Is There a Logic of Society?

The modern phase in Logic begins in the middle of the 19th century with the work of Frege, Boole, de Morgan and Peirce. A second phase began in the early 20th century with Russell’s discovery of his paradox, followed by Hilbert’s program to try (unsuccessfully) to get around it. Finally, the thirties saw fundamental developments by Gödel, Turing, Post, Church and Tarski. By this time, the following questions looked like they were settled. • What is a valid proof? • What is an effective procedure? But what are the corresponding notions for everyday life? Even if not all of ordinary life is logical or systematic, it has large logical and systematic elements in it. Can these be formalized at least to some extent, and how can we profit from this formalization?