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Single Idea 13234

[filed under theme 5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 2. History of Logic ]

Full Idea

Through much of the 20th century the conception of logic was inherited from Frege and Russell, as knowledge of a body of logical truths, as arithmetic or geometry was a knowledge of truths. This is odd, and a historical anomaly.

Gist of Idea

The view of logic as knowing a body of truths looks out-of-date

Source

JC Beall / G Restall (Logical Pluralism [2006], 2.2)

Book Ref

Beall,J/Restall,G: 'Logical Pluralism' [OUP 2006], p.12


A Reaction

Interesting. I have always taken this idea to be false. I presume logic has minimal subject matter and truths, and preferably none at all.


The 15 ideas with the same theme [origins of the various systems of formal logic]:

Lull's combinatorial art would articulate all the basic concepts, then show how they combine [Lull, by Arthur,R]
Boole made logic more mathematical, with algebra, quantifiers and probability [Boole, by Friend]
In 1879 Frege developed second order logic [Frege, by Putnam]
We have no adequate logic at the moment, so mathematicians must create one [Veblen]
Gentzen introduced a natural deduction calculus (NK) in 1934 [Gentzen, by Read]
Before the late 19th century logic was trivialised by not dealing with relations [Putnam]
Nowadays logic is seen as the science of extensions, not intensions [Scruton]
The mainstream of modern logic sees it as a branch of mathematics [Mayberry]
Golden ages: 1900-1960 for pure logic, and 1950-1985 for applied logic [Devlin]
Montague's intensional logic incorporated the notion of meaning [Devlin]
Skolem and Gödel championed first-order, and Zermelo, Hilbert, and Bernays championed higher-order [Shapiro]
Bernays (1918) formulated and proved the completeness of propositional logic [Shapiro]
Can one develop set theory first, then derive numbers, or are numbers more basic? [Shapiro]
The view of logic as knowing a body of truths looks out-of-date [Beall/Restall]
Was logic a branch of mathematics, or mathematics a branch of logic? [Engelbretsen]