Introduction to Logical Theory

by Peter Frederick Strawson

First published in 1952, professor Strawsonâ s highly influential Introduction to Logical Theory provides a detailed examination of the relationship between the behaviour of words in common language and the behaviour of symbols in a logical system. He seeks to explain both the exact nature of the discipline known as Formal Logic, and also to reveal something of the intricate logical structure of ordinary unformalised discourse.

Genres: Philosophy, Logic

Paperback

First published March 22, 2011

About the author

Sir Peter Frederick Strawson FBA was an English philosopher. He was the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) from 1968 to 1987. Before that he was appointed as a college lecturer at University College, Oxford in 1947 and became a tutorial fellow the following year until 1968. On his retirement in 1987, he returned to the college and continued working there until shortly before his passing.

Reviews

[T. Tokunaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

【Communucative Positivism / Introduction to Logical Theory (1952, reprinted 1966) / PF Strawson】

Imagine your being accused of reading novels all the time. "Your brain is full of fictions!" Here comes Peter Strawson backing you up.

--Fiction is not the same thing as falsehood, though we sometimes politely disguise the nature of falsehood by calling it fiction. (Chapter 3, Part I. p. 69.)

And if you're supposed to be a logical person for having a keen insight on a daily level, you can just argue against that this way.

But it does not follow from the fact that an historian's or a detective's argument is, by deductive standards, invalid, that it is in any sense unsound. (Chapter 9, Part III, p. 233.)

This book will let you know what you learned or are learning under the name of logic is limited to many circumstantial factors, but can be supplemented by considering two methodologies, formal and traditional. Formal logic shows a high accuracy about the type of relationships things have, whereas traditional one has a strength in showing the time scheme. Both are useful in their own ways, that'd be a great progress since the denial of traditional logic by Bertrand Russell.

His eclectic theory would be also seen in the last chapter, inductive reasoning, which mixes the meticulous studies of modal language in daily life of Wittgenstein and testability of Popper.

This book shows that now little know Strawson did a pretty interesting revision of the analytic tradition, not in a novel way, but in a substantial way.

--So their theory represents our inductions as the vague sublunary shadows of deductive calculations which we cannot make. (Chapter 9, Part III, p. 256.)

[Spoust1]

What I most appreciated about this book was Peter Strawson’s many comments on the relationship between formal logic and ordinary language. One gets a sense both of how formal logic clarifies common sense and of how it abstracts from the messiness of everyday speech; which means, one gets a sense both of the benefits and drawbacks of formalization. The final chapter on inductive reasoning is also quite good.

I was glad that Strawson doesn’t spend too much time explaining logical rules and elaborating them in symbolic terms, but this may detract from the book as an introduction to logic. In fact, it is probably better viewed as a work in the philosophy of logic than as an introduction. For those truly in need of an introduction to the subject of logic, Irving Copi’s classic textbook is probably a better place to start.