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Etchemendy and Logical Consequence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Graham Priest*
Affiliation:
University of QueenslandBrisbane, Queensland Australia4072

Extract

Logical consequence is a notion that every person who reasons must possess, at least implicitly. To give a precise and accurate characterization of this notion is the fundamental task of logic. In a similar way, the notion of effectivity is a concept that anyone with a basic training in mathematics possesses, and the most fundamental task of a theory of computability is to give a precise characterization of this notion. The problem concerning effectivity was solved (at least to the satisfaction of most people) in the 1930s, almost as soon as it was raised, by the work of Turing, Church, and others. By contrast, the correct and precise characterization of logical consequence has been hotly contested through the two and a half thousand-year history of logic.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1995

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References

1 Etchemendy, J. The Concept of Logical Consequence (Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press 1990).Google Scholar References are to this book unless otherwise indicated.

2 ‘On the Concept of Logical Consequence.’ The paper was reprinted in English in 1956, as ch. 16 of Logic, Semantics and Mathematics (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1956).

3 E.g. Read, S. Relevant Logic (Oxford: Blackwell 1988)Google Scholar; Priest, G.Boolean Negation and All That,Journal of Philosophical Logic 19 (1990) 201-15, 207f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 For example, it might be some relevant conditional, as in Priest, G. and Crosthwaite, J.Relevance, Truth and Meaning,’ in Norman, J. and Sylvan, R. eds., Directions in Relevant Logic (Dordrecht: Kluwer 1989).Google Scholar

5 They are certainly used this way by some writers, e.g., Priest, G.Two Dogmas of Quineanism,Philosophical Quarterly 29 (1979) 289301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar