DOCSLIB.ORG

AN ANALYSIS of LOGICAL DETERMINISM1 Jan WOLEŃSKI

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
AN ANALYSIS of LOGICAL DETERMINISM1 Jan WOLEŃSKI Grazer Philosophische Studien 91 (2015), 423–442. AN ANALYSIS OF LOGICAL DETERMINISM1 Jan WOLEŃSKI Jagiellonian University, Kraków Summary Logical determinism is the view that some logical principles entail ontological determinism, that is, the view that the past uniquely forces the shaping of the future. Th e principle of bivalence and the law of excluded middle are usually considered crucial for logical determinism. On another interpretation, logical determinism is the view that the truth-value of a future contingent sentence is decided sempiternally. Jan Łukasiewicz’s main motivation in inventing three-val- ued logic was to avoid logical determinism. Th e argument advanced in this paper intends to show that logical determinism is not derivable from classical logic. 1. Introduction Th e problem addressed in this paper goes back to Aristotle and his con- siderations about tomorrow’s sea battle. In a famous passage in (De Inter- pretatione 19a 25–30; in Th e Works of Aristotle, vol. 1: Categoriae and De Intepretatione, tr. By E. M. Edghill, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1928), the Stagirite says: Everything must either be or not be, whether in the present or in the future, but it is not always possible to distinguish and state determinately which of these alternatives must necessarily come about. Let me illustrate. A sea-fi ght must take place to-morrow or not, but it is not necessary that it either should not take place to-morrow, neither it is necessary that it should not take place, yet it is necessary that it either should or should not take place to-morrow. Since propositions correspond with facts, it is evident that when in future events there is a real alternative, and a 1. Th is paper is based on my talk delivered at the conference Łukasiewicz in Dublin, held at University College Dublin, July 1996. Peter Simons also participated in this meeting. Some ideas related to determinism and logic employed in this paper appears in (Woleński 2003; Woleński 2004; Woleński 2006). potentiality in contrary directions, the corresponding affi rmation and denial have the same character. Th ese words initiated a considerable and lengthy discussion (for historical information and substantial assessments, see Bernstein 1992; Cahn 1967; Gaskin 1995; Hintikka 1977; Jordan 1963; Karpenko 1990; Lucas 1989; Vuillemin 1996; Zagzebski 1991, Rice 2013). Basically, two problems were discussed. Th e fi rst question was historical and concerned the way in which Aristotle should be interpreted. Did he revise logic or not? Literally under- stood, his text defends the principle of excluded middle but also tells us something about the logical value of future contingents, that is, sentences about accidental events which may or may not happen. Th e Stoics noted this problem as well. Th eir celebrated “Master argument” tried to prove that everything that is possible would happen in a more or less distant future. Th e second problem is systematic and concerns the question of how radical determinism or fatalism is related to some fundamental prin- ciples of logic, in particular, to the principle of bivalence. Roughly speak- ing, radical determinism (fatalism) is the view that the future is uniquely determined by the past or all future events are necessitated by the past. Th e view that classical logic deductively implies radical determinism (RD) is called logical determinism. Jan Łukasiewicz himself did not use this label. More precisely, his view was (see Łukasiewicz 1922; Łukasiewicz 1970; see also Simons 1989 for a discussion of Meinong’s treatment of the excluded middle) that the law of the excluded middle (EM) or the principle of bivalence (PB), both interpreted metalogically, entail radical determinism when we add the principle of causality (PC).2 Against (RD), Łukasiewicz constructed three-valued logic as a logical basis for indeter- minism and free-will.3 His reasoning goes like this: Take PB + PC. We have (the sign + replaces ‘and’ below) (1) PB PC ՗ RD. On this account, rejecting PB or limiting PC amounts to canceling a suf- fi cient condition for RD. But Łukasiewicz did more: He attacked both PB and PC as the suffi cient condition because he introduced objective 2. See (Urchs 1992) for further analysis of this question. 3. Some qualifi cations are in order here: see (Jordan 1963). In particular, the early Łukasiewicz maintained that formal logic and ontology are very closely related. However, he abandoned this position later and denied that logic has any metaphysical consequences. 424.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Dialetheists' Lies About the Liar
    PRINCIPIA 22(1): 59–85 (2018) doi: 10.5007/1808-1711.2018v22n1p59 Published by NEL — Epistemology and Logic Research Group, Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), Brazil. DIALETHEISTS’LIES ABOUT THE LIAR JONAS R. BECKER ARENHART Departamento de Filosofia, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, BRAZIL [email protected] EDERSON SAFRA MELO Departamento de Filosofia, Universidade Federal do Maranhão, BRAZIL [email protected] Abstract. Liar-like paradoxes are typically arguments that, by using very intuitive resources of natural language, end up in contradiction. Consistent solutions to those paradoxes usually have difficulties either because they restrict the expressive power of the language, orelse because they fall prey to extended versions of the paradox. Dialetheists, like Graham Priest, propose that we should take the Liar at face value and accept the contradictory conclusion as true. A logical treatment of such contradictions is also put forward, with the Logic of Para- dox (LP), which should account for the manifestations of the Liar. In this paper we shall argue that such a formal approach, as advanced by Priest, is unsatisfactory. In order to make contradictions acceptable, Priest has to distinguish between two kinds of contradictions, in- ternal and external, corresponding, respectively, to the conclusions of the simple and of the extended Liar. Given that, we argue that while the natural interpretation of LP was intended to account for true and false sentences, dealing with internal contradictions, it lacks the re- sources to tame external contradictions. Also, the negation sign of LP is unable to represent internal contradictions adequately, precisely because of its allowance of sentences that may be true and false.
    [Show full text]
  • What Is the Value of Vagueness? By
    THEORIA, 2021, 87, 752–780 doi:10.1111/theo.12313 What Is the Value of Vagueness? by DAVID LANIUS Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie Abstract: Classically, vagueness has been considered something bad. It leads to the Sorites para- dox, borderline cases, and the (apparent) violation of the logical principle of bivalence. Neverthe- less, there have always been scholars claiming that vagueness is also valuable. Many have pointed out that we could not communicate as successfully or efficiently as we do if we would not use vague language. Indeed, we often use vague terms when we could have used more precise ones instead. Many scholars (implicitly or explicitly) assume that we do so because their vagueness has a positive function. But how and in what sense can vagueness be said to have a function or value? This paper is an attempt to give an answer to this question. After clarifying the concepts of vague- ness and value, it examines nine arguments for the value of vagueness, which have been discussed in the literature. The (negative) result of this examination is, however, that there is not much rea- son to believe that vagueness has a value or positive function at all because none of the arguments is conclusive. A tenth argument that has not been discussed so far seems most promising but rests on a solely strategic notion of function. Keywords: vagueness, value of vagueness, indeterminacy, sorties paradox, function of vagueness 1. Introduction Almost since the beginning of the philosophical debate on vagueness, most peo- ple have seen it as a problem. It leads to the Sorites paradox, borderline cases, and the (apparent) violation of the logical principle of bivalence.
    [Show full text]
  • Stoic Propositional Logic: a New Reconstruction
    Stoic propositional logic: a new reconstruction David Hitchcock McMaster University [email protected] Stoic propositional logic: a new reconstruction Abstract: I reconstruct Stoic propositional logic, from the ancient testimonies, in a way somewhat different than the 10 reconstructions published before 2002, building especially on the work of Michael Frede (1974) and Suzanne Bobzien (1996, 1999). In the course of reconstructing the system, I draw attention to several of its features that are rarely remarked about, such as its punctuation-free notation, the status of the premisses of an argument as something intermediate between a set and a sequence of propositions, the incorrectness of the almost universal translation of the Greek label for the primitives of the system as indemonstrable arguments, the probable existence of an extended set of primitives which accommodates conjunctions with more than two conjuncts and disjunctions with more than two disjuncts, the basis for the system’s exclusion of redundant premisses, and the reason why the hypothetical syllogisms of Theophrastus are not derivable in the system. I argue that, though sound according to its originator’s (Chrysippus’s) conception of validity, the system as reconstructed is not complete according to that conception. It is an open problem what one needs to add to the system in order to make it Chrysippean-complete, or even whether it is possible to do so without making it Chrysippean-unsound. Key words: Stoicism, logic, history of logic, Stoic logic, Chrysippus, reconstruction, propositional logic, soundness, completeness 0. Introduction In Aristotle’s Earlier Logic (Woods 2001), John Woods finds in Aristotle’s earliest logical writings considerable grist for his ongoing sophisticated defence of classical validity against contemporary relevantist objections.
    [Show full text]
  • Logic, Ontological Neutrality, and the Law of Non-Contradiction
    Logic, Ontological Neutrality, and the Law of Non-Contradiction Achille C. Varzi Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York [Final version published in Elena Ficara (ed.), Contradictions. Logic, History, Actuality, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014, pp. 53–80] Abstract. As a general theory of reasoning—and as a theory of what holds true under every possi- ble circumstance—logic is supposed to be ontologically neutral. It ought to have nothing to do with questions concerning what there is, or whether there is anything at all. It is for this reason that tra- ditional Aristotelian logic, with its tacit existential presuppositions, was eventually deemed inade- quate as a canon of pure logic. And it is for this reason that modern quantification theory, too, with its residue of existentially loaded theorems and inferential patterns, has been claimed to suffer from a defect of logical purity. The law of non-contradiction rules out certain circumstances as impossi- ble—circumstances in which a statement is both true and false, or perhaps circumstances where something both is and is not the case. Is this to be regarded as a further ontological bias? If so, what does it mean to forego such a bias in the interest of greater neutrality—and ought we to do so? Logic in the Locked Room As a general theory of reasoning, and especially as a theory of what is true no mat- ter what is the case (or in every “possible world”), logic is supposed to be ontolog- ically neutral. It should be free from any metaphysical presuppositions. It ought to have nothing substantive to say concerning what there is, or whether there is any- thing at all.
    [Show full text]
  • To Appear in Wittgenstein and Perception, Edited by Michael Campbell & Michael O’Sullivan, Routledge
    To appear in Wittgenstein and Perception, edited by Michael Campbell & Michael O’Sullivan, Routledge WITTGENSTEIN’S NONSENSE OBJECTION TO RUSSELL’S THEORY OF JUDGMENT* José Zalabardo UCL 1. Nonsense judgment In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein 1974), Wittgenstein raises the following objection to Russell’s theory of judgment: 5.5422 The correct explanation of the form of the proposition, 'A makes the judgement p', must show that it is impossible for a judgement to be a piece of nonsense. (Russell's theory does not satisfy this requirement.) The objection has a very early origin. It appears already in the Notes on Logic, dictated in October 1913, where Wittgenstein gives an example of the kind of nonsense that he has in mind: Every right theory of judgment must make it impossible for me to judge that this table penholders the book. Russell’s theory does not satisfy this requirement. (Wittgenstein 1979: p. 103) It can be traced even further back, to a letter to Russell of June of that year: I can now express my objection to your theory of judgement exactly: I believe that it is obvious that from the prop[osition] ‘A judges that (say) a is in the Rel[ation] R to b’, if correctly analysed, the prop[osition] ‘aRb..~aRb’ must follow directly without the use of any other premiss. This condition is not fulfilled by your theory. (Wittgenstein 1979: p. 122) The connection between judging nonsense and the requirement expressed here can be established with the help of a passage of Principia Mathematica, in which the proposition a ~a is presented as another way of saying that “a” is significant (Whitehead and Russell 1910: 180).1 I am going to refer to these three texts as the nonsense passages.
    [Show full text]
  • Supervaluationism Cian Dorr September 21, 2005
    Supervaluationism Cian Dorr September 21, 2005 1 The law of the excluded middle Intuitive counterexamples to the rule that a conjunction of borderline conjuncts is always borderline (rather than definitely false): ‘The patch is both red and pink’; ‘Nothing is both a bachelor and married’; ‘This item is both a heap and a non-heap’. Assume we want to hold onto De Morgan’s Laws and Double Negation Elimination. Then if we accept these sentences as true (and not borderline), we’ll also have to accept counterexamples to the rule that a disjunction of borderline disjuncts is always borderline (rather than definitely true): ‘The patch is either not red or not pink’; ‘Everything is either a non-bachelor or unmarried’; ‘This item is either a heap or a non-heap’. By one of De Morgan’s Laws and Double Negation Elimination, every instance of the Law of the Excluded Middle (‘Either P or not-P’) is equivalent to an instance of the Law of Non-Contradiction (‘Not (P and not-P’). So if all instances of the latter law are true, so are all instances of the former. • If ‘either the patch is red or the patch isn’t red’ is literally true, we need some other ex- planation of why this seems like such a bad thing to assert (when the patch in question is borderline red). An explanation in terms of pragmatics rather than semantics. • My idea: this is a bad sentence to assert because it so naturally suggests the unanswer- able question ‘Which is it?’—unanswerable in the sense that neither the answer ‘red’ nor the answer ‘not red’ would be (definitely) true.
    [Show full text]
  • The Principle of Bivalence?
    Bivalence, Excluded Middle and Non Contradiction Jean-Yves Béziau « Ou il est faux, ou il est vrai, que ma femme me trompe, mais si le tiers n’est pas exclu, alors il se peut qu’il soit faux que ma femme me trompe et qu’elle ne me trompe pas, et dans ce cas, sans ambivalence, je ne suis point cocu. » Baron de Chambourcy (1887, p.231) 0. Introduction The relations between the principles of bivalence, excluded middle and non contradiction are not necessarily clear. One reason is that there are various formulations of these principles, not always equivalent. In this paper, we try to formulate precisely these principles in order to discuss their relationships and to answer the question: is the conjunction of the principles of excluded middle and non contradiction equivalent to the principle of bivalence? 1. The principle of bivalence 1.1. Formulations of the principle of bivalence The principle of bivalence can be formulated as: (B) A proposition is either true or false. The “or” has to be understood here as exclusive so that (B) has to be understood as the conjunction of (B1) A proposition cannot be neither true nor false. (B2) A proposition cannot both be true and false. In a mathematical semantic, true and false are considered as objects, called truth-values, and a relation is established between the set of propositions and the set of truth-values. Let us call such a relation, an evaluation relation. We can reformulate the principle of bivalence as the conjunction of the four following principles: (Ba) The set of truth-values is limited to two-values.
    [Show full text]
  • BOOK NOTES in This Section We Publish Short Descriptive Notices of New Books About Peirce Or Subjects Likely to Interest Our Readers
    PEIRCE PROJECT NEWSLETTER 6 Volume 3, No. 2, Fall 2000 BOOK NOTES In this section we publish short descriptive notices of new books about Peirce or subjects likely to interest our readers. We cannot survey all new publications or prepare critical reviews, so we notice only those books sent by authors and publishers. When available, we reprint notices supplied with the books (often edited and supplemented with text from prefaces or introductions); otherwise we prepare our own brief announcements. Please note: we notice books only if they are sent as review copies to be deposited in the Project library. Prices and ISBNs are given when available. Signs Grow: Semiosis and Life Pro- tive merits of different kinds of reasoning. noticed in a previous issue of the Newslet- cesses Peirce’s Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism ter. As noted then, Elements of Knowledge Floyd Merrell and selections from A Syllabus of Certain is remarkable for serving as an accessible University of Toronto Press, 1996, 356 pp. Topics of Logic are among the texts introduction to pragmatism while also ISBN 0-8020-7142-2 (paper), $24.95 included. There are a few previously serving as an excellent text for courses in unpublished texts and all have been newly reasoning. Now, in the Vanderbilt edition, Signs Grow is the third volume of Mer- edited. Even well-known writings appear Stewart has smoothed out his prose and rell’s trilogy on signs, which began with fresh and in new light in their chronologi- improved the presentation and has suc- Signs Becoming Signs and Semiosis in the cal placement.
    [Show full text]
  • Bivalence and the Challenge of Truth-Value Gaps
    BIVALENCE AND THE CHALLENGE OF TRUTH-VALUE GAPS By Maria Teresa Matos Ferreira Marques Philosophy Department, University of Stirling Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Stirling November 2003 THE UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING Philosophy Department Maria Teresa Matos Ferreira Marques Bivalence and the Challenge of Truth-value Gaps Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD November 2003 ABSTRACT This thesis is concerned with the challenge truth-value gaps pose to the principle of bivalence. The central question addressed is: are truth-value gaps counterexamples to bivalence and is the supposition of counterexamples coherent? My aim is to examine putative cases of truth-value gaps against an argument by Timothy Williamson, which shows that the supposition of counterexamples to bivalence is contradictory. The upshot of his argument is that either problematic utterances say nothing, or they cannot be neither true nor false. I start by identifying truth-bearers: an utterance, for instance, is a truth-bearer if it says that something is the case. Truth-bearers are evaluable items, with truth- and falsity- conditions statable in corresponding instances of schemas for truth and falsehood. A genuine case of a truth-value gap should be an utterance that is neither true nor false but says something to be the case. But it is inconsistent to accept the schemas for truth and falsehood and the existence of genuine cases of truth-value gaps. Secondly, I expound Williamson’s argument, which explores this inconsistency, and I identify two kinds of strategy to disarm his argument: those that preserve the schemas for truth and falsehood, and those that do not.
    [Show full text]
  • Three-Valued Modal Logic and the Problem of Future Contingents
    faculteit Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappen Three-valued modal logic and the problem of future Contingents Bachelorthesis Mathematics August 2014 Student: R. C. Sterkenburg First supervisor: prof. dr. G.R. Renardel de Lavalette Second supervisor: prof. dr. H. L. Trentelman Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Formulating the problem of future contingents 4 2.1 Aristotle's problem . .4 2.2 Criteria any solutions should meet . .5 3Lukasiewicz' three-valued system 7 3.1 The system . .7 3.2Lukasiewicz' system and the problem of future contingents . .8 4 The system Q 10 4.1 Prior's system Q . 10 4.2 Possible world semantics for Q . 14 4.3 Q and the problem of future contingents . 16 5 The system Qt 19 5.1 Expansion of Q to a temporal system Qt . 19 5.2 Qt and the problem of future contingents . 20 6 Conclusion 23 7 Literature 24 2 1 Introduction Consider the statement `It will rain tomorrow'. Is it true now? Or false? And if it is already true now, is it then possible that is does not rain tomorrow, or has the fact that it will rain tomorrow become a necessity? And if it is necessary, why do we perceive it as if it is not, as if it just as easily could not have rained tomorrow? And if we decide it is not true nor false now, is `it will rain tomorrow or not' then still true, or is that also neither true nor false? These questions were raised by Aristotle in the famous chapter 9 of his work Περ`ι `Eρµην"´ια&, De Interpretatione in Latin, and have come to be known as the problem of future contingents.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy of Logic and Language
    PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC AND LANGUAGE Last week, we examined the question of what, exactly, Tarski INTRODUCTION achieved by means of his famous definitions of truth. WEEK 6: THE LIAR PARADOX JONNY MCINTOSH They don't seem to provide the basis of an DEFINITION of And in any case, they certainly provide a way of talking Yet as we'll see, it's a very restrictive approach. We'll look at the concept of truth, but perhaps they provide the basis of about the true sentences of certain languages without some alternatives. But first, a reminder of how the Liar goes. an EXPLICATION of it. running risk of the Liar Paradox. First, assume the following identity: We then have, as an instance of the T-SCHEMA: THE SIMPLE LIAR 1. λ = 'λ is false' 2. 'λ is false' is true IFF λ is false We can then reason as follows: 6. And if we assume instead that λ is false We can therefore conclude: 3. Assume λ is true 7. From 2., it follows that 'λ is false' is true 4. From 1., it follows that 'λ is false' is true 8. From 1., it then follows that λ is true 9. λ is true IFF λ is false 5. From 2., it then follows that λ is false Other than classical logic, the assumptions are: But now, by the principle of : It therefore follows that: BIVALENCE Premise 1: λ = 'λ is false' 10. Either λ is true or λ is false 11. λ is both true and false The T-SCHEMA: 'λ is false' is true IFF λ is false BIVALENCE: either λ is true or λ is false Tarski's solution is to insist on the distinction between In place of Tarski's hierarchy of languages, we might try to DENYING 1 object- and meta-language, and deny 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Logic Is Tripartite — a Defence of Non-Bivalence∗
    Logic is Tripartite — A defence of non-bivalence∗ Michael Groneberg Department of Philosophy University of Fribourg, Switzerland Abstract: Sentences about contingent future pose a problem for logical the- ory. I analyze the non-bivalent view according to which sentences about a future event are neither true nor false as long as the event is contingent. Major implications are that the definition of the connectors cannot be truth- functional and the concept of truth cannot be Tarskian. Many-valued logics are not an adequate tool to formalize the position, but a theory of truth- value gaps is. The ontology of the case aks for two basic logical values: truth and falsity, implying a tripartition of sentences (true, false, neither) and alge- braic values (designated, anti-designated, neither) rather than a reduction `a la Suszko. Keywords: Future contingents. Bivalence. Excluded third. Truth-functionality. Correspondance theory. Truth definition. Many-valued logics. Aristotle. An- cient and Medieval logic. Syllogistics. Translation. Formalization. MSC code: 01-06, 03-03, 03A05, 03B05, 03B44, 03B50 1 The case of future contingents The following considerations have been nourished by the enterprise to for- mulate the contingency of the future. More precisely, they result from the project of giving an adequate formulation to the position which rejects the universal validity of the principle of bivalence: BIV Every proposition is either true or false, while maintaining the Law of the Excluded Middle: LEM |= p ∨ ¬p ∗A previous version of a part of this paper has been published in French as: “La v´erit´e du futur contingent: Lukasiewicz, Tarski ou Van Fraassen?”, Actes du Colloque de la SOPHA 2003 in: Philosophi@ Scienti@e, Archives Henri Poincar´e(ed.), http://philosophiascientiae.free.fr/index.html, 1.12.2005.
    [Show full text]