logic philosophy

Hardcover. Oxford UK, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 184 pages. Alexander X. Douglas offers a new understanding of Spinoza's philosophy by situating it in its immediate historical context. He defends a thesis about Spinoza's philosophical motivations and then bases an interpretation of his major works upon it. The thesis is that much of Spinoza's philosophy was conceived with the express purpose of rebutting a claim about the limitations of philosophy made by some of his contemporaries. They held that philosophy is intrinsically incapable of revealing anything of any relevance to theology, or in fact to any study of direct practical relevance to human life. Spinoza did not. He believed that philosophy reveals the true nature of God, and that God is nothing like what the majority of theologians, or indeed of religious believers in general, think he is. The practical implications of this change in the concept of God were profound and radical. As Douglas shows, many of Spinoza's theories were directed towards showing how the separation his opponents endeavored to maintain between philosophical and non-philosophical (particularly theological) thought was logically untenable.

Hardcover. Munchen/Leipzig, K.G. Saur, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with light gray stamping, 348 pages. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Oxford UK, Clarendon Press, Revised Ed., 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 312 pages. This book investigates what it means, and whether it is coherent, to say that there is a God. The author concludes that, despite philosophical objections, the claims which religious believers make about God are generally coherent; and that although some important claims are coherent only if the words by which they are expressed are being used in stretched or analogical senses, this is in fact the way in which theologians have usually claimed they are being used. This revised edition includes various minor corrections and clarifications. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. UK, Clarendon Press/Oxford, 5th pr., 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 783 pages. Revised with corrections. An important and monumental work of relevance both to philosophy and mathematics.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 239 pages. The Harvard philosopher Donald C. Williams (1899-1983) was a key figure in the history of analytic philosophy. He played a crucial role in reviving metaphysics at a time when other philosophers ridiculed, criticized, and committed it to the flames. He constructed an explanatorily powerful and parsimonious ontology and cosmology founded on logic, science, and common sense. His most influential articles were on the metaphysics of properties ('The Elements of Being') and the meta-physics of time ('The Sea Fight Tomorrow', 'The Myth of Passage'). His ontology of abstract particulars or tropes and his four-dimensional manifold theory of time remain leading hypotheses in metaphysics. Because of his novel contributions and his defense of metaphysics he made a lasting impact on philosophers of the next generation who in turn believed in the substance of metaphysical inquiry. Name on front fly leaf, light pencil marking to first 30 pages. Otherwise clean, very good.

Hardcover. UK, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 162 pages. In this book, Gopal Sreenivasan provides a comprehensive interpretation of Locke's theory of property, and offers a critical assessment of that theory. Locke argued that the appropriation of things as private property does not violate the rights of others, provided that everyone still has access to the materials needed to produce their subsistence. Given that, the actual appropriation of particular things is legitimated by one's labor. Holding Locke's theory to the logic of its own argument, Sreenivasan examines the extent to which it is really serviceable as a defense of private property. He contends that a purified version of this theory - one that adheres consistently to the logic of Locke's argument while excluding considerations extraneous to it - does in fact legitimate a form of private property. This purified theory is defensible in contemporary, secular terms, since nothing to which Locke gives an ineliminable theological foundation belongs to the logical structure of his argument. The resulting regime of private property is both substantially egalitarian and significantly different from the traditional liberal institution of private property. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Fordham University Press, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 321 pages. This volume explores the three normative sciences that Peirce distinguished (aesthetics, ethics, and logic) and their relation to phenomenology and metaphysics. The essays approach this topic from a variety of angles, ranging from questions concerning the normativity of logic to an application of Peirce's semiotics to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme. A recurrent question throughout is whether a moral theory can be grounded in Peirce's work, despite his rather vehement denial that this can be done. Some essays ask whether a dichotomy exists between theoretical and practical ethics. Other essays show that Peirce's philosophy embraces meliorism, examine the role played by self-control, seek to ground communication theory in Peirce's speculative rhetoric, or examine the normative aspect of the notion of truth. Proceedings of a conference held June 26-30, 2007 at Opole University, Poland. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Oxford UK, Oxford University Press, reprint, 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, navy cloth covered boards with gilt titling to spine. Reprint of the revised second edition with commentary and terminal essays. Light pencil marking to ten pages, otherwise clean and tight copy. Volume 2 only of a two volume set.

Softcover. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, reprint, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 358 pages. This volume includes Whewell's seminal studies of the logic of induction (with his critique of Mill's theory), arguments for his realist view that science discovers necessary truths about nature, and exercises in the epistemology and ontology of science. The book sets forth a coherent statement of a historically important philosophy of science whose influence has never been greater: every one of Whewell's fundamental ideas about the philosophy of science is presented here. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Oxford UK, Clarendon Press, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 148 pages, paper with light tanning. The relationship between formal logic and general philosophy is discussed under headings such as A Re-examination of Our Tense-Logical Postulates, Modal Logic in the Style of Frege, and Intentional Logic and Indeterminism. The relationship between formal logic and general philosophy is discussed under headings such as A Re-examination of Our Tense-Logical Postulates, Modal Logic in the Style of Frege, and Intentional Logic and Indeterminism. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.