Logical And Spiritual Reflections

Logical and Spiritual Reflections is a collection of six shorter philosophical works, including: Hume’s Problems with Induction; A Short Critique of Kant’s Unreason; In Defense of Aristotle’s Laws of Thought; More Meditations; Zen Judaism; No to Sodom.

Logical and Spiritual Reflections is a collection of six shorter philosophical works, in two parts. The first part, consisting of Logical Reflections, includes: Hume's Problems with Induction, which is intended to describe and refute some of the main doubts and objections David Hume raised with regard to inductive reasoning; A Short Critique of Kant's Unreason, which is a brief critical analysis of some of the salient epistemological and ontological ideas and theses in Immanuel Kant's famous Critique of Pure Reason; and In Defense of Aristotle's Laws of Thought, which addresses, from a phenomenological standpoint, numerous modern and Buddhist objections and misconceptions regarding the basic principles of Aristotelian logic. The second part, consisting of Spiritual Reflections, includes: More Meditations, which is a sequel to the author's earlier work, Meditations; Zen Judaism, which is a frank reflection on the tensions between reason and faith in today's context of knowledge, and on the need to inject Zen-like meditation into Judaism; and No to Sodom, which is an essay against homosexuality, using biological, psychological, spiritual, ethical and political arguments.

The Laws of Thought is an exploration of the deductive and inductive foundations of rational thought. The author here clarifies and defends Aristotle’s Three Laws of Thought, called the Laws of Identity, Non-contradiction and Exclusion of the Middle – and introduces two more, which are implicit in and crucial to them: the Fourth Law of Thought, called the Principle of Induction, and the Fifth Law of Thought, called the Principle of Deduction. This book is a thematic compilation drawn from past works by the author over a period of twenty-three years.

Logical Philosophy: A Compendium brings together five works by Avi Sion published in 2002-06, namely: Phenomenology (2003), Volition and Allied Causal Concepts (2004), Meditations (2006), Ruminations (2005), and Buddhist Illogic (2002). These works together define what may be termed ‘Logical Philosophy’, i.e. philosophical discourse distinguished by its steadfast reliance on inductive and deductive logic to resolve epistemological and ontological issues.

The Logic of Causation is a treatise of formal logic and of aetiology. It is an original and wide-ranging investigation of the definition of causation (deterministic causality) in all its forms, and of the deduction and induction of such forms. The work was carried out in three phases over a dozen years (1998-2010), each phase introducing more sophisticated methods than the previous to solve outstanding problems. This study was intended as part of a larger work on causal logic, which additionally treats volition and allied cause-effect relations (2004).

Inductive Logic is a ‘thematic compilation’ by Avi Sion. It collects in one volume many (though not all) of the essays, that he has written on this subject over a period of some 23 years, which all demonstrate the possibility and conditions of validity of human knowledge, the utility and reliability of human cognitive means when properly used, contrary to the skeptical assumptions that are nowadays fashionable. This volume includes essays on the laws of thought, credibility, logical modality, contextuality, adduction, theory formation and selection, induction of actual and modal propositions, factorial induction (factor selection and formula revision), the phenomenological approach, experience, conceptualization, generalization and particularization, causation and its determinations, volition (freewill) and influences thereon, negation, and existential import.

Ruminations is a collection of sundry notes and essays on Logic. These complement and enrich the author’s past writings, further analyzing or reviewing certain issues. Some important new insights are included here, such as the inductive understanding of negation.

Logical Criticism of Buddhist Doctrines is a ‘thematic compilation’ by Avi Sion. It collects in one volume the essays that he has written on this subject over a period of some 15 years after the publication of his first book on Buddhism, Buddhist Illogic. It comprises expositions and empirical and logical critiques of many (though not all) Buddhist doctrines, such as impermanence, interdependence, emptiness, the denial of self or soul. It includes his most recent essay, regarding the five skandhas doctrine.