Both logic and philosophy of science investigate formal aspects of scientific discourse, i.e. properties of (non-monotonic) consequence operations for discursive logic. In the present paper we handle two of them: paraconsistency and enthymematycity.
In times of modern information technology, the world of science is becoming smaller. Does this mean that there will be no more provinces? We do not think so. Setting out from Leszek Nowak's thought “province is where one thinks not on one's own account but on account of another,” we indicate a number of processes that perpetuate provinces. These processes are driven by specific access to scientific knowledge, by education, by new forms of communication, by shortage of financial support and (...) the concentration of resources. We look at the interplay between criteria of theory choice and location on the scientific map. Next, we explore the connection between geo-social and scientific provinces, taking into consideration political and cultural parameters. The conceptual framework of metropolises and provinces in science turns out to be, though not all-embracing, an extremely fruitful one. (shrink)
Scientific explanations arc subject to the occurrence of inconsistencies. To rule them out in many cases demands the construction of new theories. As the examples of complementary explanations show, that may take a while. Furthermore, even if possible in principle, it is not always reasonable to eliminate inconsistencies immediately, e.g., by bringing in a more sophisticated formal language. After all, under some circumstances a provisional, not fully coherent explanation may be better than none. In any case, we need a logically (...) controlled approach to such inconsistencies. Modern logic provides the tools which are necessary to solve this task. We will mention two alternative approaches. (shrink)
Causality is a concept which is sometimes claimed to be easy to illustrate, but hard to explain. It is not quite clear whether the former part of this claim is as obvious as the latter one. I will not present any specific theory of causation. Our aim is much less ambitious; to investigate the formal counterparts of causal relations between events, i.e. to propose a formal framework which enables us to construct metamathematical counterparts of causal relations between singular events. This (...) should be a good starting point to define formal counterparts for concepts like causal law, causal explanation and so on. (shrink)
Classical logic, intuitionism, relevant logics and many other systems try to express implication as an entailment. The Jaskowski system Qf describes implication in connection with causality. Syntactic properties of Qf have been examined by Pieczkowski [4], [5]. The semantic characterization of Qf is the aim of this paper.
At a conference in Athen some time ago, I had the honour to comment on Aldo Bressan’s lecture “On certain notions, partly extensional and partly modal, relevant for the semantics of general relativity”. A version of this lecture constitutes the first part of his paper “Again on relativistic semantics”. At Aldo Bressan’s request, I will outline the criticism put forward at the Athens conference. My comment does not, however, pertain to the second part of the preceding publication. Bressan’s considerations on (...) time and causality — which in fact illustrate the capability of the previously explained technical apparatus — are enlightening and truly stimulating. (shrink)
Science today is an international business, of course, and there has hardly ever been a partition wall between the logical work in Poland and Germany. However, apart from long lasting personal scientific contacts there are good reasons to further intensify the relations between the German and the Polish Community of Logic and Logical Philosophy. So it was only natural to think about bringing them together at a scientific event in a friendly environment. This idea was carried out as a common (...) initiative of the Polish Association for Logic and Theory of Science (PTL) and of the German based Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP). The First German-Polish Workshop on Logic and Logical Philosophy was held in Bachotek/Poland from September 10.–13., 1995. It was organized by Kazimierz Świrydowicz (PTL), Heinrich Wansing (GAP) and Max Urchs (both). This part of the present volume of Logic and Logical Philosophy is not the proceedings of the workshop. On one hand, not all the papers presented at the workshop (see previous page for the programme) are attended to this volume. Due to their more technical character, the contributions of Gregory Restall, Tomasz Skura, Heinrich Wansing, Andrzej Wroński and others will appear in the next number of Reports on Mathematical Logic. Some papers included in this issue were changed considerably for publication. On the other hand, colleagues who intended to join the workshop but had to cancel for some reason were invited to submit their material, too. We would like to thank the editors of both journals very kindly for their suggestion to publish the submitted material. (shrink)
Since the late eighties, a sequel of annual workshops on logic and analytic philosophy has been held on the Island of Poel near Wismar, close to both Gottlob Frege’s grave and to his house in Bad Kleinen. The meeting last year, however, was held in Graal-Müritz and was devoted to Ontologic. It was organised by Jerzy Perzanowski, Uwe Scheffler and Max Urchs. The present number of Logic and Logical Philosophy is not exactly the proceedings of the 94’ conference. On one (...) hand, not all the papers presented at the workshop (see next page for the programme) are included in this volume, while others were changed considerably. On the other hand, colleagues who were to come but had to cancel for some reason were invited to submit their material, too. (shrink)
Lying is an ubiquitous element of communication. Amazingly enough, the topic is almost completely ignored by traditional logic. The usual example, Eubulides’ antinomy, is not a good one: intuitively, “the Liar” doesn’t lie. There are not many further approaches to be found in the literature. Why is this? There are quite a few reasons. We will consider them one by one and disclose further properties of lies at the same time. We sketch a general framework for the formal analysis of (...) lying. As a result we observe that non-adjunctive calculi fits in here quite comfortably. (shrink)
Cognitive psychology investigates the structural properties of human reasoning. We review some achievements of this kind of research and give a critical evaluation of its methods.
It seems that Polish logic has always been open to considerationsconcerning the use of methods and results of formal logic within disciplines.We overview a couple of such Polish contributions to what may be called therealm of applied logic. We take a closer look at the formalization of naturalreasoning, inconsistency-tolerant logic, and at the formal analysis of causalnexus.
Considering the growing need for formal counterparts of causal nexus (AI is desperately looking for a good one!) and thus trying to construct appropriate relations within a formal framework one faces the problem that the notion of “causal connection” is by no means explained with sufficient precision. How to overcome the resulting difficulties?
The author points out that in some cases there are two distinct descriptions of the same phenomenon. The first one by means of the theory of chaos, the second - by the theory of causal relationship. The thesis is that these descriptions are not inconsistent but appear at different levels of abstraction.
