What is Worldly Logic and Why Might it Lead to Suicide? Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, and the Critique of Logic

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 459-487
Author(s):  
Charles Djordjevic
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy

Abstract In contemporary philosophy, there is a growing interest in how Søren Kierkegaard’s metaphilosophy and philosophical methodology may have influenced Ludwig Wittgenstein. This paper contributes to this discussion by arguing that each shares and critiques a particular conception of logic that I term “worldly logic.” Roughly, “worldly logic” contends logic and metaphysics are intimately interconnected. It further argues that reading Kierkegaard’s brief thoughts on logic, in the Climacus texts, through the lens of the later Wittgenstein, helps to clarify the nature of Kierkegaard’s critique. Finally, it argues that their shared abhorrence of a particular sort of philosophy of logic is principled and apt.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Sanford Shieh
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Gottlob Frege ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Issue

This chapter presents the principal philosophical issue of the book: is the nature of logic specified by the concepts of necessity and possibility? According to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, the answer is no, because these concepts of modality are empty: there are no genuine distinctions among the necessary, the possible and the actual. The upshot for Frege and Russell is that logic is fundamental, and modality is to be reconstructed from logical notions. This chapter continues with a brief outline of Volume II of this work: how C. I. Lewis and Ludwig Wittgenstein argued against the anti-modal stance of Frege and Russell. I conclude with a note on the significance of this aspect of early analytic philosophy for contemporary philosophy of logic and modality.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 245-246
Author(s):  
Oskari Kuusela
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Language Games ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Logical Models ◽  
The Status ◽  
Specific Sense ◽  
Bold Claim

In the Introduction I made the bold claim that Wittgenstein transforms Frege’s and Russell’s logical and methodological ideas in a way that ‘can be justifiably described as a second revolution in philosophical methodology and the philosophy of logic, following Frege’s and Russell’s first revolution’. This claim was meant in a specific sense relating to the use of logical methods in philosophy, a discipline where we are often dealing with complex and messy concepts and phenomena, and having to clarify highly complicated and fluid uses of natural language. The situation is not quite the same in metamathematics, for example, and my claim was not intended to concern the employment of logical methods there, i.e. that Wittgenstein’s later philosophy of logic would constitute a revolution in this area too. For, while his later philosophy of logic has no difficulty explaining the possibility of the employment of calculi to clarify other calculi, in metamathematics there is perhaps no similarly pressing need for idealization as in philosophy, when we clarify complex concepts originating in ordinary language, since the targets of clarification in metamathematics are systems governed by strict rules themselves. Thus, this area of the employment of logical methods seems not as significantly affected. But I hope that my claim concerning the use of logical methods in philosophy can now be recognized as justified, or at least worth considering seriously, on the basis of what I have said about 1) the later Wittgenstein’s account of the status of logical clarificatory models, and how this explains the possibility of simple and exact logical descriptions, thus safeguarding the rigour of logic, 2) how his account of the function of logical models makes possible the recognition of the relevance of natural history for logic without compromising the non-empirical character of the discipline of logic, and 3) in the light of Wittgenstein’s introduction of new non-calculus-based logical methods for the purpose of philosophical clarification, such as his methods of grammatical rules, the method of language-games, and quasi-ethnology....

What Would a Phenomenology of Logic Look Like?

Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 129 (516) ◽  
pp. 1009-1031
Author(s):  
James Kinkaid
Keyword(s):  
Logical Consequence ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Consequence Relations ◽  
Consequence Relation ◽  
If Logic ◽  
Pure Logic ◽  
Logical Investigations ◽  
Normative Status ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract The phenomenological movement begins in the Prolegomena to Husserl’s Logical Investigations as a philosophy of logic. Despite this, remarkably little attention has been paid to Husserl’s arguments in the Prolegomena in the contemporary philosophy of logic. In particular, the literature spawned by Gilbert Harman’s work on the normative status of logic is almost silent on Husserl’s contribution to this topic. I begin by raising a worry for Husserl’s conception of ‘pure logic’ similar to Harman’s challenge to explain the connection between logic and reasoning. If logic is the study of the forms of all possible theories, it will include the study of many logical consequence relations; by what criteria, then, should we select one (or a distinguished few) consequence relation(s) as correct? I consider how Husserl might respond to this worry by looking to his late account of the ‘genealogy of logic’ in connection with Gurwitsch’s claim that ‘[i]t is to prepredicative perceptual experience … that one must return for a radical clarification and for the definitive justification of logic’. Drawing also on Sartre and Heidegger, I consider how prepredicative experience might constrain or guide our selection of a logical consequence relation and our understanding of connectives like implication and negation.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic

2009 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
A Priority ◽  
Correct Reasoning

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Math and Logic is a reference about the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of logic. Mathematics and logic have been central topics of concern since the dawn of philosophy. Since logic is the study of correct reasoning, it is a fundamental branch of epistemology and a priority in any philosophical system. Philosophers have focused on mathematics as a case study for general philosophical issues and for its role in overall knowledge-gathering. Today, philosophy of mathematics and logic remain central disciplines in contemporary philosophy, as evidenced by the regular appearance of articles on these topics in the best mainstream philosophical journals; in fact, the last decade has seen an explosion of scholarly work in these areas. This volume covers these disciplines, giving the reader an overview of the major problems, positions, and battle lines. The twenty-six articles are by established experts in the field, and these articles contain both exposition and criticism as well as substantial development of their own positions.

The Meaning of Meaning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Adequate Theory ◽  
Logical Atomism ◽  
The Social ◽  
And Linguistics ◽  
Semiotic Theory

This chapter outlines the semiotic theory presented in Ogden and Richards’ 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning and examines the historical context in which it was written. The motivating concern that runs through the entire book is the establishment of an adequate theory to fight the dangers of ‘word-magic’, the confusions engendered through ignorance of the workings of language. The chief influences on Ogden and Richards are shown to be the logical atomism of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein and the significs of Victoria Lady Welby. The broader intellectual background of contemporary philosophy, psychology and linguistics against which these ideas were developed is also discussed, along with the influence of the social and political climate of the time.

A Realistic Criticism of a Contemporary Philosophy of Logic

1939 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Bross ◽  
George J. Bowdery
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy

Wittgenstein on Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliet Floyd
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Short Review ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Foundations Of Mathematics ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
And Mathematics

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) wrote as much on the philosophy of mathematics and logic as he did on any other topic, leaving at his death thousands of pages of manuscripts, typescripts, notebooks, and correspondence containing remarks on (among others) Brouwer, Cantor, Dedekind, Frege, Hilbert, Poincaré, Skolem, Ramsey, Russell, Gödel, and Turing. He published in his lifetime only a short review (1913) and the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), a work whose impact on subsequent analytic philosophy's preoccupation with characterizing the nature of logic was formative. Wittgenstein's reactions to the empiricistic reception of his early work in the Vienna Circle and in work of Russell and Ramsey led to further efforts to clarify and adapt his perspective, stimulated in significant part by developments in the foundations of mathematics of the 1920s and 1930s; these never issued in a second work, though he drafted and redrafted writings more or less continuously for the rest of his life.

The Philosophy of Charles Travis

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Ludwig Wittgenstein ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Gottlob Frege ◽  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Perceptual Representation ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Speech Content

The work of Charles Travis belongs to the analytical tradition, yet is also radically at odds with many assumptions characteristic of the tradition. Such an approach, while being at odds with some dominant strains of thought, does speak to a strand of the analytical tradition running from Frege, through Cook Wilson, Wittgenstein, and Austin, up to aspects of contemporary thinkers as diverse as Chomsky and McDowell. This volume is the first of its kind. It collects thirteen previously unpublished papers, including one of the last papers of the late Hilary Putnam, that tackle a range of issues arising in Travis’s work, offering both critical and positive responses. The volume also includes detailed replies by Travis to each of the papers and an introductory chapter by the editors that situates Travis’s ideas in the context of contemporary philosophy of language and mind. The volume divides into three sections, relating to language, thought, and perception. Topics covered in detail include: the character of linguistic and perceptual representation; the nature and evidential role of intuitions; Gottlob Frege; Ludwig Wittgenstein; the role of context in fixing speech content; and the structure of thought.

scholarly journals Rejectivism and the Challenge of Pragmatic Contradictions

Disputatio ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (43) ◽  
pp. 253-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Martin
Keyword(s):  
Speech Act ◽  
Philosophy Of Logic ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Logical Notion ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract Rejectivism is one of the most influential embodiments of pragmatism within contemporary philosophy of logic, advancing an explanation of the meaning of a logical notion, negation, in terms of the speech act of denial. This paper offers a challenge to rejectivism by proposing that in virtue of explaining negation in terms of denial, the rejectivist ought to be able to explain the concept of contradiction partially in terms of denial. It is argued that any failure to achieve this constitutes an explanatory failure on the part of rejectivism, and reasons are then provided to doubt that the challenge can be successfully met.

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