Logic and Natural Selection

Logica Universalis 4 (2):207-223 (2010)
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Abstract

Is logic, feasibly, a product of natural selection? In this paper we treat this question as dependent upon the prior question of where logic is founded. After excluding other possibilities, we conclude that logic resides in our language, in the shape of inferential rules governing the logical vocabulary of the language. This means that knowledge of (the laws of) logic is inseparable from the possession of the logical constants they govern. In this sense, logic may be seen as a product of natural selection: the emergence of logic requires the development of creatures who can wield structured languages of a specific complexity, and who are capable of putting the languages to use within specific discursive practices

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References found in this work

The Language of Thought.Jerry A. Fodor - 1975 - Harvard University Press.
The Language of Thought.J. A. Fodor - 1978 - Critica 10 (28):140-143.
On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.Donald Davidson - 1973 - Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47:5-20.
Reason in philosophy: animating ideas.Robert Brandom - 2009 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
A counterexample to modus ponens.Vann McGee - 1985 - Journal of Philosophy 82 (9):462-471.

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