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IMC 2017: Sessions

Session 304: Logical Otherness in the Middle Ages: Reflections on Medieval Philosophy of Logic

Monday 3 July 2017, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Simon Hewitt, School of Philosophy, Religion & History of Science, University of Leeds
Moderator/Chair:Mark Wynn, School of Philosophy, Religion & History of Science, University of Leeds
Paper 304-aReasoning about the Impossible
(Language: English)
Sara L. Uckelman, Institute of Medieval & Early Modern Studies, Durham University
Index terms: Philosophy, Science
Paper 304-b'My future son is possibly alive': Existential Presupposition and Proper Names in Abelard's Modal Logic
(Language: English)
Irene Binini, Classe di Scienze Umane, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
Index terms: Philosophy, Science
Paper 304-cLogic in Aquinas's Commentary on the Posterior Analytics
(Language: English)
Simon Hewitt, School of Philosophy, Religion & History of Science, University of Leeds
Index terms: Philosophy, Teaching the Middle Ages
Abstract

In recent years, logicians and historians of logic have paid renewed attention to the Middle Ages. Our speakers will consider ways in which medieval understandings of logic differed from those common within present-day philosophy and mathematics. How did medieval logicians understand logical consequence ('what follows from what?')? How did they think about reasoning with words like 'necessarily' or 'possibly'? And what, for them, was the subject matter of logic? We will see that the Middle Ages were a fertile period of thought about logic, from which current practitioners can learn.