The Reliability Challenge and the Epistemology of Logic

Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1):437-464 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

We think of logic as objective. We also think that we are reliable about logic. These views jointly generate a puzzle: How is it that we are reliable about logic? How is it that our logical beliefs match an objective domain of logical fact? This is an instance of a more general challenge to explain our reliability about a priori domains. In this paper, I argue that the nature of this challenge has not been properly understood. I explicate the challenge both in general and for the particular case of logic. I also argue that two seemingly attractive responses – appealing to a faculty of rational insight or to the nature of concept possession – are incapable of answering the challenge.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Could Evolution Explain Our Reliability about Logic.Joshua Schechter - 2013 - In Tamar Szabo Gendler & John Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology 4. pp. 214.
Reliability in mathematical physics.Michael Liston - 1993 - Philosophy of Science 60 (1):1-21.
Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science.S. Rahman (ed.) - 2004 - Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
On explaining knowledge of necessity.Joel Pust - 2004 - Dialectica 58 (1):71–87.
The reliability of an instrument.Marcel Boumans - 2004 - Social Epistemology 18 (2 & 3):215 – 246.
The reliability of moral intuitions: A challenge from neuroscience.Folke Tersman - 2008 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (3):389 – 405.
Prelude to a Socio-Logic of Imperatives.Berislav Žarnić - 2011 - European Journal of Analytic Philosophy 7 (2):6-16.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-10-23

Downloads
708 (#17,517)

6 months
128 (#14,353)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Joshua Schechter
Brown University

Citations of this work

Debunking arguments.Daniel Z. Korman - 2019 - Philosophy Compass 14 (12):e12638.
Calling for Explanation.Dan Baras - 2022 - New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Mathematics and Metaphilosophy.Justin Clarke-Doane - 2022 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Intuition.Joel Pust - 2017 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

View all 68 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
The Philosophy of Philosophy.Timothy Williamson - 2007 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Epistemology and cognition.Alvin I. Goldman - 1986 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

View all 117 references / Add more references