This book traces the development of formal logic from its origins in ancient Greece to the present day. The authors first discuss the work of logicians from Aristotle to Frege, showing how they were influenced by the philosophical or mathematical ideas of their time.
This volume contains newly-commissioned articles covering the development of modern logic from the late medieval period (fourteenth century) through the end of the twentieth-century. It is the first volume to discuss the field with this breadth of coverage and depth. It will appeal to scholars and students of philosophical logic and the philosophy of logic.
Examines the relations between logic and philosophy over the last 150 years. Logic underwent a major renaissance beginning in the nineteenth century. Cantor almost tamed the infinite, and Frege aimed to undercut Kant by reducing mathematics to logic. These achievements were threatened by the paradoxes, like Russell's. This ferment generated excellent philosophy (and mathematics) by excellent philosophers (and mathematicians) up to World War II. This book provides a selective, critical history of the collaboration between logic and philosophy during this period. After World War II, mathematical logic became a recognized subdiscipline in mathematics departments, and consequently but unfortunately philosophers have lost touch with its monuments. This book aims to make four of them (consistency and independence of the continuum hypothesis, Post's problem, and Morley's theorem) more accessible to philosophers, making available the tools necessary for modern scholars of philosophy to renew a productive dialogue between logic and philosophy.
While logical principles seem timeless, placeless, and eternal, their discovery is a story of personal accidents, political tragedies, and broad social change. If A, Then B begins with logic's emergence twenty-three centuries ago and tracks its expansion as a discipline ever since. It explores where our sense of logic comes from and what it really is a sense of. It also explains what drove human beings to start studying logic in the first place. Logic is more than the work of logicians alone. Its discoveries have survived only because logicians have also been able to find a willing audience, and audiences are a consequence of social forces affecting large numbers of people, quite apart from individual will. This study therefore treats politics, economics, technology, and geography as fundamental factors in generating an audience for logic--grounding the discipline's abstract principles in a compelling material narrative. The authors explain the turbulent times of the enigmatic Aristotle, the ancient Stoic Chrysippus, the medieval theologian Peter Abelard, and the modern thinkers René Descartes, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, George Boole, Augustus De Morgan, John Stuart Mill, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Alan Turing. Examining a variety of mysteries, such as why so many branches of logic (syllogistic, Stoic, inductive, and symbolic) have arisen only in particular places and periods, If A, Then B is the first book to situate the history of logic within the movements of a larger social world. If A, Then B is the 2013 Gold Medal winner of Foreword Reviews' IndieFab Book of the Year Award for Philosophy.
This introduction to mathematical logic explores philosophical issues and Gödel's Theorem. Its widespread influence extends to the author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning book was inspired by this work.
In this book Jan D. Sinnott synthesizes her 20 years of research on lifespan cognitive development to describe the growth of complex (or `postformal') thought in adults. She shows specifically how adults improve mentally over a lifetime and learn to think in more complex and wiser ways. Applications of postformal thought are demonstrated in such diverse areas as - family relations - adult education - personal identity - and spirituality. Chapters examine relations between postformal thought and pertinent variables such as age, health, memory, and vocabulary. Other sections deal with issues in humanistic psychology such as - guided imagery - mind - body medicine - and creative intentionality.
The History of Philosophical and Formal Logic introduces ideas and thinkers central to the development of philosophical and formal logic. From its Aristotelian origins to the present-day arguments, logic is broken down into four main time periods: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Aristotle and The Stoics) The early modern period (Bolzano, Boole) High modern period (Frege, Peano & Russell and Hilbert) Early 20th century (Godel and Tarski) Each new time frame begins with an introductory overview highlighting themes and points of importance. Chapters discuss the significance and reception of influential works and look at historical arguments in the context of contemporary debates. To support independent study, comprehensive lists of primary and secondary reading are included at the end of chapters, along with exercises and discussion questions. By clearly presenting and explaining the changes to logic across the history of philosophy, The History of Philosophical and Formal Logic constructs an easy-to-follow narrative. This is an ideal starting point for students looking to understand the historical development of logic.
Gathered together here are the fundamental texts of the great classical period in modern logic. A complete translation of Gottlob Frege’s Begriffsschrift—which opened a great epoch in the history of logic by fully presenting propositional calculus and quantification theory—begins the volume, which concludes with papers by Herbrand and by Gödel.
This volume offers insights into the development of mathematical logic over the last century. Arising from a special session of the history of logic at an American Mathematical Society meeting, the chapters explore technical innovations, the philosophical consequences of work during the period, and the historical and social context in which the logicians worked. The discussions herein will appeal to mathematical logicians and historians of mathematics, as well as philosophers and historians of science.
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.