A BIBLIOGRAPHY: JOHN CORCORAN’S PUBLICATIONS ON ARISTOTLE 1972–2015

This presentation includes a complete bibliography of John Corcoran’s publications devoted at least in part to Aristotle’s logic. Sections I–IV list 20 articles, 43 abstracts, 3 books, and 10 reviews. It starts with two watershed articles published in 1972: the Philosophy & Phenomenological Research article that antedates Corcoran’s Aristotle’s studies and the Journal of Symbolic Logic article first reporting his original results; it ends with works published in 2015. A few of the items are annotated with endnotes connecting them with other work. In addition, Section V “Discussions” is a nearly complete secondary bibliography of works describing, interpreting, extending, improving, supporting, and criticizing Corcoran’s work: 8 items published in the 1970s, 22 in the 1980s, 39 in the 1990s, 56 in the 2000s, and 65 in the current decade. The secondary bibliography is annotated with endnotes: some simply quoting from the cited item, but several answering criticisms and identifying errors. As is evident from the Acknowledgements sections, all of Corcoran’s publications benefited from correspondence with other scholars, most notably Timothy Smiley, Michael Scanlan, and Kevin Tracy. All of Corcoran’s Greek translations were done in consultation with two or more classicists. Corcoran never published a sentence without discussing it with his colleagues and students. REQUEST: Please send errors, omissions, and suggestions. I am especially interested in citations made in non-English publications

Human reasoning and cognitive science

In the late summer of 1998, the authors, a cognitive scientist and a logician, started talking about the relevance of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning, and we have been talking ever since. This book is an interim report of that conversation. It argues that results such as those on the Wason selection task, purportedly showing the irrelevance of formal logic to actual human reasoning, have been widely misinterpreted, mainly because the picture of logic current in psychology and cognitive science is completely mistaken. We aim to give the reader a more accurate picture of mathematical logic and, in doing so, hope to show that logic, properly conceived, is still a very helpful tool in cognitive science. The main thrust of the book is therefore constructive. We give a number of examples in which logical theorizing helps in understanding and modeling observed behavior in reasoning tasks, deviations of that behavior in a psychiatric disorder (autism), and even the roots of that behavior in the evolution of the brain

Biton’s Lost Siege Engine: Experimental archaeology in Classical Studies

This thesis entails an examination of several problems inherent in placing a technical treatise by the Hellenistic Greek engineer, Biton of Pergamon, at a siege of 156-154BCE, with a view to galvanising the existing case of previous scholarship through a combined approach of literary, textual, geographical, and technical analysis. Particular focus is given to the following problems: technical errors in current translations of the treatise of Biton; technical considerations in scholars’ reproductions of a particular engine in the treatise; an assessment of the practical implications of the treatise in situ at the physical site of the ancient city of Pergamon in the second century BCE, as evidenced by archaeological findings and surveys; assessment of those implications by way of historical records of similar conflicts from the Hellenistic period; and suggesting a procedure of dimensional analysis for testing a hypothesis regarding the feasibility of the ancient engineer’s recommended engines as a stand-in for the city’s original defenses, in a manner that harmonises the methodologies of historicism and experimental archaeology with sound and appropriate modern engineering practice from the field of Fluid Mechanics.Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 202

Collection and division in Plato’s Dialogues

Plato describes a way of reasoning that comprises two complementary operations, collection and division. Collection unifies many into one while division divides one into many. In other words, while collection brings together many parts into a whole, division divides a whole into many parts. While Plato goes into some detail in his observations on collection and division, several questions remain unanswered. More specifically, the means by which collection and division operate, their product, and their relation to deductive and non-deductive reasoning are uncertain. The purpose of this study is to shed light on collection and division by defending the following thesis: collection and division define logical frameworks that underlie both deductive and non-deductive reasoning. Chapter 1 will introduce collection and division by reviewing recent literature, defining key terms, and discussing illustrations of collection and division in the dialogues. Chapter 2 will explain how collection and division define logical frameworks through three operations: seeing, naming, and placing. These operations will be discussed in terms of their relations to reasoning about wholes and parts. Chapter 3 will present four models for interpreting the logical structures that are produced by collection and division. It will present the argument that collection and division define non-hierarchical structures of overlapping parts. Chapter 4 will present the argument that collection and division define whole-part relations that underlie deductive reasoning on the one hand, and the formulation of definitions in dialogues such as the Sophist and the Statesman on the other. Chapter 5 will explore the relation between collection and division and non-deductive reasoning. It will present the argument that Meno’s definition of virtue and Euthyphro’s definition of piety are formulated using collection and division. Chapter 6 will provide a summary of key points from the preceding chapters and discuss unanswered questions and avenues for future research

Visualisation and manipulation tools for Modal logic

In this thesis, an investigation into how visualisation and manipulation tools can provide better support for learners of Modal logic is described. Problems associated with learning Modal logic are also researched.Seven areas topics in Modal logic are investigated, as is the influence of domain independent factors (e. g. motivation) on learning. Studies show that students find concepts such as Modal proofs and systems difficult to learn, whilst possible worlds and Modes are fairly straightforward. Areas such as reference, belief and accessibility relations fall between these extremes.Two roles for representations in reasoning are identified: providing a concrete domain for students to reason about, and supporting the process of reasoning. Systems which make use of these complementary representations were found to be more effective for learners than either the syntactic or the diagrammatic representations traditionally used to teach Modal logic.A review of software used to support students learning logic highlights two important features: the use of examples, and automation of routine tasks. A learning environment for Modal logic was designed which incorporated these. The environment was developed using an adapted version of Smalltalk's Model-View-Controller mechanism, and incorporates complementary representations, enhance by direct manipulation.A further study investigates the added benefits of using this tool, as opposed to using the same representation but working with pen and paper. This confirms the importance of using 'concrete' content representations and minimising learners' cognitive load. Performance measures show that software users learnt more, had a deeper style of learning, and found the topics less abstract than their counterparts working with pen & paper.This research shows that complementary representations are an effective way of supporting students studying Modal logic, and that visualisation and manipulation tools which incorporate these systems will provide additional benefits for learners

A General Semantics for Logics of Affirmation and Negation

A general framework for translating various logical systems is presented, including a set of partial unary operators of affirmation and negation. Despite its usual reading, affirmation is not redundant in any domain of values and whenever it does not behave like a full mapping. After depicting the process of partial functions, a number of logics are translated through a variety of affirmations and a unique pair of negations. This relies upon two preconditions: a deconstruction of truth-values as ordered and structured objects, unlike its mainstream presentation as a simple object; a redefinition of the Principle of Bivalence as a set of four independent properties, such that its definition does not equate with normality

Psychology applied : a fusion of abduction and ergonomics

The world has an increasing number of problems, many of which involve a human­ technological component, the solution of which requires strong methods. To explore problem solving methods, I proposed the development of an abductive-ergonomics framework. This framework must support the generation of theories that will support design. To achieve this, I discussed psychology's current method, the hypothetico­-deductive method, suggesting that it is not a general method. As an alternative I discussed abduction, which provides a strong general method. I also explored the aims, perspectives, and unit of analysis offered by ergonomics. In the last chapter I proposed that abduction provides the control task structure to the real world domain described by ergonomics. The fusion between abduction and ergonomics provides the basis for the real world problem solving framework proposed in this thesis

A theory of revolution and a case study of the Haitian Revolution.

During the course of the study, an adequate method of theory construction was both identified and clarified. Moreover, the Systems' mode of theory construction was selected for use in this study, mainly because of its close approximation to social movement phenomena through the use of functional, feedback and feedback loop relationships. The Systems' mode of theory construction was seen as having the most potential for producing the desired result, which was the flexibility and comprehensiveness to allow the construction of a theory which can explain anti-colonial revolutions in particular and "all" revolutions in general.The basic point of view taken in this study is that before an investigator can adequately confront such complex theoretical issues as the explanation of the causal origins of revolution, it is imperative that systematic procedures be developed for doing so. Thus the major goal of this study is theory construction; it is not the verification or testing of theory in any rigorous, experimental, or statistical sense.The major concerns in this study are (1) the development of a general theory about the causal origins of anti-colonial revolution; and (2) the development of this theory from an intensive case study of the Haitian Revolution, perhaps the first "successful, " slave revolution in modern history if not all of history.In the course of accomplishing these tasks, the following minor purposes or exploratory attempts to answer the following questions are accomplished, as well. (1) Why is it that a "successful" slave revolution occurred in Haiti and did not occur among slaves in other French, colonial possessions in the Caribbean? More specifically, why is it that a "successful" slave and anti-colonial revolution occurred in Haiti at this time (1791-1820) and not in such comparable places as the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe? (2) Can the theory once derived be validly generalized to other cases of anti-colonial revolution in another place and another time. For example, can the theory be generalized to the case of the Algerian Revolution of the twentieth century in North Africa? It, too, was an anti-colonial revolution in the French Colonial Empire but it occurred in North Africa in the second half of the 20th century, 1954-1978. (3) How will the theory have to be modified to better fit the cases examined above--Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Algeria--to serve as a general theory of all anti-colonial revolutions? And finally (4) to what degree can this theory be generalized to fit all types of revolutions? In addition, this study also presented some special insight on the ability of the theory to be generalized to all social movements