Srećko Kovač

Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb
  • Institute of Philosophy, Zagreb
    Retired faculty
University of Zagreb
Alumnus, 1992
Zagreb, Croatia
Areas of Interest
Logic and Philosophy of Logic
  •  18
    Faust Vrančić i aristotelizam u logici [Faustus Verantius and Aristotelianism in Logic]
    Prilozi Za Istrazivanje Hrvatske Filozofske Baštine 17 (1-2): 17-33. 1988.
    Faust Vrančić's (Faustus Verantius, 1551-1617) logic is analyzed in comparison to Renaissance Aristotelianism in logic with regard to the problem of determining logic, the subject of logic, and understanding the method. Vrančić's logic is compared to Markantun de Dominis' understanding of logic and to the understanding of logic in Jacopo Zabarella and in the Jesuit Renaissance tradition (P. Fonseca, F. Toletus, F. Suárez). In addition, the concept of science is discussed. "Censura logicae" publ…Read more
  •  11
    Goran Švob (1947–2013) in memoriam
    Prilozi Za Istrazivanje Hrvatske Filozofske Baštine 40 (1): 345-348. 2014.
    Goran Švob was an influential Croatian logician and philosopher or language. According to him, logic should be based on a theory of meaning, propositions and truth, and, in its core, is inseparable from central philosophical questions. Švob was especially inspired by Frege's early logical philosophy. According to Švob, the concept of identity should include naming and knowledge and has self-identity of objects as its "degenerate" case.
  •  163
    The reception of Kant began in Croatia at the turn of the 19th century with the writings of J.B. Horváth, whose textbooks were in use at that time in Croatia and Hungary. Unlike Horváth's decidedly negative attitude toward Kant, Šimun Čučić (Simeon Chuchich), in his systematic work Philosophia Critice Elaborata (1815), adopted some aspects of Kantian philosophy. This includes, for example, the formalistic conception of logic, Kantian apriorism and subjectivism, the formalistic approach to the mo…Read more
  •  16
    We approach the traditional problem of the relationship between opinion and truth, objects and appearances, from the standpoint and tools of logic of belief, combining an informal and technical approach. We describe and comment on some logics of individual concepts and modes of representation, and address the question of how to explain the possibility of a contradictory de re belief integrated with the corresponding non-contradictory de dicto belief. The QB logic is proposed, where the semantic …Read more
  •  144
    Logic has a fundamental role in the philosophy of Franjo Marković (1845-1914). His theory of concepts and reasoning is analyzed, especially with respect to the essential role of the principle of sufficient reason and in connection with the concept of causality. The interplay of various types of evidence in Marković's inductive-deductive logic is analysed by means of contemporary justification logic tools.
  • Bertram Kienzle (Hrsg.): Zustand und Ereignis (review)
    Synthesis Philosophica 11 469-470. 1996.
  •  13
    The Identity and Continuity of Croatian Philosophy
    Prilozi Za Istrazivanje Hrvatske Filozofske Baštine 48 (2): 287-304. 2022.
    After delineating the corpus of Croatian philosophy, the historical and conceptual identity and continuity of Croatian philosophy are analysed with respect to several aspects: (1) the historical space and time of Croatian philosophy; (2) its socio-cultural role and character (educational, linguistic and national-political); (3) its traditions and interconnections; and (4) the idea of Croatian philosophy. Special attention is paid to the difference between Franjo pl. Marković’s views on Croatian …Read more
  •  50
    "The Bounds of Transcendental Logic" by D. Schulting, Cham, Switzerland, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022 (review)
    History and Philosophy of Logic 44 (1): 107-110. 2022.
    In the book, the decisive, foundational role of transcendental apperception for logic and transcendental philosophy in Kant is corroborated. The book contains many implicit connections with modern logic that could help a logician with a philosophical interest to gain a deeper insight into the origins and foundations of concepts such as object, truth, analyticity, identity, contradiction, judgment, existence, reference, quantification and others, as well as into the foundations and possible gener…Read more
  •  65
    Machines, Logic and Wittgenstein
    Philosophia 49 (5): 2103-2122. 2021.
    Wittgenstein’s “machines-as-symbols” are considered with respect to their historical sources and their symbolic and logical nature. Among these sources and precursors, along with Leonardo’s drawings of machines, there are illustrated “machine books”, a kind of book published in the period from the 16th to the 18th centuries which consist of pictures and descriptions of a variety of mechanical devices. Most probably, these books were one of Wittgenstein’s inspirations for his view of machines as …Read more
  •  35
    Introduction to the Special Issue containing selected contributions to the conference "Formal Methods and Science in Philosophy IV", Inter-University Center, Dubrovnik, April 11-13, 2019.
  •  72
    Immanuel Kant: Logic
    Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2020.
    The article focuses on Kant's formal logic (formal theory of concepts, judgments, and inference, general methodology) in the systematic order of logical forms and presents the main characteristics of his transcendental logic (theory of categories and transcendental ideas). Kant's problem of the foundations of logic and its completeness is addressed. The relevance and influence of Kant's account of logic in the development of modern logic is outlined. The article gives a selection of primary an…Read more
  •  56
    Logical Foundations and Kant's Principles of Formal Logic
    History and Philosophy of Logic 41 (1): 48-70. 2020.
    The abstract status of Kant's account of his ‘general logic’ is explained in comparison with Gödel's general definition of a formal logical system and reflections on ‘abstract’ (‘absolute’) concepts. Thereafter, an informal reconstruction of Kant's general logic is given from the aspect of the principles of contradiction, of sufficient reason, and of excluded middle. It is shown that Kant's composition of logic consists in a gradual strengthening of logical principles, starting from a weak princ…Read more
  •  65
    The totality of predicates and the possibility of the most real being
    Journal of Applied Logics - The IfCoLog Journal of Logics and Their Applications 5 (7): 1523-1552. 2018.
    We claim that Kant's doctrine of the "transcendental ideal of pure reason" contains, in an anticipatory sense, a second-order theory of reality (as a second-order property) and of the highest being. Such a theory, as reconstructed in this paper, is a transformation of Kant's metatheoretical regulative and heuristic presuppositions of empirical theories into a hypothetical ontotheology. We show that this metaphysical theory, in distinction to Descartes' and Leibniz's ontotheology, in many aspects…Read more
  •  221
    Concepts, Space-and-Time, Metaphysics (Kant and the dialogue of John 4)
    In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), God, Time, Infinity, De Gruyter. pp. 61-86. 2018.
    Kant's theory of transcendental ideas can be conceived as a sort of model theory for an empirical first-order object theory. The main features of Kant's theory of transcendental ideas (especially its antinomies and their solutions) can be recognized, in a modified way, in a religious discourse as exemplified in the dialogue of Jesus and the Samaritan woman (John 4). In this way, what is by Kant meant merely as regulative ideas obtains a sort of objective reality and becomes a religiously founded…Read more
  •  125
    This paper proposes a possible reconstruction and philosophical-logical clarification of Gödel's idea of causality as the philosophical fundamental concept. The results are based on Gödel's published and non-published texts (including Max Phil notebooks), and are established on the ground of interconnections of Gödel's dispersed remarks on causality, as well as on the ground of his general philosophical views. The paper is logically informal but is connected with already achieved results in th…Read more
  •  21
    Gödel, Kant, and the Path of a Science
    Inquiry: Journal of Philosophy 51 (2): 147-169. 2008.
    Gödel's philosophical views were to a significant extent influenced by the study not only of Leibniz or Husserl, but also of Kant. Both Gödel and Kant aimed at the secure foundation of philosophy, the certainty of knowledge and the solvability of all meaningful problems in philosophy. In this paper, parallelisms between the foundational crisis of metaphysics in Kant's view and the foundational crisis of mathematics in Gödel's view are elaborated, especially regarding the problem of finding the “…Read more
  •  28
    In What Sense is Kantian Principle of Contradiction Non-classical?
    Logic and Logical Philosophy 17 (3): 251-274. 2008.
    On the ground of Kant’s reformulation of the principle of con- tradiction, a non-classical logic KC and its extension KC+ are constructed. In KC and KC+, \neg(\phi \wedge \neg\phi), \phi \rightarrow (\neg\phi \rightarrow \phi), and \phi \vee \neg\phi are not valid due to specific changes in the meaning of connectives and quantifiers, although there is the explosion of derivable consequences from {\phi, ¬\phi} (the deduc- tion theorem lacking). KC and KC+ are interpreted as fragments of an S5-b…Read more
  •  67
    Quine's Platonism and Antiplatonism
    Synthesis Philosophica 14 (1-2): 45-52. 1999.
    Quine rejects intensional Platonism and, with it, also rejects attributes (properties) as designations of predicates. He pragmatically accepts extensional Platonism, but conceives of classes as merely auxiliary entities needed to express some laws of set theory. At the elementary logical level, Quine develops an “ontologically innocent” logic of predicates. What in standard quantification theory is the work of variables is in the logic of predicates the work of a few functors that operate on pre…Read more
  •  68
    Contradictions, Objects, and Belief
    In Jean-Yves Béziau & Alexandre Costa-Leite (eds.), Perspectives on Universal Logic, Polimetrica. pp. 417-434. 2007.
    We show how some model-theoretical devices (local reasoning, modes of presentation, an additional accessibility relation) can be combined in first-order modal logic to formalize the consequence relation that includes de dicto and de re contradictory beliefs. Instead of special ``sense objects'', appearances of objects in an agent's belief are introduced and presented as ordered pairs consisting of an object and an individual constant. A non-classical identity relation is applied. A relation S on…Read more
  •  238
    Causation and intensionality in Aristotelian Logic
    Studia Philosophiae Christianae 49 (2): 117-136. 2013.
    We want to show that Aristotle’s general conception of syllogism includes as its essential part the logical concept of necessity, which can be understood in a causal way. This logical conception of causality is more general then the conception of the causality in the Aristotelian theory of proof (“demonstrative syllogism”), which contains the causal account of knowledge and science outside formal logic. Aristotle’s syllogistic is described in a purely intensional way, without recourse to a set-t…Read more
  •  6
    Impossibilities, identities, and belief
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 12 (3): 1079-8986. 2006.
  •  7
    Logical opposition and collective decisions
    In Jean-Yves Béziau & Dale Jacquette (eds.), Around and Beyond the Square of Opposition, Springer Verlag. pp. 341--356. 2012.
    The square of opposition (as part of a lattice) is used as a natural way to represent different and opposite ways of who makes decisions, and in what way, in/for a group or a society. Majority logic is characterized by multiple logical squares (one for each possible majority), with the “discursive dilemma” as a consequence. Three-valued logics of majority decisions with discursive dilemma undecided, of veto, consensus, and sequential voting are analyzed from the semantic point of view. For insta…Read more
  •  33
    Some weakened Gödelian ontological systems
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 32 (6): 565-588. 2003.
    We describe a KB Gödelian ontological system, and some other weak systems, in a fully formal way using theory of types and natural deduction, and present a completeness proof in its main and specific parts. We technically and philosophically analyze and comment on the systems (mainly with respect to the relativism of values) and include a sketch of some connected aspects of Gödel's relation to Kant.
  •  330
    Gödel's ontological argument is related to Gödel's view that causality is the fundamental concept in philosophy. This explicit philosophical intention is developed in the form of an onto-theological Gödelian system based on justification logic. An essentially richer language, so extended, offers the possibility to express new philosophical content. In particular, theorems on the existence of a universal cause on a causal "slingshot" are formulated.
  •  470
    Logic and Truth in Religious Belief
    In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), God, Truth, and Other Enigmas, De Gruyter. pp. 119-132. 2015.
    Logical reasoning is not only a component of religious faith (cf., for instance, the "Golden rule"), but, in addition, the religious faith itself can be conceived as a logical pragmatic function applied to sentences and their meanings. Pragmatic role of religious faith is shown on the examples of the analogy of seed and spoken word (e.g., Mt 13:3-23) and on the degrees of faith described in the episode about Nicodemus (John 3). Pragmatics adds (different grades of) perseverance to the correctnes…Read more
  •  263
    Modal collapse in Gödel's ontological proof
    In Miroslaw Szatkowski (ed.), Ontological Proofs Today, Ontos Verlag. pp. 50--323. 2012.
    After introductory reminder of and comments on Gödel’s ontological proof, we discuss the collapse of modalities, which is provable in Gödel’s ontological system GO. We argue that Gödel’s texts confirm modal collapse as intended consequence of his ontological system. Further, we aim to show that modal collapse properly fits into Gödel’s philosophical views, especially into his ontology of separation and union of force and fact, as well as into his cosmological theory of the nonobjectivity of the …Read more
  • Što je istina? (review)
    Filozofska Istrazivanja 25 (4): 975-977. 2005.
    A review of the Croatian translation of the book Edo Pivčević, "What is truth", Aldershot: Ashgate [now part of Routledge], 1997.
  •  293
    Forms of Judgment as a Link between Mind and the Concepts of Substance and Cause
    In Miroslaw Szatkowski & Marek Rosiak (eds.), Substantiality and Causality, De Gruyter. pp. 51-66. 2014.
    The paper sets out from Göodel's question about primitive concepts, in connection with Gödel's proposal of the employment of phenomenological method. The author assumes that the answer that can be found in Kant is relevant as a starting point. In a modification of the approach by K. Reich, a reconstruction of Kant's "deduction'' of logical forms of judgment is presented, which serve Kant as the basis for his "metaphysical deduction of categories'' including substantiality and causality. It is pr…Read more
  •  290
    The paper shows that it is possible to obtain a "slingshot" result in Gödel's theory of positiveness in the presence of the theorem of the necessary existence of God. In the context of the reconstruction of Gödel's original "slingshot" argument on the suppositions of non-Fregean logic, this is a natural result. The "slingshot" result occurs in sufficiently strong non-Fregean theories accepting the necessary existence of some entities. However, this feature of a Gödelian theory may be considered …Read more