The Logic of Entailment and its History

What follows from what, and how do we make statements (whether true or false) about which inferences are correct? In this book, Edwin Mares provides a new philosophical, semantical and historical analysis of and justification for the relevant logic of entailment. In the first half of the book he examines some key ideas in the historical development of the logic of entailment, looking in particular at the notion 'is derivable from' and at how symbolic logic has attempted to capture this notion. In the second half of the book he develops his own theory connecting ideas from the traditions in mathematical logic with some ideas in the philosophy of science. The book's fresh and original perspective on the logic of entailment will be valuable for all who want to know more about the historical and philosophical origins of modern symbolic logic.

• Connects the notion of entailment with ideas concerning the structure of scientific theories
• Provides a rationale for the continued study of a topic that has been unjustly neglected in the past three or more decades
• Integrates a more intuitive and useful notion of negation into both the semantical and proof theory of the logic of entailment