On the Application of Logic to Certain Philosophical Questions
This talk will focus on various aspects of the relationship between
logic and philosophy, including the extent to which the logical
frameworks we develop presuppose an ontology, the extent to which
logic is free of existence assumptions, and the extent to which set
theory succeeds as a tool for understanding language. In a series of
case studies I will describe, among other things, how analytically
true principles of logic can have synthetically true consequences,
how logical and analytic truths can fail to be necessary, how the
`philosophically proper' choice of semantics for modal logic has the
consequence that simple propositional modal logic is not an
intensional logic, and how to interpret comprehension principles in
a way that may be consistent with the view that meanings of
expressions are constituted by their use or by their inferential
roles. Finally, I will discuss some of the recent successful
applications of logic to philosophical problems, and indicate a few
of the obstacles we face in the attempt to use logic to investigate
philosophical questions.
Edward N. Zalta