Inference vs. Implication

Gillian linked* to a paper by Gil Harman and Sanjeev Kulkarni, which contains this nice explanation of the distiction between inference (reasoning) and implication (what follows from what): A related problem with the traditional picture is its treatment of deductive principles like (D) as rules of inference. In fact they are rules of about what … Continue reading Inference vs. Implication

Intuitionists need new examples

If you've read Brouwer or Heyting, you've probably seen examples involving the question if 0123456789 occurs in the decimal expansion of π. I wasn't aware that it's been known for a few years that it does: the first time at the 17,387,594,880th digit. There's also 10 consecutive 7's starting at 22,869,046,249.

Modal Logic Textbooks

I'm scheduled to teach a course on modal logic in the Fall. So I'll have to think about a textbook choice pretty soon. Last time I've used Fitting and Mendelsohn's First-order Modal Logic (Kluwer, 1999), which I quite like. It's accessible, which is important, since many of the students will be philosophy majors with little … Continue reading Modal Logic Textbooks

Logic in Montego Bay

This year's LPAR will be held in Montego Bay, Jamaica--in early December. I missed the meetings in Havana and Reunion (Had papers and didn't go! What was I thinking?) so it's probably time to put on my computer science hat and write something.