Paul Baird and John C. Wood
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198503620
- eISBN:
- 9780191708435
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198503620.003.0009
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Pure Mathematics
Multivalued analytic functions are considered to be functions on a Riemann surface, which can be defined either by cutting and pasting or by a graph construction. Multivalued maps in general are ...
More
Multivalued analytic functions are considered to be functions on a Riemann surface, which can be defined either by cutting and pasting or by a graph construction. Multivalued maps in general are considered, and it is shown how the concept of multivalued analytic functions generalizes to harmonic morphisms using the graph construction. An alternative treatment for space forms is presented, and some specific examples are given. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the behaviour on the branching set of the projection map for a multivalued harmonic morphism on a three-dimensional space form.Less
Multivalued analytic functions are considered to be functions on a Riemann surface, which can be defined either by cutting and pasting or by a graph construction. Multivalued maps in general are considered, and it is shown how the concept of multivalued analytic functions generalizes to harmonic morphisms using the graph construction. An alternative treatment for space forms is presented, and some specific examples are given. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the behaviour on the branching set of the projection map for a multivalued harmonic morphism on a three-dimensional space form.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199570423
- eISBN:
- 9780191755866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570423.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
This chapter is about multivalued functions and the corresponding functional terms, which are typically plural terms (the wives of Henry VIII, the square roots of 4). They are an everyday phenomenon, ...
More
This chapter is about multivalued functions and the corresponding functional terms, which are typically plural terms (the wives of Henry VIII, the square roots of 4). They are an everyday phenomenon, in ordinary life and mathematics, despite being ignored or even ruled out by contemporary logic. They cannot be identified with (or replaced by) relations, or otherwise eliminated. And, pace Frege, Russell, Carnap, and Church, their presence does not introduce an objectionable ambiguity.Less
This chapter is about multivalued functions and the corresponding functional terms, which are typically plural terms (the wives of Henry VIII, the square roots of 4). They are an everyday phenomenon, in ordinary life and mathematics, despite being ignored or even ruled out by contemporary logic. They cannot be identified with (or replaced by) relations, or otherwise eliminated. And, pace Frege, Russell, Carnap, and Church, their presence does not introduce an objectionable ambiguity.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198744382
- eISBN:
- 9780191843877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198744382.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
This chapter is about multivalued functions and the corresponding functional terms, which are typically plural terms (the wives of Henry VIII, the square roots of 4). They are an everyday phenomenon, ...
More
This chapter is about multivalued functions and the corresponding functional terms, which are typically plural terms (the wives of Henry VIII, the square roots of 4). They are an everyday phenomenon, in ordinary life and mathematics, despite being ignored or even ruled out by contemporary logic. They cannot be identified with (or replaced by) relations, or otherwise eliminated. And, pace Frege, Russell, Carnap, and Church, their presence does not introduce an objectionable ambiguity.Less
This chapter is about multivalued functions and the corresponding functional terms, which are typically plural terms (the wives of Henry VIII, the square roots of 4). They are an everyday phenomenon, in ordinary life and mathematics, despite being ignored or even ruled out by contemporary logic. They cannot be identified with (or replaced by) relations, or otherwise eliminated. And, pace Frege, Russell, Carnap, and Church, their presence does not introduce an objectionable ambiguity.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199570423
- eISBN:
- 9780191755866
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570423.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
This book aims to be the natural point of entry to what will be a new subject for most readers. Technicalities have been kept to a minimum, and anyone who is familiar with the classical predicate ...
More
This book aims to be the natural point of entry to what will be a new subject for most readers. Technicalities have been kept to a minimum, and anyone who is familiar with the classical predicate calculus should be able to follow it. The book tackles the logic of plural terms (‘Whitehead and Russell’, ‘the men who wrote Principia Mathematica’, ‘Henry VIII’s wives’, ‘the real numbers’, ‘√−1’, ‘they’); plural predicates (‘surrounded the fort’, ‘are prime’, ‘are consistent’, ‘imply’); and plural quantification (‘some things’, ‘any things’). Current logic is singularist: it only allows terms to stand for at most one thing. By contrast, the foundational thesis of this book is that a particular term may legitimately stand for several things at once, in other words, there is such a thing as genuinely plural denotation. Plural logic is logic based on plural denotation. The book begins by making the case for taking plural phenomena seriously, and argues, by eliminating rival singularist strategies, that the only viable response is to adopt a plural logic. The subsequent development of the conceptual ground includes the distinction between distributive and collective predicates, the theory of plural descriptions, multivalued functions, and lists. A formal system of plural logic is then presented in three stages, before being applied to Cantorian set theory as an illustration.Less
This book aims to be the natural point of entry to what will be a new subject for most readers. Technicalities have been kept to a minimum, and anyone who is familiar with the classical predicate calculus should be able to follow it. The book tackles the logic of plural terms (‘Whitehead and Russell’, ‘the men who wrote Principia Mathematica’, ‘Henry VIII’s wives’, ‘the real numbers’, ‘√−1’, ‘they’); plural predicates (‘surrounded the fort’, ‘are prime’, ‘are consistent’, ‘imply’); and plural quantification (‘some things’, ‘any things’). Current logic is singularist: it only allows terms to stand for at most one thing. By contrast, the foundational thesis of this book is that a particular term may legitimately stand for several things at once, in other words, there is such a thing as genuinely plural denotation. Plural logic is logic based on plural denotation. The book begins by making the case for taking plural phenomena seriously, and argues, by eliminating rival singularist strategies, that the only viable response is to adopt a plural logic. The subsequent development of the conceptual ground includes the distinction between distributive and collective predicates, the theory of plural descriptions, multivalued functions, and lists. A formal system of plural logic is then presented in three stages, before being applied to Cantorian set theory as an illustration.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199570423
- eISBN:
- 9780191755866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570423.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
This introductory chapter surveys plural phenomena and argues for their logical significance. Terms may be classified as singular or plural, according to the number of things they are capable of ...
More
This introductory chapter surveys plural phenomena and argues for their logical significance. Terms may be classified as singular or plural, according to the number of things they are capable of denoting. Predicates and function signs may take plural terms as arguments, and function signs may express multivalued functions and produce plural functional terms (the wives of Henry VIII). Received philosophical and formal logic, however, makes no place for these plural phenomena. Strategies for a logic of plurals can therefore be broadly classified as singularist or pluralist. The singularist forces plurals into the old singular mould, whereas the pluralist develops a new plural logic that directly accommodates plural terms, plural predicates, multivalued functions, and plural quantification. In Chapters 3 and 4, general singularist strategies are eliminated. In this chapter, Michael Dummett’s more piecemeal singularist attempts to deal with plural phenomena are criticized.Less
This introductory chapter surveys plural phenomena and argues for their logical significance. Terms may be classified as singular or plural, according to the number of things they are capable of denoting. Predicates and function signs may take plural terms as arguments, and function signs may express multivalued functions and produce plural functional terms (the wives of Henry VIII). Received philosophical and formal logic, however, makes no place for these plural phenomena. Strategies for a logic of plurals can therefore be broadly classified as singularist or pluralist. The singularist forces plurals into the old singular mould, whereas the pluralist develops a new plural logic that directly accommodates plural terms, plural predicates, multivalued functions, and plural quantification. In Chapters 3 and 4, general singularist strategies are eliminated. In this chapter, Michael Dummett’s more piecemeal singularist attempts to deal with plural phenomena are criticized.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199570423
- eISBN:
- 9780191755866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570423.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
Having previously dispatched singularism, this chapter turns to plural logic. First comes philosophical logic, beginning with the notion of a term. Singular and plural terms are different species of ...
More
Having previously dispatched singularism, this chapter turns to plural logic. First comes philosophical logic, beginning with the notion of a term. Singular and plural terms are different species of a common genus. As against a narrower Russellian conception, terms include definite descriptions and functional terms alongside proper names and demonstratives. Terms of any of these kinds may denote some thing(s) or may be empty. One aim of this book is to counterbalance the recent preoccupation with proper names and descriptions by placing functions and functional terms centre stage. Russell and Frege are criticized for failing to do justice to functions, despite their signal interest in mathematics. Of special interest are partial functions which map something to nothing, co-partial functions which map nothing to something, as well as functions which take several arguments at a given place, and multivalued functions which produce several values for a given choice of arguments.Less
Having previously dispatched singularism, this chapter turns to plural logic. First comes philosophical logic, beginning with the notion of a term. Singular and plural terms are different species of a common genus. As against a narrower Russellian conception, terms include definite descriptions and functional terms alongside proper names and demonstratives. Terms of any of these kinds may denote some thing(s) or may be empty. One aim of this book is to counterbalance the recent preoccupation with proper names and descriptions by placing functions and functional terms centre stage. Russell and Frege are criticized for failing to do justice to functions, despite their signal interest in mathematics. Of special interest are partial functions which map something to nothing, co-partial functions which map nothing to something, as well as functions which take several arguments at a given place, and multivalued functions which produce several values for a given choice of arguments.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198744382
- eISBN:
- 9780191843877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198744382.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
This introductory chapter surveys plural phenomena and argues for their logical significance. Terms may be classified as singular or plural, according to the number of things they are capable of ...
More
This introductory chapter surveys plural phenomena and argues for their logical significance. Terms may be classified as singular or plural, according to the number of things they are capable of denoting. Predicates and function signs may take plural terms as arguments, and function signs may express multivalued functions and produce plural functional terms (the wives of Henry VIII). Received philosophical and formal logic, however, makes no place for these plural phenomena. Strategies for a logic of plurals can therefore be broadly classified as singularist or pluralist. The singularist forces plurals into the old singular mould, whereas the pluralist develops a new plural logic that directly accommodates plural terms, plural predicates, multivalued functions and plural quantification. In Chapters 3 and 4, general singularist strategies are eliminated. In this chapter, Michael Dummett's more piecemeal singularist attempts to deal with plural phenomena are criticised.Less
This introductory chapter surveys plural phenomena and argues for their logical significance. Terms may be classified as singular or plural, according to the number of things they are capable of denoting. Predicates and function signs may take plural terms as arguments, and function signs may express multivalued functions and produce plural functional terms (the wives of Henry VIII). Received philosophical and formal logic, however, makes no place for these plural phenomena. Strategies for a logic of plurals can therefore be broadly classified as singularist or pluralist. The singularist forces plurals into the old singular mould, whereas the pluralist develops a new plural logic that directly accommodates plural terms, plural predicates, multivalued functions and plural quantification. In Chapters 3 and 4, general singularist strategies are eliminated. In this chapter, Michael Dummett's more piecemeal singularist attempts to deal with plural phenomena are criticised.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198744382
- eISBN:
- 9780191843877
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198744382.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
Having previously dispatched singularism, this chapter turns to plural logic. First comes philosophical logic, beginning with the notion of a term. Singular and plural terms are different species of ...
More
Having previously dispatched singularism, this chapter turns to plural logic. First comes philosophical logic, beginning with the notion of a term. Singular and plural terms are different species of a common genus. As against a narrower Russellian conception, terms include definite descriptions and functional terms alongside proper names and demonstratives. Terms of any of these kinds may denote some thing(s) or may be empty. One aim of this book is to counterbalance the recent preoccupation with proper names and descriptions by placing functions and functional terms centre stage. Russell and Frege are criticized for failing to do justice to functions, despite their signal interest in mathematics. Of special interest are partial functions which map something to nothing, co-partial functions which map nothing to something, as well as functions which take several arguments at a given place, and multivalued functions which produce several values for a given choice of arguments.Less
Having previously dispatched singularism, this chapter turns to plural logic. First comes philosophical logic, beginning with the notion of a term. Singular and plural terms are different species of a common genus. As against a narrower Russellian conception, terms include definite descriptions and functional terms alongside proper names and demonstratives. Terms of any of these kinds may denote some thing(s) or may be empty. One aim of this book is to counterbalance the recent preoccupation with proper names and descriptions by placing functions and functional terms centre stage. Russell and Frege are criticized for failing to do justice to functions, despite their signal interest in mathematics. Of special interest are partial functions which map something to nothing, co-partial functions which map nothing to something, as well as functions which take several arguments at a given place, and multivalued functions which produce several values for a given choice of arguments.
Alex Oliver and Timothy Smiley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- February 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198744382
- eISBN:
- 9780191843877
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198744382.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Language
This book tackles the logic of plural terms (‘Whitehead and Russell’, ‘the men who wrote Principia Mathematica’, ‘Henry VIII's wives’, ‘the real numbers’, ‘√—1’, ‘they’); plural predicates ...
More
This book tackles the logic of plural terms (‘Whitehead and Russell’, ‘the men who wrote Principia Mathematica’, ‘Henry VIII's wives’, ‘the real numbers’, ‘√—1’, ‘they’); plural predicates (‘surrounded the fort’, ‘are prime’, ‘are consistent’, ‘imply’); and plural quantification (‘some things’, ‘any things’). Current logic is singularist: it only allows terms to stand for at most one thing. By contrast, the foundational thesis of this book is that a particular term may legitimately stand for several things at once, in other words, there is such a thing as genuinely plural denotation. Plural logic is logic based on plural denotation. The book begins by making the case for taking plural phenomena seriously, and argues, by eliminating rival singularist strategies, that the only viable response is to adopt a plural logic. The subsequent development of the conceptual ground includes the distinction between distributive and collective predicates, the theory of plural descriptions, multivalued functions, and lists. A formal system of plural logic is then presented in three stages, before being applied to Cantorian set theory as an illustration. A system of higher-level plural logic is then outlined. It bears a striking similarlty to the set theory.Less
This book tackles the logic of plural terms (‘Whitehead and Russell’, ‘the men who wrote Principia Mathematica’, ‘Henry VIII's wives’, ‘the real numbers’, ‘√—1’, ‘they’); plural predicates (‘surrounded the fort’, ‘are prime’, ‘are consistent’, ‘imply’); and plural quantification (‘some things’, ‘any things’). Current logic is singularist: it only allows terms to stand for at most one thing. By contrast, the foundational thesis of this book is that a particular term may legitimately stand for several things at once, in other words, there is such a thing as genuinely plural denotation. Plural logic is logic based on plural denotation. The book begins by making the case for taking plural phenomena seriously, and argues, by eliminating rival singularist strategies, that the only viable response is to adopt a plural logic. The subsequent development of the conceptual ground includes the distinction between distributive and collective predicates, the theory of plural descriptions, multivalued functions, and lists. A formal system of plural logic is then presented in three stages, before being applied to Cantorian set theory as an illustration. A system of higher-level plural logic is then outlined. It bears a striking similarlty to the set theory.