The "natural" and the "formal"

Journal of Philosophical Logic 29 (1):75-101 (2000)
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Abstract

The paper presents an argument against a "metaphysical" conception of logic according to which logic spells out a specific kind of mathematical structure that is somehow inherently related to our factual reasoning. In contrast, it is argued that it is always an empirical question as to whether a given mathematical structure really does captures a principle of reasoning. (More generally, it is argued that it is not meaningful to replace an empirical investigation of a thing by an investigation of its a priori analyzable structure without paying due attention to the question of whether it really is the structure of the thing in question.) It is proposed to elucidate the situation by distinguishing two essentially different realms with which our reason must deal: "the realm of the natural", constituted by the things of our empirical world, and "the realm of the formal", constituted by the structures that we use as "prisms" to view, to make sense of, and to reconstruct the world. It is suggested that this vantage point may throw light on many foundational problems of logic

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Citations of this work

Logical Expressivism and Logical Relations.Lionel Shapiro - 2018 - In Ondřej Beran, Vojtěch Kolman & Ladislav Koreň (eds.), From rules to meanings. New essays on inferentialism. New York: Routledge. pp. 179-95.
Logic and Natural Selection.Jaroslav Peregrin - 2010 - Logica Universalis 4 (2):207-223.
Kvaszova filosofie matematiky mezi platonismem a naturalismem.Jaroslav Peregrin - 2010 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 17 (1):71-80.
‘Fregean’ logic and ‘Russellian’ logic.Jaroslav Peregrin - 2000 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78 (4):557 – 574.

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References found in this work

Word and Object.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1960 - Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Science, Perception and Reality.Wilfrid Sellars (ed.) - 1963 - New York,: Humanities Press.
The emperor’s new mind.Roger Penrose - 1989 - Oxford University Press.
On Denoting.Bertrand Russell - 1905 - Mind 14 (56):479-493.

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