Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
"Philosophical logic" describes two distinct areas: (1) the investigation of the fundamental concepts of logic, (2) the formal investigation of alternatives and extensions to classical logic. The first is a philosophical discipline, concerned with notions like truth, propositions, necessity, logical consequence, vagueness, and reasoning. The second is a technical discipline, devoted to developing formal logical systems-modal logics, second-order logics, intuitionistic logics, relevance logics, logics of vagueness and conditionals-and proving things about them. Most texts in philosophical logic focus on one of these areas, but in this book John MacFarlane treats them together in an integrated way, showing how philosophical considerations motivate the technical projects, and how the constraints revealed by the technical projects illuminate the philosophical issues. Topics covered include quantifiers (generalized, second-order, and substitutional), modal logic, indicative conditionals, model-theoretic and proof-theoretic characterizations of logical consequence, intuitionistic logic, fundamental logical disagreement, relevance logic, the relation of logic and reasoning, and vagueness. Each chapter is organized around suggested readings and includes exercises.
Key Features:
An integrated treatment of the technical and philosophical issues comprising philosophical logic
Written by a leading authority on logicism and logical form and a successful expositor and teacher Designed to serve students taking only one course in logic beyond the introductory level Provides tools and concepts necessary to understand work in many areas of analytic philosophy Includes exercises, suggested readings, and suggestions for further exploration in each chapterSynopsis
Introductory logic is generally taught as a straightforward technical discipline. In this book, John MacFarlane helps the reader think about the limitations of, presuppositions of, and alternatives to classical first-order predicate logic, making this an ideal introduction to philosophical logic for any student who already has completed an introductory logic course.
The book explores the following questions. Are there quantificational idioms that cannot be expressed with the
familiar universal and existential quantifiers? How can logic be extended to capture modal notions like necessity and obligation? Does the material conditional adequately capture the meaning of 'if'---and if not, what are the alternatives? Should logical consequence be understood in terms or models or in terms of proofs? Can one intelligibly question the validity of basic logical principles like modus ponens or double-negation elimination? Is the fact that classical logic validates the inference from a contradiction to anything a flaw, and if so, how can logic be modified to repair it? How, exactly, is logic related to reasoning? Must classical logic be revised in order to be applied to vague language, and if so how?
Each chapter is organized around suggested readings and includes exercises designed to deepen the reader's understanding.