Three leading philosopher-logicians present a clear and concise overview of formal theories of truth, explaining key logical techniques. Truth is as central topic in philosophy: formal theories study the connections between truth and logic, including the intriguing challenges presented by paradoxes like the Liar.

The fundamental problem of Christology is the apparent contradiction of Christ as recorded at Chalcedon. Christ is human and Christ is divine. Being divine entails being immutable. Being human entails being mutable. Were Christ two different persons there’d be no apparent contradiction. But Chalcedon rules as much out. Were Christ only partly human or only partly divine there’d be no apparent contradiction. But Chalcedon rules as much out. Were the very meaning of ‘mutable’ and/or ‘immutable’ other than what they are, (...) there’d be no apparent contradiction. But the meaning is what it is, and changing the meaning of our terms to avoid the apparent contradiction of Christ is an apparent flight from reality. What, in the end, is the explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ? Theologians and philosophers have long advanced many consistency-seeking answers, all of which increase the metaphysical or semantical complexity of the otherwise strikingly simple but radical core of Christianity’s GodMan. In this paper, I put the simplest explanation on the theological table: namely, Christ appears to be contradictory because Christ is contradictory. This explanation may sound complicated to the many who are steeped in the mainstream account of logic according to which logic precludes the possibility of true contradictions. But the mainstream account of logic can and should be rejected. Ridding theology of the dogma of mainstream logic illuminates the simple though striking explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ — namely, that Christ is a contradictory being. Just as the simplest explanation to the apparent roundness of the earth has earned due acceptance, so too should the simplest explanation of the apparent contradiction of Christ. (shrink)

Consequence is at the heart of logic; an account of consequence, of what follows from what, offers a vital tool in the evaluation of arguments. Since philosophy itself proceeds by way of argument and inference, a clear view of what logical consequence amounts to is of central importance to the whole discipline. In this book JC Beall and Greg Restall present and defend what thay call logical pluralism, the view that there is more than one genuine deductive consequence relation, a (...) position which has profound implications for many linguists as well as for philosophers. We should not search for one true logic, since there are many. (shrink)

The paper consists of three parts. In the first part five kinds of defeasibility are distinguished that is ontological, conceptual, epistemic, justification and logical defeasibility. In the second part it is argued that from these, justification defeat is the phenomenon that plays a role in legal reasoning. In the third part, the view is defended that non-monotonic logics are not necessary to model justification defeat, but that they are so to speak the natural way to model this phenomenon.

Consequence is at the heart of logic; an account of consequence, of what follows from what, offers a vital tool in the evaluation of arguments. Since philosophy itself proceeds by way of argument and inference, a clear view of what logical consequence amounts to is of central importance to the whole discipline. In this book JC Beall and Greg Restall present and defend what thay call logical pluralism, the view that there is more than one genuine deductive consequence relation, a (...) position which has profound implications for many linguists as well as for philosophers. We should not search for one true logic, since there are many. (shrink)

This paper develops the theory that a set ofrules is consistent if it is not possible that (1)the conditions of the rules in the set are allsatisfied, (2) there is no exception to either one ofthe rules, and (3) the consequences of the rules areincompatible. To this purpose the notion ofconsistency is generalised to make it cover rulesand is relativised to some background of constraints.This theory is formalised by means of Rule Logic, inwhich rules are treated as constraints on thepossible (...) worlds in which they exist. Rule Logicitself is introduced by giving a model-theory forit. It is characterised by means of constraints onworlds that are possible according to Rule Logic. (shrink)

The word ‘empowerment’ has become a popular term, widely used as an important claim, also within the health services. In this paper the concept's philosophical roots are traced from Freire and his ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ to the philosophical thoughts of Hegel, Habermas, and Sartre. An understanding of the concept, as a way to facilitate coping and well‐being in patients through reflection and dialogue, emerges. Within an empowerment strategy the important claim on the nurse and the patient will be to (...) reveal the patient's own resources and limitations in times with sickness and reduced functionality to promote the patient's choice to act and cope. From this point of view an education‐programme for the frail elderly is outlined. If the nurse wants to empower the elderly patient she has to be willing to be educated through the dialogue with the patient, and to look for the patient's own meaning of being frail and elderly. The coping and self‐care solutions for the patient may then even be different from the preferences of the nurse, and this does not mean that the empowerment strategy is a failure or that the patient then has to continue without the assistance from the nurse. Within an empowerment strategy, in the Freirerian sense, the important thing is that both the patient and the nurse together critically reflect on the meanings of the sickness so that the patient can be able to make his own conscious choices. (shrink)

This article argues that it is possible to hold autonomous agents themselves, and not only their makers, users or owners, responsible for the acts of these agents. In this connection autonomous systems are computer programs that interact with the outside world without human interference. They include such systems as ‘intelligent’ weapons and self-driving cars. The argument is based on an analogy between human beings and autonomous agents and its main element asserts that if humans can be held responsible, so can, (...) in principle, autonomous agents, as humans are more like autonomous agents than is often assumed. (shrink)

This paper correlates community service goals from 82 business firms with various organizational characteristics, including goals, niches, structure, context, and performance. The results demonstrate that community-service goals are positively correlated with prestige goals, assets goals, superior-design niche, net assets size, and performance on income to net assets. Community-service goals, however, were not significantly correlated with profit goals, low-price niche, multiplicity of outputs, workflow continuity, qualifications, or centralization, as expected.

Deflationist accounts of truth are widely held in contemporary philosophy: they seek to show that truth is a dispensable concept with no metaphysical depth. However, logical paradoxes present problems for deflationists that their work has struggled to overcome. In this volume of fourteen original essays, a distinguished team of contributors explore the extent to which, if at all, deflationism can accommodate paradox. The volume will be of interest to philosophers of logic, philosophers of language, and anyone working on truth. Contributors (...) include Bradley Armour-Garb, Jody Azzouni, JC Beall, Hartry Field, Christopher Gauker, Michael Glanzberg, Dorothy Grover, Anil Gupta, Volker Halbach, Leon Horsten, Paul Horwich, Graham Priest, Greg Restall, and Alan Weir. (shrink)

In this paper, we distinguish two versions of Curry's paradox: c-Curry, the standard conditional-Curry paradox, and v-Curry, a validity-involving version of Curry's paradox that isn’t automatically solved by solving c-curry. A unified treatment of curry paradox thus calls for a unified treatment of both c-Curry and v-Curry. If, as is often thought, c-Curry paradox is to be solved via non-classical logic, then v-Curry may require a lesson about the structure—indeed, the substructure—of the validity relation itself.

1. In both Benedetto Croce's and Hegel's own terminology, dialectics can be understood as dottrina degli opposti (the doctrine of the opposites – Lehre der Gegensätze).1 In the dialectical process,...

This article is concerned with some of the ramifications of the affective dimension of Fanon’s writing. In their latest book, Commonwealth, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri take Fanon’s attempt to transcend European universality through the struggle for a ‘new universality’ as an exemplary schema that informs their politics of alter-modernity. In the article, I show that the affective dimension of Fanon’s search for a new universality is far more anti- than alter-European, albeit in an ambivalent way. I analyse how this (...) difference between an affective ‘anti’ and an intellectual ‘alter’ arises in Fanon’s analysis and experience of racism. I refer to this particular experience as mis-interpellation and analyse the equally particular affect it generates. More generally, I show that if one is to make use of Fanon’s work today one cannot separate the intellectual and the affective that are so intertwined in his analytical work as Hardt and Negri do. To do so is to abstract from the serious political ramifications that the presence of this affective dimension entails. (shrink)

This paper deals with two issues in the field of reasoning by analogy in the law. The one issue is whether there exists such a thing as analogous rule application, or whether there is only the ‘normal’ application of a broadened rule. It is argued that if rules, as the entities made by a legislator, are distinguished from generalised solutions for cases, the idea of analogous application of rules makes sense. It is also shown how the so-called ‘reason-based model of (...) rule application’, in contrast to the traditional modus ponens or subsumption model, makes it easy to give a logical account of analogous rule application. The other issue is how to argue logically about whether two cases are sufficiently similar to adopt the outcome of the one case for the other case. Section 3 provides a general logical model to establish this. The model is based on the comparison of the reasons for and against a particular solution in the two cases. (shrink)

This paper presents a simple but, by my lights, effective argument for a subclassical account of logic—an account according to which logical consequence is (properly) weaker than the standard, so‐called classical account. Alas, the vast bulk of the paper is setup. Because of the many conflicting uses of ‘logic’ the paper begins, following a disclaimer on logic and inference, by fixing the sense of ‘logic’ in question, and then proceeds to rehearse both the target subclassical account of logic and its (...) well‐known relative (viz., classical logic). With background in place the simple argument—which takes up less than five pages—is advanced. My hope is that the minimal presentation will help to get ‘the simple argument’ plainly on the table, and that subsequent debate can move us forward. (shrink)