The Relation between Formal and Informal Logic

The issue of the relationship between formal and informal logic depends strongly on how one understands these two designations. While there is very little disagreement about the nature of formal logic, the same is not true regarding informal logic, which is understood in various (often incompatible) ways by various thinkers. After reviewing some of the more prominent conceptions of informal logic, I will present my own, defend it and then show how informal logic, so understood, is complementary to formal logic.     

Logic and Philosophy of Logic in Wittgenstein

This essay discusses Wittgenstein's conception of logic, early and late, and some of the types of logical system that he constructed. The essay shows that the common view according to which Wittgenstein had stopped engaging in logic as a philosophical discipline by the time of writing Philosophical Investigations is mistaken. It is argued that, on the contrary, logic continued to figure at the very heart of later Wittgenstein's philosophy; and that Wittgenstein's mature philosophy of logic contains many interesting thoughts that have gone widely unnoticed.     

Eine Auch Sich Selbst Missverstehende Kritik: Über das Reflexionsdefizit Formaler Explikationen

The criticism formulated by L. B. Puntel concerning the theory of dialectic proposed by the author is rejected. Puntel's attempt at explicating predication by means of (second order) predicate logic fails: It misjudges predication being already presupposed for the possibility of predicate logic, thus belonging to the transcendental conditions of formal predicate logic, so that predication itself cannot be further explicated by means of such logic. What is in fact criticized by Puntel is something like an artefact of formalization. The unreflected application of formal logic here generates problems instead of solving them.     

形式显示的现象学--海德格尔早期弗莱堡讲座研究

本文讨论海德格尔早期弗莱堡讲座中的现象学。作者从题域和方法两个角度上探讨海德格尔这个时期的形式显示现象学。就题域来说,海德格尔试图突破胡塞尔现象学的“知识”或“理论”局限,深入到“前理论的”层面,即所谓前理论的“原始东西”;就方法来说,海德格尔沉思和实践了他所谓的“形式显示”的思路和言路,以此力求与传统哲学的形式化思想方法划界。作者认为,“形式显示”的现象学方法乃是海德格尔在《存在与时间》之前的现象学哲思的最富特色和创意的成分;而由于这种方法上的探索也影响到后期海德格尔的思想道路,因此一般而言,它也标志着海德格尔全部思想的现象学特质。     

平等的正义性及其形式原则考论

正义在逻辑上是比平等更底层、更基础的概念,可以为平等理论提供逻辑基础,平等的论证是一种正义性论证。支撑平等的正义的形式原则相同的人相同对待,不同的人不同对待,恰恰是从平等的描述性概念即人们的相同性到平等的规范性概念即平等要求的逻辑过渡。     

Philosophy of Science and History3 of Science: A Non Troubling Interaction

Cassandra Pinnick and George Gale (Journal for General Phisophy of Science 31, 109–125) examined the post-Lakatos period of historical cum philosophical case studies and concluded that a new methodology is required. Lakatos' proposed ‘history₂’ (the theory- and value-laden reconstruction of history₁, the set of historical events) was criticised. Recently a group of scholars have been pursuing a methodology which could be described as history ₃, a history₁ account of the interaction between the significant scientific papers published during the time period in question and their scientific audience. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Adequate formalization

This article identifies problems with regard to providing criteria that regulate the matching of logical formulae and natural language. We then take on to solve these problems by defining a necessary and sufficient criterion of adequate formalization. On the basis of this criterion we argue that logic should not be seen as an ars iudicandi capable of evaluating the validity or invalidity of informal arguments, but as an ars explicandi that renders transparent the formal structure of informal reasoning.     

The Need for a Revolution in the Philosophy of Science

There is a need to bring about a revolution in the philosophy of science, interpreted to be both the academic discipline, and the official view of the aims and methods of science upheld by the scientific community. At present both are dominated by the view that in science theories are chosen on the basis of empirical considerations alone, nothing being permanently accepted as a part of scientific knowledge independently of evidence. Biasing choice of theory in the direction of simplicity, unity or explanatory power does not permanently commit science to the thesis that nature is simple or unified. This current ‘paradigm’ is, I argue, untenable. We need a new paradigm, which acknowledges that science makes a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions concerning the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, theories being chosen partly on the basis of compatibility with these assumptions. Eleven arguments are given for favouring this new ‘paradigm’ over the current one. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Philosophy of Science in Iran

First steps are taken in the following toward the study of present‐day philosophy of science in Iran, by choosing various examples in the hope of showing that philosophy of science in Iran has emerged predominantly as an apologetic and ideological discourse. I start by pointing out the complexities of method in such a study. I then criticise two writing samples by two well‐known Iranian scholars, which exemplify the first Iranian reaction to logical positivism. The study continues with a survey of the mistakes in the Persian translation of T. S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a study of the status of research in philosophy of science in Iran, and a critique of attempts by Iranian scholars at indigenising philosophy of science through the reconciliation of modern science with Islamic faith.     

A Draft for Unifying Controversies in Philosophy of Science

The basic (negative and positive) methodological maxims of three currents of philosophy of science (logical empiricism, falsificationism, and postpositivism) are formulated. Many of these maxims (stratagems) are controversial, e.g., the stance about the nonsense of metaphysics, and that of its indispensability. The restricted validity of these maxims allows for their unification. Within the framework of most of them there may be a relationship of (synchronic, or diachronic) subordination of the contradicting desiderata. In this vein ten stratagems are formulated. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Philosophy of Science and Ethics

The issue whether science can be correctly submitted to ethical judgment has been widely debated especially in the 1960s. Those who denied the legitimacy of such a judgment stressed that this would entail an undue limitation of the freedom of science; those who defended such a limitation laid stress on the great dangers that an uncontrolled growth of scientific knowledge has already produced and would continue to produce against humankind. This sterile debate can be settled by recognizing that scientific knowledge can and must be evaluated, as far as its validity is concerned, exclusively through the methodological criteria admitted by the professionals of the single scientific disciplines concerned, and no ethical judgment is pertinent from this point of view. Nevertheless, if we consider science as a particular system of social activities, entailing concrete procedures, conditions and applications, the ethical evaluation of these actions is pertinent and correct. A second question is whether or not the inclusion of these ethical investigations in the specific domain of philosophy of science is correct. If one conceives philosophy of science simply as an epistemology of science consisting in a logical-methodological investigation about the language of scientific theories, this broadening would appear spurious. This view, however, is too narrow and dated: a fully fledged philosophical investigation on the complex phenomenon of science cannot prevent important outlooks and instruments of the philosophical inqujiry (in particular ethics) from legitimately pertaining to the philosophy of science.