One diagnosis of Fitch’s paradox of knowability is that it hinges on the factivity of knowledge: that which is known is true. Yet the apparent role of factivity and non-factive analogues in related paradoxes of justified belief can be shown to depend on familiar consistency and positive introspection principles. Rejecting arguments that the paradox hangs on an implausible consistency principle, this paper argues instead that the Fitch phenomenon is generated both in epistemic logic and logics of justification by the interaction (...) of analogues of the knowability principle and positive introspection theses that are characteristic of, even if not entailed by, epistemic internalism. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of what logic is not. It argues against the wide spread assumptions that logic is: a model of reason; a model of correct reason; the laws of thought, or indeed is related to reason at all such that the essential nature of the two are crucially or essentially co-illustrative. I note that due to such assumptions, our current understanding of the nature of logic itself is thoroughly entangled with the nature of reason. I show that (...) most arguments for the presence of any sort of essential re- lationship between logic and reason face intractable problems and demands, and fall well short of addressing them. These arguments include those for the notion that logic is normative for reason (or that logic and correct reason are in some way the same thing), that logic is some sort of description of correct reason and that logic is an abstracted or idealised version of correct reason. A strong version of logical realism is put forward as an alternative view, and is briefly explored. (shrink)

Four Basic Logical Issues: The paper addresses what we see as the four major issues in logic. The overriding issue is that of the choice of logic. We start with some discussion of the preliminary issue of whether there is such a 'one true logic,' but we reserve the main discussion for the first issue of 'classical logic versus nonclassical logic.' Here, we discuss the role of meaning and truth, the relation between classical logic and classical negation, and whether and, (...) if so, how classical logic should reside at the base world. Given the argument in favor of an overall use of nonclassical logic, the second issue is that of the choice of nonclassical logic. Brady's logic MC of meaning containment is argued for, with some comparison made with other relevant logics. For the remaining two issues, we make a case for relevant deduction, in comparison with classical deduction, and we explore possibilities for the appropriate metalogic, comparing classical and nonclassical approaches. (shrink)

I argue that one in particular of CrispinWright’s attempts to capture our common or intuitive concepts of objectivity, warrant, and other associated notions, relies on an ambiguity between a given constructivist reading of the concepts and at least one other, arguablymore ‘ordinary’, version of the notions he tries to accommodate. I do this by focusing on one case in point, and concluding with a brief argument showing how this case generalises. I demonstrate why this ambiguity is unacceptable and also that (...) its resolution undermines the aim it serves: to account for and accommodate our ordinary conception of (at least) objectivity, warrant (or justication) and truth. (shrink)

Featuring fourteen new essays from an international team of renowned contributors, this volume explores the key issues, debates and questions in the metaphysics of logic. The book is structured in three parts, looking first at the main positions in the nature of logic, such as realism, pluralism, relativism, objectivity, nihilism, conceptualism, and conventionalism, then focusing on historical topics such as the medieval Aristotelian view of logic, the problem of universals, and Bolzano's logical realism. The final section tackles specific issues such (...) as glutty theories, contradiction, the metaphysical conception of logical truth, and the possible revision of logic. The volume will provide readers with a rich and wide-ranging survey, a valuable digest of the many views in this area, and a long overdue investigation of logic's relationship to us and the world. It will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and students of philosophy, logic, and mathematics. (shrink)

This paper seeks to identify and defend an approach to inquiry dubbed ‘metaphysical optimism’, particularly as it is evidenced at crisis points in the fields of physics, mathematics and logic. That the practice of metaphysical optimism at such moments, wherein it has appeared that there is no clear way to proceed or understand where we have arrived, is both reasonable and useful suggests it is to be taken seriously as capable of progressing fields and increasing knowledge. Given this, the paper (...) then looks in more depth at what such an approach involves and why it might be useful both as a methodological approach in general and to help clarify positions along the realism/anti-realism spectrum in philosophy. From here, the paper arrives at a possible argument in defence of the realist attitude to transcendence. (shrink)

This article offers an overview of philosophical methodologies. In an attempt to avoid a certain circularity, the article itself tries to avoid consciously or solely deploying and engaging with any current standard notion of what constitutes a philosophical method or philosophy itself. It hopes to find some of the possible places in which philosophy occurs, and this turns out to include such endeavours as literature, art, poetry, and linguistics. From here it considers how almost anything—for example, conversation, everyday life, and (...) love—can also be philosophy. An attempt is made to identify some characteristic feature of philosophy as it occurs in all such forms. In the end, the simultaneous enacting of a peculiar optimism and particular humility both, in the search for knowledge, is put forward as potentially sufficient to at least begin to identify philosophy across its many guises. (shrink)

This Element looks at the problem of inter-translation between mathematical realism and anti-realism and argues that so far as realism is inter-translatable with anti-realism, there is a burden on the realist to show how her posited reality differs from that of the anti-realist. It also argues that an effective defence of just such a difference needs a commitment to the independence of mathematical reality, which in turn involves a commitment to the ontological access problem – the problem of how knowable (...) mathematical truths are identifiable with a reality independent of us as knowers. Specifically, if the only access problem acknowledged is the epistemological problem – i.e. the problem of how we come to know mathematical truths – then nothing is gained by the realist notion of an independent reality and in effect, nothing distinguishes realism from anti-realism in mathematics. (shrink)

Richard L. Epstein with Carolyn Kerbrger, Critical Thinking, 3rd Edition, Advanced Reasoning Forum, 2012, 464 pp., ISBN-10: 1938421000, ISBN-13: 978-1938421006.Richard L. Epstein, The Pocket Guide to Critical Thinking, 4th Edition, Advanced Reasoning Forum, 2011, 162 pp., paperback ISBN-13: 9780981550770, ISBN-10: 0981550770, ebook ISBN-13: 9780981550787.

Richard L. Epstein, Reasoning in Science and Mathematics: Essayson Logic as The Art of Reasoning Well, Advanced Reasoning Forum,2011, 134 pp., ISBN-13: 978-0983452126, ISBN-10: 0983452121.