ion and general ideas.” Compare Meinong, Über Möglichkeit und Wahrscheinlichkeit, p. 178: “Besonders geeignet sind vielmehr Begriffsgegenstände, wie uns deren etwa durch Definitionen gegeben werden. Das Dreick z.B., darin hatte der sicher nicht überrationalistische Locke gegen Berkeley und gegen viele Spätere) am Ende doch recht, ist als solches weder gleichseitig noch gleichschenklig, weder rechtwinklig noch schiefwinklig, noch das Gegenteil davon: es ist in diesen Hinsichten und noch in vielen anderen eben unbestimmt. Gegenstände dieser Art stehen in deutlichen Gegensatz zu solchen, die, wie wir deren oben zuerst betrachtet haben, in bezug auf alle wie immer gearteten Gegenstände bestimmt sind. Man kann solche Gegenstände mit Recht vollständig bestimmte nennen, Blaues, Dreieck und ihresgleichen dagegen unvollständig bestimmte.” 15Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, [1739-40], edited by Selby-Bigge, second edition revised by Nidditch (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 17.

Handbook of the history of logic

More than thirty eminent scholars from nine different countries have contributed to The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy – the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of the subject available in English. In contrast with most histories of philosophy and in keeping with preceding Cambridge volumes in the series, the subject is treated systematically by topic, not by individual thinker, school, or movement, thus enabling a much more historically nuanced picture of the period to be painted. As in previous titles in the series, the volume has extensive biographical and bibliographical research materials. During the eighteenth century, the dominant concept in philosophy was human nature, and so it is around this concept that the present work is centered. This allows the contributors to offer both detailed explorations of the epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical themes that continue to stand at the forefront of philosophy and to voice a critical attitude toward the historiography behind this emphasis in philosophical thought. At the same time, due attention is paid to historical context, with particular emphasis on the connections among philosophy, science, and theology. This judiciously balanced, systematic, and comprehensive account of the whole of Western philosophy during the period will be an invaluable resource for philosophers, intellectual historians, theologians, political theorists, historians of science, and literary scholars.

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The Cambridge history of eighteenth-century philosophy

ion. What would be left if we abstracted from all contentful functionand objectsenses in a Fregean thought would be nothing but a pattern of functional applications and abstractions. For example, instead ofions. For example, instead of for every two integers, there is a third that is greater than their sum, i.e., (∀x)(∀y)((Ix & Iy)⊃(∃z)(Iz & z>x+y)), which we might rewrite in functional notation as ∀(λx∀(λy⊃(&(I(x),I(y)),∃(λz>(z,+(x,y)))))), we would have the “form” Φ(λxΦ(λyζ(θ(π(x),π(y)),Ψ(λzκ(z,μ(x,y)))))). But at this level of abstraction the logical structure of the claim is no longer fully in view, since we’ve “abstracted from” the logical constants. We could continue to maintain that logic is unrestrictedly formal, but only at the cost of confining logic to the meager resources of function application and abstraction, and removing conjunction, negation, quantification, and other notions generally regarded as logical from its purview. It seems more reasonable to follow Frege in denying that logic is unrestrictedly formal.25 For Frege, then, logical notions cannot be distinguished from non-logical ones on by generic features of their semantic role. Both the logical notion identity and the non-logical notion is taller than are first level functions with two arguments. They differ only in their graphs: One puzzle: in the long passage quoted from FG2, Frege lists subsumption (the falling of an object under a concept or a first level concept under a second level concept, PW:193, 213) as one of the notions proper to logic. But subsumption is not a concept or relation, but the notion of functional application itself (or rather a restriction of that notion, since not all functions are concepts). What is more, subsumption does not correspond to any symbol in the Begriffsschrift, so logical relations that depend on it would be preserved under arbitrary category-preserving translations. It is therefore hard to see how it belongs with identity, negation, and concept subordination in Frege’s list. CHAPTER 5. FREGE AND THE FORMALITY OF LOGIC 157 X Y X is taller than Y X is identical with Y George Bush Jesse Jackson False False Odysseus Penelope True False George Bush George Bush False True etc. etc. etc. etc. Similarly, both the universal quantifier and the second level concept some philosophers are second level functions with one argument. The line between logical and non-logical notions must therefore appeal to specific features of items within each semantic category (perhaps permutation invariance or something similar). For Kant, by contrast, there is a generic difference in semantic functioning between logical and non-logical vocabulary. Notice that Frege’s argument against the 3-formality of logic in FG2 does not depend on his commitment to logical objects and his logicist program (though surely it is motivated, at least in part, by these commitments). One could consistently hold that logic has its own contentful concepts (negation, identity, concept subordination, etc.) while denying that objects can be given through logical means alone. This observation will be important in section 5.4, when we ask where we should stand in the debate between Frege and Kant on the nature of logic, given that most philosophers now reject the idea that logic has its own objects. 5.2.6 “The most general laws of truth” To hold that logic is 1-formal but not 3-formal, as Frege does, is to reject Kant’s Thesis. On Frege’s view, the laws of logic are both constitutive norms for thought as such and informative about very general features of the “nature of things.” Frege devotes considerable attention (from 1893 on) to explaining how this can be so. Frege’s main concern is to defuse an argument that would establish Kant’s Thesis on quite general grounds (grounds independent of any specifically Kantian doctrines). The argument begins with the observation that “law” is used in two senses, which we might call “normative” and “descriptive:” “In one sense a law asserts what is; in the other it CHAPTER 5. FREGE AND THE FORMALITY OF LOGIC 158 prescribes what ought to be” (GGZ:xv). A normative law prescribes what one ought to do or provides a standard for the evaluation of one’s conduct as good or bad. Public statutes, moral codes, and aesthetic canons are all normative laws. A descriptive law, on the other hand, describes counterfactually robust regularities in the order of things. Laws of physics, biology, and geometry are descriptive laws. Whether a law is normative or descriptive is an intrinsic feature of its content: no law can be both. The argument Frege is concerned to rebut simply applies this exclusive categorization to the laws of logic. If these laws are normative for thought as such (1-formal), then they cannot be descriptive: they cannot say anything about how things are. Hence, if they are 1-formal, they must also be 3-formal. Against this line of thought, Frege wants to have it both ways: he wants to conceive logical laws both as prescribing how one ought to think and as saying how things are. He does not think that logical laws are explicitly prescriptive as to their content (Ricketts 1996:127). They have the form “such and such is the case,” not “one should think in such and such a way”: The word ‘law’ is used in two senses. When we speak of moral or civil laws we mean prescriptions, which ought to be obeyed but with which actual occurrences are not always in conformity. Laws of nature are general features of what happens in nature, and occurrences in nature are always in accordance with them. It is rather in this sense that I speak of laws of truth [i.e., laws of logic]. Here of course it is not a matter of what happens but of what is. (Th:58) But although logical laws are not prescriptive in their content, they imply prescriptions and are thus prescriptive in a broader sense: “From the laws of truth there follow prescriptions about asserting, thinking, judging, inferring” (Th:58, emphasis added). Hence Any law asserting what is, can be conceived as prescribing that one ought to think in conformity with it, and is thus in that sense a law of thought. This holds for laws of geometry and physics no less than for laws of logic. The latter have a special title to the name “laws of thought” only if we mean to assert that they are the most general laws, which prescribe universally the way in which one ought to think if one is to think at all. (GGZ:xv) Frege’s line of thought here is subtle enough to deserve a little unpacking. Consider the statement “the white King is at C3.” Though the statement is descriptive in its content, it CHAPTER 5. FREGE AND THE FORMALITY OF LOGIC 159 has prescriptive consequences in the context of a game of chess: for instance, it implies that white is prohibited from moving a bishop from C4 to D5 if there is a black rook at C5. Now instead of chess, consider the “game” of thinking about the physical world. As in chess, “moves” in this game—thoughts—can be assessed as correct or incorrect. Thoughts about the physical world are correct to the extent that they accurately depict the way the world is. Laws of physics (for instance, Maxwell’s equations) are descriptive laws; they tell us how the physical world is. But in the context of the “game” or activity of thinking about the physical world, they have prescriptive consequences: one ought not make judgments that conflict with them. In so far as one’s activity is to count as thinking about the physical world, it must be assessable as correct or incorrect (true or false) by reference to the laws of physics.26 In this sense, the laws of physics provide constitutive norms for the activity of thinking about the physical world. This is not to say that one cannot think wrongly about the physical world: one’s thoughts need not conform to the norms provided by the laws of physics; they need only be assessable in light of them. Nor is it to say that one must be aware of these laws in order to think about the physical world. The point is simply that to count someone as thinking about the physical world is ipso facto to hold her thoughts assessable for truth or falsity by their agreement or disagreement with the laws of physics. Someone whose thoughts were not so assessable could still be counted as thinking, but not as thinking about the physical world. It is in this sense that Frege holds that a law of physics “. . . can be conceived as prescribing that one ought to think in conformity with it, and is thus in that sense a law of thought.” On Frege’s view, then, laws of physics cannot be distinguished from laws of logic on the grounds that the former are descriptive and the latter prescriptive. Both kinds of laws are descriptive and have prescriptive consequences. They differ only in the activities for which they provide constitutive norms. While physical laws provide norms for thought about the physical world, logical laws provide norms for thought as such. To count an activity as There are of course other dimensions of correctness of thought besides truth and falsity: e.g., standards for proper justification. CHAPTER 5. FREGE AND THE FORMALITY OF LOGIC 160 thought about the physical world is to hold it assessable in light of the laws of physics; to count an activity as thought at all is to hold it assessable in light of the laws of logic. (As in the case of the laws of physics, there is no implication that thought must conform to these laws in order to count as thought: the point is that they must be assessable in light of these laws.)27 Frege often casts the difference between logical laws and laws of the special sciences as a difference in generality : logical laws are more general in the sense that they “. . . prescribe universally the way in which one ought to think if one is to think at all” (GGZ:xv), as opposed to the way in which one ought to think in some particular domain (cf. PW:1456). Thus, in his 1897 “Logic” manuscript, Frege writes: Like ethics, logic c

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What does it mean to say that logic is formal

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Determinism, broadly speaking, is the doctrine that whatever happens in the world is brought about by causes other than itself. In this sense, all the major philosophers of the seventeenth century – with the possible exception of Male-branche – were determinists. But these same philosophers also believed in human freedom. It follows that each of them (again, perhaps excepting Malebranche) was a compatibilist with respect to freedom and determination: each held that being free is logically compatible with being causally determined. Yet their specific teachings on this subject are very different from one another. For they had very different views on the nature and scope of human freedom, and different conceptions of causation. This chapter concentrates on the teachings of these major figures: Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Locke, and Leibniz. There were, of course, other seventeenth-century thinkers who concerned themselves with freedom and determinism – this was one of the most frequently debated issues of the age. And some of these others, in opposition to the philosophers, were incompatibilists. They held that an action logically cannot both be causally determined and be free, in any proper sense of ‘free’. An incompatibilist has two options: adhere to determination and deny that anything or anyone is free (this is hard determinism) or admit free actions and claim that these are undetermined, and thereby reject the doctrine of determinism (this is libertarianism). We know of no seventeenth-century thinker who took the hard determinist position, but quite a few were libertarians.

Determinism and human freedom

Ideas and objective being

Whatever its merits and difficulties, the concept of logic embedded in much of the ‘new philosophy’ of the early modern period was then understood to supplant contemporary views of formal logic. The notion of compiling a natural history of the understanding constituted the basis of this new concept of logic. The following paper attempts to trace this view of logic through some of the major and numerous minor texts of the period, centering on the development and influence of John Locke's understanding of the analysis of the cognitive faculties as the discipline of logic.

The natural history of the understanding: locke and the rise of facultative logic in the eighteenth century

What is it with Damaris, Lady Masham? : The historiography of one early modern woman philosopher

Special Features: John Locke Through the Centuries: Assessing the Lockean Legacy, 1704-2004. Papers from the conference at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, 28-30 October 2004. Edited by Earle Havens and James G. Buickerood. "Introduction," Earle Havens "Charting John Locke's Legacy," James G. Buickerood and Earle Havens "John Locke and the Intellectual Legacy of the Early Enlightenment," Jonathan Israel "The Early Biographical Tradition," Mark Goldie "The Modern Biographical Tradition," J. R. Milton " 'A Law of Continuity in the Progress of Theology': Assessing the Legacy of John Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity," Justin Champion "The Legacy of Two Treatises of Government," Ian Harris "Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding: The Philosophical Legacy," G. A. J. Rogers "Locke's Modest Impact on Eighteenth-Century Natural Science: The Encyclopedic Evidence," Paul Schuurman "Citizens, Wives, Latent Citizens and Non-Citizens in the Two Treatises: A Legacy Of Inclusion, Exclusion, and Assimilation," Barbara Arneil "Locke on Property and Value," John Kane "Pierre Des Maizeaux, A Collection of Several Pleces of Mr. John Locke, and the Foundation of the Locke Canon," Philip Milton "Andrew Michael Ramsay (1686-1743), the Jacobite Court and the English Catholic Enlightenment," Gabriel Glickman "Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Presbyterian Whig and Hutchinsonian," Derya Gurses. Review Essays John W. Yolton on Paul Schuurman, Ideas, Mental Faculties and Method: The Logic of Ideas of Descartes and Locke and its Reception in the Dutch Republic Peter Loptson on John W. Yolton, The Two Intellectual Worlds of John Locke: Man, Person, and Spirits in the "Essay" James G. Buickerood on Wiep van Bunge, Henri Krop, Bart Leeuwenburgh, Han van Ruler, Paul Schuurman and Michiel Wielma, eds., Dictionary of Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers Ian Harris on Peter Anstey, ed., The Philosophy of John Locke: New Perspectives Saul Traiger on Claudia Schmidt, David Hume: Reason in History John Stephens on Robert E. Schofield, The Enlightenment Joseph Priestley: A Study of His Life and Work from 1773 to 1804 Michael Funk Deckard on Luke Gibbons, Edmund Burke and Ireland: Aesthestics, Politics, and the Cultural Sublime James Harris on Joseph Houston, ed., Thomas Reid: Context, Influence, Significance Book Reviews "Roy Porter, ed., The Cambridge History of Science. Vol. 4, Eighteenth-Century Science," Anita Guerrini "Clare O'Halloran, Golden Ages and Barbarous Nations: Antiquarian Debate and Cultural Politics in Ireland, c.1750-1800," Toby Barnard Index.

Eighteenth-century thought

L'Auteur de cet Ouvrage nous paroit meriter un rang distingue parmi les Auteurs Metaphysiques Il seroit seulement A souhaiter qu'il efit traite ses matieres avec un peu plus de Methode Ce West pas qu'il ne soit tres-intelligible, & que son Stile meme ne soit assez pur, mais un Auteur devroit se souvenir que ceux qui liront son ouvrage ne suivront pas ses pensees comme il les suit, & qu'on ne se rapellera pas ce qu'il a dit aussi facilement qu'il se le rapelle lui-meme Il nous paroit que si l'Auteur veut encore s'exercer sur pareilles matieres il ne fera pas mal de repasser sur ce qui'il vient de publier, de donner des definitions plus intelligibles, & d'eclaircir le reste avec plus d'exactitude --Bibliotheque raisonnee, June 1729 Two Dissertations concerning Sense, and the Imagination With an Essay on Consciousness appeared anonymously in mid-summer 1728 over the prestigious imprint of Tonson in the Strand1 The "Essay on Consciousness" explicates the nature and functions of consciousness The two dissertations modestly prepare for an inquiry into human understanding, which is at present very much wanted; and towards which the removal of those Prejudices arising from Sense, and the Imagination, which hinder Men from discovering the Truth, or discerning it, tho' fairly offered to them, is the first Step to be made; and may be of some use to any one who shall hereafter undertake to explain and set forth, in a clear and perspicuous Light, the native and genuine Operations of the Understanding, as they are in Themselves, without mixing or confounding them with any Others (1-2) A Bibliotheque raisonnee review twice noted the book's diffusion and inconvenient organization2 The book is nonetheless interesting for its clear defense of the cognitive superiority of reason over sense and imagination, its attack on contemporary conflations of human and brutal natures, and its treatment of consciousness, dreams, madness, and the self In its assay of human understanding Two Dissertations implements Peripatetic, Cartesian, and even Lockean principles The last notwithstanding, the work is an assault on the Lockean reduction of understanding to passive perception and on Locke's conception of knowledge as the perception of ideas and their relations It is also an attempt to resuscitate reason in the teeth of nominalist accounts of rationality such as those of John Toland and allied freethinkers3 In pursuing these goals, it offers variations on traditional concepts of cognition, such as a conception of notions as acts of intellectual apprehension which an interpreting mind brings to bear on sensory appearances This understanding of notions as acts falls within the British notional way marked by Digby, White, Sergeant, and especially Burthogge, antedating publication of George Berkeley's explicit distinction between passive ideas and notions owing to reflection4 Notions play an important role in Two Dissertations, contrasting the mind's active, rational contribution to knowledge with Lockean ideas Yet the work's treatment of notions contains intimations of a more elaborate conception of rationality that includes a distinct order of reflective notions not deployed in this book (25-26) Clearly identifying the purposes, doctrine, and authorship of Two Dissertations is worthwhile insofar as its detailed analysis of consciousness is intrinsically interesting and quite possibly historically important, despite its neglect in the past century For its "Essay on Consciousness" purports to be the "first Attempt that hath been made on the Subject" (sig …

https://www.jstor.org/stable/info/3654164

James G. Buickerood

Papers

The natural history of the understanding: locke and the rise of facultative logic in the eighteenth century

What is it with Damaris, Lady Masham? : The historiography of one early modern woman philosopher

Eighteenth-century thought

"The whole exercise of reason": Charles Mein's Account of Rationality