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Logic

The Emperor Ponders Dense Descriptions

Emperor Norton has written a follow-up on generating dense descriptions, and it is well worth the wait. I talked about thick descriptions in one of my posts on this subject, but Norton is here talking about dense descriptions, where every word is pregnant with meaning. Norton uses Robert E. Howard

The Long View 2003-09-2003: Gödel Incarnate

John's prediction here that the Supreme Court would find itself stripped of some of its powers by the other branches of government has not yet come to pass. At present, the highest court is still seen as a political prize to be won, rather than an impediment to

The Long View: Gödel: A Life of Logic

Kurt GödelI like to think that I am re-posting all of John's blog as some sort of service to humanity, but really I just enjoy rediscovering gems like this one. John's review of a biography of Kurt Gödel has been definitive in shaping my opinions about

The Long View 2002-05-02: Bill Clinton in 2005!

Another Constitutional law post from John. Since I'm not a lawyer, I'll refrain from commenting on the technical merits of his proposal other than to say it seems plausible to this non-specialist. I also think I remember a joke making the rounds a while ago about

Physicists' notoriously casual attitude toward mathematics

Alexander Pruss, a philosopher at Baylor, comments on physicists' notoriously casual attitude towards mathematics and notation. This is right on. Like the first commenter, in school I remember the snide remarks the math and physics profs would direct at each other on this subject. As a physicist at heart,

Aristotelian vs. Analytic Logic

James Chastek has more on the difference between a logic that sees the basic unit of analysis as the term, and one that sees it as the proposition. Cross-posted to Dead Philosophers Society

Content Logic vs Formal Logic

In an earlier post, I discussed the merits of an Aristotelian logic as term logic: we begin by simply noting that things exist, and we know them. Only then can we move on to construct propositions and then chains of reasoning. Aristotelian logic is also content logic. Content logic may