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Frege famously argued that truth is not a property or relation. In the “Notes on Logic” Wittgenstein emphasised the bi-polarity of propositions which he called their sense. He argued that “propositions by virtue of sense cannot have predicates or relations.” This led to his fundamental thought that the logical constants do not represent predicates or relations. The idea, however, has wider ramifications than that. It is not just that propositions cannot have relations to other propositions but also that they cannot have relations to anything at all. The paper explores the consequences of this insight for the way in which we should read the Tractatus. In the “Notes on Logic” the insight led to Wittgenstein's emphasis on “facts” in any attempt to understand the nature of symbolism. This emphasis is continued in the Tractatus. It is central to his view that propositions are facts which picture facts which prevent us from construing such picturing as a relation between what pictures and what is pictured. It illuminates the importance of context principle with regard to the distinction between showing and saying to which Wittgenstein attached so much importance and it underlies the non-relational view of psychological propositions which he advocates. Finally, if propositions by virtue of sense cannot have predicates or relations the paradox at the end of a work which consist largely of propositions about propositions becomes intelligible.

hese notes don’t reach any conclusions. Their purpose is to point to issues one needs to think through seriously when thinking about logic teaching. They indicate some of the relevant literature where some of these issues are addressed, but they also raise points that seem to have been overlooked. They aim to promote informed discussion. That indeed was their origin: they are descended from an internal discussion document prepared a few years ago when the then Department of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh was reviewing its logic teaching.

George Boole collected ideas for the improvement of his Mathematical analysis of logic(1847) on interleaved copies of that work. Some of the notes on the interleaves are merely minor changes in explanation. Others amount to considerable extension of method in his mathematical approach to logic. In particular, he developed his technique in solving simultaneous elective equations and handling hypotheticals and elective functions. These notes and extensions provided a source for his later book Laws of thought(1854).

The book features the complete text of the Notesi in a critical edition, with a detailed discussion of the circumstances in which they were compiled, leading to ...

These short notes are intended to supplement the lectures and text ntroduce some of the basic concepts of Modal Logic. The primary goal is to provide students in Philosophy 151 at Stanford University with a study guide that will complement the lectures on modal logic. There are many textbooks that you can consult for more information. The following is a list of some texts (this is not a complete list, but a pointer to books that I have found particularly useful).

In 1938 Wittgenstein delivered a short course of lectures on aesthetics to a small group of students at Cambridge. The present volume has been compiled from notes taken down at the time by three of the students: Rush Rhees, Yorick Smythies, and James Taylor. They have been supplemented by notes of conversations on Freud (to whom reference was made in the course on aesthetics) between Wittgenstein and Rush Rhees, and by notes of some lectures on religious belief. As very little is known of Wittgenstein's views on these subjects from his published works, these notes should be of considerable interest to students of contemporary philosophy. Further, their fresh and informal style should recommend Wittgenstein to those who find his Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations a little formidable.

These notes contain the material covered in the second level logic course which has been offered at the Institut für Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung of the University of Stuttgart on an annual basis since 1992. The course is aimed at students who are familiar with the notation and use of the first order predicate calculus but have had little or no previous exposure to metamathematics.

From his return to Cambridge in 1929 to his death in 1951, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who published only one work in his lifetime, influenced philosophy almost exclusively through teaching and discussion. These lecture notes, therefore, are an important record of the development of Wittgenstein's thought; they indicate the interests he maintained in his later years and signal what he considered the salient features of his thinking. Further, the notes from an enlightening addition to his posthumously published writings. P. T. Geach, A. C. Jackson, and K. J. Shah kept meticulous notes from the last formal course that Wittgenstein taught at Cambridge. In order to reconstruct as accurately as possible the words of Wittgenstein, this volume compiles all three sets of notes with no attempt to conflate or edit them beyond rendering them into lucid English. Topics covered by the notes in this volume include the private language argument, the grammar of sensation statements, certainty and experimentation in psychology, and, in general, the same set of concerns as are to be found in his Last Writings and Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology . The source material provided in these lecture notes is vital to Wittgenstein scholarship.

This paper consists of some lecture notes in which conditional logic is treated as an extension of modal logic. Completeness and filtration theorems are provided for some basis systems.