Change in View offers an entirely original approach to the philosophical study of reasoning by identifying principles of reasoning with principles for revising one's beliefs and intentions and not with principles of logic. This crucial observation leads to a number of important and interesting consequences that impinge on psychology and artificial intelligence as well as on various branches of philosophy, from epistemology to ethics and action theory. Gilbert Harman is Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. A Bradford Book.

Logic is a celebrated representation language because of its formal generality. But there are two senses in which a logic may be considered general, one that concerns a technical ability to discriminate between different types of individuals, and another that concerns constitutive norms for reasoning as such. This essay embraces the former, permutation-invariance conception of logic and rejects the latter, Fregean conception of logic. The question of how to apply logic under this pure invariantist view is addressed, and a methodology (...) is given. The pure invariantist view is contrasted with logical pluralism, and a methodology for applied logic is demonstrated in remarks on a variety of issues concerning non-monotonic logic and non-monotonic inference, including Charles Morgan’s impossibility results for non-monotonic logic, David Makinson’s normative constraints for non-monotonic inference, and Igor Douven and Timothy Williamson’s proposed formal constraints on rational acceptance. (shrink)

Modern logic is undergoing a cognitive turn, side-stepping Frege’s ‘antipsychologism’. Collaborations between logicians and colleagues in more empirical fields are growing, especially in research on reasoning and information update by intelligent agents. We place this border-crossing research in the context of long-standing contacts between logic and empirical facts, since pure normativity has never been a plausible stance. We also discuss what the fall of Frege’s Wall means for a new agenda of logic as a theory of rational agency, and what (...) might then be a viable understanding of ‘psychologism’ as a friend rather than an enemy of logical theory. (shrink)

Transzendentale Momente der Physikbegründung deklarieren sich nicht immer offen als solche. Der Autor unternimmt den Versuch, Momente in der Theoriendynamik der Physik als in Wahrheit transzendental zu demaskieren. Fundamentale Merkmale in der Theoriendynamik lassen sich transzendental begründen. In dem Aufsatz werden die Anschlussfähigkeit einer Theorie an schon vorhandene und vergangene Theorien und damit die strukturelle Einheit und Einheitlichkeit wissenschaftlicher Erfahrungen transzendental begründet. Das wirft ein neues Licht auf die Rolle der Analogien in der heuristischen Herleitung von Theorien. Mit solchen analogiebasierten (...) Herleitungen versuchen die Forscher, die Unterbestimmtheit der Theorien durch die Daten zu unterlaufen. (shrink)

Since Quine has claimed that there is no absolute distinction between analytical and synthetical sentences the question whether logical laws might not be high order empirical laws about the ways humans actually think has become once more relevant. The affirmative answer was defended in the nineteenth century as the doctrine of psychologism. Frege and Husserl were vehemently opposed to this doctrine and many believe that they have destroyed it once and for all. This essay restates the doctrine of psychologism and (...) critically examines the counter arguments of Frege and Husserl. The conclusions reached are as follows: 1. Psychologism is a hard doctrine to state, because at its heart lies both a sceptical claim concerning the possibility of knowledge, in the strong sense of the word and a tendency towards idealism; 2. Frege defends the possibility of knowledge in the strong sense and ridicules the idealistic tendencies of psychologism but he cannot and does not refute the sceptical claims involved in any other than a polemical fashion; 3. Husserl tries to refute psychologism by attacking its roots: scepticism, but his sustained attempts are not successful; 4. Psychologism stands therefore unharmed by Frege and Husserl and is a viable, though perhaps unattractive philosophical option. The laws of logic might not be empirical claims about how humans think but they might be nevertheless empirical claims about how the world as a whole is cemented together. (shrink)

In retrospecting "Two Dogmas" I find myself overshooting by twenty years. I think back to college days, 61 years agao. I majored in mathematics and was doing my honors reading in mathematical logic, a subject that had not yet penetrated the Oberlin curriculum. My new love, in the platonic sense, was Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica.

Psychologism in logic is the doctrine that the semantic content of logical terms is in some way a feature of human psychology. We consider the historically influential version of the doctrine, Psychological Individualism, and the many counter-arguments to it. We then propose and assess various modifications to the doctrine that might allow it to avoid the classical objections. We call these Psychological Descriptivism, Teleological Cognitive Architecture, and Ideal Cognizers. These characterizations give some order to the wide range of modern views (...) that are seen as psychologistic because of one or another feature. Although these can avoid some of the classic objections to psychologism, some still hold. (shrink)

The most enlightening examination to date of the developments of Frege's thinking about his logic, this book introduces a new kind of logical language, one that ...

Husserls »Logische Untersuchungen« sind eines der folgenreichsten Werke der neueren Philosophiegeschichte. Mit dem ersten Erscheinen in den Jahren 1900 und 1901 (Max Niemeyer Verlag, Halle/Saale) nimmt jene Schule ihren Anfang, deren Name im Untertitel des zweiten Bandes zum ersten Mal sinnfällig wird: die Phänomenologie. Husserl sah damals in diesem Werk »Versuche zur Neubegründung der reinen Logik und Erkenntnistheorie«, die den Grund zu einem größeren Gedankengebäude zu legen imstande waren. Sie wollten freilich kein bloßes Programm sein, sondern »Fundamentalarbeit an den unmittelbar (...) erschauten und ergriffenen Sachen« darstellen. Die weitere Arbeit an der Ausprägung der phänomenologischen Philosophie führte schon nach wenigen Jahren zu neuen Problemen, zu vertieften Erkenntnissen und zu schärferen Formulierungen. Ihnen trägt die zweite, zum Teil tiefgreifend umgearbeitete Auflage Rechnung, deren Text seither in unveränderter Form immer wieder nachgedruckt wurde. (shrink)

The ideas of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege lie at the root of the analytical movement in philosophy. Frege and Other Philosophers comprises all of Professor Dummett's published and previously unpublished essays on Frege, with the exception of those included in his Truth and Other Enigmas. In some of these essays he explores the relation of Frege's ideas to those of his predecessors and contemporaries. In others he considers critically some interpretations of Frege, and develops the argument for (...) a sound understanding of Frege's thought which he first delineated in The Interpretation of Frege's Philosophy. Several of the essays illustrate his contention that Frege's work remains the best starting point for the investigation of problems concerning truth, meaning, thought, and language, which are still among the most contentious issues in modern analytical philosophy. Any discussion of Frege's ideas is therefore also an exploration of fundamental and as yet unresolved issues of philosophy. (shrink)

Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens / von Dr. Gottlob Frege,...Date de l'edition originale : 1879Ce livre est la reproduction fidele d'une oeuvre publiee avant 1920 et fait partie d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande editee par Hachette Livre, dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec la Bibliotheque nationale de France, offrant l'opportunite d'acceder a des ouvrages anciens et souvent rares issus des fonds patrimoniaux de la BnF.Les oeuvres faisant partie de cette collection ont ete numerisees (...) par la BnF et sont presentes sur Gallica, sa bibliotheque numerique.En entreprenant de redonner vie a ces ouvrages au travers d'une collection de livres reimprimes a la demande, nous leur donnons la possibilite de rencontrer un public elargi et participons a la transmission de connaissances et de savoirs parfois difficilement accessibles.Nous avons cherche a concilier la reproduction fidele d'un livre ancien a partir de sa version numerisee avec le souci d'un confort de lecture optimal. Nous esperons que les ouvrages de cette nouvelle collection vous apporteront entiere satisfaction.Pour plus d'informations, rendez-vous sur www.hachettebnf.frhttp://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65658c. (shrink)

Tyler Burge presents a collection of his seminal essays on Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), who has a strong claim to be seen as the founder of modern analytic philosophy, and whose work remains at the centre of philosophical debate today. Truth, Thought, Reason gathers some of Burge's most influential work from the last twenty-five years, and also features important new material, including a substantial introduction and postscripts to four of the ten papers. It will be an essential resource for any historian (...) of modern philosophy, and for anyone working on philosophy of language, epistemology, or philosophical logic. (shrink)

This paper explores an apparent tension between two widely held views about logic: that logic is normative and that there are multiple equally legitimate logics. The tension is this. If logic is normative, it tells us something about how we ought to reason. If, as the pluralist would have it, there are several correct logics, those logics make incompatible recommendations as to how we ought to reason. But then which of these logics should we look to for normative guidance? I (...) argue that inasmuch as pluralism draws its motivation from its ability to defuse logical disputes—that is, disputes between advocates of rival logics—it is unable to provide an answer: pluralism collapses into monism with respect to either the strongest or the weakest admissible logic. (shrink)