Abstract

My purpose in this paper is to shed some light on two questions: In what sense is logic philosophical? And what is philosophical logic? I take these two questions as co-extensive: an answer to one of them is also (or can easily be converted into) an answer to the other. I approach the problem from three perspectives: a conceptual, a descriptive and a prescriptive perspective. In other words, I try to answer the following questions: (i) In what sense can logic be taken as philosophical? (ii) In what sense has logic been taken as philosophical? (iii) In what sense should logic be taken as philosophical? To this end, I analyze excerpts from five works in which meanings are attributed to the expression “philosophical logic”. The meanings are then object of critical analysis: I try to assess which of these semantical alternatives do not hold up as satisfactory answers to (iii). The result of this analysis is then used as a starting point for my own answer to question (iii).