display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
12444 | Logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology [Russell] |
Full Idea: Logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy [1919], XVI) | |
A reaction: I love this idea and am very sympathetic to it. The rival view seems to be that logic is purely conventional, perhaps defined by truth tables etc. It is hard to see how a connective like 'tonk' could be self-evidently silly if it wasn't 'unnatural'. |
10057 | Logic can only assert hypothetical existence [Russell] |
Full Idea: No proposition of logic can assert 'existence' except under a hypothesis. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy [1919], XVIII) | |
A reaction: I am prepared to accept this view fairly dogmatically, though Musgrave shows some of the difficulties of the if-thenist view (depending on which 'order' of logic is being used). |
14464 | Logic can be known a priori, without study of the actual world [Russell] |
Full Idea: Logical propositions are such as can be known a priori, without study of the actual world. | |
From: Bertrand Russell (Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy [1919], XVIII) | |
A reaction: This remark constrasts strikingly with Idea 12444, which connects logic to the actual world. Is it therefore a priori synthetic? |
15652 | We can use truth instead of ontologically loaded second-order comprehension assumptions about properties [Halbach] |
Full Idea: The reduction of 2nd-order theories (of properties or sets) to axiomatic theories of truth may be conceived as a form of reductive nominalism, replacing existence assumptions (for comprehension axioms) by ontologically innocent truth assumptions. | |
From: Volker Halbach (Axiomatic Theories of Truth (2005 ver) [2005], 1.1) | |
A reaction: I like this very much, as weeding properties out of logic (without weeding them out of the world). So-called properties in logic are too abundant, so there is a misfit with their role in science. |