This book describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. The idea of knowledge bases lies at the heart of symbolic, or "traditional," artificial intelligence. A knowledge-based system decides how to act by running formal reasoning procedures over a body of explicitly represented knowledge—a knowledge base. The system is not programmed for specific tasks; rather, it is told what it needs to know and expected to infer the rest. This book is about the logic of such knowledge bases. It describes in detail the relationship between symbolic representations of knowledge and abstract states of knowledge, exploring along the way the foundations of knowledge, knowledge bases, knowledge-based systems, and knowledge representation and reasoning. Assuming some familiarity with first-order predicate logic, the book offers a new mathematical model of knowledge that is general and expressive yet more workable in practice than previous models. The book presents a style of semantic argument and formal analysis that would be cumbersome or completely impractical with other approaches. It also shows how to treat a knowledge base as an abstract data type, completely specified in an abstract way by the knowledge-level operations defined over it.

The problematic relation between logic and knowledge has given rise to some of the most important works in the history of philosophy, from Books VIâ "VII of Platoâ (TM)s Republic and Aristotleâ (TM)s Prior and Posterior Analytics, to Kantâ (TM)s Critique of Pure Reason and Millâ (TM)s A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. It provides the title of an important collection of papers by Bertrand Russell (Logic and Knowledge. Essays, 1901â "1950). However, it has remained an underdeveloped theme in the last century, because logic has been treated as separate from knowledge. This book does not hope to make up for a century-long absence of discussion. Rather, its ambition is to call attention to the theme and stimulating renewed reflection upon it. The book collects essays of leading figures in the field and it addresses the theme as a topic of current debate, or as a historical case study, or when appropriate as both. Each essay is followed by the comments of a younger discussant, in an attempt to transform what might otherwise appear as a monologue into an ongoing dialogue; each section begins with an historical essay and ends with an essay by one of the editors.

Epistemic logic is the branch of philosophical thought that seeks to formalize the discourse about knowledge. Its object is to articulate and clarify the general principles of reasoning about claims to and attributions of knowledge. This comprehensive survey of the topic offers the first systematic account of the subject as it has developed in the journal literature over recent decades. Rescher gives an overview of the discipline by setting out the general principles for reasoning about such matters as propositional knowledge and interrogative knowledge. Aimed at graduate students and specialists, Epistemic Logic elucidates both Rescher's pragmatic view of knowledge and the field in general.

Claire Ortiz Hill The publication of all but a small, unfound, part of the complete text of the lecture course on logic and theory of knowledge that Edmund Husserl gave at Göttingen during the winter semester of 1906/07 became a reality in 1984 with the publication of Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie, Vorlesungen 1906/07 edited by 1 Ullrich Melle. Published in that volume were also 27 appendices containing material selected to complement the content of the main text in significant ways. They provide valuable insight into the evolution of Husserl’s thought between the Logical Investigations and Ideas I and, therefore, into the origins of phenomenology. That text and all those appendices but one are translated and published in the present volume. Omitted are only the “Personal Notes” dated September 25, 1906, November 4, 1907, and March 6, 1908, which were translated by Dallas Willard and published in his translation of Husserl’s Early 2 Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics. Introduction to Logic and Theory of Knowledge, Lectures 1906/07 provides valuable insight into the development of the ideas fun- mental to phenomenology. Besides shedding considerable light on the genesis of phenomenology, it sheds needed light on many other dimensions of Husserl’s thought that have puzzled and challenged scholars.

Elements of Knowledge is an introductory text designed to bring a working understanding and appreciation of the fundamental tenets and methods of the American school of philosophy known as pragmatism, as articulated by its founder C.S. Peirce, to undergraduates and general readers. It presents and explains the basic pragmatic tools that are the common thread in our acquisition and development of knowledge, whether in an academic, vocational, or professional setting, or in life at large.

Bertrand Russell, the recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature, was one of the most distinguished, influential, and prolific philosophers of the twentieth century. Part of his importance consists in the significant contributions he made to mathematical logic, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and philosophy of science. But he is also widely recognized for his achievements as a public figure, social activist, and gifted popularizer who brought philosophy and science outside of the ivory tower with rare clarity and wit. Both of these elements harmoniously come together in his 1912 "The Problems of Philosophy," a deceptively short book originally intended for a mass-audience of working adults but which has since become a core reading in the philosophical canon. This volume brings together 10 new essays on "The Problems of Philosophy" by some of the foremost scholars of Russell s life and works. These essays reexamine Russell s famous distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, his developing views about our knowledge of physical reality, and his views about our knowledge of logic, mathematics, and other abstract matters. In addition, it includes an editors introduction, which summarizes Russell s book, highlights its continued significance for contemporary philosophy, and presents new biographical details about how and why Russell wrote it. "