This is a study of Bertrand Russell on modality and relevance. Russell used notions of ordinary quantificational logic to define and analyze away the basic notions of modal logic. The ordinary individual and universal quantifiers are used to simulate modal notions. Literally speaking, Russell has banished modality from logic, yet functionally speaking, he has achieved an S5 modal logic based on a theory of modality. The author imputes seven S5 logics to Russell and shows that Russell states the key to his modal theory in at least nine works over a period of at least 36 years. The author then explains five modal "howlers" which Russell has been accused of, as based on misunderstandings. Russell's modal logic anticipates Carnap, Tarski, McKinsey, Almog and Etchemendy and has predecessors in Bolzano and Venn. The text's interdisciplinary argument involves both legal and philosophical scholarship.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
"In the twenty-five years since Russell's death, much of the major scholarship has drawn heavily on his manuscripts and unpublished correspondence. The author shows that the published Russell is capable of new interpretations; in particular, that modal notions such as possibility have a greater place in various aspects of his logical and philosophical thought than has previously been imagined." (Ivor Grattan-Guinness, book foreword and blurb for the publisher.)
About the Author
Jan Dejnozka (pronounced Yon DAY-no-shka) was born on December 20, 1951 in Saratoga Springs, New York to Ladislav and Helen Garrett Dejnozka. He took a B.A. with Honors in philosophy from Syracuse University in 1973, writing his honors thesis on Quine on necessary truth. Dejnozka lived the next six years in Iowa City, earning his M.A. in 1976 and his Ph.D. in 1979 from the University of Iowa. His doctoral dissertation, Frege: Existence and Identity, was supervised by Panayot Butchvarov. From 1981 to 1988, Dejnozka served his country as a U.S. Navy officer. He served on board USS CANISTEO AO-99, USS AMERICA CV-66, and USS CORONADO AGF-11. On board the aircraft carrier AMERICA for two years, he qualified as Surface Warfare Officer and Officer of the Deck Underway, earning the Navy Expeditionary Medal for service off Beirut and the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon for a six month deployment to the Indian Ocean. On board the command ship CORONADO for a fifteen month complex overhaul in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, he served as Assistant Department Head and Command Duty Officer in Port. Dejnozka then taught history and philosophy on a three year shore tour in the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland as Assistant Professor of Philosophy. In 1990 Dejnozka visited some fifty relatives and friends in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia after their liberation from Soviet domination. In 1991 he entered the University of Michigan School of Law, but took a two year leave of absence as Visiting Scholar in Philosophy in the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, the University of Michigan. In 1992 he married Chung Wha Choi, born in Seoul, South Korea. He received his J.D. in 1996. He is now a Visiting Scholar in Law and Philosophy at Michigan, and has been a Research Fellow of Union College since 1980. After serving as law clerk to the Hon. Bill Callahan, Circuit Court of Wayne County in Detroit, he became a Domestic Relations Specialist in the same court system. He is a member of the Michigan Bar and the Maryland Bar. The Dejnozkas have two daughters, Julie and Marina. The author's last name cannot be correctly reproduced in ASCII. The "z" in "Dejnozka" is not in the English alphabet. It has a diacritical mark called a hook (hacek) and is pronounced zheh (sheh before voiceless k).
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