Logic and Scientific Methods

Professor Dr J.F.A.K. van Benthem has received the 1996 Spinoza Award, an annual award to honour outstanding scientific merit and to stimulate innovative future research. from the jury report: `Van Benthem has positioned logic as an interdisciplinary science par excellence ... It is through his work that logic has acquired a bridge-function between alpha and gamma sciences on the one side and beta sciences on the other ... Van Benthem is a stimulating and innovative researcher, which explains his great attraction to young researchers. Under his inspirational guidance 38 promovendi from the Netherlands and abroad have finished their theses. In view of Van Benthem's innovative powers and the high level of his research, a number of initiatives are to be expected from him that will further strengthen the Dutch position of logic, more especially so in connection with the formal study of natural language.'

President’s address.- Section 1 Proof theory and categorical logic.- Proof-theoretical aspects of self-referential truth.- Free lattices, communication and money games.- On methods for proving lower bounds in propositional logic.- On bounded set theory.- Section 2 Model theory, set theory and formal systems.- Infinitary logic in finite model theory.- Decision problems for second-order linear logic.- Comparing the continuum with the first two uncountable cardinals.- Section 3 Recursion theory and constructivism.- Church’s thesis and Hume’s problem.- The logic of functional recursion.- From higher order terms to circuits.- Computability and enumerability.- Mechanistic theories in cognitive science: the import of Turing’s thesis.- Section 5 Philosophical logic.- Conjoining and disjoining on different levels.- Logical consequence: a turn in style.- Applying normative rules with restraint.- Section 10 Philosophy of logic, mathematics and computer science.- What can we do “in principle”?.- Causation, action, and counterfactuals.- Symposium 1 Logic and philosophy of science: current interfaces.- Logic and philosophy of science: current interfaces.- Reliable belief revision.- Explanatory translation: beyond functionalism and reductionism.- Abductive reasoning: logic, visual thinking, and coherence.- Can the laws of nature (physics) be complete?.- Symposium 4 Logic in Central and Eastern Europe.- Logic in Central and Eastern Europe.- Logic in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.- Mathematical logic in the former Soviet Union: brief history and current trends.- Logic in Central and Eastern Europe: Balkan region.- The postwar panorama of logic in Poland.- Closing address.- Structure and perspective: philosophical perplexity and paradox.- Table of contents Vol. II.