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This paper applies the distinction that Owen Barfield drew between 'the history of thought' and 'the history of thinking' (or 'the evolution of consciousness') to standard accounts of the transition from traditional to modern logic. It shows that most standard accounts of the history of logic fail to account for changes in consciousness that underlie developments in the history of ideas, and therefore stand to be deepened and enriched by Barfield's insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the potential of Byzantine diagrams in syllogistic logic. Byzantine diagrams are originated by Byzantine scholars in the early modern period to use as tools for teaching and studying Aristotelian logic. This paper presents pioneering work on employing Byzantine diagrams for checking syllogistic validity through reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contingentism is the view that it is contingent which things exist. Despite its plausibility, advocates of contingentism face a well-known 'challenge' to demonstrate that they can draw what appear to be intelligible modal distinctions (Williamson Modal Logic as Metaphysics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013). In this article, I argue that if certain controversial modal principles fail, the challenge contingentists face becomes much more difficult. Whereas extant challenges concern contingentists' inability to draw quite theoretical second-order modal distinctions, I present a challenge which concerns contingentists' inability to draw simpler first-order distinctions. This indicates that in certain modal settings there may well be significant first-order barriers to maintaining contingentism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of logic in Ukraine is still not sufficiently studied. Researchers, as a rule, analyze the legacy of outstanding scholars from a historical-philosophical point of view, paying attention to philosophical problems considered in their works. Logical issues are left out of consideration. One of the reasons is that a small number of original logical works have survived to this day. Besides, these are mostly archival documents, including lecture manuscripts, essays on specific issues of logic, curriculums, etc. If we consider the published works, they are mostly textbooks, some of which remain unknown to a wide circle of scholars. In this context, the purpose of the paper is to analyze the teaching of logic at St. Volodymyr University from 1834 until 1917. The author set four research objectives. The first is to find out what place logic took among another academic disciplines at the University. The second is to analyze and systematize information about teachers who taught logic. The third is to investigate textbooks and manuals that students used to master the logic course. The fourth is to analyze the logical curriculums used at that time. In the paper the author distinguishes the peculiarities of logic teaching at the University of St. Volodymyr; reveals the reasons why logic had been presented to students in the traditional view; answers the question, of which relevant problems to that time had impacted the teachers’ logical treatments; shows how European trends in the development of logical knowledge had been taken into account in the logic courses offered to students at St. Volodymyr University.

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Copyright of Journal of Social Sciences Institute / Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi is the property of Bingol University / Rectorate and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article investigates the early thought of Mou Zongsan and Yin Haiguang, two important founding fathers of Taiwanese philosophy, who contributed significantly to its formation as an academic discipline in the two decades following 1949. The article reveals how their ideas related to modern logic originated from the so-called “Qinghua School of (Mathematical) Logic”. Herewith, the article tries to provide a platform that can be used to answer the questions of continuity and succession between the studies of modern logic as conducted at the most progressive (modernised) universities in late Republican China (especially Qinghua University) on the one side, and the formation and development of studies in logic in post-1949 Taiwan, on the other.

Decision making is a process that we unintentionally apply hundreds of times a day. While the decisionmaking process for important decisions requires more time-consuming thinking, it can take place instantaneously and spontaneously in situations that have already occurred or where the outcome is not significant. Since decisions are important in human life, it is obvious that the way to make better decisions is to think better and therefore individuals can benefit significantly from having critical thinking skills. In this study, the concepts of decision-making and critical thinking are examined separately to determine the bond and importance between them. The study has a qualitative research feature and a comprehensive literature review and examination have been made. The information obtained as a result of the study conducted within the scope of qualitative research showed that critical thinking is an important requirement for individuals to make better decisions, while various decision-making techniques also contribute positively to the quality of critical thinking of individuals. It is very important for individuals who want to make more successful decisions both in their personal and professional lives, in order to improve their critical thinking capacities and to benefit from decision techniques in making high importance decisions. For today's and tomorrow's executives who influence the lives of countless people with their decisions, developing critical thinking skills will be an approach that requires determination and commitment as an indication of their respect for their professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To some extent, the early twentieth century revival of universal languages was the work of logicians and mathematicians. Pioneers of modern logic such as Frege, Russell and Peano wanted to overcome the diversity and deficiencies of natural languages. Through the rigour of formal logic, they aimed at providing scientific thinking with a reliable medium free from the ambiguity and inconsistencies of ordinary language. This article shows some interconnections between modern logic and the search for a common tongue that would unite scientists and people of all nations. The French mathematician and philosopher Louis Couturat is a key figure in understanding the interplay between these two movements. Through his work in composing the Ido language as an alternative to Esperanto, Couturat gave a new life to the Leibnizian idea of a universal characteristics. In addition, his multifaceted work provides a valuable insight into some political implications of early analytic philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Logic, Rhetoric and Argumentation Theory are more or less distinct attempts to approach the riddle of persuasion: what makes our reason tick? Moreover, how best can we study our ability to influence the reason of others so as to make them share our opinions? The three classical answers, then, are: (1) Logic, the theory of valid inference, is the best persuasion theory available. (2) Rhetoric, the theory of effective manipulation of others is the best persuasion theory available. Finally, (3) Argumentation theory, the middle theory that recommends a mix of reasoning and manipulation, is the best persuasion theory available. In this article, I briefly explain the controversy between these three competing views and offer some comments upon its possible resolution. Since all forms of communication are performed on the spectrum between manipulation and the non-manipulative offering of contents, this controversy should interest all those who are intrigued by the miraculous possibility of human communication in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A probabilistic propositional logic, endowed with a constructor for asserting compatibility of diagonalisable and bounded observables, is presented and illustrated for reasoning about the random results of projective measurements made on a given quantum state. Simultaneous measurements are assumed to imply that the underlying observables are compatible. A sound and weakly complete axiomatisation is provided relying on the decidable first-order theory of real closed ordered fields. The proposed logic is proved to be a conservative extension of classical propositional logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AGM contraction and revision assume an underlying logic that contains propositional logic. Consequently, this assumption excludes many useful logics such as the Horn fragment of propositional logic and most description logics. Our goal in this paper is to generalise AGM contraction and revision to (near-)arbitrary fragments of classical first-order logic. To this end, we first define a very general logic that captures these fragments. In so doing, we make the modest assumptions that a logic contains conjunction and that information is expressed by closed formulas or sentences. The resulting logic is called first-order conjunctive logic or FC logic for short. We then take as the point of departure the AGM approach of constructing contraction functions through epistemic entrenchment, that is the entrenchment-based contraction. We redefine entrenchment-based contraction in ways that apply to any FC logic, which we call FC contraction. We prove a representation theorem showing its compliance with all the AGM contraction postulates except for the controversial recovery postulate. We also give methods for constructing revision functions through epistemic entrenchment which we call FC revision; which also apply to any FC logic. We show that if the underlying FC logic contains tautologies then FC revision complies with all the AGM revision postulates. Finally, in the context of FC logic, we provide three methods for generating revision functions via a variant of the Levi Identity, which we call contraction, withdrawal and cut generated revision, and explore the notion of revision equivalence. We show that withdrawal and cut generated revision coincide with FC revision and so does contraction generated revision under a finiteness condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a crisis in philosophical rationality today--in which modern logicisimplicated--thatcanbetracedtotheabandonmentofacommonbackground of principles. The situation has no parallel within the pre-modern tradition, which not only admits of such principles (as an unproblematic presumption), but also refers them back to a set of assumptions grounded in a clearly religious frame of mind. Modern conceptions of rationality claim complete independence from religious sources, as from tradition more generally, and typically end up disposing of first principles altogether. The result is a fragmentation of reason, which can be seen to be dramatically exemplified in the realm of modern logic, populated by countless different systems and incompatible conceptions of what it is to be a logic. Many of the conceptual choices that became implicit in the philosophical discussions eventually leading to the rejection of the religious picture, and ultimately to the aforementioned crisis, were themselves originally linked to religious premises, so that all along, a kind of religious subconscious has subsisted throughout those disputations; however, the lack of any proper recognition of this background obstructs the possibility of making a reasonable assessment of the nature and causes of the crisis. Alasdair MacIntyre, whose thought inspires the argument developed here, reached similar conclusions regarding practical (or moral) rationality and the effects of abandoning the teleological framework of Aristotelian (and Thomistic) philosophy. MacIntyre's arguments can be adapted, as he suggests, to deal with reason more generally, and his insistence upon the tradition-laden character of rational enquiry can help point toward the grounding of human reason in religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]