Many texts on logic are written with a mathematical emphasis, and focus primarily on the development of a formal apparatus and associated techniques. In other, more philosophical texts, the topic is often presented as an indulgent collection of musings on issues for which technical solutions have long since been devised.
What has been missing until now is an attempt to unite the motives underlying both approaches. Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s Formal Logic seeks to find a balance between the necessity of formal considerations and the importance of full reflection and explanation about the seemingly arbitrary steps that occasionally confound even the most serious student of logic. Alex Levine’s artful translation conveys both the content and style of the German edition. Filled with examples, exercises, and a straightforward look at some of the most common problems in teaching the subject, this work is eminently suitable for the classroom.
For many philosophers, modern philosophy begins in 1879 with the publication of Gottlob Frege's Begriffsschrift, in which Frege presents the first truly modern logic in his symbolic language, Begriffsschrift, or concept-script. Danielle Macbeth's book, the first full-length study of this language, offers a highly original new reading of Frege's logic based directly on Frege's own two-dimensional notation and his various writings about logic.
Setting out to explain the nature of Frege's logical notation, Macbeth brings clarity not only to Frege's symbolism and its motivation, but also to many other topics central to his philosophy. She develops a uniquely compelling account of Frege's Sinn/Bedeutung distinction, a distinction central to an adequate logical language; and she articulates a novel understanding of concepts, both of what they are and of how their contents are expressed in properly logical language. In her reading, Frege's Begriffsschrift emerges as a powerful and deeply illuminating alternative to the quantificational logic it would later inspire.
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 promises surprising insight into a range of issues in metaphysics and epistemology, as well as in the philosophy of logic.
Widespread interest in Frege’s general philosophical writings is, relatively speaking, a fairly recent phenomenon. But it is only very recently that his philosophy of mathematics has begun to attract the attention it now enjoys. This interest has been elicited by the discovery of the remarkable mathematical properties of Frege’s contextual definition of number and of the unique character of his proposals for a theory of the real numbers.
This collection of essays addresses three main developments in recent work on Frege’s philosophy of mathematics: the emerging interest in the intellectual background to his logicism; the rediscovery of Frege’s theorem; and the reevaluation of the mathematical content of The Basic Laws of Arithmetic. Each essay attempts a sympathetic, if not uncritical, reconstruction, evaluation, or extension of a facet of Frege’s theory of arithmetic. Together they form an accessible and authoritative introduction to aspects of Frege’s thought that have, until now, been largely missed by the philosophical community.
In From Kant to Husserl, Charles Parsons examines a wide range of historical opinion on philosophical questions, from mathematics to phenomenology. Amplifying his early ideas on Kant’s philosophy of arithmetic, Parsons uses Kant’s lectures on metaphysics to explore how his arithmetical concepts relate to the categories. He then turns to early reactions by two immediate successors of Kant, Johann Schultz and Bernard Bolzano, to shed light on disputed questions regarding interpretation of Kant’s philosophy of mathematics. Interested, as well, in what Kant meant by “pure natural science,” Parsons considers the relationship between the first Critique and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. His commentary on Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic departs from mathematics to engage the vexed question of what it tells about the meaning of Kant’s transcendental idealism.
Proceeding on to phenomenology, Parsons examines Frege’s evolving idea of extensions, his attitude toward set theory, and his correspondence, particularly exchanges with Russell and Husserl. An essay on Brentano brings out, in the case of judgment, an alternative to the now standard Fregean view of negation, and, on truth, alternatives to the traditional correspondence view that are still discussed today. Ending with the question of why Husserl did not take the “linguistic turn,” a final essay included here marks the only article-length discussion of Husserl Parsons has ever written, despite a long-standing engagement with this philosopher.
From Topic to Tale was first published in 1987. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.
The transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance has been discussed since the 1940s as a shift from a Latinate culture to one based on a vernacular language, and, since the 1960s, as a shift from orality to literacy. From Topic to Tale focuses on this multifaceted transition, but it poses the problem in different terms: it shows how a rhetorical tradition was transformed into a textual one, and ends ultimately in a discussion of the relationship between discourse and society.
The rise of French vernacular literacy in the twelfth century coincided with the emergence of logic as a powerful instrument of the human mind. With logic come a new concern for narrative coherence and form, a concern exemplified by the work of Chretien de Troyes. Many brilliant poetic achievements crystallized in the narrative art of Chretien, establishing an enduring tradition of literary technique for all of Europe. Eugene Vance explores the intellectual context of Chretien's vernacular literacy, and in particular, the interaction between the three "arts of language" (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) compromising the trivium. Until Vance, few critics have studied the contribution of logic to Chretiens poetics, nor have they assessed the ethical bond between rationalism and the new heroic code of romance.
Vance takes Chretien de Troyes' great romance, Yvain ou le chevalier au lion,as the centerpiece of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. It is also central to his own thesis, which shows how Chretien forged a bold new vision of humans as social beings situated between beasts and angels and promulgated the symbolic powers of language, money, and heraldic art to regulate the effects of human desire. Vance's reading of the Yvain contributes not only to the intellectual history of the Middle Ages, but also to the continuing dialogue between contemporary critical theory and medieval culture.
Eugene Vance is professor of French and comparative literature at Emory University and principal editor of a University of Nebraska series, Regents Studies in Medieval Culture. Wlad Godzich is director of the Center for Humanistic Studies at the University of Minnesota and co-editor of the series Theory and History of Literature.
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