Abstract

‘During the 1930’s and early 1940’s a thoughtful observer might well have tended towards the conclusion that logic would break off from the ancient moorings that kept it joined to philosophy, and either link itself to mathematics, or go its own way as an independent discipline’. Professor Rescher finds however, on the contrary, that the literature of the last ten to fifteen years displays a significant cluster of developments in logic that may be called philosophical. Branches of logical theory have been developed with philosophical applications in mind. Foundations have been laid for an exact logic of obligation, preference, choice, command; the traditional problem of universals has been focused from the perspective of mathematical logic; existence, time, tense, change and process is being explored with techniques of logic; literature on the logic of belief, hypothesis and probability is extensive.