[FOM] FOM: BUFFALO LOGIC COLLOQUIUM 2005-6 FIRST FALL ANNOUNCEMENT

[John Corcoran]

BUFFALO LOGIC COLLOQUIUM 2005-6 THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR
FIRST FALL ANNOUNCEMENT
QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  CHURCH ON FORMALIZED LANGUAGES:  The superficial
linguistic analogy of ... two arguments is deceptive.  Because of this,
it is desirable or practically necessary for purposes of logic to employ
a specially devised language, a formalized language as we shall call it,
which shall reverse the tendency of the natural languages and shall
follow or reproduce the logical form – at the expense, where necessary
of brevity and facility of communication.  To adopt a particular
formalized language thus involves adopting a particular theory or system
of logical analysis.  Church 1956, 2, 3.

FIRST  MEETING: JOINT WITH THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENTAL COLLOQUIUM
Friday, September 9, 2005
3:30 -6:00P.M.
141 Park Hall

SPEAKER: Peter Simons, Philosophy, Leeds University and former Editor of
History and Philosophy of Logic.
TITLE: Truthmakers: What to Expect From Them.


Sponsored by the UB School of Management, Philosophy Department
Colloquium Fund, the C.S. Peirce Professorship in American Philosophy,
and NCOR (National Center for Ontological Research)


SECOND MEETING
Friday, September 16, 2005
4:30-6:00 P.M.
141 Park Hall
SUBJECT: An informative and inspiring film about the proof of the
centuries old Fermat Hypothesis by Andrew Wiles, Mathematics, Princeton
University.
TITLE: The Proof.
ABSTRACT: Fermat’s Hypothesis amounts to the simple proposition that
given any three positive numbers that are all the same power exceeding
two, no one is the sum of the other two.  This implies that no sum of
two cubes is a cube; that no sum of two fourth powers is a fourth power;
and so on.  Try it out. Wiles discovered Fermat’s Hypothesis, the
proposition, not the proof of course, while at a public library at the
age of ten.  From this point on he devoted his life to settling the
hypothesis.  When he was a graduate student in mathematics, his teachers
discouraged him from continuing with it.  In spite of this, he continued
his work.  Later on, as a professor, inspired by an article by two
Japanese mathematicians which added an element he was lacking, he worked
on the problem for two more years, finally got it.

THIRD MEETING
Friday, September 23, 2005
12:00-1:30 P.M.
141 Park Hall

SPEAKER: Fabian Neuhaus, Philosophy, University of Buffalo, and IFOMIS,
Universität des Saarlandes,.
TITLE: An actualist semantics for modal logic.

ABSTRACT: TBA 

DUTCH TREAT SUPPER FOLLOWS.
ALL ARE WELCOME.

RELATED EVENT
Thursday, October 6, 2005
7:00-9:00 P.M.
Center for Inquiry

SPEAKER: John Corcoran, Philosophy, University of Buffalo.
TITLE: George Boole (1815-1864), Founder of Symbolic Logic. 

ABSTRACT: GEORGE BOOLE, self-educated English mathematician and
logician, is regarded by many logicians as the founder of symbolic
logic.  He could be called the Galileo of logic in that he definitively
established the mathematical nature of logic – assuming that it was
Galileo (1564-1642) who did this for physics, not, say, Archimedes
(287-212 BCE).  He is considered to be among the five greatest
logicians, the others being the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322
BCE), the German mathematician Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), the Austrian
mathematician Kurt Gödel (1906-1977) and the Polish mathematician Alfred
Tarski (1901-1983).  It has been said that Galileo’s greatest
achievement was to persuade the world’s scientists that physical reality
is mathematical, or at least that science should be pursued
mathematically.  In his words, “The Book of Nature is written in
mathematical characters”.  In a strikingly similar spirit, Boole stated
“it is certain that [logic’s] ultimate forms and processes are
mathematical” (Boole 1854, 12).  Perhaps Boole’s greatest achievement
was to persuade the world’s logicians that logical reality is
mathematical, or at least that logic should be pursued mathematically.  


FOURTH MEETING
Friday, October 14, 2005
4:30 -6:00P.M.
141 Park Hall

SPEAKER: John Dawson, Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University, York
and Editor of History and Philosophy of Logic.
TITLE: TBA 

ABSTRACT: TBA. 
FIFTH MEETING
Friday, November 11, 2005
4:30 -6:00-P.M.
141 Park Hall

SPEAKER: Daniel Merrill, Philosophy. Oberlin College.
TITLE: Augustus De Morgan’s Numerically Definite Syllogisms 
ABSTRACT: TBA
FUTURE SPEAKERS IN FALL: 1. Barry Smith, Philosophy, University of
Buffalo, Editor of The Monist, TBA.
. 
ALL ARE WELCOME

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John Corcoran: corcoran at buffalo.edu


ALL ARE WELCOME

To receive this via email, please send your full name and email address
to John Corcoran. For further information, to report glitches, suggest a
talk, unsubscribe or make other suggestions, please email: John
Corcoran: corcoran at buffalo.edu



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