Logical Form: Between Logic and Natural Language

Cham, Switzerland: Springer Verlag (2018)
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Abstract

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that method. Its central thesis is that there is no such thing as a correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic and language.

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Chapters

Validity

The suggestion that emerges from the discussion of the uniqueness thesis is that two significantly different notions of logical form may be contemplated: the truth-conditional notion, which suits the logical role, and the syntactic notion, which suits the semantic role. Since the suitability of the ... see more

Further Issues Concerning Quantification

This chapter develops the analysis of quantified sentences sketched in Chap. 10.1007/978-3-319-74154-3_8. First, it draws a distinction between two senses in which a quantifier expression can be said to be vague, and outlines an account of the distinction that rests on independently grounded assumpt... see more

Logical Knowledge vs Knowledge of Logical Form

This chapter spells out some major epistemological implications of the truth-conditional view, which concern the relation between logical knowledge and knowledge of logical form. The interesting fact that will emerge is that the truth-conditional view provides a perspective on such relation that rad... see more

Logical Form and Syntactic Structure

Two distinct theoretical roles may be regarded as constitutive of a notion of logical form, the logical role and the semantic role. Therefore, one may ask whether a single notion can fulfil both roles. Most of those who accept the current conception of logical form seem to take for granted that the ... see more

The Early History of Logical Form

The term ‘logical form’ is generally used to denote a property of sentences. The property denoted is called ‘logical’ because it is regarded as important from the logical point of view, and it is called ‘form’ because it is taken to be distinct from the specific semantic features that constitute the... see more

Formal Languages and Natural Languages

The old conception of logical form did not survive the problems that emerged in connection with the dichotomy between natural language and logically perfect language. After Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein, the ideal of logical perfection lost traction. However, the spirit of that conception did not... see more

Quantified Sentences

The thesis that the logical role and the semantic role require two different notions of logical form has a negative and a positive side. The negative side, as we have seen, is that a deep-rooted presumption turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion that suits both roles. The posit... see more

The Ideal of Logical Perfection

The rise of modern logic had a deep impact on the philosophical reflection on logical form. This chapter explains how logical form became a primary topic of interest between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In particular, we will focus on Frege, Russell, ... see more

Logical Form and Truth Conditions

So far it has been argued that an intrinsicalist notion of logical form is unable to explain some clear examples of logical properties and logical relations. This is a reason to doubt intrinsicalism, yet it is not a decisive reason. Even if it were granted that an intrinsicalist notion of logical fo... see more

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Andrea Iacona
Università di Torino

Citations of this work

On the Logical Form of Concessive Conditionals.Vincenzo Crupi & Andrea Iacona - 2022 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 51 (3):633-651.
Meaning-preserving contraposition of conditionals.Gilberto Gomes - 2019 - Journal of Pragmatics 1 (152):46-60.
Why logical pluralism?Colin R. Caret - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 20):4947-4968.
What Logical Evidence Could not be.Matteo Baggio - 2023 - Philosophia 51 (5):2559–2587.

View all 18 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Inquiries Into Truth And Interpretation.Donald Davidson - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Frege’s Puzzle (2nd edition).Nathan U. Salmon - 1986 - Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company.
On Denoting.Bertrand Russell - 1905 - Mind 14 (56):479-493.

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