User talk:Chalst/WikiProject Logic proposal

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Contents 1 Dean's message 1.1 Also 2 Folk who have expressed an interest in this project 3 Logic as an exercise in character building 4 What's the charter? 5 What next, Charles: Why not a Logic Portal instead?

[edit] Dean's message

Hi Charles.

1. Could you take a look at the note on Paul August's discusson page I've put together on the removed link? Paul had said he has no objection to replacing the link but I am still unclear about the principle involved.

2. On the idea of improving the sections on logic before Frege, I agree. I wrote the "Term Logic" page some time ago, but it now overlaps with several others.

3. On the expression "Term Logic", I used this because it has the advantage of being a common name for Aristotelian logic, medieval/scholastic logic, traditional logic and neo-scholastic logic.

4. Suggested improvements

(A) incorporate "Term Logic" into "Aristotelian Logic and tidy up. Incorporate the "Syllogism" piece into AL, plus anything else that is genuinely Aristotelian.

(B) A new piece on "Medieval" or "Scholastic" Logic. This would include (i) a brief history of the subject 1050 to 1400, perhaps a bit on 1400-1600 to include Suarez and others (ii) something on what makes ML distinctive, such as supposition theorym, and particularly the problem of universals.

Perhaps also the square of opposition, as this is not specifically Aristotelian, but more an (early) medieval accretion.

(C) A new piece on Traditional Logic from Arnauld to the late nineteenth century.

Note I have just completely edited the 1911 Britannica article on Logic, here. http://uk.geocities.com/frege@btinternet.com/cantor/Logic1911.htm

Can't link it to Wiki until we are clear about the criterion for linking!!

[edit] Also

Also (D) a page on "revisionist logic", i.e logic of the post 1880 era but which is backward looking in some way. This

Sommers logic neo-scholastic (i.e. neo-Thomist) logic Perhaps analytical Thomism, on which there is a very scrappy page which I started but never finished

E.

[edit] Folk who have expressed an interest in this project

1. User:Philogo
2. User:Paul August
3. User:Paolo Liberatore
4. User:Dbuckner
5. User:Charles Matthews
6. User:CSTAR
7. User:KSchutte
8. User:Jiy
9. User:Nahaj
10. User:PWilkinson
11. User:Jon Awbrey
12. User:Dbtfz
13. User:Porcher
14. User:Stevekimcomcastnet
15. User:Trovatore
16. User:Michael Campbell

Please feel free to add your name to the above list. --- Charles Stewart 20:06, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Logic as an exercise in character building

I caught that comment in the article... Thought you might be interested in a related view: "Logic is the hygiene of Mathmatics." "Mais, si la logique est l'hygie`ne du mathe'maticien, ce n'est pas elle qui lui fournit sa nourriture; le pain quotidien dont il vit, ce sont les grands proble`mes. "Une branche de la science est pleine de vie, disait Hilbert, tant qu'elle offre des proble`mes en abondance; le manque de proble`mes est signe de mort." -Andre Weil Just a personal option... I think Andre Weil is right... although I'd phrase it that that the job of logic (other then the most fun game on the block) is keeping the other fields honest (clean). Nahaj 18:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What's the charter?

Is the project to be aimed at philosophical logic, mathematical logic, or both? Of the four traditional branches of math logic, namely set theory, model theory, recursion theory, and proof theory, only the last is really what I think of as logic in the strict sense (and it's also the least interesting, aihmé). --Trovatore 15:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Both. The project will overlap with the wikiprojects in mathematics, philosophy, computer science, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics. It's important to cover all of the areas, since there are lots of parallelisms between philosophical and mathematical logic.

Proof theory is very interesting, at least to me, being a proof theorist. Computer scientists interested in logic are rather more likely to be interested in proof theory than set theory, and proof theory has better links to algebraic logic than the other three traditional branches. Model theory is also core logic; recursion theory and set theory are better seen as mathematical structures for logic than logic proper, but truly logical questions arise in each. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 21:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Obviously interest is a subjective matter; no offense intended. I had just one course on proof theory in grad school; could be it was just the particular selection of topics covered that struck me as tedious. --Trovatore 21:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Have a look at the topics covered in the Proof theory article: most of the interest is in structural proof theory, though the coverage in that article is pretty sketchy. --- Charles Stewart^(talk) 22:12, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What next, Charles: Why not a Logic Portal instead?

There do not appear to have been many recent contributions to the discussion of your proposal. It seems to me (a new-comer) that there are some good articles on Logic and some quite indifferent ones. What there does not appear to be is a structured "directory" with links to Logic articles. If this is what would be called a portal then I think we need a Logic portal.Philogo 20:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally I don't find portals very useful, but in any case the question is completely orthogonal to that of a WikiProject Logic. Portals are navigational aids aimed at readers, whereas WikiProjects are ways of organizing the efforts of editors. So you can have a portal with or without a project, and a project with or without a portal. --Trovatore 21:58, 11 March 2007 (UTC)