This paper represents an attempt to indicate the idea of a logic slightly more general than sentential calculus, which is applicable to many philosophical issues. In particular, I shall use this generalized calculus to discuss a variation of the logic of imperatives. In part I, certain general considerations about indicative calculi provide the basis, as well as indicate the need, for the more formal construction of part II. Part III illustrates the analytical power of the tool constructed, and tries to (...) show its relevance for philosophy. (shrink)

As everyone who has looked into almost any philosophical journal within the last year is aware, Charles Morris has written a book on signs. More precisely, he has elaborated a strain of thought found in his very earliest writings. A first, partial culmination of these ideas is his monograph Foundations of the Theory of Signs. Since the publication of FTS, Morris has conducted experiments relative to human sign behavior. SLB, I believe, is a revision and expansion of FTS to take (...) into account new material supplied by these experiments and increased insight into the nature of behavior psychology. For Morris now asserts explicitly, what before he only hinted: that “Semiotic thus becomes a part of the empirical science of behavior, and can utilize whatever principles and predictions the general theory of behavior has attained or can attain.”. (shrink)

In his reexamination of the relationship between quality and quantity, Professor Plochmann has avoided the method of linguistic analysis in favor of a more traditional method of philosophizing. Since I agree with him that in general quality and quantity are irreducible one to the other, but may both be reducible to some category more fundamental than either, my comments are to be considered supplementary to his. In particular, I should like to see what clarifications, if any, arise if one considers (...) qualities and quantities from the purely linguistic point of view. (shrink)

The Wittgensteinian thesis that “the result of philosophy is not a number of ‘philosophical propositions,’ but to make propositions clear” has been given various interpretations by subsequent philosophers. Thus, for example, certain British philosophers have confined themselves to the analysis of colloquial language and have developed great skill in sophistical demonstrations intended to show that there is no such thing as a philosophical problem. Another group of philosophers considers language solely as a phenomenon of human behavior and attempts to clarify (...) confusions and misunderstandings within language by utilizing the statistical techniques of contemporary behavior psychology. Still other philosophers, under the impact of logical positivism, have maintained that the clarification of propositions entails the construction of a language with precise rules of formation, transformation, and reference into which one could translate all the non-contradictory portions of ordinary spoken language. (shrink)