Online research in philosophy

This handbook introduces the reader both to the tradi tional logic of the syllogism and to modern symbolic logic.

D. GABBAY and F. GUENTHNER (eds.), Handbook of philosophical logic. Volume 1: Elements of classical logic. Dordrecht, Boston, and Lancaster: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1983. xiv + 497 pp. Dfl225/$98.00.

The first edition of the Handbook of Philosophical Logic (four volumes) was published in the period 1983-1989 and has proven to be an invaluable reference work ...

The Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference is an authoritative reference work in a single volume, designed for the attention of senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in all the leading research areas concerned with the logic of practical argument and inference. After an introductory chapter, the role of standard logics is surveyed in two chapters. These chapters can serve as a mini-course for interested readers, in deductive and inductive logic, or as a refresher. Then follow two chapters of criticism; one the internal critique and the other the empirical critique. The first deals with objections to standard logics (as theories of argument and inference) arising from the research programme in philosophical logic. The second canvasses criticisms arising from work in cognitive and experimental psychology. The next five chapters deal with developments in dialogue logic, interrogative logic, informal logic, probability logic and artificial intelligence. The last chapter surveys formal approaches to practical reasoning and anticipates possible future developments. Taken as a whole the Handbook is a single-volume indication of the present state of the logic of argument and inference at its conceptual and theoretical best. Future editions will periodically incorporate significant new developments.

I conceive of inductive logic as a project of explication. The explicandum is one of the meanings of the word `probability' in ordinary language; I call it inductive probability and argue that it is logical, in a certain sense. The explicatum is a conditional probability function that is specified by stipulative definition. This conception of inductive logic is close to Carnap's, but common objections to Carnapian inductive logic (the probabilities don't exist, are arbitrary, etc.) do not apply to this conception.

Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 10, eds. Dov Gabbay, Stephan Hartmann, and John Woods, forthcoming.