2.7.7: Other Logics
As you may have gathered by now, it is not hard to design a new logic. You too can create your own a syntax, make up a deductive system, and fashion a semantics to go with it. You might have to be a bit clever if you want the proof system to be complete for the semantics, and it might take some effort to convince the world at large that your logic is truly interesting. But, in return, you can enjoy hours of good, clean fun, exploring your logic’s mathematical and computational properties.
Recent decades have witnessed a veritable explosion of formal logics. Fuzzy logic is designed to model reasoning about vague properties. Probabilistic logic is designed to model reasoning about uncertainty. Default logics and nonmonotonic logics are designed to model defeasible forms of reasoning, which is to say, “reasonable” inferences that can later be overturned in the face of new information. There are epistemic logics, designed to model reasoning about knowledge; causal logics, designed to model reasoning about causal relationships; and even “deontic” logics, which are designed to model reasoning about moral and ethical obligations. Depending on whether the primary motivation for introducing these systems is philosophical, mathematical, or computational, you may find such creatures studies under the rubric of mathematical logic, philosophical logic, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, or elsewhere.
The list goes on and on, and the possibilities seem endless. We may never attain Leibniz’ dream of reducing all of human reason to calculation—but that can’t stop us from trying.