Plural logic / Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oliver, Alex, author.

Smiley, T. J. (Timothy John), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Logic.

Grammar, Comparative and general--Number.

Grammar, Comparative and general.

Physical Description:

xiv, 383 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2016.

Summary:

"Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley provide the natural point of entry to what for most readers will be a new subject. Plural logic deals with plural terms, plural predicates, and plural quantification. Current logic is singularist: its terms stand for at most one thing. By contrast, the foundational thesis of this book is that a particular term may legitimately stand for several things at once; in other words, there is such a thing as genuinely plural denotation. The authors argue that plural phenomena need to be taken seriously and that the only viable response is to adopt a plural logic, a logic based on plural denotation. They expound a framework of ideas that includes the distinction between distributive and collective predicates, the theory of plural descriptions, multivalued functions, and lists. A formal system of plural logic is presented in three stages. This second edition includes a greatly expanded treatment of the paradigm empty term zilch, a much strengthened treatment of Cantorian set theory, and a new chapter on higher-level plural logic." --back cover.

Contents:

The project

History

Changing the subject

Predicative analyses

Terms - singular and plural

The indeterminacy of plural denotation

Some basic ideas of plural logic

Plural descriptions

Multivalued functions

Lists

Singular logic

Mid-plural logic

Full plural logic

Cantorian set theory

Higher-level plural logic

Postscript: unfinished business.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 343-356) and index.

ISBN:

9780198744382

0198744382

OCLC:

965118067