'This sentence is false' - is that true? The 'Liar paradox' embodied in those words exerted a particular fascination on the logicians of the Western later Middle Ages, and, along with similar 'insoluble' problems, forms the subject of the first group of articles in this volume. In the following parts Professor Spade turns to medieval semantic theory, views on the relationship between language and thought, and to a study of one particular genre of disputation, that known as 'obligationes'. The (...) focus is on the Oxford scholastics of the first half of the 14th century, and it is the name of William of Ockham which dominates these pages - a thinker with whom Professor Spade finds himself in considerable philosophical sympathy, and whose work on logic and semantic theory has a depth and richness that have not always been sufficiently appreciated. (shrink)

This study looks to the work of Tarski's mentors Stanislaw Lesniewski and Tadeusz Kotarbinski, and reconsiders all of the major issues in Tarski scholarship in light of the conception of Intuitionistic Formalism developed: semantics, truth, paradox, logical consequence.

This is a sequel to the author's The Language and Logic of the Bible: The Earlier Middle Ages. The period of the reformation saw immense changes of approach to the study of the Bible, which in turn brought huge consequences. This book, seeking to show the direction of endeavour of such study in the last medieval centuries, examines the theory of exegesis, practical interpretation, popular Bible study and preaching, and looks especially at the areas of logic and (...) language in which the scholars of the period had considerable expertise. The condemnation of the scholastics has tended to sink with them a proper recognition of what they achieved. In looking forward to the reformation, Dr Evans demonstrates a greater continuity of attitude than has often been allowed and describes how the enquiries of later medieval scholars opened out into the explorations of the sixteenth century made by Protestant and Roman Catholic thinkers alike. (shrink)

The content of this book provides a unified and coherent treatment of a number of important issues in the philosophy of language and logical theory.

Quantification is a topic which brings together linguistics, logic, and philosophy. Quantifiers are the essential tools with which, in language or logic, we refer to quantity of things or amount of stuff. In English they include such expressions as no, some, all, both, many. Peters and Westerstahl present the definitive interdisciplinary exploration of how they work - their syntax, semantics, and inferential role.

This book focuses on two primary concerns, language and philosophical thinking. The first part of the book examines the ways that language, particularly the English language, shapes and channels our thoughts. The second part considers the three basic processes in concept formation: abstracting, imagining and generalizing. Lastly, the rational process itself is examined, looking at definition, rational inquiry and philosophical system building. First published in 1967, this edition is a reprint of the 1972 enlarged edition published by (...) University of New Mexico Press. (shrink)

The chapter considers the relation between language and logic in early Daoism. It explains the Daoist experience of language, which is closely related to the Daoist experience of the Way (dao). It is shown how Daoist logic differs from the Confucian logic of correctness and the Mohist logic of naming. Even if Daoist discourse does not follow these more familiar forms of logic, it does not negate the law of non-contradiction nor does it (...) fall into the performative contradiction. Through readings of significant Daoist stories the Daoist logic beyond logic is brought to view. (shrink)

For Proclus, like other Platonists, logic, epistemology, and philosophy of language are not distinct as a tool and parts of philosophy respectively, but are all part of dialectic. This chapter first briefly addresses Proclus’ logic, specifically the ‘rule of obversion’ ascribed to him, and his naturalist philosophy of language, and thereafter moves on to epistemology. The author discusses Proclus’ top-down psychology, where the highest faculty is the paradigm for the lower ones; the Iamblichean principle that knower (...) determines knowledge; the essential reason-principles, or lower forms constituting the soul’s essence; Proclus’ rich notion of recollection; his solutions to two challenges to his epistemology: the knowledge of things of which there is no Form, and the use of images in cognition. Finally, in the conclusion the author assesses Proclus’ originality and discusses the fact that for late Neoplatonists knowledge is not an end in itself. (shrink)

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION Although many of the details of the development of logic in the Middle Ages remain to be filled in, it is well known that between ...

Students of classical Chinese philosophy are quite justly puzzled by the debates and paradoxes in the "School of Names" and the extant logico-semantic texts of the Later Mohists. The latter has received an incisive and extensive treatment in A. C. Graham's Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science. Thus far, no larger systematic work on Chinese logic and philosophy of language is available in English. Hansen's book is a good attempt to deal in the large scale with classical (...) Chinese philosophy of language. This book consists of five carefully written chapters. The first expounds a methodology which starts from the premise that interpretation is a theory--"an attempt to explain a text--to render it understandable. As such it is inescapably relative to the intended audience, and appropriately wedded to the critical, rational, logical evaluation procedures appropriate to other theories. The main evaluative features on which we have concentrated is the coherence of the theory." The text at issue is that ascribed to Kung-sun Lung discussed in chapter 5. In terms of its announced aim, it succeeds well in rendering a plausible though by no means uncontroversial explication of the text. The attempted explication is, however, mediated by a number of chapters which raise interesting philosophical issues that repay closer examination by students and philosophical scholars of Chinese philosophy of language. Chapter 2, for example, proposes a bold hypothesis on Chinese philosophy in terms of the logic of mass nouns. It is claimed that a "stuff-like ontology and semantics were implicitly operating as a background assumption behind pre-Han philosophy," and a negative corrollary: "an hypothesis that an abstract or mentalistic ontology and semantics of the type common to Western thinkers were not implicit assumptions behind pre-Han philosophy." For the reviewer, the negative thesis is highly plausible independently of the adequacy of the first. (shrink)

This paper investigates Wittgenstein’s account of the relation between elementary and molecular propositions (and thus, also, the propositions of logic) in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. I start by sketching a natural reading of that relation – which I call the “bipartite reading” – holding that the Tractatus gives an account of elementary propositions, based on the so-called picture theory, and a different account of molecular ones, based on the principle of truth- functionality. I then show that such a reading cannot (...) be attributed to Wittgenstein, because he holds the view that an explanation of logical complexity is already given by a correct account of the (pictorial) nature of elementary propositions; this is implied in his claim that “an elementary proposition contains all logical constants/operations in itself”. After clarifying Wittgenstein’s notion of an operation from the Notes on Logic to the Tractatus, I finally explain why Wittgenstein claims that an elementary proposition contains all logical operations in itself, and hence why he can be said to provide a unified (and thus not bipartite) account of language and logic. (shrink)

This light piece reflects on analogies between two often disjoint streams of research: the logical semantics and pragmatics of natural language and dynamic logics of general information-driven agency. The two areas show significant overlap in themes and tools, and yet, the focus seems subtly different in each, defying a simple comparison. We discuss some unusual questions that emerge when the two are put side by side, without any pretense at covering the whole literature or at reaching definitive conclusions.

Although the two volumes of _Logic, Language, and Meaning _can be used independently of one another, together they provide a comprehensive overview of modern logic as it is used as a tool in the analysis of natural language. Both volumes provide exercises and their solutions.

The study of human reasoning and the study of human language have been closely connected in European philosophical thought. Except for the Buddhist thinker Dignāga, these two areas of study have not been connected in classical India. The connection which Dignāga made between inference and meaning in his theory of exclusion is a distinguishing feature of Buddhist philosophical thought in classical India and, for that reason, it is useful to treat the Indian Buddhist views of reasoning and meaning together. (...) Logic, seeks to distinguish good reasoning from bad. Since reasoning is often communicated and, to that extent, expressed in a language, it is natural to use the forms of language to identify the forms of reasoning. (shrink)

In 1962 a mimeographed sheet of paper fell into my possession. It had been prepared by Ernest Adams of the Philosophy Department at Berkeley as a handout for a colloquim. Headed 'SOME FALLACIES OF FORMAL LOGIC' it simply listed eleven little pieces of reasoning, all in ordinary English, and all absurd. I still have the sheet, and quote a couple of the arguments here to give the idea. • If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will (...) start. There fore, either if you throw switch S the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start. • It is not the case that if John passes history he will graduate. Therefore, John will pass history. The disconcerting thing about these inferences is, of course, that under the customary truth-functional interpretation of and, or, not, and if-then, they are supposed to be valid. What, if anything, is wrong? At first I was not disturbed by the examples. Having at that time consider able personal commitment to rationality in general and formal logic in par ticular, I felt it my duty and found myself easily able (or so I thought) to explain away most of them. But on reflection I had to admit that my expla nations had an ad hoc character, varying suspiciously from example to example. (shrink)

The word 'philosophy' as well as the conjuring expression 'Indian philosophy' has meant different things to different people-endeavours and activities, old and new, grave and frivolous, edifying and banal, esoteric and exoteric. In this book, the author has chosen deliberately a very dominant trend of the classical (Sanskrit) philosophical literature as his subject of study. The age of the material used here demands both philological scholarship and philosophical amplification. Classical pramanasastras usually deal with the theory of knowledge, the nature of (...) inference and language, and the related questions of ontology and semantics. Several important concepts and theories have been singled out for critical analysis and clarification in modern terms so that the results may be intelligible to modern students of both Sanskrit and philosophy. It is hoped that such an attempt will kindle the enthusiasm of young scholars in the field and inspire them to proceed in this comparatively new area of research and explore further and more interesting possibilities. (shrink)

This volume presents work that evolved out of the Third Conference on Situation Theory and Its Applications, held at Oiso, Japan, in November of 1991. The chapters presented in this volume continue the mathematical development of situation theory, including the introduction of a graphical notation; and the applications of situation theory discussed are wide-ranging, including topics in natural language semantics and philosophical logic, and exploring the use of information theory in the social sciences. The research presented in this (...) volume reflects a growing international and interdisciplinary activity of importance for many fields concerned with information. (shrink)

The German debates concerning the need for a reform of logic in post-Hegelian times took place under the label “The logical question”, a label introduced by Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg. The main objective of these debates was to overcome the Hegelian identification of logic and metaphysics without re-establishing the old Aristotelian-scholastic formal logic. This paper presents the positions developed by Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg, Otto Friedrich Gruppe, and Carl v. Prantl, each of whom advocated the importance of language (...) in logic in order to introduce a more dynamical element into the alleged static character of formal logic. (shrink)

In the current version of Mozi, there are six special chapters on knowledge, language, logic, ethics, politics and science. They include “Canon I ” and “Canon Explanation I ”, “Canon II ” and “Canon Explanation II ”, and “Major Illustrations” and “Minor Illustrations”. Later scholars give the names “Mohist Canons ” for the first four chapters and “Mohist Dialectical Chapters” for all the six. The content of these six chapters indicates that the later Mohists follow Mozi’s cognitive spirit (...) in dealing with ethical and socio-political issues and,most importantly, apply an analytic approach to investigate philosophical problems, especially, in knowledge, language and logic. (shrink)

This thesis discusses some central aspects of Wittgenstein's conception of language and logic in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and brings them into relation with the philosophies of Frege and Russell. The main contention is that a fruitful way of understanding the Tractatus is to see it as responding to tensions in Frege's conception of logic and Russell's theory of judgement. In the thesis the philosophy of the Tractatus is presented as developing from these two strands of criticism and (...) thus as the culmination of the philosophy of logic and language developed in the early analytic period. Part one examines relevant features of Frege's philosophy of logic. Besides shedding light on Frege's philosophy in its own right, it aims at preparing the ground for a discussion of those aspects of the Tractatus' conception of logic which derive from Wittgenstein's critical response to Frege. Part two first presents Russell's early view on truth and judgement, before considering several variants of the multiple relation theory of judgement, devised in opposition to it. Part three discusses the development of Wittgenstein's conception of language and logic, beginning with Wittgenstein's criticism of the multiple relation theory and his early theory of sense, seen as containing the seeds of the picture theory of propositions presented in the Tractatus. I then consider the relation between Wittgenstein's pictorial conception of language and his conception of logic, arguing that Wittgenstein's understanding of sense in terms of bipolarity grounds his view of logical complexity and of the essence of logic as a whole. This view, I show, is free from the internal tensions that affect Frege's understanding of the nature of logic. (shrink)

The rapid innovations in digital technology deeply influence views on language and information processing. These exciting developments raise many questions for researchers, and shed new light on old approaches. Researchers are drawn to closely investigate the relation between form and content, the ways that linguistic utterances change information content, and the dynamics of information change. Logic, as an established method of valid argumentation, is a tool that researchers can use to gain insight in these questions of language (...) and computation. In answer to these linguistic and computational questions, this book presents a broad range of logical investigations into language and information processing. The topics surveyed include the notion of 'reasonable belief' in commonsense reasoning, perceptual reports in natural languages, and the logic of creation and modification of objects. The book also presents work on the verification of temporal aspects of reactive systems, analysis of scope by combining model theory and situation semantics and semantic analysis of the information articulation of linguistic statements. This volume exemplifies the abundant development of logical methods and tools in an interdisciplinary context. (shrink)

The papers collected in this volume exemplify some of the trends in current approaches to logic, language and computation. Written by authors with varied academic backgrounds, the contributions are intended for an interdisciplinary audience. The first part of this volume addresses issues relevant for multi-agent systems: reasoning with incomplete information, reasoning about knowledge and beliefs, and reasoning about games. Proofs as formal objects form the subject of Part II. Topics covered include: contributions on logical frameworks, linear logic, (...) and different approaches to formalized reasoning. Part III focuses on representations and formal methods in linguistic theory, addressing the areas of comparative and temporal expressions, modal subordination, and compositionality. (shrink)

The Liar paradox arises when we consider a sentence that says of itself that it is not true. If such self-referential sentences exist? and examples like?This sentence is not true? certainly suggest this?, then our logic and standard notion of truth allow to infer a contradiction: The Liar sentence is true and not true. What has gone wrong? Must we revise our notion of truth and our logic? Or can we dispel the common conviction that there are such (...) self-referential sentences? The present study explores the second path.0After comparing the Liar reasoning in formal and informal logic and showing that there are no Gödelian Liar sentences, the study moves on from the semantics of self-reference to the metaphysics of expressions and proposes a novel solution to the Liar paradox: Meaningful expressions are distinct from their syntactic bases and exist only relative to contexts. Detailed semantico-metaphysical arguments show that in this dynamic setting, an object can be referred to only after it has started to exist. Hence the circular reference needed in the Liar paradox cannot occur, after all. As this solution is contextualist, it evades the expressibility problems of other proposals. (shrink)

The essays in this collection are by some of the leading figures in their fields and they touch on the most recent turnings in Quine's work.

Crispin Wright is widely recognised as one of the most important and influential analytic philosophers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This volume is a collective exploration of the major themes of his work in philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and philosophy of mathematics. It comprises specially written chapters by a group of internationally renowned thinkers, as well as four substantial responses from Wright. In these thematically organized replies, Wright summarizes his life's work and responds to the contributory (...) essays collected in this book. In bringing together such scholarship, the present volume testifies to both the enormous interest in Wright's thought and the continued relevance of Wright's seminal contributions in analytic philosophy for present-day debates. (shrink)

Recent commentators on Nietzsche’s philosophy have paid careful attention to his reflections on truth. While this issue has generated significant dispute, one prominent school of thought is in tacit agreement about the view of language that underlies Nietzschean truth. This view holds that certain linguistic entities can capture precise, distinct units of propositional content and static, rigidly designated conceptual meanings. A closer look at Nietzsche’s various analyses of language and logic reveals not only that he does not (...) subscribe to such a position, but that he offers a sustained critique against the possibility of any form of atomism of language. It was only in the 1880s, after Nietzsche overcame his dualistic commitments to Kant and Schopenhauer and embraced a philosophy of becoming, that the full power of his critique is made manifest. (shrink)