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If A, then B : how the world discovered logic / Michael Shenefelt & Heidi White.

BC15 .S54 2013

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Format:: Book
Author/Creator:: Shenefelt, Michael, 1953-
Contributor:: White, Heidi.
Language:: English
Subjects (All):: Logic--History.; Logic.; History.
Physical Description:: xiii, 333 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Place of Publication:: New York : Columbia University Press, [2013]
Summary:: While logical principles seem timeless, placeless, and eternal, their discovery is a story of personal accidents, political tragedies, and broad social change. If A, Then B begins with logic's emergence twenty-three centuries ago and tracks its expansion as a discipline ever since. It explores where our sense of logic comes from and what it really is a sense of. And it explains what drove human beings to start studying logic in the first place. This study treats politics, economics, technology, and geography as fundamental factors in generating an audience for logic-grounding the discipline's abstract principles in a compelling material narrative. The authors explain the turbulent times of the enigmatic Aristotle, the ancient Stoic Chrysippus, the medieval theologian Peter Abelard, and the modern drinkers George Boole, Augustus De Morgan, Gottlob Frege, and Alan Turing. If A, Then B is the first book to situate the history of logic within the movements of a larger social world. Book jacket.
Contents:: 1 The Dawn of Logic 19; The Effect of Geography on the Flow of Ideas; The Effect of the Sea Trade; Transportation and Civilization; Classical Greece as the Extreme Case; The Athenian Assembly; 2 Aristotle: Greatest of the Greek Logicians 33; The Study of Argument in India; The Singularity of Aristotle; The Effect of the Athenian Assembly; The Sophists; The Separation of Logic from Rhetoric; 3 Aristotle's System: The Logic of Classification 49; Manipulating Classes; The Square of Opposition; The Underlying Mystery of the Square; Wittgenstein's Proposed Solution; Wittgenstein's Mistake; 4 Chrysippus and the Stoics: A World of Interlocking Structures 73; The Stoics; The Logic of Choice; The Nature of Compound Propositions; Interlocking Forms of Argument; The Laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle; More Interlocking Forms; The Basis of Computer Logic; 5 Logic Versus Anti Logic: The Laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle 99; Paradoxes of Truth; The Nature of Fuzzy Logic; Is Validity Relative?; Does Formal Logic Ultimately Depend on Common Sense?; 6 Logical Fanatics, Circular Reasoning, and Descartes's Fundamental Principle 123; The Origins of the Wars of Religion; The Importance of Firm Foundations; The Logical Complexity of Our Premises; The Origins of Formalized Logic and Mathematics; The Paradoxes of Formalization; The Double Meaning of "Foundations"; The Outlook of Thomas Kuhn; Kuhn's Error; Competition Between Scientific Theories; 7 Will the Future Resemble the Past? Inductive Logic and Scientific Method 157; The Challenge of the New Literature; The Triumph of the Vernacular and the Growing Spirit of Equality; The Rise of Modern Political Theory; The Right of Dissent and the Reliance on Induction; Induction as the New Rationality; Aristotle's Influence on the Medievals; The Rational Foundations of Induction; The Apparent Irreducibility of Induction; The Assumptions of Empirical Science; 8 Rhetorical Frauds and Sophistical Ploys: Ten Classic Tricks 185; The Battle for Parliamentary Reform; Jeremy Bentham and the Legacy of the Enlightenment; Bentham's Book of Fallacies; 9 Symbolic Logic and the Digital Future 205; The Impact of the Industrial Revolution; The Origins of Symbolic Logic; The Logic of Relations; The Effect of the New Mathematics; The Impact of Quantification; Frege's New Foundation for Mathematics; The Invention of Digital Computing; 10 Faith and the Limits of Logic: The Last Unanswered Question 235; Abelard's Rise to Power; Abelard's Attack on Faith Without Reason; Are Faith and Reason Compatible?; The Foundations of Rational Belief; Rationality After the Wars of Religion; The Vigilance of Reason.
Notes:: Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:: 9780231161046; 0231161042; 9780231161053; 0231161050
OCLC:: 824353167

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If A, then B : how the world discovered logic / Michael Shenefelt & Heidi White.

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