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2 FUTURE LOGIC



Abstract



Future Logic is an original, and wide-ranging treatise of formal logic. It deals with deduction
and induction, of categorical and conditional propositions, involving the natural, temporal,
extensional, and logical modalities.

(Simply put, deduction and induction are inferences of more or less certainty; propositions
refer to relations between things; modalities are attributes of relations like necessity, actuality
or possibility.)

Traditional and Modern logic have covered in detail only formal deduction from actual
categoricals, or from logical conditionals (conjunctives, hypotheticals, and disjunctives).
Deduction from modal categoricals has also been considered, though very vaguely and roughly;
whereas deduction from natural, temporal and extensional forms of conditioning has been all
but totally ignored. As for induction, apart from the elucidation of adductive processes (the
scientific method), almost no formal work has been done.

This is the first work ever to strictly formalize the inductive processes of generalization
and particularization, through the novel methods of factorial analysis, factor selection and
formula revision.

This is the first work ever to develop a formal logic of the natural, temporal and
extensional types of conditioning (as distinct from logical conditioning), including their
production from modal categorical premises.

Future Logic contains a great many other new discoveries, organized into a unified,
consistent and empirical system, with precise definitions of the various categories and types of
modality (including logical modality), and full awareness of the epistemological and ontological
issues involved. Though strictly formal, it uses ordinary language, wherever symbols can be
avoided.

Among its other contributions: a full list of the valid modal syllogisms (which is more
restrictive than previous lists); the main formalities of the logic of change (which introduces
a dynamic instead of merely static approach to classification); the first formal definitions of
the modal types of causality; a new theory of class logic, free of the Russell Paradox; as
well as a critical review of modern metalogic.

But it is impossible to list briefly all the innovations in logical science -- and therefore,
epistemology and ontology -- this book presents; it has to be read for its scope to be
appreciated.


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