This book presents novel formalizations of three of the most important medieval logical theories: supposition, consequence and obligations. In an additional fourth part, an in-depth analysis of the concept of formalization is presented - a crucial concept in the current logical panorama, which as such receives surprisingly little attention.Although formalizations of medieval logical theories have been proposed earlier in the literature, the formalizations presented here are all based on innovative vantage points: supposition theories as algorithmic hermeneutics, theories of consequence analyzed (...) with tools borrowed from model-theory and two-dimensional semantics, and obligations as logical games. For this reason, this is perhaps the first time that these medieval logical theories are made fully accessible to the modern philosopher and logician who wishes to obtain a better grasp of them, but who has always been held back by the lack of appropriate ‘translations' into modern terms.Moreover, the book offers a reflection on the very nature of logic, a reflection that is prompted by the comparisons between medieval and modern logic, their similarities and dissimilarities. It is thus a contribution not only to the history of logic, but also to the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of language and semantics.The analysis of medieval logic is also relevant for the modern philosopher and logician in that, being the unifying methodology used across all disciplines at that time, logic really provided unity to science. It thus presents a unified model of scientific investigation, where logic plays the aggregating role. (shrink)

Logic is about reasoning, or so the story goes. This thesis looks at the concept of logic, what it is, and what claims of correctness of logics amount to. The concept of logic is not a settled matter, and has not been throughout the history of it as a notion. Tools from conceptual analysis aid in this historical venture. Once the unsettledness of logic is established we see the repercussions in current debates in the philosophy of logic. Much of the (...) battle over the ‘one true logic’ is conceptually talking past each other. The theory of logics-as-formalizations is presented as a conceptually open theory of logic which is Carnapian in flavour and grounding. Rudolf Carnap’s notions surrounding ‘external’ and ‘pseudo-questions’ about linguistic frameworks apply to formalizations, thus logics, as well. An account of what formalizations are, a more structured sub-set of modelling, is given to ground the claim that logics are formalizations. Finally, a novel account of correctness, the COFE framework, is developed which allows the notions of logical monism, pluralism and nihilism to be more precisely formulated than they currently are in the discourse. (shrink)

One common element of Kripke’s and Chalmers’ reactions to physicalist theories of mind is their reliance upon the intuition that concepts about conscious experiences are essentially identified by the “immediate phenomenal quality” of the conscious experience, how the experience feels from the subjective point of view. I examine how Kripke’s and Chalmers’ critiques require that concepts about conscious experiences be identified by their subjective feel and then move on to provide some ways in which this intuition about concepts of conscious (...) experience could be wrong. Specifically, the intuition is not consistent with our intuitions about unusual cases reported by pain researchers and does not take such cases to be genuine cases of pain. These inconsistencies weaken the intuition, making it problematic for any critique of identity theory or physicalism to rely heavily upon it. (shrink)

This thesis is on the history and philosophy of logic and semantics. Logic can be described as the ‘science of reasoning’, as it deals primarily with correct patterns of reasoning. However, logic as a discipline has undergone dramatic changes in the last two centuries: while for ancient and medieval philosophers it belonged essentially to the realm of language studies, it has currently become a sub-branch of mathematics. This thesis attempts to establish a dialogue between the modern and the medieval traditions (...) in logic, by means of ‘translations’ of the medieval logical theories into the modern framework of symbolic logic, i.e. formalizations. One of its conclusions is that, when properly understood within their own framework, the interest of medieval logical theories for modern investigations go beyond mere historical interest, but that a thorough conceptual analysis of such theories must be undertaken in order to avoid conceptual misprojections. While such translations of medieval into modern logic have been attempted before, the approach presented here is innovative in that attention is paid to the similarities as well as to the dissimilarities between the two traditions, and to what can be learned from the medieval masters for modern investigations in logic and semantics. (shrink)