•  3763
    The inseparability of logic and ethics
    Free Inquiry 9 (2): 37-40. 1989.
    This essay takes logic and ethics in broad senses: logic as the science of evidence; ethics as the science justice. One of its main conclusions is that neither science can be fruitfully pursued without the virtues fostered by the other: logic is pointless without fairness and compassion; ethics is pointless without rigor and objectivity. The logician urging us to be dispassionate is in resonance and harmony with the ethicist urging us to be compassionate.
  •  751
    A Farewell Letter To My Students
    Philosophy Now 92 18-18. 2012.
    I am saying farewell after more than forty happy years of teaching logic at the University of Buffalo. But this is only a partial farewell. I will no longer be at UB to teach classroom courses or seminars. But nothing else will change. I will continue to be available for independent study. I will continue to write abstracts and articles with people who have taken courses or seminars with me. And I will continue to honor the LogicLifetimeGuarantee™, which is earned by taking one of my logic cours…Read more
  •  356
    Expressing set-size equality
    with Gerald Rising
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 21 (2): 239. 2015.
    The word ‘equality’ often requires disambiguation, which is provided by context or by an explicit modifier. For each sort of magnitude, there is at least one sense of ‘equals’ with its correlated senses of ‘is greater than’ and ‘is less than’. Given any two magnitudes of the same sort—two line segments, two plane figures, two solids, two time intervals, two temperature intervals, two amounts of money in a single currency, and the like—the one equals the other or the one is greater than the other…Read more
  •  1194
    String theory
    with William Frank and Michael Maloney
    Journal of Symbolic Logic 39 (4): 625-637. 1974.
    For each positive n , two alternative axiomatizations of the theory of strings over n alphabetic characters are presented. One class of axiomatizations derives from Tarski's system of the Wahrheitsbegriff and uses the n characters and concatenation as primitives. The other class involves using n character-prefixing operators as primitives and derives from Hermes' Semiotik. All underlying logics are second order. It is shown that, for each n, the two theories are definitionally equivalent [or syn…Read more
  •  352
    Two-method errors: having it both ways.
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. forthcoming.
    ►JOHN CORCORAN AND IDRIS SAMAWI HAMID, Two-method errors: having it both ways. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150, USA E-mail: [email protected] Philosophy, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1781 USA E-mail: [email protected] Where two methods produce similar results, mixing the two sometimes creates errors we call two-method errors, TMEs: in style, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, implicature, logic, or action. This lecture analyzes examples found i…Read more
  •  1050
    Completeness of an ancient logic
    Journal of Symbolic Logic 37 (4): 696-702. 1972.
    In previous articles, it has been shown that the deductive system developed by Aristotle in his "second logic" is a natural deduction system and not an axiomatic system as previously had been thought. It was also stated that Aristotle's logic is self-sufficient in two senses: First, that it presupposed no other logical concepts, not even those of propositional logic; second, that it is (strongly) complete in the sense that every valid argument expressible in the language of the system is deducib…Read more
  •  342
    CORCORAN REVIEWS THE 4 VOLUMES OF TARSKI’S COLLECTED PAPERS
    MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS 91 (I): 110-114. 1991.
    CORCORAN REVIEWS THE 4 VOLUMES OF TARSKI’S COLLECTED PAPERS Alfred Tarski (1901--1983) is widely regarded as one of the two giants of twentieth-century logic and also as one of the four greatest logicians of all time (Aristotle, Frege and Gödel being the other three). Of the four, Tarski was the most prolific as a logician. The four volumes of his collected papers, which exclude most of his 19 monographs, span over 2500 pages. Aristotle's writings are comparable in volume, but most of the Aristo…Read more
  •  30
    "Review of" Michael Dummett" (review)
    Essays in Philosophy 5 (2): 7. 2004.
  •  389
    Corcoran, J. 2007. Syntactics, American Philosophy: an Encyclopedia. 2007. Eds. John Lachs and Robert Talisse. New York: Routledge. pp.745-6. Syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics are the three levels of investigation into semiotics, or the comprehensive study of systems of communication, as described in 1938 by the American philosopher Charles Morris (1903-1979). Syntactics studies signs themselves and their interrelations in abstraction from their meanings and from their uses and users. Semant…Read more
  •  355
    English translation of an entry on pages 137–42 of the Spanish-language dictionary of logic: Luis Vega, Ed. Compendio de Lógica, Argumentación, y Retórica. Madrid: Trotta. DEDICATION: To my friend and collaborator Kevin Tracy. This short essay—containing careful definitions of ‘counterargument’ and ‘counterexample’—is not an easy read but it is one you’ll be glad you struggled through. It contains some carefully chosen examples suitable for classroom discussion. Using the word ‘counterexample’ …Read more
  •  53
    On definitional equivalence and related topics
    History and Philosophy of Logic 1 (n/a): 231. 1980.
  •  251
    DEFINING OUR TERMS A “paradox" is an argumentation that appears to deduce a conclusion believed to be false from premises believed to be true. An “inconsistency proof for a theory" is an argumentation that actually deduces a negation of a theorem of the theory from premises that are all theorems of the theory. An “indirect proof of the negation of a hypothesis" is an argumentation that actually deduces a conclusion known to be false from the hypothesis alone or, more commonly, from the hypothesi…Read more
  • Bernard Bolzano's "Theory of Science" (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 34 (2): 282. 1973.
  •  572
    This presentation includes a complete bibliography of John Corcoran’s publications devoted at least in part to Aristotle’s logic. Sections I–IV list 20 articles, 43 abstracts, 3 books, and 10 reviews. It starts with two watershed articles published in 1972: the Philosophy & Phenomenological Research article that antedates Corcoran’s Aristotle’s studies and the Journal of Symbolic Logic article first reporting his original results; it ends with works published in 2015. A few of the items are anno…Read more
  •  12
    La lógica de Aristóteles en el departamento de filosofía de la Universidad de Búfalo
    Ideas y Valores: Revista Colombiana de Filosofía 140 5. 2009.
  •  935
    Meanings of Implication
    Diálogos. Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 9 (24): 59-76. 1973.
    Thirteen meanings of 'implication' are described and compared. Among them are relations that have been called: logical implication, material implication,deductive implication, formal implication, enthymemic implication, and factual implication. In a given context, implication is the homogeneous two-place relation expressed by the relation verb 'implies'. For heuristic and expository reasons this article skirts many crucial issues including use-mention, the nature of the entities that imply and a…Read more
  •  264
    The principle of wholistic reference
    Manuscrito 27 (1): 159-171. 2004.
    In its strongest, unqualified form the principle of wholistic reference is that each and every proposition refers to the whole universe of discourse as such, regardless how limited the referents of its non-logical or content terms. Even though Boole changed from a monistic fixed-universe framework in his earlier works of 1847 and 1848 to a pluralistic multiple-universe framework in his mature treatise of 1854, he never wavered in his frank avowal of the principle of wholistic reference, possibly…Read more
  • Axiomatic method
    In Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 57--58. 1995.
  •  20
    From Peirce to Skolem (review)
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 14 (4): 541-543. 2008.
  •  317
    Iffication, Preiffication, Qualiffication, Reiffication, and Deiffication.
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 14 (4): 435-6. 2008.
    Iffication, Preiffication, Qualiffication, Reiffication, and Deiffication. Roughly, iffication is the speech-act in which—by appending a suitable if-clause—the speaker qualifies a previous statement. The clause following if is called the qualiffication. In many cases, the intention is to retract part of the previous statement—called the preiffication. I can retract part of “I will buy three” by appending “if I have money”. This initial study focuses on logical relations among propositional cont…Read more
  •  687
    The Contemporary Relevance of Ancient Logical Theory
    Philosophical Quarterly 32 (126): 76. 1982.
    This interesting and imaginative monograph is based on the author’s PhD dissertation supervised by Saul Kripke. It is dedicated to Timothy Smiley, whose interpretation of PRIOR ANALYTICS informs its approach. As suggested by its title, this short work demonstrates conclusively that Aristotle’s syllogistic is a suitable vehicle for fruitful discussion of contemporary issues in logical theory. Aristotle’s syllogistic is represented by Corcoran’s 1972 reconstruction. The review studies Lear’s trea…Read more
  •  50
    Aristotle's Prior Analytics and Boole's Laws of Thought
    History and Philosophy of Logic 24 (4): 261-288. 2003.
    Prior Analytics by the Greek philosopher Aristotle and Laws of Thought by the English mathematician George Boole are the two most important surviving original logical works from before the advent of modern logic. This article has a single goal: to compare Aristotle's system with the system that Boole constructed over twenty-two centuries later intending to extend and perfect what Aristotle had started. This comparison merits an article itself. Accordingly, this article does not discuss many othe…Read more
  •  142
    Deducción/Deducibilidad
    In Luis Vega and Paula Olmos (ed.), Compendio de Lógica, Argumentación y Retórica, Editorial Trotta. pp. 168--169. 2011.
    Following Quine [] and others we take deductions to produce knowledge of implications: a person gains knowledge that a given premise-set implies a given conclusion by deducing—producing a deduction of—the conclusion from those premises. How does this happen? How does a person recognize their desire for that knowledge of a certain implication, or that they lack it? How do they produce a suitable deduction? And most importantly, how does their production of that deduction provide them with knowled…Read more
  •  303
    Disbelief Logic Complements Belief Logic.
    with Wagner Sanz
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 14 (3): 436. 2008.
    JOHN CORCORAN AND WAGNER SANZ, Disbelief Logic Complements Belief Logic. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150 USA E-mail: [email protected] Filosofia, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiás, GO 74001-970 Brazil E-mail: [email protected] Consider two doxastic states belief and disbelief. Belief is taking a proposition to be true and disbelief taking it to be false. Judging also dichotomizes: accepting a proposition results in belief and rejecting in disbelief. Stating follow…Read more
  •  457
    Semantic Arithmetic: A Preface
    Agora 14 (1): 149-156. 1995.
    SEMANTIC ARITHMETIC: A PREFACE John Corcoran Abstract Number theory, or pure arithmetic, concerns the natural numbers themselves, not the notation used, and in particular not the numerals. String theory, or pure syntax, concems the numerals as strings of «uninterpreted» characters without regard to the numbe~s they may be used to denote. Number theory is purely arithmetic; string theory is purely syntactical... in so far as the universe of discourse alone is considered. Semantic arithmetic is a …Read more
  •  272
    Subregular tetrahedra
    Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 14 (3): 411-2. 2008.
    This largely expository lecture deals with aspects of traditional solid geometry suitable for applications in logic courses. Polygons are plane or two-dimensional; the simplest are triangles. Polyhedra [or polyhedrons] are solid or three-dimensional; the simplest are tetrahedra [or triangular pyramids, made of four triangles]. A regular polygon has equal sides and equal angles. A polyhedron having congruent faces and congruent [polyhedral] angles is not called regular, as some might expect; rat…Read more
  •  71
    Logical Consequence in Modal Logic
    with George Weaver
    Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 10 (4): 370-384. 1969.
    This paper develops a modal, Sentential logic having "not", "if...Then" and necessity as logical constants. The semantics (system of meanings) of the logic is the most obvious generalization of the usual truth-Functional semantics for sentential logic and its deductive system (system of demonstrations) is an obvious generalization of a suitable (jaskowski-Type) natural deductive system for sentential logic. Let a be a set of sentences and p a sentence. "p is a logical consequence of a" is define…Read more