NAME:  Richard Bradshaw Angell

Born:  October 14, 1918, Bronxville, N.Y.

PRESENT RANK & DATE OF RANK:  Emeritus Professor,  Wayne State University, June, 1989 -

Home Address:

150 Kendal Drive Philosophy Department
Kennett Square, PA 19348

E-mail:  rbangell@bellatlantic.net

EDUCATION:

High School:  Bronxville, H.S., Bronxville, N.Y.,1936

Undergraduate:  B.A, 1940, Swarthmore College, PA

Graduate:
M.G.A., 1948, Univ.of Pennsylvania, PA
M.A. 1948, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Ph.D. 1954, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
              Title of Ph.D.Dissertation: "Designata, Language and Truth:  A Preface to a Pragmatic Rationalism"

Professor Emeritus, Wayne State University June, 1989
Professor, Dept of Philosophy, Wayne State University 1968-89
Chairman, Wayne State Philosophy Department - 1968-73, 75-77
Ohio Wesleyan University, Asst Professor to Professor 1954-68
Wells College, 1962-64, Washington & Jefferson College, 1953-54
Wheaton College (Norton, MA), 1952 Florida State University, 1949-51

PUBLICATIONS

Books

A-LOGIC, (pp 658 +xxi), University Press of America, 2002
Reasoning and Logic, (pp. 625+xiv), Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, l964

(1) Translation of "The Logic of Probability" by Bruno de Finetti, Philosophical Studies, v. 77 (Jan. 1995) pp 181-190

(2) "Truth-functional Conditionals and Modern, vs.Traditional, Syllogistic", Mind, (England), v.XCV, No.378, April,1986; pp 210-23

(3) "The Geometry of Visibles", Nous, v.VIII (1974), pp 87-117

(4) "Uninterpreted Calculi and 'Sound' Logical Systems", Logique et Analyse, (Belgium), April l964, pp 5-13

(5) "A Propositional Logic with Subjunctive Conditionals", Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.27, (l962), pp 327-43

(6) "The Sentential Calculus Using Rule of Inference, Re", Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.25, (June l960), p 143

(7) "Note on a Less Restricted Rule of Inference", Mind, April 1960, pp 253-55

(1) "Analytic Truth-tables", Paper given at Association for Symbolic Logic, 12/77; Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.46, n.3, (1981), p.677

(2) "Three Systems of First Degree Entailment", Paper given at Assn for Symbolic Logic,12/74; Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.42, (1977), p. 147

(3) "A Unique Normal Form for Synonyms in the Propositional Calculus", Paper given at Association for Symbolic Logic, New York, 12/27/69; Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.38 (l973), p. 350

(4) "Connexive Implication; Modal Logic and Subjunctive Conditionals", Paper given at Association for Symbolic Logic, Chicago, 5/5/67, Journal of Symbolic Logic, l971, p. 367

(5) "A Formalistic Approach to Synonymity", Paper given at Amer. Philosophical Assn, Washington,D.C., 12/29/68 Journal of Philosophy, v.LXV, n.21, (Nov 7,l968), p.340

(6) "Distinctions of Quality in Mathematical Logic", Paper Assn for Symbolic Logic, Boston, Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.33, no.4,(1968), pp.639-40

(7) "Three Logics of Subjunctive Conditionals", Paper given at Colloquium on Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics, Deutsche Vereiningung Fur Mathematische Logik, Hanover, Germany, August 12, l966. Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.32, No.4,(l967), pp.556-57

(8) "Material Implication and Modern vs. Traditional Syllogistic", Paper given at Assn. for Sym. Logic New York, 2/18/65, Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.31, No.4,(1966), pp.684-85

(9) "Quantification Theroy Without Multiple Occurrence-Sets of Variables", Paper given at Assn for Symbolic Logic, Chicago,4/65. Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.31, No 1,(l966), pp.147-8

(10) (With D.E.Anderson) "Venn Diagrams for n Classes", Paper given at Assn for Symbolic Logic, Chicago, 4/65, Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.31, No.1,(l966), pp.152-3

(11) "Existential Import and Logic", Paper given at American Philosophical Association, New York, 12/65. Journal of Philosophy, v.LXII, No.21 (11/4/1965) pp 653-4

(12) "A Notationally Defined Intensional Criterion for Logical Truth", Paper given at Assn for Symb.Logic & Amer. Mathematical Society, New York City, 4/21/64. Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.29, No.3,(1964), pp.152-3

(13) "A Logical Notation with Two Primitive Signs", Paper given at Assn for Symbolic Logic, Atlantic City, 12/61. Journal of Symbolic Logic, v.25, No.4 (1962) p. 385

(14) "Logic and Existentialist Ethics", Paper given at American Philosophical Assn., (Eastern Div.), Atlantic City, 12/29/61. Journal of Philosophy, v.LVIII,n.22, (10/26/1961) p.700

Selected UNPUBLISHED PAPERS presented at International or National Meetings

(1) "Conditional Probability and Nicod's Conditional", Society for Exact Philosophy, Memorial University, St John's, Newfoundland, Aug 28, l987

(2) "Meaning and Impossibility", American Philosophical Association, (Pacific Div), San Francisco, 3/29/80

(3) "Entailment and Analytic Containment: Two Alternatives to e", International Conference on Relevance Logic, St.Louis, September, l974

(4) "'Some' and 'Exists'", Paper given at American Philosophical Association, (Western Div.), Chicago, 4/19/65

(5) "The Geometry of the Pure Visual Field", Paper given at Amer.Philosophical Assn, (Western Div.), Columbus, O., 5/3/63

*(6) "Uninterpreted Calculi and 'Sound' Logical Systems", Paper given at American Philosophical Association, (Western Div.), Detroit, 5/4/62.

PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS, Dec 85 to Apr 92, 5 volumns, unpublished, 1382 pages; Still more on disks (not printed) 1993-2003.

TEACHING:  over the years included, especially in 1980-90 Graduate Courses: Philosophy of Science, 20th Century Analytic Philosophy I, 20th Century Analytic Philosophy II, Seminar in Logic, Seminar in Philosophy of Language, Modal Logic, Deontic Logic, Seminar: Special Topics: Truth and Pragmatism
 

A 350-word Summary of the book, A-Logic, (2002)

A-LOGIC develops a new system of logic designed to 1) solve the standard paradoxes and major problems, 2) minimize anomalies with respect to ordinary language, yet 3) preserve the theorems of standard mathematical logic. It covers lst order logic -- the logic of the words "and", "or", "not", "some" and "all", but it has a non-truth-functional "if...then" and differs fundamentally in its definition of validity, its semantics and its theorems. It is contrasted step-by-step with mathematic logic as presented and defended by Quine.

A-logic's semantics is based on syntactically defined concepts of logical synonymy and containment of meanings rather than truth-values and truth-functions. Its "if...then" sentences (called "C-conditionals") are valid if and only if (i) the meaning of the consequent is logically contained in that of the antecedent, and (ii) the antecedent and consequent are jointly consistent. In Part II an extra-logical operator ('T' for "It is true that...") is introduced, producing an extension of A-logic that encompasses standard logic's semantics except for its restriction to two truth-values.

All of standard logic's "theorems" are tautologies in A-logic, but some argument-forms called "valid" in standard logic are not valid in A-logic (notably non-sequiturs like "(P and not-P), therefore Q". In addition A-logic has tautologies involving C-conditionals (e.g., Not[if (P&Q) then not-P]) that standard logic can not derive. The word "valid" applies only to conditionals and arguments in A-logic, and no valid C-conditionals are translatable into standard logic though they all imply analogous tautologies of standard logic.

Due to its definition of validity, A-logic has no Liar Paradox. Its C-conditionals have no "paradoxes of material or strict implication". Because a C-conditional is neither true nor false when the antecedent is not true, it avoids Hempel's "Paradox of Confirmation", solves Carnap's "problem of dispositional predicates" and Goodman's first "Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals" and makes the probability of a C-conditional the same as conditional probablility in probability theory. In accomplishing its ends A-logic makes necessary and plausible qualifications in its C-conditional versions of Transposition and Addition.
 

A Personal Note on My Development

Prior to 1943 I was interested in goverment and planned to go into politics to work for a better world. When I was released from the U.S.Army after World War II, I had become convinced that I did not have the right temperament for politics, and realized that what interested me most were the philosophical problems of knowledge and ethics. I applied to do graduate work in Harvard's Philosophy Department in 1946. I wanted to develop more logical ways of approaching problems involving value judgements. At Harvard I quickly found that the new powerful, rigorous logic developed by Russell and Whitehead was focused on truth, and had little to offer for a logic of value judgments. I became intrigued by the question of how to reconcile rigor and revelance. I read much of William James and John Dewey on the relevance side, and the Early Wittgenstein, Carnap, C.I. Lewis and Quine on the side of rigor. My Ph..D. dissertation at Harvard in 1954 was entitled Language,Designata and Truth; a Prolegomena to a Pragmatic Rationalism. Since that time I have taught courses on efforts by Von Wright and others to develop deontic logic, or a logic of better and worse, as extensions of mathematical logic; I found these to have problems like those of standard logic from which they started. I also studied and taught courses in Contemporary Philosophy with the emphasis on theory of knowledge. My present view, stated simply, is that pragmatists were right in trying to focus the attention of philosophers towards the ways in which ideas and concepts are useful for human purposes, but they were wrong in the way they corrupted the concept of truth and ignored the developments in modern logic. Elsewhere I have written (not yet published) a discussion of James' theory of truth, in which I hold that a rigorous correspondance theory of truth is, pragmatically, an extremely usable and useful concept. In Chapter 7 of Analytic Logic I present a fairly rigorous account of the correspondence theory of truth and the whole development of "truth-logic" in Chapters 7 -10 is based on that concept. At the same time, I reject Tarski's version of such a theory (which Sellars called a "disappearance theory"of truth), and hold that the most useful contribution of logic lies in the development of rules for making logically valid inferences from truths to truths, not in the enumeration of universal truths. Logical validity in Analytic Logic is not (as mathematical logic suggests) definable in terms of truth-values, but in terms of relationships between the meaning of the premisses and the meaning of the conclusion.

A-LOGIC is the culmination of some 40 years of trying to find a logic that is free of the anamolies and non-sequiturs of Principia Mathematica Logic but is just as rigorous, could handle subjunctive and contrary-to fact reasoning in science and common sense, and could serve the pragmatic goal of improving peoples' capacity to reason clearly in human problem-solving.