Books

An Invitation
to Formal Reasoning:
The Logic of Terms


by Frederic Tamler Sommers and George Englebretsen
Ashgate Pub Ltd (July 2000)

AVAILABLE AT AMAZON

The Logic of Natural Language
(Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy)


by Frederic Tamler Sommers
Oxford University Press, USA (November 15, 1984)

AVAILABLE AT AMAZON

Selected Publications and Drafts

Mondial Realism (Draft)

To exist is to be in the world. The world–which does not contain itself–is Real1 (R1) and so are its properties. Things in the world (objects, people, events, thoughts, propositions, etc.) are Real2 (R2) and so are their properties. Philosophers tend to focus on R2 realities and to neglect (R1). By paying particular attention to the world and its distinctive properties, the ensuing discussion supports realist positions in metaphysics, alethic theory, doxastic theory, and moral theory.

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Reasoning: How We’re Doing It

(The Reasoner, 2:1:2008)

People untutored in logic reason deductively many times a times a day, noting inconsistencies, making inferences, criticizing the reasoning of others. Even children are quite good at this. But how people reason it is actually something of a mystery. This little article introduces the reader to an ancient puzzle and the author’s solution.

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Commenting On What Was Said (Draft)

The article develops Ryle’s view that the so-called Liar Paradox — ‘What I’m now saying is false’ — is a vacuously meaningless utterance like ‘What I’m now saying is insincere’. Neither assertion refers to or characterizes anything that’s actually been said. Kripke, however, denies we can “sieve out … as meaningless the sentences which lead to paradox.” Favoring Ryle’s view over the conventional Tarski/Kripke view, I educe natural conditions that must obtain whenever one successfully comments on something said. The familiar sentences “which lead to paradox” are then shown to express no propositions and to have no truth-values.

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Putnam’s Born-Again Realism

The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 94, No. 9. (Sep., 1997), pp. 453-471.

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Distribution Matters

Mind, New Series, Vol. 84, No. 333. (Jan., 1975), pp. 27-46.

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The Calculus of Terms

Mind, New Series, Vol. 79, No. 313. (Jan., 1970), pp. 1-39.

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Why Is There Something and Not Nothing?

Analysis, Vol. 26, No. 6. (Jun., 1966), pp. 177-181

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A Program for Coherence

The Philosophical Review, Vol. 73, No. 4. (Oct., 1964), pp. 522-527.

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Meaning Relations and the Analytic

The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 60, No. 18. (Aug. 29, 1963), pp. 524-534.

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Types and Ontology

The Philosophical Review, Vol. 72, No. 3. (Jul., 1963), pp. 327-363

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The Ordinary Language Tree

Mind, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 270. (Apr., 1959), pp. 160-185.

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