning of plurals, II", aim to develop an account oflogic and language that acknowledges limitations of singular constructions and recognizes plural constructions as their peers. To do so, the papers present natural accounts of thelogic and (...) class='Hi'>meaning of plural constructions that result from the view that plural constructions are, by and large, devices for talking about many things (as such). The account oflogic presented in the papers surpasses contemporary Fregean accounts in its scope. This extension of the scope oflogic results from extending the range of languages thatlogic can directly relate to. Underlying the view of language that makes room for this is a perspective on reality that locates in the world what plural constructions can relate to. The papers suggest that reflections on plural constructions point to a broader framework for understandinglogic, language, and reality that can replace the contemporary Fregean framework as this has replaced its Aristotelian ancestor. (shrink)

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It is often argued that the combination of deflationism about truth and the truth-conditional theory ofmeaning is impossible for reasons of circularity. I distinguish, and reject, two strains of circularity argument. Arguments of the first strain hold that the combination has a circular account of the order in which one comes to know themeaning of a sentence and comes to know its truth condition. I show that these arguments fail to identify any circularity. Arguments of the (...) second strain hold that the combination has a circular explanation of the ideas or concepts ofmeaning and truth. I show that these arguments identify a genuine, but acceptable, circularity. (shrink)

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Much philosophy oflogic is shaped, explicitly or implicitly, by the thought thatlogic is distinctively formal and abstracts from material content. The distinction between formal and material does not appear to coincide with the more familiar contrasts between a priori and empirical, necessary and contingent, analytic and synthetic—indeed, it is often invoked to explain these. Nor, it turns out, can it be explained by appeal to schematic inference patterns, syntactic rules, or grammar. What does it mean, then, (...) to say thatlogic is distinctively formal? (shrink)

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Donald Trump’s speeches and messages are characterized by terms that are commonly referred to as “thick” or “emotive,”meaning that they are characterized by a tendency to be used to generate emotive reactions. This paper investigates how emotivemeaning is related to emotions, and how it is generated or manipulated. Emotivemeaning is analyzed as an evaluative conclusion that results from inferences triggered by the use of a term, which can be represented and assessed using argumentation schemes. (...) The evaluative inferences are regarded as part of the connotation of emotive words, which can be modified and stabilized by means of recontextualizations. The manipulative risks underlying the misuse and the redefinition of emotive words are accounted for in terms of presuppositions and implicit modifications of the interlocutors’ commitments. (shrink)

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Contemporary research on East Asian philosophy is based on the discovery of common philosophical elements shared by apparently mutually irrelevant East Asian thinkers. One of such elements is the question ofmeaning or semantic dimension with special relevance to Buddhist inspiration, which is clearly seen in the philosophies of the Kyoto school and New Confucianism. Although the question ofmeaning is almost common to the whole 20th century philosophy, this paper shows that the East Asian theory of (...) class='Hi'>meaning has two characteristic notions: self-awareness and bidirectionality. It is from this perspective that Mou Zongsan’s two-tier metaphysical scheme can be effectively compared to Nishida Kitarō’s theory of place. Drawing on Sinitic Buddhism, they explore the semantic dimension by means of the ever-deepening self-awareness; the same Buddhist inspiration points to another core notion, bidirectionality, which characterizes that which is neither corporeal or mental. Contrary to the widely accepted view, I interpret the so-called “logic” of soku or ji not as a type of logical system, but as a bidirectional expression peculiar to the “self-aware” theory ofmeaning. (shrink)

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This fresh look at the philosophy of language focuses on the interface between a theory of literalmeaning and pragmatics--a philosophical examination of the relationship betweenmeaning and language use and its contexts. Here, Atlas develops the contrast between verbal ambiguity and verbal generality, works out a detailed theory of conversational inference using the work of Paul Grice on Implicature as a starting point, and gives an account of their interface as an example of the relationship between Chomsky's (...) Internalist Semantics and Language Performance. Atlas then discusses consequences of his theory of the Interface for the distinction between metaphorical and literal language, for Grice's account ofmeaning, for the Analytic/Synthetic distinction, forMeaning Holism, and for Formal Semantics of Natural Language. This book makes an important contribution to the philosophy of language and will appeal to philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

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Included in a special issue, edited by J. van Benthem and A. Gupta, on "Logic and Philosophy Today".

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Two chief problems of the theory of knowledge are the question ofmeaning and the question of verification. The first question asks under what conditions a sentence hasmeaning, in the sense of cognitive, factualmeaning. The second one asks how we get to know something, how we can find out whether a given sentence is true or false. The second question presupposes the first one. Obviously we must understand a sentence, i.e. we must know its (...) class='Hi'>meaning, before we can try to find out whether it is true or not. But, from the point of view of empiricism, there is a still closer connection between the two problems. In a certain sense, there is only one answer to the two questions. If we knew what it would be for a given sentence to be found true then we would know what itsmeaning is. And if for two sentences the conditions under which we would have to take them as true are the same, then they have the samemeaning. Thus themeaning of a sentence is in a certain sense identical with the way we determine its truth or falsehood; and a sentence hasmeaning only if such a determination is possible. (shrink)

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This volume is dedicated to Prof. Dag Prawitz and his outstanding contributions to philosophical and mathematicallogic. Prawitz's eminent contributions to structural proof theory, or general proof theory, as he calls it, and inference-basedmeaning theories have been extremely influential in the development of modern proof theory and anti-realistic semantics. In particular, Prawitz is the main author on natural deduction in addition to Gerhard Gentzen, who defined natural deduction in his PhD thesis published in 1934. The book opens (...) with an introductory paper that surveys Prawitz's numerous contributions to proof theory and proof-theoretic semantics and puts his work into a somewhat broader perspective, both historically and systematically. Chapters include either in-depth studies of certain aspects of Dag Prawitz's work or address open research problems that are concerned with core issues in structural proof theory and range from philosophical essays to papers of a mathematical nature. Investigations into the necessity of thought and the theory of grounds and computational justifications as well as an examination of Prawitz's conception of the validity of inferences in the light of three “dogmas of proof-theoretic semantics” are included. More formal papers deal with the constructive behaviour of fragments of classicallogic and fragments of the modallogic S4 among other topics. In addition, there are chapters about inversion principles, normalization of proofs, and the notion of proof-theoretic harmony and other areas of a more mathematical persuasion. Dag Prawitz also writes a chapter in which he explains his current views on the epistemic dimension of proofs and addresses the question why some inferences succeed in conferring evidence on their conclusions when applied to premises for which one already possesses evidence. (shrink)

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In this sequel to "Thelogic andmeaning of plurals. Part I", I continue to present an account oflogic and language that acknowledges limitations of singular constructions of natural languages and recognizes plural constructions as their peers. To this end, I present a non-reductive account of plural constructions that results from the conception of plurals as devices for talking about the many. In this paper, I give an informal semantics of plurals, formulate a formal characterization of (...) truth for the regimented languages that results from augmenting elementary languages with refinements of basic plural constructions of natural languages, and account for thelogic of plural constructions by characterizing thelogic of those regimented languages. (shrink)

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This is identical with the first edition (see 21: 2716) except for the addition of a Supplement containing 5 previously published articles and the bringing of the bibliography (now 73 items) up to date. The 5 added articles present clarifications or modifications of views expressed in the first edition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

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Gupta's and Belnap's Revision Theory of Truth defends the legitimacy of circular definitions. Circularity, however, forces us to reconsider our conception ofmeaning. A readjustment of some standard theses aboutmeaning is here proposed, by relying on a novel version of the sense-reference distinction.

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From the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 18th century, there were not less than ten philosophers who focused extensively on Venn’s ostensible analytical diagrams, as noted by modern historians oflogic (Venn, Gardner, Baron, Coumet et al.). But what was the reason for early modern philosophers to uselogic or analytical diagrams? Among modern historians oflogic one can find two theses which are closely connected to each other: M. Gardner states that (...) since the Middle Ages certainlogic diagrams were used just in order to teach “dull-witted students”. Therefore,logic diagrams were just a means to an end. According to P. Bernhard, the appreciation oflogic diagrams had not started prior to the 1960s, therefore the fact thatlogic diagrams become an end the point of research arose very late. The paper will focus on the question whetherlogic resp. analytical diagrams were just means in the history of (early) modernlogic or not. In contrast to Gardner, I will argue thatlogic diagrams were not only used as a tool for “dull-witted students”, but rather as a tool used by didactic reformers in early modernlogic. In predating Bernhard’s thesis, I will argue that in the 1820slogic diagrams had already become a value in themselves in Arthur Schopenhauer’s lectures onlogic, especially in proof theory. (shrink)

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Semantic justifications of the classical rules of logical inference typically make use of a notion of bivalent truth, understood as a property guaranteed to attach to a sentence or its negation regardless of the prospects for speakers to determine it as so doing. For want of a convincing alternative account of classicallogic, some philosophers suspicious of such recognition-transcending bivalence have seen no choice but to declare classical deduction unwarranted and settle for a weaker system; intuitionisticlogic in (...) particular, buttressed by assertion-conditional semantics, is often considered to enjoy a degree ofmeaning-theoretical respectability unattainable by classicallogic.The decision to forgo the classical inference rules is not always made lightly. Thus, Dummett: " In the resolution of the conflict between [the view that generally accepted classical modes of inference ought to be theoretically accommodated, and the demand that any such accommodation be achieved without recourse to bivalence] lies, as I see it, one of the most fundamental and intractable problems in the theory ofmeaning; indeed, in all philosophy. "The present article ventures to suggest that the conflict need not be irresoluble. Helping ourselves only to such conceptual resources as are standardly invoked by proponents of intuitionisticlogic, we shall formulate a rudimentarymeaning theory for a selection of logical constants, define a relation of valid inferability, and prove that the latter includes all of classical first-orderlogic. The result is essentially that reported in Sandqvist as Theorem 2.20.2. TheoryWe will be considering a standard-syntax first-order language with ⊃, ⊥ and ∀ as its only primitive logical constants. We assume countable supplies of individual constants, individual functors , and predicates , as well as a denumerably infinite set of individual variables. By a basic 1 formula we will mean one that …[Full Text of this Article]. (shrink)

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In recent years, the study of formal semantics and formal pragmatics has grown tremendously showing that core aspects of languagemeaning can be explained by a few principles. These principles are grounded in thelogic that is behind - and tightly intertwined with - the grammar of human language. In this book, some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, including Noam Chomsky and Barbara H. Partee, offer new insights into the nature of linguisticmeaning and pave (...) the way for the further development of formal semantics and formal pragmatics. Each chapter investigates various dimensions in which the logical nature of human language manifests itself within a language and/or across languages. Phenomena like bare plurals, free choice items, scalar implicatures, intervention effects, and logical operators are investigated in depth and at times cross-linguistically and/or experimentally. This volume will be of interest to scholars working within the fields of semantics, pragmatics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics. (shrink)

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This paper revisits the conception of intelligence and understanding as embodied in the Turing Test. It argues that a simple system ofmeaning relations drawn from words/lexical items in a natural language and framed in terms of syntax-free relations in linguistic texts can help ground linguistic inferences in a manner that can be taken to be 'understanding' in a mechanized system. Understanding in this case is a matter of running through the relevant inferencesmeaning relations allow for, and (...) some of these inferences are plain deductions and some can serve to act as abductions. Understanding in terms ofmeaning relations also supervenes on linguistic syntax because such understanding cannot be simply reduced to syntactic relations. The current approach tomeaning and understanding thus shows that this is one way, if not the only way, of framing Alan Turing's original insight into the nature of thinking in computing systems. (shrink)

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We present a series of arguments for logical nativism, focusing mainly on themeaning of disjunction in human languages. We propose that all human languages are logical in the sense that themeaning of linguistic expressions corresponding to disjunction (e.g. English or , Chinese huozhe, Japanese ka ) conform to themeaning of the logical operator in classicallogic, inclusive- or . It is highly implausible, we argue, that children acquire the (logical)meaning of disjunction (...) by observing how adults use disjunction. Findings from studies of child language acquisition and from cross-linguistic research invite the conclusion that children do not learn to be logical—it comes naturally to them. (shrink)

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This book is both a history of philosophy oflogic told from the Kantian viewpoint and a reconstruction of Kant’s theory oflogic from a historical perspective. Kant’s theory represents a turning point in a history of philosophical debates over the following questions. (1) Islogic a science, instrument, standard of assessment, or mixture of these? (2) Iflogic is a science, what is the subject matter that differentiates it from other sciences, particularly metaphysics? (3) If (...)logic is a necessary instrument to all philosophical inquiries, how is it so entitled? (4) Iflogic is both a science and an instrument, how are these two roles related? Kant’s official answer to these questions centers on three distinctions: general versus particularlogic; pure versus appliedlogic; pure generallogic versus transcendentallogic. The truemeaning and significance of each distinction becomes clear, I argue, only if we consider two factors. First, Kant was mindful of various historical views on howlogic relates to other branches of philosophy (viz. metaphysics and physics) and to the workings of common human understanding. Second, he first coined ‘transcendentallogic’ while struggling to secure metaphysics as a proper “science,” and this conceptual innovation would in turn have profound implications for his mature theory oflogic. Against this backdrop, I reassess the place of Kant’s theory in the history of philosophy oflogic and highlight certain issues that are still debated today, such as normativity oflogic and the challenges posed by logical pluralism. In Chapter 1, “Kant and a Philosophical History ofLogic – Methodological Reflections,” I discuss certain exegetical challenges posed by Kant’slogic corpus and argue for a “history of philosophical problems” method by which to reconstruct a Kantian theory oflogic. In Chapter 2, “The Nature and Place ofLogic – A History of Controversies,” I construct a partial history of philosophy oflogic that revolves around the (supposedly) scientific status oflogic on the one hand and its value or utility on the other. In Chapter 3, “The Making of a ScientificLogic from Bacon to Wolff,” I examine how four representative early modern philosophers – Francis Bacon, John Locke, G.W. Leibniz, and Christian Wolff – approached the four questions mentioned above. In Chapter 4, “Kant on the Way to His Own Philosophy ofLogic,” I consider how Kant, in the decade between around mid-1760s and mid-1770s, navigated between existing accounts oflogic until he finally found his own voice. I highlight the breakthroughs that would mark his critical departures from previous views and pave the way for the final articulation of his own view. In Chapter 5, “Logic and the Demands of Kantian ‘Science’,” I zero in on Kant’s official theory oflogic in his monumental publication, Critique of Pure Reason. I foreground both what makes the theory original and what leaves it vulnerable to criticisms from post-Kantian thinkers. (shrink)

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Although the two volumes of _Logic, Language, and Meaning_ can be used independently of one another, together they provide a comprehensive overview of modernlogic as it is used as a tool in the analysis of natural language. Both volumes provide exercises and their solutions. Volume 1, _Introduction to Logic_, begins with a historical overview and then offers a thorough introduction to standard propositional and first-order predicatelogic. It provides both a syntactic and a semantic approach to inference (...) and validity, and discusses their relationship. Although language andmeaning receive special attention, this introduction is also accessible to those with a more general interest inlogic. In addition, the volume contains a survey of such topics as definite descriptions, restricted quantification, second-orderlogic, and many-valuedlogic. The pragmatic approach to non-truthconditional and conventional implicatures are also discussed. Finally, the relation betweenlogic and formal syntax is treated, and the notions of rewrite rule, automation, grammatical complexity, and language hierarchy are explained. (shrink)

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The stated subject of these lecture courses given by Husserlbetween 1910 and 1918is ‘reason, the word for the mental activities and accomplishments that govern knowledge, give it form and supply it with norms.’ They show their author still pursuing the course set out in the Logical Investigations up to the end of the second decade of the century and displaying utter consistency with stands that he began taking onmeaning, analyticity, Platonism, manifolds, mathematics, psychologism, etc. in the 1890s. Thus, (...) they undermine many idées reçues about the development of his thought. The centerpiece of this work is an exploration of the realm ofmeaning. Moreover, they add new dimensions to standard discussions by taking readers back to the place where phenomenology and analytic philosophy diverged. They show that Husserl tangled long and hard with the very ideas that went into the making of the latter and offer a wealth of interesting insights into sense andmeaning, theory of judgment, complete and incomplete meanings, states of affairs, extensionallogic, the relationship betweenlogic and mathematics, functions and arguments, propositional functions, quantification, existential generalization, the word ‘all,’ number theory, sets, modality, deductive theory, ideas that are still under discussion today. Prepared for oral delivery in the classroom, they are refreshingly lively and spontaneous. They are clearer, more explicit, and readable than the books Husserl published during his lifetime. (shrink)

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There is an obvious difference between what a term designates and what it means. At least it is obvious that there is a difference. In some way,meaning determines designation, but is not synonymous with it. After all, “the morning star” and “the evening star” both designate the planet Venus, but don't have the samemeaning. Intensionallogic attempts to study both designation andmeaning and investigate the relationships between them.

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Anti-exceptionalism aboutlogic is the doctrine thatlogic does not require its own epistemology, for its methods are continuous with those of science. Although most recently urged by Williamson, the idea goes back at least to Lakatos, who wanted to adapt Popper's falsicationism and extend it not only to mathematics but tologic as well. But one needs to be careful here to distinguish the empirical from the a posteriori. Lakatos coined the term 'quasi-empirical' `for the counterinstances (...) to putative mathematical and logical theses. Mathematics andlogic may both be a posteriori, but it does not follow that they are empirical. Indeed, as Williamson has demonstrated, what counts as empirical knowledge, and the role of experience in acquiring knowledge, are both unclear. Moreover, knowledge, even of necessary truths, is fallible. Nonetheless, logical consequence holds in virtue of themeaning of the logical terms, just as consequence in general holds in virtue of the meanings of the concepts involved; and sologic is both analytic and necessary. In this respect, it is exceptional. But its methodologyand its epistemology are the same as those of mathematics and science in being fallibilist, and counterexamples to seemingly analytic truths are as likely as those in any scientic endeavour. What is needed is a new account of the evidential basis of knowledge, one which is, perhaps surprisingly, found in Aristotle. (shrink)

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Paul Boghossian defends ameaning‐based approach to the apriority of the propositions oflogic. His model is based on the idea that the logical constants are implicitly defined by some of the axioms and inference rules in which they are involved, thereby offering an alternative to those theories that deny that grasp ofmeaning can contribute to the explanation of a thinker's entitlement to a particular type of transition or belief.

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