Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Anaxarchus, Stewart Shapiro and Walter Burley

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17 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 1. Overview of Logic
There is no 'correct' logic for natural languages [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: There is no question of finding the 'correct' or 'true' logic underlying a part of natural language.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], Pref)
     A reaction: One needs the context of Shapiro's defence of second-order logic to see his reasons for this. Call me romantic, but I retain faith that there is one true logic. The Kennedy Assassination problem - can't see the truth because drowning in evidence.
Logic is the ideal for learning new propositions on the basis of others [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: A logic can be seen as the ideal of what may be called 'relative justification', the process of coming to know some propositions on the basis of others.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 2.3.1)
     A reaction: This seems to be the modern idea of logic, as opposed to identification of a set of 'logical truths' from which eternal necessities (such as mathematics) can be derived. 'Know' implies that they are true - which conclusions may not be.
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 2. History of Logic
Bernays (1918) formulated and proved the completeness of propositional logic [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Bernays (1918) formulated and proved the completeness of propositional logic, the first precise solution as part of the Hilbert programme.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 7.2.1)
Can one develop set theory first, then derive numbers, or are numbers more basic? [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: In 1910 Weyl observed that set theory seemed to presuppose natural numbers, and he regarded numbers as more fundamental than sets, as did Fraenkel. Dedekind had developed set theory independently, and used it to formulate numbers.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 7.2.2)
Skolem and Gödel championed first-order, and Zermelo, Hilbert, and Bernays championed higher-order [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Skolem and Gödel were the main proponents of first-order languages. The higher-order language 'opposition' was championed by Zermelo, Hilbert, and Bernays.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 7.2)
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 5. First-Order Logic
First-order logic was an afterthought in the development of modern logic [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Almost all the systems developed in the first part of the twentieth century are higher-order; first-order logic was an afterthought.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 7.1)
The 'triumph' of first-order logic may be related to logicism and the Hilbert programme, which failed [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: The 'triumph' of first-order logic may be related to the remnants of failed foundationalist programmes early this century - logicism and the Hilbert programme.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], Pref)
     A reaction: Being complete must also be one of its attractions, and Quine seems to like it because of its minimal ontological commitment.
Maybe compactness, semantic effectiveness, and the Löwenheim-Skolem properties are desirable [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Tharp (1975) suggested that compactness, semantic effectiveness, and the Löwenheim-Skolem properties are consequences of features one would want a logic to have.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 6.5)
     A reaction: I like this proposal, though Shapiro is strongly against. We keep extending our logic so that we can prove new things, but why should we assume that we can prove everything? That's just what Gödel suggests that we should give up on.
The notion of finitude is actually built into first-order languages [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: The notion of finitude is explicitly 'built in' to the systems of first-order languages in one way or another.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 9.1)
     A reaction: Personally I am inclined to think that they are none the worse for that. No one had even thought of all these lovely infinities before 1870, and now we are supposed to change our logic (our actual logic!) to accommodate them. Cf quantum logic.
First-order logic is Complete, and Compact, with the Löwenheim-Skolem Theorems [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Early study of first-order logic revealed a number of important features. Gödel showed that there is a complete, sound and effective deductive system. It follows that it is Compact, and there are also the downward and upward Löwenheim-Skolem Theorems.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Higher-Order Logic [2001], 2.1)
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 7. Second-Order Logic
Second-order logic is better than set theory, since it only adds relations and operations, and nothing else [Shapiro, by Lavine]
     Full Idea: Shapiro preferred second-order logic to set theory because second-order logic refers only to the relations and operations in a domain, and not to the other things that set-theory brings with it - other domains, higher-order relations, and so forth.
     From: report of Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991]) by Shaughan Lavine - Understanding the Infinite VII.4
Broad standard semantics, or Henkin semantics with a subclass, or many-sorted first-order semantics? [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Three systems of semantics for second-order languages: 'standard semantics' (variables cover all relations and functions), 'Henkin semantics' (relations and functions are a subclass) and 'first-order semantics' (many-sorted domains for variable-types).
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], Pref)
     A reaction: [my summary]
Henkin semantics has separate variables ranging over the relations and over the functions [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: In 'Henkin' semantics, in a given model the relation variables range over a fixed collection of relations D on the domain, and the function variables range over a collection of functions F on the domain.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 3.3)
Some say that second-order logic is mathematics, not logic [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Some authors argue that second-order logic (with standard semantics) is not logic at all, but is a rather obscure form of mathematics.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Higher-Order Logic [2001], 2.4)
In standard semantics for second-order logic, a single domain fixes the ranges for the variables [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: In the standard semantics of second-order logic, by fixing a domain one thereby fixes the range of both the first-order variables and the second-order variables. There is no further 'interpreting' to be done.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 3.3)
     A reaction: This contrasts with 'Henkin' semantics (Idea 13650), or first-order semantics, which involve more than one domain of quantification.
Completeness, Compactness and Löwenheim-Skolem fail in second-order standard semantics [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: The counterparts of Completeness, Compactness and the Löwenheim-Skolem theorems all fail for second-order languages with standard semantics, but hold for Henkin or first-order semantics. Hence such logics are much like first-order logic.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Foundations without Foundationalism [1991], 4.1)
     A reaction: Shapiro votes for the standard semantics, because he wants the greater expressive power, especially for the characterization of infinite structures.
If the aim of logic is to codify inferences, second-order logic is useless [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: If the goal of logical study is to present a canon of inference, a calculus which codifies correct inference patterns, then second-order logic is a non-starter.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Higher-Order Logic [2001], 2.4)
     A reaction: This seems to be because it is not 'complete'. However, moves like plural quantification seem aimed at capturing ordinary language inferences, so the difficulty is only that there isn't a precise 'calculus'.