Logical Predictivism

It is commonly assumed by philosophers of science that logically equivalent theories are in fact theoretically equivalent. I argue that two theses, anti-exceptionalism about logic (which says, roughly, that logic is not a priori, that it is revisable, and that it is not special or set apart from other human inquiry) and logical realism (which says, roughly, that differences in logic reflect genuine metaphysical differences in the world), make trouble for both this commitment and the closely related commitment to theories being closed under logical consequence. I provide three arguments. The first two show that anti-exceptionalism about logic provides an epistemic challenge to both the closure and the equivalence claims; the third shows that logical realism provides a metaphysical challenge to both the closure and the equivalence claims. Along the way, I show that there are important methodological upshots for metaphysicians and philosophers of logic. In particular, there are lessons to be drawn about certain conceptions of naturalism as constraining the possibilities for metaphysics and the philosophy of logic.

Section: Two Arguments From Anti-exceptionalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The cost of closure: logical realism, anti-exceptionalism, and theoretical equivalence

McSweeney

2021

“…In an attempt to capture this widespread trait of logical practice-the view that intuitions about the validity of inferences expressed in ordinary language count as data for logical theories- Martin and Hjortland (2020) have recently advanced a model of anti-exceptionalist logical methodology that they call "logical predictivism." On their view, a logical theory is evaluated with respect to its ability to make successful predictions.…”

Section: Resnik Elaborates On This Pointmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Once logic is equated in epistemic terms with other sciences, wherein observation and experimentation constitute the main sources of evidence, the question of what counts as evidence for logical theories becomes pressing. In response to this question, a number of philosophers have proposed guidelines for theory choice in logic (e.g., Bueno and Colyvan 2004;Resnik 2004;Priest 2016;Williamson 2017;Martin and Hjortland 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intuitions, theory choice and the ameliorative character of logical theories

Santos

Frederico²

2021

Anti-exceptionalists about logic claim that logical methodology is not different from scientific methodology when it comes to theory choice. Two anti-exceptionalist accounts of theory choice in logic are abductivism (defended by Priest and Williamson) and predictivism (recently proposed by Martin and Hjortland). These accounts have in common reliance on pre-theoretical logical intuitions for the assessment of candidate logical theories. In this paper, I investigate whether intuitions can provide what abductivism and predictivism want from them and conclude that they do not. As an alternative to these approaches, I propose a Carnapian view on logical theorizing according to which logical theories do not simply account for pre-theoretical intuitions, but rather improve on them. In this account, logical theories are ameliorative, rather than representational.

“… See, for example, Hjortland (2013),Martin and Hjortland (2021) andPriest (2014).4 See, for example,Priest (2001Priest ( , 2005,Read (2006),Griffiths (2013) andKeefe (2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

Should pluralists be pluralists about pluralism?

Paßmann

2021

How many correct logics are there? Monists endorse that there is one, pluralists argue for many, and nihilists claim that there are none. Reasoning about these views requires a logic. That is the meta-logic. It turns out that there are some meta-logical challenges specifically for the pluralists. I will argue that these depend on an implicitly assumed absoluteness of correct logic. Pluralists can solve the challenges by giving up on this absoluteness and instead adopt contextualism about correct logic. This contextualism is naturalistically appealing.