[lit-ideas] Re: 'Philosophical Logic'
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:39:19 -0800 (PST)
But surely Wittgenstein would not agree with this account, since he denied that
philosophical logic even exists ? Or would he accept the account and then argue
that this is not what philosophy is in fact about ?
O.K.
________________________________
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2013 9:07 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] 'Philosophical Logic'
Despite its name, philosophical logic is neither a kind of logic nor simply to
be identified with the philosophy of logic(s)—the latter being the
philosophical examination of systems of logic and their applications. Though
the subject of philosophical logic is hard to define precisely, it may loosely
be described as the philosophical elucidation of those notions that are
indispensable for the proper characterization of rational thought and its
contents—notions like those of reference, predication, truth, negation,
necessity, definition, and entailment. These and related notions are needed in
order to give adequate accounts of the structure of thoughts—particularly as
expressed in language—and of the relationships in which thoughts stand both to
one another and to objects and states of affairs in the world. But it must be
emphasized that philosophical logic is not concerned with thought inasmuch as
the latter is a psychological process, but only
in so far as thoughts have contents which are assessable as true or false. To
conflate these concerns is to fall into the error of psychologism, much decried
by Frege.
No single way of dividing up the subject-matter of philosophical logic would be
agreed upon by all of its practitioners, but one convenient division would be
this: theories of reference, theories of truth, the analysis of complex
propositions, theories of modality (that is, of necessity, possibility, and
related notions), and theories of argument or rational inference. These topics
inevitably overlap, but it is roughly true to say that later topics in the list
presuppose earlier ones to a greater degree than earlier ones presuppose later
ones. The order of topics in the list reflects a general progression from the
study of parts of propositions, through the study of whole and compound
propositions, to the study of relations between propositions. (Here we use the
term ‘proposition’ to denote a thought content assessable as true or
false—something expressible by a complete sentence.)
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This is PART of the entry on philosophical logic in a well-known reference
work. It continues for several more pages.
Robert Paul
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