RUMINATIONS - by Avi Sion

RUMINATIONS:

Sundry notes and essays on Logic.

Avi Sion,  Ph. D.

First published, 2005. Expanded edition, same year.

Abstract

Ruminations is a collection of sundry notes and essays on Logic. These complement and enrich the author’s past writings, further analyzing or reviewing certain issues.

Among the many topics covered are:

• the importance of the laws of thought, and how they are applied using the logic of paradox;
• details of formal logic, including some important new insights on the nesting, merger and splitting up of hypothetical propositions;
• details of causal logic, including analogical reasoning from cause to cause;
• a cutting-edge phenomenological analysis of negation.

Additionally, this volume is used to publish a number of notes and essays previously only posted in the Internet site The Logician, including a history of Jewish logic and an analysis of Islamic logic.

Buy it or read it online

All of Avi Sion’s published books can be purchased at Amazon.com (in paperback or kindle/.mobi form), and at Lulu.com (in hardcover, paperback or e-book/.epub form), as well as other online stores.

They can also be read online free of charge, chapter by chapter, at www.TheLogician.net and, in '3D flipbook' format, at www.AviSionBooks.com, as well as in Google Books and other Internet locations. They are also available in many university and public libraries.

Contents in brief

1.     About the Laws of Thought

2.     About Induction

3.     About Words

4.     About Formal Logic

5.     About Paradoxes

6.     About “Modern Logic”

7.     About Cognitive Development

8.     About Causal Logic

9.     About Negation

10.  Jewish Logic: A Brief History and Evaluation

11.  Islamic Logic

12.  Logical Aspects of Foucault's "Archeology"

13.  Comments on 3 chapters of Foucault

14.  Bolzano's Semantics Concepts

Contents in detail

1.               ABOUT THE LAWS OF THOUGHT

1.               Dialectical Reasoning

2.               Genesis of Axioms

3.               Paradoxical Propositions

4.               Contradiction

5.               Varieties of Contradiction

6.               Double Standards

7.               Special Status of the Laws

8.               Motors of Rational Thought

9.               Cogito, Ergo Sum

10.            Concerning Identity

2.               ABOUT INDUCTION

1.     Critical thought

2.     Misappropriation

3.     Evidence

4.     Detail

5.     Seems and Is

6.     Adduction

7.     Pertinence

8.     Trial and Error

9.     Field Specific

10.  The Human Factor

11.  Theorizing

12.  Approaching Reality

13.  Experiment

14.  The Uncertainty Principle

15.  Epistemic Ethics

16.  Phenomenology

17.  Appearance, Reality and Illusion

18.  Existence and Non-existence

19.  Philosophy and Religion

3.               ABOUT WORDS

1.     Meaning

2.     Traditional Distinctions

3.     Logic and Linguistics

4.     Dialogue

5.     Poles of Duality

4.               ABOUT FORMAL LOGIC

1.     Form and Content

2.     Singular Subject

3.     Special Forms

4.     Fuzzy Logic

5.     Added Determinants

6.     Relational Expressions

7.     Disjunction

8.     Material and Strict Implication

9.     Nesting of Hypotheticals

10.  Compound Theses

11.  Validation of Nesting

12.  Brackets in Logic

5.               ABOUT PARADOXES

1.     On the Liar Paradox

2.     Making No Claim

3.     Nagarjuna’s Trickery

4.     Non-apprehension of Non-things

5.     A Formal Impossibility

6.     The Analytic/Synthetic Dichotomy

7.     On the Russell Paradox

8.     An Illustration of Russell’s

9.     On Grelling’s Paradox

6.               ABOUT “MODERN LOGIC”

1.     A School of Logicians

2.     Alleged New Methods

3.     Non-Aristotelian “Logic”

4.     Postmodern “Logic”

5.     Mere Manipulations

6.     Thinking Reflexively

7.     Conventional Logic

8.     Absolute Truths

9.     Untouched by Consciousness

10.  Logical Atomism

11.  Exclusive Judgments

12.  Empty Terms

7.               ABOUT COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

1.     The Fourth R

2.     Empirical Studies

3.     Piaget’s Model

4.     Piaget’s Experiments

5.     Lines of Inquiry

6.     Experimental Techniques

7.     Private Languages

8.               ABOUT CAUSAL LOGIC

1.     Induction of Causatives

2.     True of All Opposites

3.     Extensional to Natural

4.     Hume’s Denials

5.     Hume’s Mentalism

6.     Constant Conjunction

7.     Billiard Balls

8.     Against Kant on Freewill

9.     Alleged Influences

10.  Analogical Inferences

9.               ABOUT NEGATION

1.     Negation in Adduction

2.     Positive and Negative Phenomena

3.     Positive Experience Precedes Negation

4.     Negation is an Intention

5.     Formal Consequences

6.     Negation and the Laws Of Thought

7.     Pure Experience

8.     Consistency is Natural

9.     Status of the Logic of Causation

10.  Zero, One and More

11.  Psychology of Negation

12.  Negation in Meditation

10.            JEWISH LOGIC: A BRIEF HISTORY AND EVALUATION

1.     Introduction

2.     Traditional Claims and Historical Record

3.     Comparisons and Assessments

11.            ISLAMIC LOGIC

1.     The Structure of Islamic Law

2.     Islamic Hermeneutics

3.     Interpreters

12.            LOGICAL ASPECTS OF FOUCAULT’S ARCHEOLOGY

1.     Slippery

2.     Catch Him

3.     Healing

13.            COMMENTS ON 3 CHAPTERS OF FOUCAULT

1.     Las Meninas

2.     The Prose of the World

3.     Representing

14.            BOLZANO’S SEMANTICS CONCEPTS

1.     “Propositions-in-Themselves”

2.     “Ideas-in-Themselves”

3.     The Issue of Time

(Note: As of 2008, the section headings in chapters 1-9 were added in for the reader’s convenience. Moreover, three essays originally included in this book were omitted from it, viz.: “J. S. Mill’s Methods” (2005), which was put with The Logic of Causation; and “Addenda to Judaic Logic” (1997-2005) and “Diagrams for Judaic Logic” (2005), which were put with Judaic Logic. The remaining few chapters were then renumbered 10-14.)