Dear all,
Just a reminder that Marion Boulicault (HPS) will be giving a presentation at
the HPS Philosophy Workshop at 12 noon today (that is, Friday 21/2) in the HPS
Department Seminar Room 1 titled 'The Contingency of Logical Necessity: An
Analysis of a Sociological Account of Logic’.
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ABSTRACT:
Logical deduction is central to analytic philosophy: most crucially, it
provides the standard against which we judge arguments. Traditionally, the
relation of deducibility between propositions, i.e. whether or not a conclusion
logically follows from a set of premises and rules of inference, is said to be
knowable a priori and with absolute certainty. It is often taken to be
self-evident that if you accept the premises of a valid argument, the
conclusion necessarily follows. By making use of a theory known as ‘meaning
finitism’ David Bloor challenges this traditional account of logical necessity,
arguing that “what, in the realm of language and ideas, we refer to as logical
relations, and logical constraints, are really the constraints imposed on us by
other people. Logical necessity is a moral and social relation”.
In this essay, I will examine whether Bloor is justified in making such a bold
claim. I will begin by giving an account of what is meant by terms such as
‘logic’ and ‘logical necessity’. I will then outline two different
interpretations of Bloor’s thesis: the first being the ‘external’ or ‘holist’
interpretation under which the choice to accept or not accept a given logical
system is a contingent and social matter. This first interpretation would take
Bloor to be advocating for logical pluralism or relativism. On the second or
‘internal’ interpretation, social factors penetrate a given logical system
itself: the relation between premises and conclusion, given accepted rules of
inference, is a moral and social relation. In the remainder of this essay, I
will evaluate whether or not Bloor succeeds in justifying either of the above
two interpretations.
======
The HPS Philosophy Workshop is a venue to present draft, and in-progress work
on the philosophy of science (broadly construed) for Part III, MPhil andPhD
students, and post-docs. If you would like to present a paper in the Easter
Term, it’s not too early to get in contact!
All the best,
Toby Bryant
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