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A New Psychologism in Logic? Reflections from the Point of View of Belief Revision

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Abstract

This paper addresses the question whether the past couple of decades of formal research in belief revision offers evidence of a new psychologism in logic. In the first part I examine five potential arguments in favour of this thesis and find them all wanting. In the second part of the paper I argue that belief revision research has climbed up a hierarchy of models for the change of doxastic states that appear to be clearly normative at the bottom, but are more amenable to an empirical-descriptive interpretation on higher levels. I conclude that this observation might offer a foothold for the thesis that there is a new psychologism in logic.

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Rott, H. A New Psychologism in Logic? Reflections from the Point of View of Belief Revision. Stud Logica 88, 113–136 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-008-9099-4

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