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Irigaray, Luce, Carlston, Erin G.. The Language of Man
1989, Cultural Critique, 13: 191-202

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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane Fairbank
Abstract:
This paper enumerates Irigaray's main arguments and thoughts regarding the gendered nature of language and "the logos".

Comment:
available in this Blueprint

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Nussbaum, Martha. Twelve Feminists and Philosophy
2012, In Philosophical Interventions: Reviews 1986-2011. New York

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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane Fairbank
Abstract:
This chapter reviews the book A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity (1993), by Louise B. Antony and Charlotte Witt. The appeal to reason and objectivity amounts to a request that the observer refuses to be intimidated by habit, and look for cogent arguments based on evidence that has been carefully sifted for bias. In our own society the arguments of feminists make such appeals to reason and objectivity all the time, and in a manner that closely resembles Platonic arguments. And yet today reason and objectivity are on the defensive in some feminist circles. We are frequently told that reason and objectivity are norms created by "patriarchy," and that to appeal to them is to succumb to the blandishments of the oppressor. We are told that systems of reasoning are systems of domination, and that to adopt the traditional one is thus to be co-opted. A Mind of One's Own is a collection of essays by women who are prominent in philosophy today and who wish to confront recent feminist criticisms of philosophy. Most of the contributors are under fifty and widely respected; most grew up with strong political ties to feminism.

Comment:
available in this Blueprint

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Cardona, Carlos Alberto. Kepler: Analogies in the search for the law of refraction
2016, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 59:22-35.

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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Juan R. Loaiza

Publisher's Note: This paper examines the methodology used by Kepler to discover a quantitative law of refraction. The aim is to argue that this methodology follows a heuristic method based on the following two Pythagorean principles: (1) sameness is made known by sameness, and (2) harmony arises from establishing a limit to what is unlimited. We will analyse some of the author's proposed analogies to find the aforementioned law and argue that the investigation's heuristic pursues such principles.

Comment:

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Blanchette, Patricia. Frege’s Conception of Logic
2012, New York: Oxford University Press.

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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Alex Yates

Publisher's Note: In Frege's Conception of Logic Patricia A. Blanchette explores the relationship between Gottlob Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic. She argues that the fruitfulness of Frege's conception of logic, and the illuminating differences between that conception and those more modern views that have largely supplanted it, are best understood against the backdrop of a clear account of the role of conceptual analysis in logical investigation. The first part of the book locates the role of conceptual analysis in Frege's logicist project. Blanchette argues that despite a number of difficulties, Frege's use of analysis in the service of logicism is a powerful and coherent tool. As a result of coming to grips with his use of that tool, we can see that there is, despite appearances, no conflict between Frege's intention to demonstrate the grounds of ordinary arithmetic and the fact that the numerals of his derived sentences fail to co-refer with ordinary numerals. In the second part of the book, Blanchette explores the resulting conception of logic itself, and some of the straightforward ways in which Frege's conception differs from its now-familiar descendants. In particular, Blanchette argues that consistency, as Frege understands it, differs significantly from the kind of consistency demonstrable via the construction of models. To appreciate this difference is to appreciate the extent to which Frege was right in his debate with Hilbert over consistency- and independence-proofs in geometry. For similar reasons, modern results such as the completeness of formal systems and the categoricity of theories do not have for Frege the same importance they are commonly taken to have by his post-Tarskian descendants. These differences, together with the coherence of Frege's position, provide reason for caution with respect to the appeal to formal systems and their properties in the treatment of fundamental logical properties and relations.

Comment: This book would be a suitable resource for independent study, or for a historically oriented course on philosophy of logic, of math, or on early analytic philosophy, especially one which looks at philosophical approaches to axiomatic systems.

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Rošker, Jana S.. Classical Chinese Logic
2015, Philosophy Compass, 10(5): 301-309.

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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner

Abstract: The present article provides an introduction to classical Chinese logic, a term which refers to ancient discourses that were developed before the arrival of significant external influences and which flourished in China until the first unification of China, during the Qin Dynasty. Taking as its premise that logic implies both universal and culturally conditioned elements, the author describes the historical background of Chinese logic, the main schools of Chinese logical thought, the current state of research in this area and the crucial concepts and methods applied in classical Chinese logic. The close link between Chinese logic and the Chinese language is also stressed

Comment: Presupposes some familiarity with Aristotelian and Fregean logic, as well as ideas in analytic philosophy of language (e.g., theories of reference). This would be a good piece for countering the prejudice that nothing worthy of being called logic was done in the classical Chinese tradition. It is also a good piece for expanding students' imaginative horizons and showing them how their ideas of what logic is have been culturally shaped.

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Chatti, Saloua. Extensionalism and Scientific Theory in Quine’s Philosophy
2011, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 25(1):1-21.

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Added by: Sara Peppe

Abstract: In this article, I analyze Quine's conception of science, which is a radical defence of extensionalism on the grounds that first?order logic is the most adequate logic for science. I examine some criticisms addressed to it, which show the role of modalities and probabilities in science and argue that Quine's treatment of probability minimizes the intensional character of scientific language and methods by considering that probability is extensionalizable. But this extensionalizing leads to untenable results in some cases and is not consistent with the fact that Quine himself admits confirmation which includes probability. Quine's extensionalism does not account for this fact and then seems unrealistic, even if science ought to be extensional in so far as it is descriptive and mathematically expressible.

Comment: This text provide an in-depth overview and critique on Quine's perspective on modality and it would be crucial in postgraduate courses of philosophy of science and logic. Previous knowledge on Quine, modality and quantum mechanics is needed.

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Chatti, Saloua. Avicenna on Possibility and Necessity
2014, History and Philosophy of Logic 35(4): 332-353.

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Added by: Sara Peppe

Abstract: In this paper, I raise the following problem: How does Avicenna define modalities? What oppositional relations are there between modal propositions, whether quantified or not? After giving Avicenna's definitions of possibility, necessity and impossibility, I analyze the modal oppositions as they are stated by him. This leads to the following results: 1. The relations between the singular modal propositions may be represented by means of a hexagon. Those between the quantified propositions may be represented by means of two hexagons that one could relate to each other. 2. This is so because the exact negation of the bilateral possible, i.e. 'necessary or impossible' is given and applied to the quantified possible propositions. 3. Avicenna distinguishes between the scopes of modality which can be either external (de dicto) or internal (de re). His formulations are external unlike al-F̄ar̄ab̄;’s ones. However his treatment of modal oppositions remains incomplete because not all the relations between the modal propositions are stated explicitly. A complete analysis is provided in this paper that fills the gaps of the theory and represents the relations by means of a complex figure containing 12 vertices and several squares and hexagons.

Comment: This article is useful for eastern philosophy courses and logic courses. Although the first part provides an accessible introduction to Avicenna's perspective, it would be better for students to have some prior background in logic. This article is useful for eastern philosophy courses and logic courses. Even if in the first part it provides an introductory section on Avicenna's perspective, it would be better to have some pre-esxisting background on this latter one.

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Kukla, Rebecca. Myth, Memory and Misrecognition in Sellars’ ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’
2000, Philosophical Studies (101) 2-3 161-211.

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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Rory Wilson

Introduction: In increasing numbers, philosophers are coming to read Sellars' "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" (1997, hereafter EPM) as having dealt the definitive death blow to the idea that inner states with epistemic authority could have this authority immediately. EPM purportedly proves that instead, such states necessarily show up already embedded within a web of inferentially articulated conceptual knowledge, and that in order for this to be possible,  the epistemic subject must be a negotiator of a normative space in which standards of justification and correctness are already recognized. [...] In this paper I will attempt to show that Sellars' mythical explanations in EPM employ a very specific and rhetorically complex methodology, and likewise that we will not be in a position to critically assess the paper's arguments unless we give careful attention to its overall textual structure and to the nature of the mythical explanations it employs.

Comment: A companion to Sellars' ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’ for students more inclined to social philosophy.

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Negri, Sara, Jan von Plato, Aarne Ranta. Structural Proof Theory
2001, Cambridge University Press.

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Added by: Berta Grimau

Publisher's Note: Structural proof theory is a branch of logic that studies the general structure and properties of logical and mathematical proofs. This book is both a concise introduction to the central results and methods of structural proof theory, and a work of research that will be of interest to specialists. The book is designed to be used by students of philosophy, mathematics and computer science. The book contains a wealth of results on proof-theoretical systems, including extensions of such systems from logic to mathematics, and on the connection between the two main forms of structural proof theory - natural deduction and sequent calculus. The authors emphasize the computational content of logical results. A special feature of the volume is a computerized system for developing proofs interactively, downloadable from the web and regularly updated.

Comment: This book can be used both in a general course on proof theory for advanced Undergraduates or for Masters students, and for specialized courses - for example, a course on natural deduction. Chapters 1-4 can be used as background reading of a general course. Chapter 1, 5 and 8 could be used in a course on natural deduction. The presentation is self-contained and the book should be readable without any previous knowledge of logic.

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Fisher, Jennifer. On the Philosophy of Logic
2007, Cengage Learning.

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Added by: Berta Grimau, Contributed by: Matt Clemens

Publisher's Note: Jennifer Fisher's On the Philosophy of Logic explores questions about logic often overlooked by philosophers. Which of the many different logics available to us is right? How would we know? What makes a logic right in the first place? Is logic really a good guide to human reasoning? An ideal companion text for any course in symbolic logic, this lively and accessible book explains important logical concepts, introduces classical logic and its problems and alternatives, and reveals the rich and interesting philosophical issues that arise in exploring the fundamentals of logic.

Comment: This book provides an introduction to some traditional questions within philosophy of logic. Moreover, it presents some non-classical logics. It includes an introduction to formal classical logic, so no previous technical knowledge is required. Adequate for a first course on philosophy of logic, either as main or further reading.

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