Off-campus access
Using PhilPapers from home?
Click here to configure this browser for off-campus access.
- Gregory Wheeler (2008). Applied Logic Without Psychologism. Studia Logica 88 (1).Logic is a celebrated representation language because of its formal generality. But there are two senses in which a logic may be considered general, one that concerns a technical ability to discriminate between different types of individuals, and another that concerns constitutive norms for reasoning as such. This essay embraces the former, permutation-invariance conception of logic and rejects the latter, Fregean conception of logic. The question of how to apply logic under this pure invariantist view is addressed, and a methodology is given. The pure invariantist view is contrasted with logical pluralism, and a methodology for applied logic is demonstrated in remarks on a variety of issues concerning non-monotonic logic and non-monotonic inference, including Charles Morgan’s impossibility results for non-monotonic logic, David Makinson’s normative constraints for non-monotonic inference, and Igor Douven and Timothy Williamson’s proposed formal constraints on rational acceptance.
Discussion of Gregory Wheeler, Applied logic without psychologism
Nothing in this forum yet.
Similar books and articles
Non-monotonic inference is inference that is defeasible: in contrast with deductive inference, the conclusions drawn may be withdrawn in the light of further information, even though all the original premises are retained. Much of our everyday reasoning is like this, and a non-monotonic approach has applications to a number of technical problems in artificial intelligence. Work on formalizing non-monotonic inference has progressed rapidly since its beginnings in the 1970s, and a number of mature theories now exist – the most important (...)
No categories
The term "non-monotonic logic" covers a family of formal frameworks devised to capture and represent defeasible inference , i.e., that kind of inference of everyday life in which reasoners draw conclusions tentatively, reserving the right to retract them in the light of further information. Such inferences are called "non-monotonic" because the set of conclusions warranted on the basis of a given knowledge base does not increase (in fact, it can shrink) with the size of the knowledge base itself. This is (...)
No categories
This paper analyses the logical structure of the balancing of conflicting normative arguments, and asks whether non-monotonic logic is adequate to represent this type of legal or practical reasoning. Norm conflicts are often regarded as a field of application for non-monotonic logics. This paper argues, however, that the balancing of normative arguments consists of an act of judgement, not a logical inference, and that models of deductive as well as of defeasible reasoning do not give an adequate account of its (...)
No categories
This paper spells out a dynamic proof format for the pure logic of relevant implication. (A proof is dynamic if a formula derived at some stage need not be derived at a later stage.) The paper illustrates three interesting points. (i) A set of properties that characterizes an inference relation on the (very natural) dynamic proof interpretation, need not characterize the same inference relation (or even any inference relation) on the usual set-theoretical interpretation. (ii) A proof format may display an (...)
Both logic and philosophy of science investigate formal aspects of scientific discourse, i.e. properties of (non-monotonic) consequence operations for discursive logic. In the present paper we handle two of them: paraconsistency and enthymematycity.
Pt. I. Writings on the theory of logic: I. Pure logic or the logic of quality apart from quantity. II. The substitution of similars. III. On the mechanical performance of logical inference. IV. On a general system of numerically definite reasoning.--Pt. II. John Stuart Mill's philosophy tested: I. On geometrical reasoning. II. On resemblance. III. The experimental methods. IV. Utilitarianism. V. On the method of difference.
Among non-monotonic systems of reasoning, non-monotonic modal logics, and autoepistemic logic in particular, have had considerable success. The presence of explicit modal operators allows flexibility in the embedding of other approaches. Also several theoretical results of interest have been established concerning these logics. In this paper we introduce non-monotonic modal logics based on many-valued logics, rather than on classical logic. This extends earlier work of ours on many-valued modal logics. Intended applications are to situations involving several reasoners, not just one (...)
A non-monotonic logic, the Logic of Plausible Reasoning (LPR), capable of coping with the demands of what we call complex reasoning, is introduced. It is argued that creative complex reasoning is the way of reasoning required in many instances of scientific thought, professional practice and common life decision taking. For managing the simultaneous consideration of multiple scenarios inherent in these activities, two new modalities, weak and strong plausibility, are introduced as part of the Logic of Plausible Deduction (LPD), a deductive (...)
No categories
In the psychological literature on reasoning it has always been assumed that if there is such a thing as mental logic, it must be a set of inference rules. This proof-theoretic conception of mental logic is compatible with but doesn’t do justice to what, according to most logicians, logic is about. Thus, the ongoing debate over mental logic is based on a too narrow notion of logic. Adopting the broader perspective suggested by the standard (Tarskian) view on logic helps to (...)
No categories
I shall make two main claims. My first main claim is that Frege started out with a view of logic that is closer to Kant’s than is generally recognized, but that he gradually came to reject this Kantian view, or at least totally to transform it. My second main claim concerns Frege’s reasons for distancing himself from the Kantian conception of logic. It is natural to speculate that this change in Frege’s view of logic may have been spurred by a (...)


