[FOM] BUFFALO LOGIC COLLOQUIUM 2nd Summer Announcement

[John Corcoran]

BUFFALO LOGIC COLLOQUIUM 
2008 THIRTY-NINTH YEAR
SECOND SUMMER ANNOUNCEMENT


QUOTE OF THE MONTH:  TWO VIEWS OF USE-MENTION: Alfred Tarski (1969/1993,
104) said that when mentioning an object, “one always uses a name of this
object and not the object itself, even when dealing with linguistic
objects”. Frango Nabrasa (1989, per. comm.) said: “Premises rhymes with
nemesis, not with nemeses”. For Tarski a linguistic object is what Church
calls a composite of a string and a meaning. Thus, a string used
autonomously is not the same linguistic object as the same string used
heteronymously. Tarski denotes Tarski. Tarski [the name] denotes Tarski [the
logician]. Nabrasa gave a counterexample to what he would have meant by
Tarski’s words, not to what Tarski meant. – John Corcoran 2008

FIRST MEETING
Tuesday, July 1, 2008	12:00-1:30 P.M.	141 Park Hall
SPEAKER: John Corcoran Philosophy, University of Buffalo.
TITLE: Regular Polygons and Polyhedra: a Theme of Euclid’s Elements.
ABSTRACT: This informal lecture discusses the first proposition of Euclid’s
first book, the last proposition of the last book, and selected intermediate
propositions linking them. It summarizes the Euclidean theories of polygons
and polyhedra that have been taken to provide the key for Euclid’s choice of
theorems to prove and his choice of the order of theorems in his works.
These clear, easily-grasped, surprising, and exquisitely beautiful
developments have played important roles in the history of philosophy and of
mathematics. Among the thinkers who have been influenced by these ideas we
find Plato, Kepler, Euler, Gauss, and Lakatos. For background Google:
Platonic solid, Euler, and graph theory.

SECOND MEETING
Tuesday, July 8, 2008	12:00-1:30 P.M.	141 Park Hall

SPEAKER: George Boger, Chair, Philosophy, Canisius College.
TITLE: Translating Prior Analytics A, 1-7 and 23: a Workshop.

ABSTRACT: We will discuss problems arising in translation of Prior Analytics
focusing on Chapters 1-7 and 23 of Book A.  Knowledge of two or more English
translations would be useful but not necessary. A little knowledge of Greek
will help, but every effort will be made to be accessible to those with
non-existent or weak skill in Greek, such as Corcoran. A new translation by
George Boger will be presented and commented on. 


THIRD MEETING
Tuesday, July 15, 2008	12:00-1:30 P.M.	141 Park Hall

SPEAKER: John Corcoran, Philosophy, University of Buffalo.
TITLE: Aristotle’s Logic at the University of Buffalo.
ABSTRACT: If there is one thing that the University of Buffalo’s Department
of Philosophy will be remembered for, it might be the half-century-long
tradition of contributing to our understanding of the most important logic
book ever written: Aristotle’s Organon. The one of the first contributions
in the series is William Parry’s “Quantification of the predicate and
many-sorted logic” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 22 (1966),
342-60. Ironically, perhaps the last contribution to date is a lecture that
refers to and builds on Parry’s paper; that lecture is my own “Aristotle’s
many-sorted logic” abstracted in the Bulletin of Symbolic Logic (to appear),
a part of a larger three-hour tutorial given in May of this year. Other
contributions were made over the years by Sherwin Iverson, Lynn Rose, John
Anton, John Mulhern, Mary Mulhern, John Glanville, Ronald Zirin, John
Kearns, Lee Mohler, John Swiniarski, Michael Scanlan, James Gasser, José
Miguel Sagüillo, George Boger, and maybe others.
I hope that all involved in this tradition will send me an annotated
bibliography of their own contributions.

This BLC meeting will preview the talk I will give on Saturday 19 July at
9am opening the UB Alumni Conference.

FOURTH MEETING
Wednesday, July 23, 2008	12:00-1:30 P.M.	141 Park Hall

SPEAKER: TBA
TITLE: TBA.
ABSTRACT: TBA  

Future Speakers: Stewart Shapiro (Ohio State University), Barry Smith
(University of Buffalo), David Braun (University of Buffalo), Leonard
Jacuzzo (Canisius College and Fredonia University), Frango Nabrasa (Manatee
Institute).

THESE BROWN-BAG MEETINGS WILL CONTINUE NORMALLY ON TUESDAYS AT NOON THROUGH
JULY, POSSIBLY INTO AUGUST.  COME WHEN YOU ARE FREE. BRING LUNCH. LEAVE WHEN
YOU HAVE TO. ALL ARE WELCOME

To receive this via email, please send your full name and email address to
John Corcoran. For further information, to report glitches, suggest a talk,
unsubscribe or make other suggestions, please email: John Corcoran:
corcoran at buffalo.edu


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