Centre Chspam : Archives 1996–2012
Laboratoire SPHERE - UMR 7219

Abstract : The distinction between apophansis and protasis seems to have been lost already in the Alexandrian commentator tradition (Ammonius, Philoponus), a loss which influenced both Arabic and Medieval logic. It will be argued that what caused the loss was Aristotle’s own definition of the logos apophantikos, that is, the declarative sentence, as one "in which truth or falsity inheres".

14h – 16h
Prof. Wilfrid Hodges

(Emeritus Professor Queen Mary, University of London, British Academy)

The grammar of meanings underlying Ibn Sina’s logic

Abstract : Ibn Sina, almost certainly following a tradition going back to
Porphyry, reduced the prerequisites for logic to a minimum by basing it on
our intuitive understanding of meanings. He saw meanings as organised
into a kind of dependency grammar, which in his logic plays a similar role
to Begriffsschrift in Frege’s logic. This gave him a handle for extending
logic radically, for example to sentences with complex patterns of
quantifiers.

* Laboratoire SPHERE, UMR 7219,
CNRS – Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7),
Campus Paris Rive gauche (PRG), bâtiment Condorcet,
4, rue Elsa Morante or 10, rue A. Domon et L. Duquet, 75013 Paris. Plan.
Métro ligne 14, RER C : station Bibliothèque François Mitterrand