This chapter deals with medieval logic from the time when it first had full resources for systematic creative contributions onward. It focuses on the era when the ancient heritage was available and medieval logic was able to add something substantial to it, even to surpass it in some respects. The chapter explains that characterization such as this cannot be adequately expressed with years or by conventional period denominations; however, it is hoped that the grounds for drawing boundaries will become clearer (...) during the course of the story. (shrink)

This chapter explores logical semantics, that is, the structural meaning of logical expressions like connectives, quantifiers, and modalities. It focuses on truth-theoretical semantics for formalized languages, a tradition emerging from Carnap's and Tarski's work in the first half of the last century that specifies the meaning of these expressions in terms of the truth-conditions of the sentences in which they occur. It considers Tarski-style definitions of the semantics of a given language in a stronger metalanguage, Tarski's impossibility results, and attempts (...) to overcome them in the post-Tarskian tradition. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a discussion of Kant's theory of judgment-forms. It argues that it is not true in Kant's logic that assertoric or apodeictic judgments imply problematic ones, in the manner in which necessity and truth imply possibility in even the weakest systems of modern modal logic. The chapter then discusses theories of judgment-form after Kant, the theory of quantification, Frege's Begriffsschrift, C. I. Lewis and the beginnings of modern modal logic, the proof-theoretic approach to modal logic, possible world (...) semantics, correspondence theory, and modality and quantification. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Concordance to Descartes’ “Meditationes de Prima Philosophia.” by Katsuzo Murakami, Meguru Sasaki, Tetsuichi NishimuraTuomo Aho and Mikko YrjönsuuriKatsuzo Murakami, Meguru Sasaki, and Tetsuichi Nishimura. Concordance to Descartes’ “Meditationes de Prima Philosophia.” Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1995. Pp. v + 355. Cloth, DM 198.00.This is a product from the Descartes database of Tokyo University scholars. It gives an account of the occurrences and contexts of words in the Meditationes (the main (...) text only), aiming at a complete survey of vocabulary. The work keeps strictly to the form of a lexical concordance; in addition to the word lists, there is only a brief instruction. (A bibliographical note about editions might be useful.) Technical realization is excellent. But concordances like this are big and expensive books; could they possibly be published more easily in electronic format?Most words of Descartes’s text are included in the main concordance. There they are listed following the alphabetic order of standard dictionaries, and in each entry the total amount of occurrences of the word is announced. Then every occurrence is quoted in its context (one line = approximately two in the Adam-Tannery standard edition). Quotes within each entry are arranged and their places identified by digits showing the page and line in AT edition.Some function words and most indeclinables are placed in an index which gives only the numbers and locations of their occurrences. In most cases this is certainly reasonable, but some choices are problematic. For example, why have the 638 + 36 occurrences of qui in its two senses (‘who’, ‘what’; ‘how’, ‘whereby’) been printed with full contexts, while the philosophically interesting adverb plane (‘plainly’, 55 times) is to be found merely in the index?Concordances are uncommon for modern philosophy, but they are familiar and valuable tools in work with ancient texts. Obviously they function in linguistic research, and even the present Descartes book has largely the same goal: to serve the study of neo-Latin language. Undoubtedly, a rigorous case study like this is important for such [End Page 135] investigations. (There remains, however, a difficulty, as the editors point out, because the AT text differs from original editions, mainly in matters of orthography and punctuation.) But also a completely nonlinguistic philosopher can benefit from this material. It is useful to see all occurrences of a word together and at once; many careless generalizations could be avoided by checking from a concordance.One can make amusing observations at random. Thus some terms have remarkably low frequencies (notitia, qualitas occur 4 times; materia 3 times; absolutus, principium 2 times; abstractus, definire, dispositio, species 1 time; intentio, possibile not at all). On the other hand, there is an overwhelming concentration on the semantic family round cogitare, cognoscere, comprehendere, concipere, percipere. Descartes has some idiosyncratic favorites, like advertere/animadvertere. One also notices his strong liking for words of seeing and light (15 arguments from lumen naturale!). It hardly is a surprise that his most cherished favorite is ego (492 times).Tuomo Aho and Mikko Yrjönsuuri University of HelsinkiCopyright © 1998 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc... (shrink)

Eräs 1900-luvun kielifilosofian kiinnostavimmista aloitteista oli ehdotus, joka määritteli merkitykset kommunikaation avulla, puhujien intentioiden kautta. Tämä linja kehittyi aikanaan kuuluisaksi Paul Gricen ansiosta. Osoittautuu, että hyvin samantapaisia ajatuksia oli alustavasti esittänyt jo suomalainen Erik Ahlman useissa teksteissään vuodesta 1926 alkaen. Hänen tärkein innoittajansa oli silloin Anton Martyn kieliteoria. Ahlman tekee myös olennaisen erottelun: toisaalta puhujilla on yksityiset intentionsa, toisaalta kielen yleinen normisto säätelee ”pelin sääntöjen lailla” sitä mitä lauseella voi mielekkäästi ilmaista. Ilmeisesti Ahlman on etappi Martyn ja Gricen välillä ja (...) ehkä myös ensimmäinen, joka Suomessa teki varsinaista kielifilosofiaa. (shrink)

Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections on (...) the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory. (shrink)

Filosofisia tutkielmia sisältää Leibnizin tärkeimmät metafyysiset teokset ja lisäksi varsin laajan valikoiman lyhyitä kirjoituksia monilta hänen filosofiansa aloilta: logiikkaa, tieto-oppia, etiikkaa, oikeusfilosofiaa, fysiikkaa, matematiikkaa ja eri uskontokuntien uskontunnustusten yhteensovittamisesta. Tutkielman lisäksi mukana on osia kirjeenvaihdosta Antoine Arnauld’n kanssa ja koko kuuluisa kirjeenvaihto Samuel Clarken kanssa. Teos sisältää myös johdannon sekä selitysosan, jotka avaavat nykylukijalle tämän monipuolisen filosofian ajattelua. A collection of Leibniz writings translated to Finnish with introduction and notes.

Frege's docent's dissertation Rechnungsmethoden, die sich auf eine Erweiterung des Grössenbegriffes gründen(1874) contains indications of a bold attempt to extend arithmetic. According to it, arithmetic means the science of magnitude, and magnitude must be understood structurally without intuitive support. The main thing is insight into the formal structure of the operation of ?addition?. It turns out that a general ?magnitude domain? coincides with a (commutative) group. This is an interesting connection with simultaneous developments in abstract algebra. As his main application, (...) Frege studies iterations of functions. He does not yet pose the question of existence proofs. Measurement of magnitudes is also connected to numbers, but the discussion is here ambiguous in a way which calls for the systematic account of numbers in Grundgesetze. (shrink)