This paper introduces the special issue on the Concept of God of the Journal of Applied Logics (College Publications). The issue contains the following articles: Logic and the Concept of God, by Stanisław Krajewski and Ricardo Silvestre; Mathematical Models in Theology. A Buber-inspired Model of God and its Application to “Shema Israel”, by Stanisław Krajewski; Gödel’s God-like Essence, by Talia Leven; A Logical Solution to the Paradox of the Stone, by Héctor Hernández Ortiz and Victor Cantero; No New Solutions to (...) the Logical Problem of the Trinity, by Beau Branson; What Means ‘Tri-’ in ‘Trinity’ ? An Eastern Patristic Approach to the ‘Quasi-Ordinals’, by Basil Lourié; The Éminence Grise of Christology: Porphyry’s Logical Teaching as a Cornerstone of Argumentation in Christological Debates of the Fifth and Sixth Centruies, by Anna Zhyrkova; The Problem of Universals in Late Patristic Theology, by Dirk Krasmüller; Intuitionist Reasoning in the Tri-unitrian Theology of Nicolas of Cues, by Antonino Drago. (shrink)

The so-called theory of karma is one of the distinguishing aspects of Hinduism and other non-Hindu south-Asian traditions. At the same time that the theory can be seen as closely connected with the freedom of will and action that we humans supposedly have, it has many times been said to be determinist and fatalist. The purpose of this paper is to analyze in some deepness the relations that are between the theory of karma on one side and determinism, fatalism and (...) free-will on the other side. In order to do that, I shall use what has been described as the best formal approach we have to indeterminism: branching time theory. More specifically, I shall introduce a branching time semantic framework in which, among other things, statements such as “state of affairs e is a karmic effect of agent a”, “a wills it to be the case that e” and “e is inevitable” could be properly represented. (shrink)

While the failure of the so-called classical theory of concepts - according to which definitions are the proper way to characterize concepts - is a consensus, metaphysical philosophy of religion still deals with the concept of God in a predominantly definitional way. It thus seems fair to ask: Does this failure imply that a definitional characterization of the concept of God is equally untenable? The first purpose of this paper is to answer this question. I focus on the representational side (...) of the matter. My goal is to analyze the extent to which the most important problems raised against the classical view of concepts affect a definitional-representational approach to the concept of God. The second purpose of the paper is to deepen into these issues, arguing for a pluralistic view of concepts and outlining a hybrid special theory of concepts, called the theory of ideal concepts. The theory is special because it deals with a special sort of concepts that I call ideal concepts; it is hybrid because, in addition to definitions, it uses another structure in the characterization of concepts: ideals. My goal is to argue that when applied to the concept of God and added to a pluralistic view of concepts, this theory can function as a tenable representational theory of the concept of God. (shrink)

In this paper I try to answer four basic questions: (1) How the concept of God is to be represented? (2) Are there any logical principles governing it? (3) If so, what kind of logic lies behind them? (4) Can there be a logic of the concept of God? I address them by presenting a formal-logical account to the concept of God. I take it as a methodological desideratum that this should be done within the simplest existing logical formalism. I (...) start with first-order logic (FOL) with identity, and then show that its simplest modal extension (SQML, or the simplest quantified modal logic) is enough for us to formalize a minimally satisfactory theory of the concept of God. I focus exclusively on the monotheistic concept of God. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to clarify or explicate the concept of theodicy. More specifically, I shall provide an account of the concept that takes its logical aspects seriously into consideration as well as satisfies the basic intuitions philosophers of religions have had about it. This shall be done by systematically analysing the several theodical conditions found in the literature. As it shall be seen, these conditions are logically related to one another; collectively, they point not to one, but (...) to several concepts of theodicy. Thus, as by-product of this explicatory endeavour, I shall provide a logically guided, I may say, analysis of such conditions as well as a systematization of the theodical concepts arising from them. I shall follow what might be termed a semiformal approach; despite not developing a full logical theory, I use the standard notation and some important results from the field of formal logic. (shrink)

In this paper I present a formalization of the theory of ideal concepts applied to the concept of God. It is done within a version of the Simplest Quantified Modal Logic (SQML) and attempts to solve three meta-problems related to the concept of God: the unicity of extension problem, the homogeneity/heterogeneity problem and the problem of conceptual unity.

Induction, conceived as the class of rational non-truth preserving inferences, has been a perennial problem in philosophy. Aside from the problem of justification of induction, a less debated issue is the problem of properly describing inductive inferences. The purpose of this book is to conceptually investigate this descriptive problem of induction from the standpoint of the nonmonotonic logical tradition raised inside the field of Artificial Intelligence in the last thirty years. As we try to show, an essential part of this (...) enterprise involves the analysis of a pragmatically oriented notion of probability, called by us inductive plausibility. This in turn is made from the viewpoint of paraconsistency ? which according to some is the unavoidable companion of nonmonotonicity ? and modal logic. We therefore put forward a nonmonotonic, paraconsistent and modal approach to induction and plausibility. The book shall be useful to philosophers, logicians and computer scientists interested in the problem of induction in general and in the logical analysis of induction and plausibility in particular. (shrink)

The terms “model” and “model-building” have been used to characterize the field of formal philosophy, to evaluate philosophy’s and philosophical logic’s progress and to define philosophical logic itself. A model is an idealization, in the sense of being a deliberate simplification of something relatively complex in which several important aspects are left aside, but also in the sense of being a view too perfect or excellent, not found in reality, of this thing. Paraconsistent logic is a branch of philosophical logic. (...) It is however not clear how paraconsistent logic can be seen as model-building. What exactly is modeled? In this paper I adopt the perspective of looking at a particular instance of paraconsistent logic—paranormal modal logic—which might be seen as a model of a specific kind of agent: inductive agents. After ntroducing what I call the highlevel and low-level models of inductive agents, I analyze the extent to which the above-mentioned idealizing features of model-building appear in paranormal modal logic and how they affect its philosophical significance. (shrink)

Meu propósito aqui é jogar alguma luz sobre duas perguntas: “Em que sentido a lógica éfilosófica?” e “O que é lógica filosófica?”. Tomo essas duas questões como sendo coextensivas: umaresposta à uma delas é também (ou pode ser facilmente transformada em) uma resposta à outra.Tentarei trabalhar a partir de três perspectivas: uma perspectiva conceitual, uma descritiva e umaprescritiva. Sendo mais específico, tentarei responder às seguintes perguntas: (i) Em que sentido alógica pode ser tomada como filosófica? (ii) Em que sentido a (...) lógica tem sido tomada como filosófica?(iii) Em que sentido a lógica deve ser tomada como filosófica? Para tanto, analisarei trechos pontuais decinco obras nos quais determinada significação é atribuída a expressão “lógica filosófica”. Asignificações elencadas são então objetos de análise crítica: tento avaliar quais dessas alternativas nãose sustentam como respostas satisfatórias à (iii). O resultado dessa análise é então utilizado como pontode partida para minha própria resposta à questão (iii). (shrink)

My purpose in this chapter is to take seriously the idea that problem of evil is an incompatibility between the proposition that the world was created and is ruled by an omnipotent, omniscient and unlimitedly good being and one that says that there is evil and suffering in our world. Besides being in accordance with much of the literature on the problem of evil, this idea takes the problem at face value, that is to say, it sees it as a (...) logical and incompatibility problem. More important than that, it allows for a comprehensive and elegant account of the key concepts involved in the debate: despite contrary appearances, the concept of problem of evil itself, the concept of argument from evil, the concepts of logical and evidential problems of evil and the concepts of theodicy and defense can be seen and defined from the standpoint of the same general idea about the problem of evil. (shrink)

Ao mesmo tempo que o malogro da assim chamada teoria clássica dos conceitos - de acordo com a qual definições são a maneira apropriada de caracterizar conceitos - é um consenso, a filosofia metafísica da religião parece ainda lidar com o conceito de Deus de forma predominantemente definicional. Podemos então nos perguntar: Seria esse malogro suficiente para inviabilizar uma caracterização definicional do conceito de Deus? Meu propósito central neste artigo é responder essa pergunta. Adoto uma ênfase representacional. Em outras palavras, (...) desejo analisar até que ponto os problemas mais importantes levantados contra a teoria clássica dos conceitos afetam uma abordagem definicional-representacional do conceito de Deus. Como resultado desse esforço, mostro que as críticas à teoria clássica que ameaçam tal abordagem dependem da pluralidade característica ao contexto inter-religioso, que por si só cria outros problemas. (shrink)

In this article, I address some higher-order issues involving the concept of God that arise within a pluralistic context: the problem of conceptual unity, the problem of unicity of extension and the problem of homogeneity/heterogeneity. My proposal to solve these questions involves a special hybrid theory of concepts, called the theory of ideal concepts. I argue that when associated with a pluralistic vision of concepts, and formalized within a possible world structure, such theory provides a satisfactory answer to these problems. (...) The formalization is based on a specific version of the Simplest Quantified Modal Logic (SQML), and its presentation is exclusively semantic, keeping technical details to a minimum. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to the project of meta-theodicy, understood here as the elucidation of the concept of theodicy through the analysis of its adequacy. In our case, the analysis shall be made inside a framework including a taxonomical view of the theodical adequacy conditions which allows for a rigorously acceptable description of them as well as for a natural appraisal of the role, importance and intra-logical relations holding between them. The result of the analysis shall (...) be used to introduce definitions minimally precise of the notions of theodicy, satisfactory theodicy, plausible theodicy, ideal theodicy, and the like. (shrink)

This volume deals with the relation between faith and reason, and brings the latest developments of modern logic into the scene. Faith and rationality are two perennial key concepts in the history of ideas. Philosophers and theologians have struggled to bring into harmony these otherwise conflicting concepts. Despite the diversity of approaches about what rationality effectively means, logic remains the cannon of objective and rational thought. The chapters in this volume analyze several issues pertaining to the philosophy of religion and (...) philosophical theology from the perspective of their relation to logic and the benefit they can derive from the use of modern logic tools. The book is divided into five parts: (I) Introduction, (II) Analytic Philosophy of Religion, (III) Logical Philosophy of Religion, (IV) Computational Philosophy and Religion and (V) Logic, Language and Religion. This text appeals to students and researchers in the field. (shrink)

O propósito deste livro é preencher a lacuna existente no mercado editorial brasileiro no que diz respeito a obras de cunho acadêmico sobre hinduísmo e filosofia indiana. Essa lacuna se reflete, dentre outras, na inexistência de publicações em português que pretendam ir além do mero aspecto introdutório deste que é um dos maiores clássicos da literatura religiosa indiana e mundial: a Bhagavad-gita; também se reflete na inexistência de literatura especializada sobre as várias tradições indianas que têm a Bhagavad- gita como (...) um de seus textos canônicos. -/- Reunindo professores e pesquisadores do Brasil, Israel, Estados Unidos e Reino Unido, este volume apresenta uma visão acadêmica e acessível da Bhagavad-gita centrada em dois aspectos principais: introdução e contextualização da Gita no que se refere à sua história, estrutura e conceitos-chave, de um lado, e análise detalhada de algumas das noções e temas mais relevantes do texto, de outro. Também proporciona visão geral de uma das tradições da Índia - tanto vedanta como vaishava - que mais sofreram influência da teologia e filosofia da Bhagavad-gita: o vaishnavismo gaudiya de Caitanya (1486-1533). -/- O livro encontra-se estruturado em três grupos, ou partes. A primeira, intitulada "Visão Geral da Bhagavad-gita", é composta de dois capítulos e tem como objetivo introduzir o leitor ao Gita como um todo. A segunda, intitulada "Conceitos e Tópicos-Chave da Bhagavad-gita", contém cinco capítulos, cada um centrado na análise de um conceito ou tópico específico da Gita. A terceira e última parte, intitulada "Hinduísmo e Vaishnavismo", é composta por três capítulos e visa apresentar o vaishnavismo, mais especificamente o vaishnavismo gaudiya, situando-o dentro do contexto mais geral do que hoje se denomina hinduísmo. (shrink)

This is the handbook of abstracts of the 1st World Congress on Logic and Religion, which took place in João Pessoa, Brazil, April 01-05, 2015. -/- .

This paper is an effort to realize and explore the connections that exist between nonmonotonic logic and confirmation theory. We pick up one of the most wide-spread nonmonotonic formalisms – default logic – and analyze to what extent and under what adjustments it could work as a logic of induction in the philosophical sense. By making use of this analysis, we extend default logic so as to make it able to minimally perform the task of a logic of induction, having (...) as a result a system which we believe has interesting properties from the standpoint of theory of confirmation. It is for instance able to represent chains of inductive rules as well as to reason paraconsistently on the conclusions obtained from them. We then use this logic to represent some traditional ideas concerning confirmation theory, in particular the ones proposed by Carl Hempel in his classical paper "Studies in the Logic of Confirmation" of 1945 and the ones incorporated in the so-called abductive and hy-pothetico-deductive models. (shrink)

Is it possible to combine different logics into a coherent system with the goal of applying it to specific problems so that it sheds some light on foundational aspects of those logics? These are two of the most basic issues of combining logics. Paranormal modal logic is a combination of paraconsistent logic and modal logic. In this paper, I propose two further combinatory developments, focusing on each one of these two issues. On the foundational side, I combine paranormal modal logic (...) with normal modal logic, resulting into a paraconsistent and paracomplete multimodal logic dealing with the notions of plausibility and certainty. On the application side, I combine this logic with Reiter’s default logic, resulting into an inductive and consequently nonmonotonic paraconsistent and paracomplete logic able to represent some key inductive principles. (shrink)

Sáo dois os propósitos deste artigo. Primeiro desejamos examinar porque o projeto de Carnap de construir uma lógica indutiva náo foi bem sucedido. De forma a realizar isso, nos apoiaremos na distinçáo entre o problema da justificaçáo da induçáo e o problema da descriçáo da induçáo. Tentaremos mostrar que a principal razáo pela qual o projeto de Carnap falhou foi sua relaçáo com o problema da justificaçáo da induçáo. Nosso segundo objetivo é propor algumas idéias de como seria um lógica (...) da induçáo que propositadamente evite o problema da justificaçáo e possa consequentemente ser chamada de uma lógica puramente descritiva da induçáo. Utilizaremos para isso um conceito de probabilidade presente no Logical Foudations of Probability de Carnap chamada por ele de probabilidade pragmática. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to shed some light on two questions: In what sense is logic philosophical? And what is philosophical logic? I take these two questions as co-extensive: an answer to one of them is also (or can easily be converted into) an answer to the other. I approach the problem from three perspectives: a conceptual, a descriptive and a prescriptive perspective. In other words, I try to answer the following questions: (i) In what sense can logic (...) be taken as philosophical? (ii) In what sense has logic been taken as philosophical? (iii) In what sense should logic be taken as philosophical? To this end, I analyze excerpts from five works in which meanings are attributed to the expression “philosophical logic”. The meanings are then object of critical analysis: I try to assess which of these semantical alternatives do not hold up as satisfactory answers to (iii). The result of this analysis is then used as a starting point for my own answer to question (iii). (shrink)

O objetivo geral deste artigo é o de fazer algumas considerações teoréticas sobre o aspecto inferencial da Lógica dos Diálogos Inteligentes dentro do quadro conceitual fornecido pelas lógicas do senso comum desenvolvidas dentro da Inteligência Artificial. Mais especificamente, tentarei mostrar aqui que, para bem cumprir o seu papel, a LDI deve possuir uma maneira de representar as inferências não-monotônicas. Como argumento principal, defenderei a tese de que a não-monotonicidade é uma característica intrínseca à compreensão e uso da linguagem. O principal (...) fenômeno relacionado com a linguagem natural utilizado como evidência para essa tese será o fenômeno do uso não literal da linguagem. (shrink)

Este livro se propõe a ser uma introdução fácil e acessível, porém rigorosa e tecnicamente precisa, à lógica. Prioridade é dada à clareza e lucidez na explicação das definições e teoremas, bem como à aplicação prática da lógica na análise de argumentos. O livro foi concebido de forma a permitir sua utilização por qualquer pessoa interessada em aprender lógica, independentemente de sua área de atuação ou bagagem teórica prévia. Em especial, ele deve ser útil a estudantes e professores de filosofia, (...) computação e matemática. (shrink)

This book analyses the concepts of God in Vaisnavism, which is commonly referred to as one of the great Hindu monotheistic traditions. Addressing the question of what attributes God possesses according to particular textual sources and traditions in Vaisnavism, the book analyses Vaisnava traditions and texts in order to locate them within a global philosophical framework. The book is divided into two sections. The first one, God in Vaisnava Texts, deals with concepts of God found in the canonical Vaisnava texts: (...) the Bhavagad Gita, the Bhagavata Purana, the Pancaratras, and the Mahabharata. The second section, God in Vaisnava Traditions, addresses concepts of God found in several Vaisnava traditions and their respective key theologians. As well as the Alvars, five traditional Vaisnava schools- the Sri Vaisnava tradition, the Madhva tradition, the Nimbarka tradition, the Pustimarga tradition, and the Caitanya Vaisnava tradition- and two contemporary ones Ramakrishna's and Swami Bhaktivedanta's are considered. The book combines normative, critical and descriptive elements. Some chapters are philosophical in nature, others are more descriptive, unpacking a specific Vaiṣṇava concept of God for future philosophical analysis and critique. Written by experts who break new ground in presenting and representing a diversity of Vaiṣṇava texts and tradition, the book presents approaches that reflect the amount of philosophical and historical deliberation on the specific issues and divine attributes considered. This book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of philosophy of religion and Indian philosophy, cross-cultural and comparative philosophy, analytic philosophy of religion, Hindu studies, theology and religious studies. (shrink)