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Distinktionen mellan analytiska och syntetiska sanningar spelade en viktig för filosofer som Leibniz, Hume och Kant. Men det var först med Frege som begreppet analyticitet fick en definition som inte bara tycks vara explicit utan som också hade en bred tillämpbarhet. Den förmodade distinktionen analytiskt/syntetiskt har dock senare ifrågasatts av filosofer såsom Quine. Denna uppsats avser i första hand att visa att Quines argument, i artikeln Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951), mot analyticitet inte är tillräckligt starka för att bevisa att den fregeanska definitionen av analyticitet är cirkulär. I detta sammanhang har uppsatsen även undersökt kronologiskt viktiga epoker där Quine engagerar sig i den analytiska/syntetiska distinktionen i sitt arbete före liksom efter 1951. Den mer moderna traditionen, som delar in analyticitet i två kategorier – metafysisk och epistemisk analyticitet – går tillbaka till Boghossian (1996). Boghossian försvarar en uppdaterad version av Wittgensteins och Carnaps åsikt att analyticitet skall anges i termer av implicita definitioner I motsats till Boghossian anser Williamson att det inte finns något sätt att uppfatta analytiska sanningar som gör analyticitet användbar inom filosofin. Inom ramen för uppsatsens syfte kommer även dessa ’post-quineanska’ försök att beskriva analyticitet och den analytiska förklaringen av a priori att redovisas och kritiskt granskas., The distinction between analytic and synthetic truths has played an important role for philosophers such as Leibniz, Hume and Kant. However, it was Frege who gave the notion of analyticity a definition that not only appears to be unambiguous but is also widely applicable. However, the supposed analytic/synthetic distinction was later challenged by philosophers such as Quine. This thesis aims primarily to show that Quine’s arguments, in the article Two Dogmas of Empiricism (1951), against analyticity are not sufficient to show that Frege’s definition of analyticity is circular. In this context, the paper has also examined chronologically important periods where Quine is engaged in the analytic/synthetic distinction before and after 1951. The more modern tradition, which separates analyticity into two broad categories – metaphysical and epistemic analyticity – goes back to Boghossian (1996). Boghossian defends an updated version of Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s view that analyticity should be stated in terms of implicit definitions. In contrast to Boghossian, Williamson believes that there is no way of understanding analytic truths that makes analyticity useful in philosophy. Within the scope of this thesis, these ‘post-Quinean’ attempts to describe analyticity and the analytic explanation of a priori will also be presented and critically reviewed.

A definition of abstract logic is presented. This is used to explore and compare some abstract logics, such as logics with generalised quantifiers and infinitary logics, and their properties. Special focus is given to the properties of completeness, compactness, and the Löwenheim-Skolem property. A method of comparing different logics is presented and the concept of equivalent logics introduced. Lastly a proof is given for Lindström's theorem, which provides a characterization of elementary logic, also known as first-order logic, as the strongest logic for which both the compactness property and the Löwenheim-Skolem property, holds.

I denna bok står kritiskt tänkande som vetenskapligt och pedagogiskt ämne i centrum. Här beskrivs ämnets områden och olika metoder för att utveckla kritiskt tänkande presenteras utförligt. Metoder för att analysera resonemangs logiska hållbarhet förklaras ingående liksom metoder för att utveckla argumentationen i olika kommunikationssammanhang, till exempel argumenttyper, argumentationsscheman, argumentrekonstruktion, dialogprofiler och argumentationskritiska strategier. Boken innehåller också en genomgång av ett stort antal felslut och belyser några av de faktorer som gör att felslut ibland kan övertyga oss trots att de innehåller orimliga resonemang. De specifika typer av plausibla resonemang som felaktigt används inom felslut analyseras också. I slutet av varje kapitel finns övningar med tillhörande lösningar samt reflektionsfrågor. Kritiskt tänkande och logisk argumentationsanalys riktar sig i första hand till studenter och lärare i kritiskt tänkande, filosofi och andra ämnen där utveckling av analytiska förmågor är viktig. Boken kan också vara till nytta för alla som vill utveckla sin förmåga att tänka kritiskt., The focus of this book is critical thinking as scientific and pedagocial subject. The subject's areas and various methods for developing the skills of critical thinking are presented in detail. Methods for analysing the logical quality of reasoning are explained in detail as well as methods for developing argumentation in various communicative contexts, for instance types of arguments, argumentation schemes, argument reconstruction, argument evaluation, profiles of dialogue and argumentation-critical strategies. The book also contains meticulous analyses of a large number of fallacies and highlights some of the reasons why fallacies sometimes may persuade us even if they contain logically wrong reasoning. The specific types of plausible reasoning incorrectly appealed to in fallacies are also analysed. At the end of each chapter there are exercises with solutions, as well as questions for reflection. The book is aimed primarily at students and teachers in critical thinking, philosophy and other subjects where development of analytic skills is important. The book can also be of benefit for all those who want to develop their abilities of critical thinking., Stort tack till Erik Olof Burmans stipendiestiftelse som tilldelade mig ett docentstipendium, vilket gav mig tid för att skriva denna bok. I am very grateful to Erik Olof Burman's scholarship foundation that awarded me a research scholarship, which gave me time to write this book.

Seit Jahrhunderten gibt es den Wunsch, das komplexe Gefüge des Gehirns und der Denkprozesse zu formalisieren. Die Autorin geht der Geschichte dieses Wunsches nach, indem sie mit Hilfe des Begriffs der Mathematisierung der Wahrnehmung die Geschichte der mathematischen Logik und der Übersetzungsprozesse in binäre/informatische Technologien nachzeichnet. Sie stellt dar, wie Methoden und Modelle aus der Mathematik und der Informatik Eingang in die Hirnforschung, in die Ideen des Denkens und in das Konzept des freien Willens gefunden haben. Aus einer feministisch informierten Science-and-Technology-Studies-Perspektive nähert sie sich der Mathematisierung des Blicks und der Wahrnehmung und stellt Fragen nach der Betrachtungsweise der Mensch/Maschine-Parallelen.

In this paper, we argue that the trial scene in Aischylos’ Eumenides exhibits attempts at “internal critique,” that is, arguments refuting a thesis “from within,” for example, by identifying a logical inconsistency. Apollo, Orestes, and the Erinyes employ such techniques with varying success in three argumentative moves pertaining to murder, revenge, and kinship, thus showing and teaching the audience the art of such argument. While these techniques are typically considered Socratic-Platonic, we argue that this is a decisive moment in the history of argumentation, and possibly the first juncture in extant Greek literature where a character explicitly points out a contradiction.

This paper is about what disgust means for how people talk about and act in toilets. The overall purpose is to map and analyze meanings attributed to toilets, primarily public, but also semi-public, variants (semi-public are toilets that are publicly available under certain conditions, for example for guests at a restaurant). A more specific purpose is to investigate how disgust organizes these meanings as well as people’s toilet practices. The main material is based on interviews with 11 people who clean or have cleaned toilets professionally in different places and in different contexts, for example at shopping centers, companies, institutions and ships. The paper is also based on media material collected with the help of the database retriever.nu and a search on "public toilets". In addition, observations have been made in public toilets, such as at airports, training facilities and bus stations. Theoretically, the paper is based on a discourse-theoretical perspective that focuses on logics, i.e. organizing principles possible to identify in different practices and discourses. According to the results, a cultural logic of disgust characterizes notions of toilets and toilet practices, which means that toilet visitors strive to distance themselves ritually, symbolically and practically from the materiality of the toilet. As an example, toilet visitors create distance to a presumed contaminated toilet seat by hovering, i.e. by performing their needs without touching the toilet seat with the buttocks. Non-contact technologies such as automatic soap dispensers fulfill a similar distancing function., Offentliga toaletter är ett omdiskuterat fenomen. I svenska medier framgår att mycket kritik riktas mot den här typen av inrättningar. Förutom att det påstås att offentliga toaletter är dåligt underhållna, utsätts för skadegörelse och utgör tillhåll för kriminella, så hävdas att de är vidriga och frånstötande. Skribenter berättar om skräck-fyllda upplevelser på offentliga toaletter, vars golv, väggar, tvättställ och toalettstolar har varit täckta av lämningar från tidigare besökare. Offentliga toaletter förknippas således med någonting mycket äckligt. Den här texten handlar om vad äckel betyder för hur människor tänker om och agerar på toaletter. Det övergripande syftet är att kartlägga och analysera de betydelser som tillskrivs toaletter, i första hand offentliga, men också semioffentliga varianter. (Semioffentliga är toaletter som är publikt tillgängliga under vissa villkor, till exempel för gäster på en restaurang). Ett mer specifikt syfte är att utreda hur äckel, som föreställning och förmedlad känsla, organiserar dessa betydelser och människors toalettpraktiker.

Es geht ums Licht. Um Licht, das in ein Handrefraktometer einfällt und das es uns erlaubt Zucker in Früchten zu bestimmen. Wie das?, fragte sich unser Autor Martin. Er zerlegte das Gerät und «reiste» mit dem Licht durch die Probe ins Handrefraktometer bis ans Auge. Das Licht verhielt sich wie Strahl, Welle und Teilchen; es wurde gebrochen, reflektiert und gesammelt. All das in diesem Laborjournal in Tagebuchform.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how people, in a situation of ongoing environmental and climate change, problematize Swedish forestry. Based on the discourses and logics that are expressed, the focus is on how the resistance is made through notions of the Swedish forest, social categories, nature and man's place in nature. The analysis shows how scientific knowledge and cultural knowledge from the participants' imaginary worlds interact in the crisis discourse the group creates about the Swedish forest. In the social reality of the crisis discourse, it becomes central to make other people "wake up" and see how forestry and the majority's way of life threatens not only the forest but all life on earth. The discussions can be described as a negotiation over what is "natural" as well as what and who is imagined to be part of "nature". Paradoxically, man is articulated both as part of ecological systems and as an "unnatural" intruder in nature: like a pest.

The paper is dvoted to interdisciplinary research at the intersection of symbolic logic, mathematical ethics, and philosophical theology. By comparing definitions of relevant functions, a surprising analogy is discovered between the well-known Philo’s precise definition of implication in logic (classical one) and Augustine’s precise definition of God’s morally good reaction to human actions. The moral-value-table-representation of Augustinian doctrine is compared with moral-value-table-representations of Pelagius’ and Leo Tolstoy’s views of adequate moral-response-actions., El artículo trata de investigaciones interdisciplinarias en la intersección de la lógica simbólica, la ética matemática y la teología filosófica. Al comparar definiciones de funciones relevantes, se descubre una analogía sorprendente entre la conocida definición precisa (dada por Filón) de implicación clásica en la lógica y la definición precisa agustiniana de la reacción moralmente perfecta de Dios a las acciones humanas. La representación (modelación) de la doctrina agustiniana, mediante una tabla de valores morales, es comparada con modelos (representados por tablas de valores morales) de las opiniones de Pelagio y Leo Tolstoi sobre la adecuación moral de acciones de respuesta.

Despite the huge progress in deep learning and automated reasoning, understanding natural language has not been treated consistently using such approaches. The aim of this thesis is to build a system able to perform reasoning over natural language sentences using formal logical reasoning. In order to process natural language sentences, we will build a logical representation for them. Translating natural language sentences to predicate logic formulas will be done using a deep learning approach using the power of the BERT language model. We will make use of attention layers to preserve their logical meaning. We will further use this logical representation to infer the equality of different sentences by using multi-hop reasoning with weak unification. This will allow further applications, including question answering. Investigating the possibility of creating an end-to-end trainable neural network theorem prover that combines rule-based reasoning with machine learning creating sub-symbolic reasoning. In order to evaluate the performance of the developed approaches, we import, further develop, and augment datasets of natural language sentences annotated with their logical formulas. Finally, the approaches will be evaluated experimentally., by Kamal Zakieldin, Masterarbeit University of Innsbruck 2021

Sweden’s drug policy still invokes the ideas of zero-tolerance and prohibition despite the high reported number of drug-related deaths and arrest rates for using drugs in Sweden in the latest years. To reach knowledge about why prohibition of illegal drugs has remained such a strong staple of Swedish politics for the latest 60 years, this study asks questions about which ideas and arguments constituting the Swedish drug policy, examines the logical coherence of these, and proposes an alternative policy route which aims to mitigate the shortcomings of the current policy. The drug policy field is extensive and studies from different nations show that drug policies that move away from prohibitionist ideas have succeeded in both reducing drug-related mortality rates and reducing the stigma that is attached to either using or abusing psychoactive drugs. Because of an identified unclarity of why the prohibitionary ideas in Sweden have remained despite recent developments, this study aims to fill a gap in existing research by normatively analyzing the ideas in the policy. Since these ideas have great importance in restrictions of individual liberty and public health considerations, knowledge about them is essential to create because liberty and public health are fundamental aspects in any democratic society. The research endeavor performs an internal validity check as the methodological approach to check the internal logic and arguments of the policy and uses a theory of liberty to shed light on the trade-offs between liberty and public health. What is discovered is that the Swedish drug policy builds on inconsistent arguments and incoherent logic and has a moralizing intent that allows for restrictions on individual liberty to reach a utopian vision of a drug-free society. Also, this study shows that it is possible to create a policy that can mitigate the harms caused by the current by adhering to the principle that individual liberty should stretch as far as possible whe