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Author Shenefelt, Michael, 1953-

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

Publication Info. New York : Columbia University Press, [2013]

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 333 pages) : illustrations
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Note Print version record.
Contents Table of Contents; Preface; Introduction: What Is Logic?; The Strange Nature of Logical Validity; What Makes a Valid Argument Valid?; The Divine-Command Theory of Logic; Logic as Culturally Invariant; Logic as Timeless and Placeless; The Social History of Logic; 1. The Dawn of Logic; 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; The Study of Argument in India; The Singularity of Aristotle; The Effect of the Athenian Assembly.
The SophistsThe Separation of Logic from Rhetoric; 3. Aristotle's System: The Logic of Classification; 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; 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.
Paradoxes of TruthThe 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; 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.
The Challenge of the New LiteratureThe 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; The Battle for Parliamentary Reform; Jeremy Bentham and the Legacy of the Enlightenment; Bentham's Book of Fallacies.
9. Symbolic Logic and the Digital FutureThe 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; 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; Appendix: Further Fallacies; Notes; Bibliography; Index.
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. It also explains what drove human beings to start studying logic in the first place. Logic is more than the work of logicians alone. Its discoveries have survived only because logicians have also been able to find a willing.
Subject Logic -- History.
PHILOSOPHY -- Logic.
PHILOSOPHY -- Movements -- Analytic.
Logic. (OCoLC)fst01002014
Genre/Form History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
Added Author White, Heidi.
Other Form: Print version: Shenefelt, Michael, 1953- If A, then B. New York : Columbia University Press, [2013] 9780231161046 (DLC) 2013007780 (OCoLC)824353167
ISBN 9780231535199 (electronic bk.)
0231535198 (electronic bk.)
Music No. EB00640235 Recorded Books
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