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Category Archives: Logic
Do Contradictions Imply Everything?
It is a standard argument of classical logic that any proposition can be logically derived from a contradiction (See Lewis and Langford, Symbolic Logic, page 250). This argument has been used by almost everybody, including Karl Popper (in the article … Continue reading
David Foster Wallace on Fate, Time, and Language
David Foster Wallace (DFW) was a certified “genius” (a MacArthur grant recipient) who became famous as “one of the most talented fiction writers of his generation” in the words of philosopher Jay Garfield. Garfield contributes an appreciation of DFW in … Continue reading
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Graham Priest’s Inclosure Schema
Woodblock print from the 17th Century (with Bridgeman Art Library Watermark) Graham Priest maintains in Beyond the Limits of Thought that most of the paradoxes that have arisen like bad pennies in the history of philosophy; the Liar, Russell’s paradox, … Continue reading
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Karl Popper on Metaphysical Realism and Bi-valence
I have given some thought to the issue of Popper’s faith in realism and the relation of that faith to his attack on positivism and verificationist theories of truth. It seems to me that the two are closely tied. What … Continue reading
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Aristotle’s Future Contingents
Susan Haack in her book Deviant Logic argues that Aristotle in his famous passage about future contingents commits a modal fallacy. Let’s look at Aristotle’s whole argument in Chapter 9 of de Interpretatione, paragraph by paragraph. He starts out saying: … Continue reading
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Review of Haack, Deviant Logic
Deviant Logic is based on the work Susan Haack completed for a PhD dissertation at Cambridge University. The book was published by Cambridge University Press in 1974. It is a brave book that provides penetrating critiques of some of the … Continue reading
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