Abstract
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.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 12199-12223 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Synthese |
| Volume | 199 |
| Issue number | 5-6 |
| Early online date | 2 Aug 2021 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Dec 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by FAPEMA (Foundation for Research and Scientific and Technological Development of Maranhão) under Grant Number BD-08292/17.
Funding Information:
I am grateful to Catarina Dutilh Novaes and four anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by FAPEMA (Foundation for Research and Scientific and Technological Development of Maranhão) under Grant Number BD-08292/17. I am grateful to Catarina Dutilh Novaes and four anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Keywords
- Abductivism in logic
- Ameliorative analysis
- Carnapian explication
- Logical intuitions
- Predictivism in logic