2.7.1: Overview

First-order logic is not the only system of logic of interest: there are many extensions and variations of first-order logic. A logic typically consists of the formal specification of a language, usually, but not always, a deductive system, and usually, but not always, an intended semantics. But the technical use of the term raises an obvious question: what do logics that are not first-order logic have to do with the word “logic,” used in the intuitive or philosophical sense? All of the systems described below are designed to model reasoning of some form or another; can we say what makes them logical?

No easy answers are forthcoming. The word “logic” is used in different ways and in different contexts, and the notion, like that of “truth,” has been analyzed from numerous philosophical stances. For example, one might take the goal of logical reasoning to be the determination of which statements are necessarily true, true a priori, true independent of the interpretation of the nonlogical terms, true by virtue of their form, or true by linguistic convention; and each of these conceptions requires a good deal of clarification. Even if one restricts one’s attention to the kind of logic used in mathematics, there is little agreement as to its scope. For example, in the Principia Mathematica, Russell and Whitehead tried to develop mathematics on the basis of logic, in the logicist tradition begun by Frege. Their system of logic was a form of higher-type logic similar to the one described below. In the end they were forced to introduce axioms which, by most standards, do not seem purely logical (notably, the axiom of infinity, and the axiom of reducibility), but one might nonetheless hold that some forms of higher-order reasoning should be accepted as logical. In contrast, Quine, whose ontology does not admit “propositions” as legitimate objects of discourse, argues that second-order and higher-order logic are really manifestations of set theory in sheep’s clothing; in other words, systems involving quantification over predicates are not purely logical.

For now, it is best to leave such philosophical issues for a rainy day, and simply think of the systems below as formal idealizations of various kinds of reasoning, logical or otherwise.