The Contributions of Logic to the Foundations of Physics: Foreword

Abstract

This special issue on The Contributions of Logic to the Foundations of Physics, is the result of the sixth International Studia Logica Conference Trends in Logic VI held in Brussels on December 11-12, 2008. The conference was organized by the Center for Logic and Philosophy of Science and the Center Leo Apostel at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in cooperation with the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The main goal of this conference was to present current trends situated at the interface of Logic and the Foundations of Physics. The conference brought together researchers from both fields, giving them a forum to present new developments, exchange ideas, explore and establish new connections between logic and physics. On the one hand, we hosted technical contributions on the use of new methods and techniques coming from logic, computation and information theory to axiomatize and model physical theories and to reason about their concepts, phenomena and/or applications. On the other hand, we hosted contributions coming from the foundations and philosophy of physics dealing with the general conceptual framework and with questions of interpretation. The conference was a success with 56 registered participants, 7 invited lectures and two full parallel sessions of contributed talks spread over two days. Following the conference we launched a call for papers of which this special issue is the result. We invited contributions on the theme of the Trends VI conference, including on the following topics: