Cool Logic

Eileen Wagner (ILLC)

Anything Goes? On the Normativity of Logic

April 11th at 17:30, in ILLC Seminar room

Frege famously said that logic is the study of the laws of thought: rather than describing how we actually think, logic tells us how we ought to think. Despite the frequent allusion to normativity, little has been said in its defence. An account of the normativity of logic should answer two questions: first, in what sense is logic normative for thought?, and second, which logic should we think with? I will present an intrinsic and an extrinsic account, and argue that only the latter can answer both questions. The talk will touch upon topics in formal epistemology, metaethics, and alternative logics.