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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Foundations of Logico-Linguistics: A Unified Theory of Information, Language, and Logic

Foundations of Logico-Linguistics: A Unified Theory of Information, Language, and Logic

Cooper, W. S.

Paperback

Series: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, Book 2

PhilosophyLinguisticsGeneral Gardening

ISBN10: 9027708762
ISBN13: 9789027708762
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: Apr 30 1978
Pages: 250
Weight: 1.26
Height: 0.82 Width: 6.16 Depth: 9.58
Language: English
In 1962 a mimeographed sheet of paper fell into my possession. It had been prepared by Ernest Adams of the Philosophy Department at Berkeley as a handout for a colloquim. Headed 'SOME FALLACIES OF FORMAL LOGIC' it simply listed eleven little pieces of reasoning, all in ordinary English, and all absurd. I still have the sheet, and quote a couple of the arguments here to give the idea. - If you throw switch S and switch T, the motor will start. There- fore, either if you throw switch S the motor will start, or, if you throw switch T the motor will start . - It is not the case that if John passes history he will graduate. Therefore, John will pass history. The disconcerting thing about these inferences is, of course, that under the customary truth-functional interpretation of and, or, not, and if-then, they are supposed to be valid. What, if anything, is wrong? At first I was not disturbed by the examples. Having at that time consider- able personal commitment to rationality in general and formal logic in par- ticular, I felt it my duty and found myself easily able (or so I thought) to explain away most of them. But on reflection I had to admit that my expla- nations had an ad hoc character, varying suspiciously from example to example.

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