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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
This paper starts out from two feminist criticisms of classical logic, namely Andrea Nye’s general rejection of logic and Val Plumwood’s criticism of the standard notion of negation in classical logic. I then look at some of Gottlob Frege’s reflections on negation in one of his later Logical Investigations. It will appear clear that Frege’s notion of negation is not easily pegged in the general category of ‘Otherness’ that Plumwood uses to characterize negation in classical logic. In the second half of the paper, I discuss the claim that the adversarial method of argumentation in philosophy is hostile to feminist goals and perhaps responsible for the low numbers of women engaged in academic philosophy. Against this hypothesis, I claim that a more naturalistic perspective on logic can avoid essentialism and provide a feminist friendly and pluralist view of logic, human reasoning, and philosophical argumentation.
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
The paper discusses two problems with Graham Priest's version of dialetheism: the thesis that one cannot be rationally obliged to both accept and reject something, and the use of a Contraction-less conditional in dealing with Curry paradoxes. Some solutions are suggested.
Comment: A useful supplement to any discussion of dialetheism, as the origin of what is now known in the literature as the "Goodship project". Some familiarity with Priest's account is required for context.
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: Classic presentation of the prosentential theory of truth: an important, though minority, deflationist account of truth. Prosententialists take 'It is true that' to be a prosentence forming operator that anaphorically picks out content from claims made further back in the anaphoric chain (in the same way that pronouns such as 'he', 'she' and 'it' anaphorically pick out referents from nouns further back in the anaphoric chain).
Comment: Good as a primary reading on a course on truth, philosophy of language, or on deflationism more generally. Any course that treats deflationary accounts of truth in any detail would deal with the prosentential theory of truth, and this is one of the most historically important presentations of that theory. Would be best used in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses.
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: Grover argues that one should be unconcerned about the liar paradox. In formal languages there are uniform ties between syntax and semantics: a term, in all its occurrences, carries a fixed meaning; and sequences of sentences that are (syntactically) proofs are always (semantically) inferences. These two features do not hold of natural languages. Grover makes use of this claim to argue that there are no arguments to contradictions from liar sentences in natural languages, as the relevant syntactic 'moves' do not come with relevant semantic 'moves'.
Comment: This would be useful in a course on truth, the philosophy of language or paradoxes. It provides a very up to date account of the prosentential theory of truth and how it may be able to deal with semantic paradoxes. Not as technical as some literature on the topic.
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: Classic account of the way in which the prosentential theory of truth handles the liar paradox. Prosententialists take 'It is true that' to be a prosentence forming operator that anaphorically picks out content from claims made further back in the anaphoric chain (in the same way that pronouns such as 'he', 'she' and 'it' anaphorically pick out referents from nouns further back in the anaphoric chain). Liar sentences have no proposition-stating antecedents in the anaphoric chain. As a result, the problem of the liar does not arise.
Comment: Good as a primary reading on a course on truth, paradox, philosophy of language, or on deflationism more generally. Any course that treats deflationary accounts of truth in any detail would deal with the prosentential theory of truth, and this is one of the most historically important presentations of that theory. This is particularly useful in courses on paradox, as it is a rare articulation of the idea that the liar paradox is not "deep" and does not require large revisions to classical logic. Would be best used in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses.
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
While contemporary feminist philosophical discussions focus on the oppressiveness of universality which obliterates “difference,” the complete demise of universality might hamper feminist philosophy in its political project of furthering the well-being of all women. Dewey's thoroughly functionalized, relativized, and fallibilized understanding of universality may help us cut universality down to size while also appreciating its limited contribution. Deweyan universality may signify the ongoing search for a genuinely common language in the midst of difference.
Comment: available in this Blueprint
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: Argues against deflationary conceptions of truth. Deflationism provides a descriptive account of the term 'true', but these claims, argues Gupta, are both very strong and problematic.
Comment: This would be very useful in a course on the nature of truth, or any course in which deflationary conceptions of truth are relevant. The paper is not technical and provides a good account of deflationism about truth. This would be suitable for undergraduates or graduates.
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Added by: Jamie CollinSummary: The Liar and other semantic paradoxes pose a difficult problem for all theories of truth. Any theory that aims to improve our understanding of the concept of truth must, when fully stated, include an account of the paradoxes. Not only deflationism but also its competitors - for instance, correspondence and coherence - must ultimately address the paradoxes. The question that concerns me in this essay is whether it is especially urgent for deflationism to do so. Are the paradoxes a special threat, a special problem, for deflationism? I will argue that they are not.1 Deflationists can leave the paradoxes to the specialists to puzzle over. It is the specialists who will be well served if they keep some insights of deflationism firmly in view.
Comment: This would be useful in a course on the nature of truth, or on paradoxes. This is slightly more specialised than 'A Critique of Deflationism' but still good reading material for an advanced undergraduate or graduate course. The paper is not easy, but clear and not very technical.
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
The concept of truth serves in logic not only as an instrument but also as an object of study. Eubulides of Miletus (fl. fourth century BCE), a Megarian logician, discovered the paradox known as ‘the Liar,’ and, ever since his discovery, logicians down the ages - Aristotle and Chrysippus, John Buridan and William Heytesbury, and Alfred Tarski and Saul Kripke, to mention just a few - have tried to understand the puzzling behavior of the concept of truth.
Comment: Can be used in an advanced course on (formal approaches to) truth or the Liar paradox. Familiarity with the semantics of first-order classical logic and transfinite induction is assumed (for the latter, Ch.3 of the Blackwell Guide might be of help - using the Blackwell Guide as a blueprint may also be a way to incorporate this reading in a general advanced course on philosophical logic).
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Added by: Jie GaoPublisher's Note: The first systematic exposition of all the central topics in the philosophy of logic, Susan Haack's book has established an international reputation (translated into five languages) for its accessibility, clarity, conciseness, orderliness, and range as well as for its thorough scholarship and careful analyses. Haack discusses the scope and purpose of logic, validity, truth-functions, quantification and ontology, names, descriptions, truth, truth-bearers, the set-theoretical and semantic paradoxes, and modality. She also explores the motivations for a whole range of nonclassical systems of logic, including many-valued logics, fuzzy logic, modal and tense logics, and relevance logics.
Comment: This textbook is intended particularly for philosophy students who have completed a first course in elementary logic. But, though the book is clearly written, such students still may find the content difficult, as it addresses difficult topics in the foundations of logic the primary literature for which is very technical. That said, it has been a widely used textbook for courses on philosophy of logic. Chapters of it can be used individually in accordance with the arrangements of the course.
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Added by: Jie GaoAbstract: It is often taken for granted by writers who propose - and, for that matter, by writers who oppose - 'justifications' of inductions, that deduction either does not need, or can readily be provided with, justification. The purpose of this paper is to argue that, contrary to this common opinion, problems analogous to those which, notoriously, arise in the attempt to justify induction, also arise in the attempt to justify deduction.
Comment: This paper argues that justification for deduction, like justification for induction, also has the problem of circularity. It is suitable for teachings on topic of justification for inference in a course on philosophy of logic.
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
This chapter gives a survey of the field of philosophy where the philosophical foundations of modern logic were discussed and where such themes of logic were discussed that were on the borderline between logic and other branches of the philosophical enterprise, such as metaphysics and epistemology. The contributions made by Gottlob Frege and Charles Peirce are included since their work in logic is closely related to and also strongly motivated by their philosophical views and interests. In addition, the chapter pays attention to a few philosophers to whom logic amounted to traditional Aristotelian logic and to those who commented on the nature of logic from a philosophical perspective without making any significant contribution to the development of formal logic.
Comment: Could be used in a history of logic course, as an overview of developments at the turn of the century. It spends a lot of time contextualizing and comparing Frege and Husserl's philosophies of logic, so it could also be a good further reading for a course focusing on either of them. The text assumes almost no previous knowledge of logic, or of the authors in question.
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
Can there be a feminist logic? By most accounts the answer would be no. What l find remarkable is the great difference in the justifications provided for this conclusion. The impossibility of feminist logic is defended, on the one hand, on the grounds that logic itself is most fundamentally a form of domination and so is inimical to feminist aims. Other philosophers, while also defending the impossibility of feminist logic, do so from the conviction that it is feminist theory rather than logic that is the problem. For these thinkers, feminism cannot make any interesting or important contribution to logic because feminist theory is fundamentally shallow or misguided. In this paper I will argue that both positions are mistaken: Logic is neither as totalizing as the one side believes nor is feminist theory as inconsequential for logic as the other pole would have it. In the course of these arguments, I describe the work of several feminist logicians, showing the possibility and value of feminist approaches to logic.
Comment (from this Blueprint): Very accessible introduction to the (early) literature on feminist logic, adequate for both a general logic course and a general feminist philosophy course (preferably together with at least one specialized reading). Its presentation of various contrasting positions on the topic should provide fertile grounds for discussion.
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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane FairbankAbstract:
Hass examines chapters devoted to Aristotle in a recent, prominent, and controversial feminist critique of logic, Andrea Nye's Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic. Hass shows that Nye's criticisms of logic in general and of Aristotle in particular are misplaced. What is crucial in Nye's attack are alleged problems caused by overzealous "abstraction." But Hass argues that abstraction is not problematic; instead, it is crucial (and empowering) for feminist political theory. Although she rejects Nye's form of feminist logic critique, Hass finds more that is worthwhile in the criticisms of logic advanced by Luce lrigaray and Val Plumwood. These thinkers call for feminist alternatives to what has come to be standard deductive logic - and interestingly enough, their call is echoed in other contemporary criticisms from within the field of logic itself, for example, from intuitionist or entailment logics. The logical schemes envisaged by lrigaray and Plumwood would encompass more situated and fluid ways of using formal systems to describe and analyse reality and diverse experiences. Hass argues that, in Aristotle's case, we can glimpse something of such an alternative by looking to his account of negation, which is richer and more complex than that allowed by most contemporary formal systems.
Comment: available in this Blueprint
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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane FairbankAbstract: Hass examines chapters devoted to Aristotle in a recent, prominent, and controversial feminist critique of logic, Andrea Nye's Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic. Hass shows that Nye's criticisms of logic in general and of Aristotle in particular are misplaced. What is crucial in Nye's attack are alleged problems caused by overzealous "abstraction." But Hass argues that abstraction is not problematic; instead, it is crucial (and empowering) for feminist political theory. Although she rejects Nye's form of feminist logic critique, Hass finds more that is worthwhile in the criticisms of logic advanced by Luce lrigaray and Val Plumwood. These thinkers call for feminist alternatives to what has come to be standard deductive logic - and interestingly enough, their call is echoed in other contemporary criticisms from within the field of logic itself, for example, from intuitionist or entailment logics. The logical schemes envisaged by lrigaray and Plumwood would encompass more situated and fluid ways of using formal systems to describe and analyse reality and diverse experiences. Hass argues that, in Aristotle's case, we can glimpse something of such an alternative by looking to his account of negation, which is richer and more complex than that allowed by most contemporary formal systems.
Comment: available in this Blueprint
Comment: available in this Blueprint