We are grateful that logic exists.
Grateful that it has been named.
Grateful that it has been developed as an academic discipline.
Logic has offered humanity countless insights and continues to do so.
On World Logic Day, let us remember what we owe to logic and try to enumerate, as best we can, what it has offered us so far and what we can expect from it in the future.
We know that logic emerged in Western thought as an answer to the question “Can we know what we do not know?”. Logic was thought to be the means of lifting the veil of what we implicitly know.
It paved the way to separate sophism from philosophy. The principle of non-contradiction offered a very effective and important criticism against those who thought that every thought was equally existent and defensible.
The idea that objects discussed by language must possess one of a pair of contradictory predicates expanded the horizon of scientific inquiry. With the principle of non-contradiction as its background, the sciences were developed on the basis of making judgments and inferences about objects that were thought to be fully determined.
The absolute possibility constituted by the aforementioned pairs of contradictory predicates was accepted by some as the real existence, and this tendency paved the way for classical metaphysics.
The idea that the universe is finite and closed is based on the idea that the number of fully determined objects cannot be indefinite; while the idea of the universe being boundless and open was grounded in the infinity of the absolute possibility mentioned earlier, suggesting that the universe could not be finite.
The difficulty, and even impossibility, of confirming the truth of a proposition with content drove humanity to seek refuge in formal validity and to develop its body of knowledge based on logic. Starting with what we can agree upon, logic has filled the sails of researchers as they embark on paths toward new truths.
Scientific or demonstrative knowledge has been defined as knowledge obtained through valid reasoning from premises accepted as true, one way or another.
In the modern era, the emphasis on knowledge has shifted to thinkability or expressibility. Mathematics has transformed into a vast discipline where logical principles and laws are used to examine what can be said about objects defined through postulates. It has been thought that some of the objects studied through logic-based mathematics can, under certain interpretations, explain facts and phenomena. This has led to a significant explosion and enrichment in the activity of developing scientific theories.
On the other hand, since the justification of a theory containing complex laws, definitions and principles requires the derivation of an observation proposition from the theory, logic has never lost the leading role in the verification of scientific theories.
Whenever logic was not used properly and sufficiently as a tool, injustice, power relations and ultimately corruption prevailed.
Now, let’s consider today…
As a tool, logic, especially through the work of mathematicians, is being developed within both classical and non-classical frameworks. The diversity has grown so much that the literature now includes numerous studies on debates about logical monism versus pluralism.
Logic, through the development of formal systems, stands at the heart of unprecedented technological advancements in history, made possible by computational theory.
Although Immanuel Kant and his followers’—largely justified—criticisms led to logic temporarily diverging from its canonical usage, the intellectual return of metaphysics through different channels has ushered logic into a new era. Many philosophers are devoting significant effort to observing reality through the results achieved in logic. What was once contemplated through classical logic is now being re-examined from the perspective of modern logic. To the extent that humanity realizes its limits in thought, it is seriously interested not in the question “”What kind of reality does language and its logic present to us?”.
Meanwhile, many questions resisting scientific and philosophical investigation continue to occupy our minds. How life emerged in the physical universe, the nature of consciousness and mental states, and how quantum and classical physics might be reconciled are examples of questions that await entirely new breakthroughs in human thought—and perhaps the development of entirely new logics.
What logic has offered us so far is perhaps only a fraction of what is possible.
The logic of language was fortunately realized or fortunately invented…
Logic has fortunately been developed through the efforts of many thinkers…
What would humanity be like if it did not exist and did not evolve into what it is today?
Happy World Logic Day!
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Ayhan Çitil
14 January 2025
Biography of Prof. Dr. Ahmet Ayhan Çitil
Ahmet Ayhan Çitil began his academic career by pursuing a double major in Industrial Engineering and Economics at Boğaziçi University. He later completed both his master’s and doctoral studies in philosophy at the same university under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Yalçın Koç. He earned his Master of Philosophy degree with a thesis titled An Introduction to the Ontological Foundations of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems and was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2000 with a dissertation titled The Theory of Object in Kant’s Transcendental Thought and Some Consequences of a Deepening of This Theory. In 2008, he conducted research as a visiting scholar at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Çitil has taught at İstanbul Technical University (İTÜ), Kocaeli University, and Koç University, and since 2010, he has been a faculty member in the Philosophy Department at İstanbul 29 Mayıs University. His primary research interests include logic, metaphysics, the philosophy of mathematics, and ethics.
In 2012, Professor Çitil published Matematik ve Metafizik Kitap 1: Sayı ve Nesne, which explored the possibilities of an object-centered philosophy of mathematics. In 2023 and 2024, he authored Kant Okumaları: 1. Kritik and Kant Okumaları: 2. Kritik, providing detailed commentaries on Kant’s first and second critiques. Additionally, he has written two textbooks on contemporary philosophy.
Highly active in both written and oral academic engagements, Professor Çitil has published over 30 written works, including articles and conference proceedings, and has delivered more than 50 academic talks. Over the past two years, he has been contributing regularly to Teklif journal, where his recent article, Mantık Yasaları Metafizikten Bağımsız Mıdır?, was featured in the latest issue.
Throughout his academic career, Professor Çitil has mentored numerous students, supervising 7 completed doctoral theses and 23 master’s theses. Currently, he is actively supervising 19 doctoral and 3 master’s students.
Ayhan Çitil has received numerous prestigious awards in recognition of his contributions to the academic world. These include the UFAD Uluslararası Felsefe Araştırmaları Derneği Felsefe Yarışması Büyük Ödülü (2016), the Uluslararası Mehmet Akif Ersoy Bilim ve Sanat Ödülü (2017), the Türkiye Felsefe Derneği Prof. Dr. Necati Öner Felsefeye Hizmet Ödülü (2021), and the Necip Fazıl Fikir ve Araştırma Ödülü (2023).