Abstract

The tools of logic are used properly or improperly relative to two interrelated purposes. Logic is both a symbolism for the expression of the formal structures of thought and an inference mechanism. Formalization in philosophical logic is justified to the extent that it contributes to our understanding of logical properties and the conceptual problems they may help to state, clarify, or resolve. This view of the value and limits of formalization in logic affords a pragmatic perspective that in principle should selectively support the development of particular formal systems, while excluding others as unjustified. Yet the pragmatic grounds are so liberal as to disallow virtually no exercises in formalization as entirely useless. Logic is abused in another sense, when it is wrongly used, not by violating logical canons generally, but by presupposing that substantive metaphysical, normative, or scientific content can be derived from purely formal logical relations.