Syntacticism and Functional Completeness

This book constructs an idealized version of what the author calls syntacticism, a school of thought in the philosophy of logic which is congenial to analytical philosophy, logical positivism, and anti-metaphysical nominalism. It examines in detail both technical metalogical and broad philosophic issues associated with this way of thinking about logic, and specifically addresses anomalies around symbolic expressivity, which is crucial for this approach, with a view to provide both a deeper understanding and a critique. The range of fields and interests addressed include: the philosophy of logic, formal logic and mathematical logic, the analytical school of philosophy, logical positivism and nominalism, parallels between thinking about logic and the formalist school in the philosophy of mathematics, the history of modern logic, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, Leśniewski’s protothetic, dialogue logic, and combinatorial logic.