Foundations of Logico-Linguistics (eBook)

A Unified Theory of Information, Language, and Logic

W.S. Cooper (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2012
Springer Netherlands (Verlag)
978-94-009-9820-9 (ISBN)

Infos

In 1962 a mimeographed sheet of paper fell into my possession. It had been prepared by Ernest Adams of the Philosophy Department at Berkeley as a handout for a colloquim. Headed 'SOME FALLACIES OF FORMAL LOGIC' it simply listed eleven little pieces of reasoning, all in ordinary English, and all absurd. I still have the sheet, and quote a couple of the arguments here to give the idea. * If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. There- fore, either if you throw switch S the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start . * It is not the case that if John passes history he will graduate. Therefore, John will pass history. The disconcerting thing about these inferences is, of course, that under the customary truth-functional interpretation of and, or, not, and if-then, they are supposed to be valid. What, if anything, is wrong? At first I was not disturbed by the examples. Having at that time consider- able personal commitment to rationality in general and formal logic in par- ticular, I felt it my duty and found myself easily able (or so I thought) to explain away most of them. But on reflection I had to admit that my expla- nations had an ad hoc character, varying suspiciously from example to example.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.12.2012
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Erkenntnistheorie / Wissenschaftstheorie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Sprachphilosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Sprachwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• ISBN-10: 94-009-9820-1 / 9400998201
• ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9820-9 / 9789400998209