The priority of propositions : a pragmatist philosophy of logic

This monograph is a defence of the Fregean take on logic. The author argues that Frege ́s projects, in logic and philosophy of language, are essentially connected and that the formalist shift produced by the work of Peano, Boole and Schroeder and continued by Hilbert and Tarski is completely alien to Frege's approach in the Begriffsschrift . A central thesis of the book is that judgeable contents, i.e. propositions, are the primary bearers of logical properties, which makes logic embedded in our conceptual system. This approach allows coherent and correct definitions of logical constants, logical consequence, and truth and connects their use to the practices of rational agents in science and everyday life. Preface Reference Acknowledgements About this Book Contents About the Author Abbreviations Part I: The Pragmatist Basis Chapter 1: Pragmatism and Metaphysics: The General Background 1.1 Metaphysics 1.2 The Conceptual Articulation of Reality 1.3 Assertion 1.4 Propositions and the Formality of Logic 1.5 Arguments, Inferences, and Argumentations References Chapter 2: Groundbreaking Principles 2.1 Five Principles 2.2 Two Models of Propositional Individuation 2.3 Propositional Identification 2.4 Logical Propositions 2.4.1 Three Alternative Approaches 2.5 Logic as a Science References Chapter 3: Semantic and Pragmatic Hints in Frege’s Logical Theory 3.1 Frege’s Projects 3.2 The Representation of Abstract Reality 3.3 The Analysis of Discourse 3.4 Two-factor Semantics and the Meaning of Identity 3.5 Special Notions 3.5.1 The Judgement Stroke 3.5.2 The Predicables ‘Is True’ and ‘Is a Fact’ 3.5.3 Implicatures and Presuppositions References Part II: Logical Constants Chapter 4: Implying, Precluding, and Quantifying Over: Frege’s Logical Expressivism 4.1 Logical Expressivism 4.2 The Conditional and Negation 4.3 Negation, Incompatibility, Falsehood 4.4 Expressions of Quantity and Relations Between Concepts References Chapter 5: Lessons from Inferentialism and Invariantism 5.1 What Is the Issue with Logical Constants? 5.2 Analytically Valid Arguments 5.3 Inferentialist Approaches 5.4 The Erlangen Programme 5.5 Invariant Terms of Logic 5.6 A Pragmatist Excursus References Chapter 6: The Inference-Marker View of Logical Notions: What a Pragmatist Proposal Looks Like 6.1 The Proposal 6.2 Some Consequences of (IMV) 6.2.1 Concepts and Propositions 6.2.2 Monadic and Binary Operators 6.3 Inferential Significance 6.4 Genuine Logical Notions References Part III: Further Applications of Propositional Priority Chapter 7: Grue, Tonk, and Russell’s Paradox: What Follows from the Principle of Propositional Priority? 7.1 Paradoxes 7.2 Goodman’s ‘Grue’ 7.3 Prior’s ‘Tonk’ 7.4 Russell’s Paradox 7.5 Taking Stock References Chapter 8: Visual Arguments: What Is at Issue in the Multimodality Debate? 8.1 Multiple Modes 8.2 Non-linguistic Aspects of Linguistic Communication 8.3 Sentences, Pictures, and Relational Linguistic Pragmatism 8.4 Affordances 8.5 Ineffability and Conceptual Articulation 8.6 Visual Thinking in Mathematics 8.7 Some Conclusions References Chapter 9: Truth and Satisfaction: Frege Versus Tarski 9.1 The Scope of Tarski’s Proposal 9.2 Physicalism and the Unity of Science 9.3 Correspondence and Deflationism 9.4 Satisfaction 9.5 Frege on Truth and Judgeable Contents References Chapter 10: Truth Ascriptions as Prosentences: Further Lessons of the Principle of Propositional Priority 10.1 Why Truth Is So Elusive 10.2 The Pragmatist Strategy: Truth Ascriptions and the Fregean Principle of Context 10.3 Proforms 10.4 Pragmatism, Expressivism, and the Priority of the Proposition 10.5 The Prosentential Approach to Truth 10.6 Truth and Assertion References Index