Truth, Reference and Realism

Conceptualism and Knowledge of Logic: A Budget of Problems

NeNAd miščević conceptualism and Knowledge of logic A Budget of Problems 1 introduction Ordinary cognizers reason, at least sometimes, in accordance with logical rules. They find some instances of logical principles compelling and obvious, provided the latter are sufficiently simple and undemanding . They are “sensitive to logical form,” as russell would put it.1 explicit elementary knowledge of logic probably derives from these simple sensitivity and abilities. how is the elementary knowledge of logic, both implicit and explicit, justified or warranted? What entitles the cognizers use of logical principles in inference? and, assuming a broadly realist stance about logic, what justifies the assumption that these principles are reliable and objectively valid? how do we access “logical reality” (so to speak), if it is objective and mind-independent? The last question suggests a version of Benacerraf’s dilemma for logic, with obvious ties to its original area, philosophy of mathematics. The tie is suggested, among other things, by the prominence and promise of logicism: if our knowledge of mathematics can be epistemologically grounded in our knowledge of logic, in insight into the latter promises also to solve the mysteries of the former. another tie might be the plausibility of a Platonic ontology of logical entities, propositions i wish to thank the participants of the Oxford–Budapest conference, the participants of the russell conference at ceu (and the organizer, Zsófia Zvolenszky), and those of the rijeka philosophy of logic conference for discussion and help, and most of all the editors of the volume, Zs. novák and a. simonyi, for their invitation , encouragement and long and patient struggle with all the mistakes i made in the draft version of the paper. 1 see russell 1927, 67–68. i4 Truth.indb 77 2011.08.15. 8:57 78 Truth, reference and realism and their logical relations.2 since logic is a paradigmatic example of a (candidate) a priori domain, this issue lies at the intersection of at least two lines of inquiry: one concerning the epistemology of logic itself, the other the epistemology of (candidate) a priori beliefs and practices of reasoning. a dominant line in recent debate is a variety of the apriorist or rationalist line, relying upon cognizers mastery of logical concepts: the mastery gives the cognizer access to “logical reality” and thus ultimately helps to solve Benacerraf’s dilemma. i shall call it “conceptualism,” taking as its main proponents c. Peacocke and P. Boghossian. i will also appeal to the work of B. hale and c. Wright, since it comes quite close to the mainstream conceptualist position. here i am interested in specifically epistemological issues, so by “conceptualism” i will, in the sequel, mean above all, an epistemological position. it rejects any reliance on a posteriori sources of justification or warrant for logical knowledge, mostly rejects or downplays the need of any kind of broadly causal (or causal-like) explanation of our logical capacities, both of our having them and of their reliability. instead, the authors listed proposed a combination of three sources of justification. The first one is the alleged (meaning-or-concept) constitutive work that logical principles perform in fixing the sense and semantic value of logical expressions (above all constants). This is a logic-immanent, concept-focused, kind of justification: i shall call it justification-through-constitution. The two others come from cognitive-epistemic considerations, somewhat external to logic itself. The main candidates are first, obviousness -cum-compellingness, and second, indispensability, that allegedly makes logical principles into a kind of universal hinge-propositions (“cornerstones,” as Wright calls them; see below). The three sources are taken to be of purely a priori nature, and standing in no need of broadly empirical explanation of an ordinary causal kind, for instance psychological or evolutionary. in this paper i would like to argue against these last two assumptions , and in favor of deploying some a posteriori considerations together with a modicum of explanationism in reflectively justifying logical knowledge. i agree that logic is justified immediately and in this weak sense a priori, but only in a relatively prima facie and unreflective 2 Thanks go to the two editors for reminding me of this second tie. i4 Truth.indb 78 2011.08.15. 8:57 79 Conceptualism and Knowledge of Logic way. a deeper skeptical probing, and a more demanding and reflective drive for justification and understanding brings in non-a priori components : there is nothing wrong in...