David Holdcroft

Albert Menne and Niels Öffenberger, Zur modernen Deutung der aristotelischen Logik. Band I:Über den Folgerungsbegriff in der aristotelischen Logik. Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1982. 220 pp. DM 48.Klaus Jacobi, Die Modalbegriffe in den logischen Schriften des Wilhelm von Shyreswood und in anderen Kompendien des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts. Funktionsbestimmung und Gebrauch in der logischen Analyse. Leiden and KÖln: E.J. Brill, 1980. xiii + 528 pp. HFL 140.Nineteenth – Century ContrastsAnthony Manser, Bradley's Logic. Oxford; Basil Blackwell, 1983. x + 220 pp. £17.50.Gregory Currie, Frege. An introduction to his philosophy. Brighton: Harvester Press; Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble Books; 1982. xi + 212 pp. £18.95.Eike-Henner W. Kluge, The metaphysics of Gottlob Frege. An essay in ontological reconstruction. The Hague. Boston, and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1980. 296 pp, Dfl. 80/$35.00.Philosophy and LogicGeorg Henrik Von Wright, Practical reason. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983. x + 214 pp. £15.00.Patrick Shaw, Logic and its limits. London and Sydney: Pan Books, in association with Heinemann Educational Books, 1981. 255 pp. £2.95.William S. Hatcher, The logical foundations of mathematics. Oxford, Toronto, Sydney, Paris and Frankfurt: 1982. x + 320 pp. £19.00/$38.00.E.N. Zalta,objects. An introduction to axiomatic metaphysics Dordrecht, Boston and Lancaster: Keldei, 1983, xiil + 193 pp. $39.50.MiscellaneousR. Schacht, Nietzsche. London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. xxii + 546 pp. £18.50.V. Biryukov and A.G. Spirkina, Voprosy kibernetiki. Kibernetika i logicheskaya formalizatsiya. Aspekty istorii i metodologii. Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, ‘Kibernetika’1982. 191 pp. 2 rubles.

Bradley thought that there is a connexion between the theory of reality and the theory of truth. The theory of reality to which he subscribed, Monism, rules out a correspondence theory of truth, he thought, since it denies the existence of a plurality of facts, or things, in virtue of correspondence to which a judgment could be true. But though he rejects the correspondence theory he insists on the independence of truth from belief, wish and hope. For him the test of truth is coherence, which has two aspects, system and comprehensiveness. However, he does not think that this test yields ‘absolute’ truth. This, he maintains, for at least three different reasons, is unobtainable. Judgments can only be partially true. However, since there are degrees of truth, some judgments are closer to the truth than others, even though none are, or could be, unconditionally true.