Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic: Beyond the Formalism

by Susan Haack

Initially proposed as rivals of classical logic, alternative logics have become increasingly important in areas such as computer science and artificial intelligence. Fuzzy logic, in particular, has motivated major technological developments in recent years.

Susan Haack's Deviant Logic provided the first extended examination of the philosophical consequences of alternative logics. In this new volume, Haack includes the complete text of Deviant Logic , as well as five additional papers that expand and update it. Two of these essays critique fuzzy logic, while three augment Deviant Logic 's treatment of deduction and logical truth. Haack also provides an extensive new foreword, brief introductions to the new essays, and an updated bibliography of recent work in these areas.

Deviant Logic, Fuzzy Logic will be indispensable to students of philosophy, philosophy of science, linguistics, mathematics, and computer science, and will also prove invaluable to experienced scholars working in these fields.

Genres: Philosophy, Logic

318 pages, Hardcover

First published December 15, 1996

About the author

Haack is a graduate of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. At Oxford, she studied at St. Hilda's College, where her first philosophy teacher was Jean Austin, the widow of J. L. Austin.
She studied Plato with Gilbert Ryle and logic with Michael Dummett. David Pears supervised her B.Phil. dissertation on ambiguity. At Cambridge, she wrote her Ph.D. under the supervision of Timothy Smiley. She held the positions of Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge and professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick before taking her current position at the University of Miami.
Haack's major contribution to philosophy, in the 1993 book Evidence and Inquiry is her epistemological theory called foundherentism, which is her attempt to avoid the logical problems of both pure foundationalism (which is susceptible to infinite regress) and pure coherentism (which is susceptible to circularity). She illustrates this idea with the metaphor of the crossword puzzle. A highly simplified version of this proceeds as follows: Finding an answer using a clue is analogous to a foundational source (grounded in empirical evidence). Making sure that the interlocking words are mutually sensible is analogous to justification through coherence. Both are necessary components in the justification of knowledge. At least one scholar has claimed that Haack's foundherentism collapses into foundationalism upon further inspection.
Haack has been a fierce critic of Richard Rorty. She wrote a play, We Pragmatists ...: Peirce and Rorty in Conversation, consisting entirely of quotes from both philosophers. She performed the role of Peirce. Haack published a vigorous essay[8] in the New Criterion, taking strong exception to many of Rorty's views, especially his claim to be a sort of pragmatist.
Haack (1998) is highly critical of the view that there is a feminine perspective on logic and scientific truth. She holds that many feminist critiques of science and philosophy are overly concerned with 'political correctness'.
She has written for Free Inquiry magazine and the Council for Secular Humanism. Haack's work has been reviewed and cited in the popular press, such as The Times Literary Supplement as well as in academic journals.

Source

Reviews

[Michal Paszkiewicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great content, very rigorous thought processes and arguments presented for and against every weird logic you could come up with but haven't. I felt the book could have been more approachable if acronyms weren't suddenly thrown into the text from nowhere and if I had known there was a very useful appendix halfway through the book before I started. I will probably need to reread this after I've tackled some of the books from the bibliography section.

[Peter Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book absolutely changed my life. Logic is a tool we use to get through life, but fuzzy logic is the way life really is.