Metaphysical logic foundation

Author: David Dummett
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: Michael Dummett's The Logical Basis of Metaphysics is worth reading: the book is important, bold, controversial, and very profound. Its central theme: linguistic philosophy is the way to solve metaphysical problems. The major "gains" in metaphysics achieved by this book are not just corrections to classical logic. I believe it is one of the truly high-standard, canonical works of 20th-century philosophy. This book is a representative work of Dummett, systematically reflecting the full scope of the author's philosophical thought. It comprehensively elaborates on issues such as meaning, truth, and anti-realism. Starting from Frege's theory of meaning, the author develops Frege's concepts of sense and reference, further defends Frege's argument about the distinction between sense and reference, criticizes truth-conditional meaning theories, proposes a deflationary theory of meaning, and introduces the display principle and communication principle of meaning theory. It attempts to extend the intuitionist logical methods applied in the field of mathematics to the realm of everyday language, resolving the debate between realism and anti-realism, and laying the logical foundation for the author's philosophical theory. The philosophical theories discussed in this book are vast and profound, with its main arguments bold and deep, highly controversial yet highly original. It is recognized by academia as a relatively important work, one of the truly high-standard achievements of 20th-century philosophy.