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247Counterexamples and ProexamplesBulletin of Symbolic Logic 11 460. 2005.Corcoran, J. 2005. Counterexamples and proexamples. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 11(2005) 460. John Corcoran, Counterexamples and Proexamples. Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4150 E-mail: [email protected] Every perfect number that is not even is a counterexample for the universal proposition that every perfect number is even. Conversely, every counterexample for the proposition “every perfect number is even” is a perfect number that is not even. Every perfect number th…Read more
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30Logical Structures of Ockham's Theory of SuppositionFranciscan Studies 38 (1): 161-183. 1978.This exposition of ockham's theory of (common, Personal) supposition involves the logical form of the four descent/ascent conditions and the logical relations of these with the three main modes of supposition. Central theses: each condition is a one-Way entailment, Each mode is a truth-Functional combination of conditions, Two of the three modes are not even coextensive with the two-Way entailments commonly taken as their definitions. Ockham's idea of "the singulars" of a general proposition is …Read more
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565Meanings of word: type-occurrence-token.Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 11 (1): 117. 2005.Corcoran, John. 2005. Meanings of word: type-occurrence-token. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 11(2005) 117. -/- Once we are aware of the various senses of ‘word’, we realize that self-referential statements use ambiguous sentences. If a statement is made using the sentence ‘this is a pronoun’, is the speaker referring to an interpreted string, a string-type, a string-occurrence, a string-token, or what? The listeners can wonder “this what?”. -/- John Corcoran, Meanings of word: type-occurrence-token…Read more
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805Variable Binding Term OperatorsZeitschrift fur mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik 18 (12): 177-182. 1972.Chapin reviewed this 1972 ZEITSCHRIFT paper that proves the completeness theorem for the logic of variable-binding-term operators created by Corcoran and his student John Herring in the 1971 LOGIQUE ET ANALYSE paper in which the theorem was conjectured. This leveraging proof extends completeness of ordinary first-order logic to the extension with vbtos. Newton da Costa independently proved the same theorem about the same time using a Henkin-type proof. This 1972 paper builds on the 1971 “Notes o…Read more
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951A Mathematical Model of Aristotle’s SyllogisticArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 55 (2): 191-219. 1973.In the present article we attempt to show that Aristotle's syllogistic is an underlying logiC which includes a natural deductive system and that it isn't an axiomatic theory as had previously been thought. We construct a mathematical model which reflects certain structural aspects of Aristotle's logic. We examine the relation of the model to the system of logic envisaged in scattered parts of Prior and Posterior Analytics. Our interpretation restores Aristotle's reputation as a logician of consu…Read more
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2205A Inseparabilidade entre Lógica e a Ética.Philósophos - Revista de Filosofia 18 (1): 245-259. 2013.A Inseparabilidade entre Lógica e a Ética. Philósophos. 18 (2013) 245–259. Portuguese translation by Décio Krause and Pedro Merlussi: The Inseparability of Logic and Ethics, Free Inquiry, Spring 1989, 37–40. This essay takes logic and ethics in broad senses: logic as the science of evidence; ethics as the science of 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…Read more
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4Gottlob Frege's "On the Foundations of Geometry and Formal Theories of Arithmetic" (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 34 (2): 283-286. 1973.
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269Logically Equivalent False Universal Propositions with Different Counterexample Sets.Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 11 554-5. 2007.This paper corrects a mistake I saw students make but I have yet to see in print. The mistake is thinking that logically equivalent propositions have the same counterexamples—always. Of course, it is often the case that logically equivalent propositions have the same counterexamples: “every number that is prime is odd” has the same counterexamples as “every number that is not odd is not prime”. The set of numbers satisfying “prime but not odd” is the same as the set of numbers satisfying “not od…Read more
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60Existential-import mathematicsBulletin of Symbolic Logic 21 (1): 1-14. 2015.First-order logic has limited existential import: the universalized conditional ∀x [S → P] implies its corresponding existentialized conjunction ∃x [S & P] in some but not all cases. We prove the Existential-Import Equivalence:∀x [S → P] implies ∃x [S & P] iff ∃x S is logically true.The antecedent S of the universalized conditional alone determines whether the universalized conditional has existential import: implies its corresponding existentialized conjunction.A predicate is a formula having o…Read more
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366Equality and identityBulletin of Symbolic Logic 19 (3): 255-256. 2013.Equality and identity. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 19 (2013) 255-6. (Coauthor: Anthony Ramnauth) Also see https://www.academia.edu/s/a6bf02aaab This article uses ‘equals’ [‘is equal to’] and ‘is’ [‘is identical to’, ‘is one and the same as’] as they are used in ordinary exact English. In a logically perfect language the oxymoron ‘the numbers 3 and 2+1 are the same number’ could not be said. Likewise, ‘the number 3 and the number 2+1 are one number’ is just as bad from a logical point of view. …Read more
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318“Truth-preserving and consequence-preserving deduction rules”,Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 20 (1): 130-1. 2014.A truth-preservation fallacy is using the concept of truth-preservation where some other concept is needed. For example, in certain contexts saying that consequences can be deduced from premises using truth-preserving deduction rules is a fallacy if it suggests that all truth-preserving rules are consequence-preserving. The arithmetic additive-associativity rule that yields 6 = (3 + (2 + 1)) from 6 = ((3 + 2) + 1) is truth-preserving but not consequence-preserving. As noted in James Gasser’s dis…Read more
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100Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938 (edited book)Hackett Publishing Company. 1983.Published with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Contains the only complete English-language text of The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages. Tarski made extensive corrections and revisions of the original translations for this edition, along with new historical remarks. It includes a new preface and a new analytical index for use by philosophers and linguists as well as by historians of mathematics and philosophy.
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283Corcoran recommends Hambourger on the Frege-Russell number definitionMATHEMATICAL REVIEWS 56. 1978.It is widely agreed by philosophers that the so-called “Frege-Russell definition of natural number” is actually an assertion concerning the nature of the numbers and that it cannot be regarded as a definition in the ordinary mathematical sense. On the basis of the reasoning in this paper it is clear that the Frege-Russell definition contradicts the following three principles (taken together): (1) each number is the same entity in each possible world, (2) each number exists in each possible world…Read more
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18Review: Nino B. Cocchiarella, Logical Investigations of Predication Theory and the Problem of Universals (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 53 (3): 991-993. 1988.
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34Book Review:Conceptual Notation and Related Articles Gottlob Frege, Terrell Ward Bynum (review)Philosophy of Science 40 (3): 454-. 1973.
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Critical Notice: Contemporary Relevance of Ancient Logical TheoryPhilosophical Quarterly 32 (1): 76-86. 1982.
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813CategoricityHistory and Philosophy of Logic 1 (1): 187-207. 1980.After a short preface, the first of the three sections of this paper is devoted to historical and philosophic aspects of categoricity. The second section is a self-contained exposition, including detailed definitions, of a proof that every mathematical system whose domain is the closure of its set of distinguished individuals under its distinguished functions is categorically characterized by its induction principle together with its true atoms (atomic sentences and negations of atomic sentences…Read more
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495Notes on a semantic analysis of variable binding term operatorsLogique Et Analyse 55 644-657. 1971.A variable binding term operator (vbto) is a non-logical constant, say v, which combines with a variable y and a formula F containing y free to form a term (vy:F) whose free variables are exact ly those of F, excluding y. Kalish-Montague proposed using vbtos to formalize definite descriptions, set abstracts {x: F}, minimalization in recursive function theory, etc. However, they gave no sematics for vbtos. Hatcher gave a semantics but one that has flaws. We give a correct semantic analysis of vb…Read more
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496Girolamo Saccheri (1667--1733) was an Italian Jesuit priest, scholastic philosopher, and mathematician. He earned a permanent place in the history of mathematics by discovering and rigorously deducing an elaborate chain of consequences of an axiom-set for what is now known as hyperbolic (or Lobachevskian) plane geometry. Reviewer's remarks: (1) On two pages of this book Saccheri refers to his previous and equally original book Logica demonstrativa (Turin, 1697) to which 14 of the 16 pages of th…Read more
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994What is mathematical logic?Philosophia 8 (1): 79-94. 1978.This review concludes that if the authors know what mathematical logic is they have not shared their knowledge with the readers. This highly praised book is replete with errors and incoherency.
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853Argumentaciones y lógicaAgora 13 (1): 27. 1994.Argumentations are at the heart of the deductive and the hypothetico-deductive methods, which are involved in attempts to reduce currently open problems to problems already solved. These two methods span the entire spectrum of problem-oriented reasoning from the simplest and most practical to the most complex and most theoretical, thereby uniting all objective thought whether ancient or contemporary, whether humanistic or scientific, whether normative or descriptive, whether concrete or abstrac…Read more
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507Information recovery problemsTheoria 10 (3): 55-78. 1995.An information recovery problem is the problem of constructing a proposition containing the information dropped in going from a given premise to a given conclusion that folIows. The proposition(s) to beconstructed can be required to satisfy other conditions as well, e.g. being independent of the conclusion, or being “informationally unconnected” with the conclusion, or some other condition dictated by the context. This paper discusses various types of such problems, it presents techniques and pr…Read more
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363Meanings of hypothesisBulletin of Symbolic Logic 20 (2): 348-9. 2014.The primary sense of the word ‘hypothesis’ in modern colloquial English includes “proposition not yet settled” or “open question”. Its opposite is ‘fact’ in the sense of “proposition widely known to be true”. People are amazed that Plato [1, p. 1684] and Aristotle [Post. An. I.2 72a14–24, quoted below] used the Greek form of the word for indemonstrable first principles [sc. axioms] in general or for certain kinds of axioms. These two facts create the paradoxical situation that in many cases it i…Read more
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283The principle of wholistic reference/o princípio da referência universalistaManuscrito 30 (2): 493-505. 2007.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
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13Aristotle's Logic at the University of buffalo's Department of PhilosophyIdeas Y Valores 58 (140): 99-117. 2009.We begin with an introductory overview of contributions made by more than twenty scholars associated with the Philosophy Department at the University of Buffalo during the last half-century to our understanding and evaluation of Aristotle's logic. More well-known developments are merely mentioned in order to make room to focus on issues at the center of attention from the beginning: existential import and, more generally, the analysis of categorical propositions. I include a list of the UB schol…Read more
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2019Argumentations and LogicARGUMENTAION 3 (1): 17-43. 1989.Argumentations are at the heart of the deductive and the hypothetico-deductive methods, which are involved in attempts to reduce currently open problems to problems already solved. These two methods span the entire spectrum of problem-oriented reasoning from the simplest and most practical to the most complex and most theoretical, thereby uniting all objective thought whether ancient or contemporary, whether humanistic or scientific, whether normative or descriptive, whether concrete or abstrac…Read more
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Logic and Philosophy of Logic |