It is a popular view thatpractical deliberation excludes foreknowledge of one's choice. Wolfgang Spohn and Isaac Levi have argued that not even a purely probabilistic self-predictionis available to thedeliberator, if one takes subjective probabilities to be conceptually linked to betting rates. It makes no sense to have a betting rate for an option, for one's willingness to bet on the option depends on the net gain from the bet, in combination with the option's antecedent utility, rather than on the offered (...) odds. And even apart from this consideration, assigning probabilities to the options among which one is choosing is futile since such probabilities could be of no possible use in choice. The paper subjects these arguments to critical examination and suggests that, appearances notwithstanding, practical deliberation need not crowd outself-prediction. (shrink)

This volume presents a collection of refereed papers reflecting the state of the art in the area of over-constrained systems. Besides 11 revised full papers, selected from the 24 submissions to the OCS workshop held in conjunction with the First International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP '95, held in Marseilles in September 1995, the book includes three comprehensive background papers of central importance for the workshop papers and the whole field. Also included is an introduction (...) by one of the volume editors together with a bibliography listing 243 entries. All in all this is a very useful reference book relevant for all researchers and practitioners interested in hierarchical, partial, and over-constrained systems. (shrink)

Metaphilosophy, Volume 53, Issue 2-3, Page 267-283, April 2022.

Philosophers of logic are particularly interested in understanding the aims, epistemology, and methodology of logic. This raises the question of how the philosophy of logic should go about these enquires. According to the practice-based approach, the most reliable method we have to investigate the methodology and epistemology of a research field is by considering in detail the activities of its practitioners. This holds just as true for logic as it does for the recognised empirical and abstract sciences. If we (...) wish to systematically understand the aims and epistemology of logic, we are best placed achieving this by looking at what logicians do, rather than reflecting upon the nature of logic itself. In this entry, we outline the motivations for a practice-based approach towards the philosophy of logic and highlight its advantages over more “top-down” approaches, which attempt to infer conclusions about the nature of logic and its methodology on the basis of traditional assumptions about knowledge, metaphysics, or logic itself. We end by addressing several prominent concerns raised against the practice-based approach. (shrink)

In this paper my primary aim is to present a logical system of practical reasoning that can be used to assess the validity of practical arguments, that is, arguments with a practical judgment as conclusion. I begin with a critical evaluation of other approaches to this issue and argue that they are inadequate. On the basis of these considerations, I explain in Sect. 2 the informal conception of practical validity and introduce in Sect. 3 the logical system P (...) , which is an extension of propositional logic and can be used to assess the validity of a wide range of practical arguments. In the last section, I apply this system to some examples of practical reasoning in order to demonstrate how it can be used in practice. (shrink)

Different questions generate different forms of practical reasoning. A contextually unrestricted ‘What shall I do?’ is too open to focus reflection. More determinately, an agent may ask, ‘Shall I do X, or Y?’ To answer that, he may need to weigh things up—as fits the derivation of ‘deliberation’ fromlibra(Latin for ‘scales’). Ubiquitous and indispensable though this is, I mention it only to salute it in passing. Or he may ask how to achieve a proposed end: if his end is to (...) do X, he may ask ‘How shall I do X?’ Or he may ask how to apply a universal rule or particular maxim. Aristotle supplies examples inDe Motu Animalium(7.701a7 ff.), whose wording I freely adapt to my own purposes:A1 reasons to a necessary means to achieving an end:I will make a cloak.To make a cloak I must do A.So, I will do A. (shrink)

Agenda Relevance is the first volume in the authors' omnibus investigation of the logic of practical reasoning, under the collective title, A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems. In this highly original approach, practical reasoning is identified as reasoning performed with comparatively few cognitive assets, including resources such as information, time and computational capacity. Unlike what is proposed in optimization models of human cognition, a practical reasoner lacks perfect information, boundless time and unconstrained access to computational complexity. The practical reasoner is (...) therefore obliged to be a cognitive economizer and to achieve his cognitive ends with considerable efficiency. Accordingly, the practical reasoner avails himself of various scarce-resource compensation strategies. He also possesses neurocognitive traits that abet him in his reasoning tasks. Prominent among these is the practical agent's striking (though not perfect) adeptness at evading irrelevant information and staying on task. On the approach taken here, irrelevancies are impediments to the attainment of cognitive ends. Thus, in its most basic sense, relevant information is cognitively helpful information. Information can then be said to be relevant for a practical reasoner to the extent that it advances or closes some cognitive agenda of his. The book explores this idea with a conceptual detail and nuance not seen the standard semantic, probabilistic and pragmatic approaches to relevance; but wherever possible, the authors seek to integrate alternative conceptions rather than reject them outright. A further attraction of the agenda-relevance approach is the extent to which its principal conceptual findings lend themselves to technically sophisticated re-expression in formal models that marshal the resources of time and action logics and label led deductive systems. Agenda Relevance is necessary reading for researchers in logic, belief dynamics, computer science, AI, psychology and neuroscience, linguistics, argumentation theory, and legal reasoning and forensic science, and will repay study by graduate students and senior undergraduates in these same fields. Key features: relevance action and agendas practical reasoning belief dynamics non-classical logics labelled deductive systems. (shrink)

This article discusses two coextensive concepts of logical consequence that are implicit in the two fundamental logical practices of establishing validity and invalidity for premise-conclusion arguments. The premises and conclusion of an argument have information content (they ?say? something), and they have subject matter (they are ?about? something). The asymmetry between establishing validity and establishing invalidity has long been noted: validity is established through an information-processing procedure exhibiting a step-by-step deduction of the conclusion from the premise-set. Invalidity is (...) established by exhibiting a countermodel satisfying the premises but not the conclusion. The process of establishing validity focuses on information content; the process of establishing invalidity focuses on subject matter. Corcoran's information-theoretic concept of logical consequence corresponds to the former. Tarski's model-theoretic concept of logical consequence formulated in his famous 1936 no-countermodels definition corresponds to the latter. Both are found to be indispensable for understanding the rationale of the deductive method and each complements the other. This study discusses the ontic question of the nature of logical consequence and the epistemic question of the human capabilities presupposed by practical applications of these two concepts as they make validity and invalidity accessible to human knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter intervenes in recent debates in Kant scholarship about the possibility of a general logical alien. Such an alien is a thinker whose laws of thinking violate ours. She is third-personal as she is radically unlike us. Proponents of the constitutive reading of Kant’s conception of general logic accordingly suggest that Kant rules out the possibility of such an alien as unthinkable. I add to this an often-overlooked element in Kant’s thinking: there is reason to think that he (...) grants—and in fact presupposes—the possibility of a transcendental logical alien. Such an alien is a knower whose laws of experience purport to violate ours. She is first-personal as she is radically like us. In other words, she is us, insofar as we are alienated from ourselves and our experience. I go on to draw an analogy between her, a dogmatist, and another transcendental alien, an evil agent. Just as a dogmatist is alienated from her (our) experiential laws, an evil agent is alienated from her (our) moral law. These forms of theoretical and practical self-conceit require self-knowledge in the form of a critique of speculative or practical reason. In bringing this point out, I aim to shift from the question of whether logical laws constitute our thinking to the question of whether grasping our experiential and moral laws as our laws constitutes our reason. (shrink)

Process logic described by A. V. Smirnov is based on materials from the arab-muslim cul­ture as a whole. Process logic is contrasted with the substance logic which forms the foundation of European culture as a whole. It has been proven theoretically that any situation could be interpreted using any logic of sense. The article provides an empirical illustration of the use of the process logic in a consultation of a preschool educational in­stitution psychologist on problems connected with a mental disorder (...) of one of the pupils of the institution. On the basis of this single example it is demonstrated how process logic allows the shift of the focus of attention retaining the rational basis of the actions. Situa­tions relating to the health are difficult to describe using substantial logic as the course of the disease depends on the actions of the patient and on the actions of people in his/her immediate surroundings. This limits the usability of the law of identity which is funda­mental to substantial logic. The disease is “not that very same” disease – it is changing as the result of the actions. This creates a persistent uncertainty which is of remarkable im­portance in pediatric healthcare, where the actions of the parents are complicating the sit­uation much more significantly compared to the adult healthcare. In contrast to this, process logic allows us to observe the course of the ailment as such, as being a process, which eliminates the uncertainty. The process determines the actions regarding the ail­ment as well as their evaluation. If an action is changing the course of the ailment to the better we consider it successful. In the case described, the logic of understanding the situation used by the consultant has changed the client’s logic of understanding the situation. The person stopped seeing the problem as something rigid and insurmount­able. The change of the logic didn’t require any special training of the client. It follows that the shift of understanding from the substance logic to the process logic can help to solve practical pediatric problems. (shrink)

In the past couple of decades several different accounts of the logic of practical reasoning have been proposed.1 The account I have recommended on a number of occasions is clearly the simplest, because it requires no special logical principles, holding that, in respect of deduction, practical reasoning is adequately understood as involving only standard assertoric principles. My account has recently encountered various objections, the most dismissive of which is that it is too simple to deal with complicated cases of (...) practical inference. I am not daunted by these objections. My aim here is to offer some observations that will make the merits of my account easier to appreciate. (shrink)

Originally published in 1934. This fourth edition originally published 1954., revised by C. W. K. Mundle. "It must be the desire of every reasonable person to know how to justify a contention which is of sufficient importance to be seriously questioned. The explicit formulation of the principles of sound reasoning is the concern of Logic". This book discusses the habit of sound reasoning which is acquired by consciously attending to the logical principles of sound reasoning, in order to apply (...) them to test the soundness of arguments. It isn't an introduction to logic but it encourages the practice of logic, of deciding whether reasons in argument are sound or unsound. Stress is laid upon the importance of considering language, which is a key instrument of our thinking and is imperfect. (shrink)

Originally published in 1934. This fourth edition originally published 1954., revised by C. W. K. Mundle. "It must be the desire of every reasonable person to know how to justify a contention which is of sufficient importance to be seriously questioned. The explicit formulation of the principles of sound reasoning is the concern of Logic". This book discusses the habit of sound reasoning which is acquired by consciously attending to the logical principles of sound reasoning, in order to apply (...) them to test the soundness of arguments. It isn't an introduction to logic but it encourages the practice of logic, of deciding whether reasons in argument are sound or unsound. Stress is laid upon the importance of considering language, which is a key instrument of our thinking and is imperfect. (shrink)

This book presents the current state of the art regarding the application of logical tools to the problems of theory and practice of lawmaking. It shows how contemporary logic may be useful in the analysis of legislation, legislative drafting and legal reasoning concerning different contexts of lawmaking. Elaborations of the process of lawmaking have variously emphasised its political, social or economic aspects. Yet despite strong interest in logical analyses of law, questions remains about the role of (...) class='Hi'>logical tools in lawmaking. This volume attempts to bridge that gap, or at least to narrow it, drawing together some important research problems-and some possible solutions-as seen through the work of leading contemporary academics. The volume encompasses 20 chapters written by authors from 16 countries and it presents diversified views on the understanding of logic (from strict mathematical approaches to the informal, argumentative ones) and differentiated choices concerning the aspects of lawmaking taken into account. The book presents a broad set of perspectives, insights and results into the emerging field of research devoted to the logical analysis of the area of creation of law. How does logic inform lawmaking? Are legal systems consistent and complete? How can legal rules be represented by means of formal calculi and visualization techniques? Does the structure of statutes or of legal systems resemble the structure of deductive systems? What are the logical relations between the basic concepts of jurisprudence that constitute the system of law? How are theories of legal interpretation relevant to the process of legislation? How might the statutory text be analysed by means of contemporary computer programs? These and other questions, ranging from the theoretical to the immediately practical, are addressed in this definitive collection. (shrink)

Does logic describe something or not? If not, is it a normative or practical discipline? Is there a radical division between the practical or normative level and the theoretical or descriptive level? A discipline is theoretical, we may say, if its main propositions contain descriptive expressions, such as “is” or “have”, but no normative expressions, such as “ought”, “ought not” or “may”. A discipline is normative if its main propositions are of the form “it ought to be”. Theoretical propositions express (...) what is, whereas practical propositions express what should be. So a theoretical discipline is descriptive and a normative discipline is prescriptive, but what does a theoretical discipline describe? (shrink)

Moral conflicts are real, and while a deontic logic containing a modified "agglomeration rule" may be able to accommodate this fact, even the most sophisticated logic will still overlook much of what everyday normative reasoning involves.

Abstract.One of the theses of the present work is that, at the strictly logical and methodological level, practical logic has neither made, nor can it make any contribution to the philosophy of law, since none of the three branches of practical logic that have been taken into account, namely, the logic of norms, deontic logic and legal logic, seems to be theoretically possible. The contribution of practical logic to the analysis of legal language is assessed in terms of both (...) the instruments of analysis elaborated by practical logic, the artificial languages, and the results obtained in two capital subjects, the negations of norms and the permissions. (shrink)

This project is in the first place an attempt to clarify what transcendental logic is and how Kant uses it in order to achieve his goals. I use two keys in unlocking transcendental logic: Kant's philosophy of mathematics and his account of modality. I argue that Kant's categorical separation of philosophical and mathematical cognition in his reflections on method is too sweeping and undifferentiated to account for his practice in transcendental logic. On the basis of an examination of what (...) it would take in order to sustain Kant's claim for the peculiarity of modal judgments---their subjective syntheticity---I argue that the positive claims that transcendental logic makes regarding objects are legitimated by the construction of an object as such, whose concept is provided by the sum total of the categories. I suggest that the schemata play a role analogous to that of the a priori constructed figure in a mathematical proof and provide a reconstruction of the Transcendental Doctrine of the Capacity of Judgment which makes sense of Kant's decision to label the modal principles 'postulates' in the precise sense of the Euclidean mathematicians. Part Two argues that Kant's practical philosophy is grounded on something which deserves to be called a transcendental logic every bit as much as the logic that we find in the Critique of Pure Reason. Instead of being based upon our capacity for theoretical judgment, in which we refer a concept to an ontic object via intuition, practical transcendental logic is based upon our capacity for practical judgment , in which we refer a concept to a deontic object via feeling. I show how the central arguments of Kant's practical philosophy rely implicitly upon the construction of a good will as such, which plays a semantic role analogous to that of the object as such in theoretical philosophy. One part of my case is contained in the demonstration that 'good' functions as a practical modal concept and that predications of goodness have a peculiar logical form, analogous to that exhibited by theoretical predications of existence. (shrink)

Science is about evaluation, persuasion and logic. In scientific debate, scientists collectively evaluate theories by persuading each other in regard to epistemological qualities such as deduction and fact. There is, however, a flaw intrinsic to evaluation-by-persuasion: an individual can attempt and even succeed in persuading others by asserting that their reasoning is logical when it is not. This is a problem since, from an epistemological perspective, it is not always transparent nor obvious when a persuasive assertion is actually deductively (...) warranted. Empirical research upon reasoning, indeed, supports the notion that assertions are often strongly persuasive for reasons other than their logic. The unreliability of the link between persuasion and logic raises an important methodological issue: how do scientists debate in a manner such that claimed but false “logical” arguments are ignored, and only warranted arguments get to determine theory preference? This need for soundness in debate is a particularly important epistemological concern in cases where the deductive qualities of persuasive argument are not overt, and so cannot be directly checked --such as when they are founded upon Bayesianism probabilistic coherence. The argument presented here is that scientists make the qualities of probabilistic and nonprobabilistic inference sound (and so warranted) through how they organize their debate. Scientists, I argue, abide by “epistemological quality control practices” that limit the persuasive power of unsound arguments upon theory evaluation. Examples of such debate quality control practices are publicness, clarity, openness to criticism, and the collective promotion of attempts at theory conjecture and refutation. Methodologically, these quality control practices are extralogical since they do not directly provide scientific inferences with additional logical warrantedness. They function instead in science to generate an epistemological evaluative environment in which persuasiveness is due, and only due, to logic (i.e. sound). Their methodological role is therefore to make what is warranted de papyri (in our principles of rationality – epistemologically competence) also what is persuasive in evaluation and debate de cognitio (in our exercise of such principles – epistemologically performance). Several limitations exist upon the soundness of Bayesian inferential coherence – surreptitious revision, logical omniscience, uncertain evidence, old evidence, and new hypotheses. Bayesianism, as a result, can only exist if it is pursued in a debate that is regulated by quality control practices over its inferences (for instance, practices that ensure there is autonomy of inference, diligence of inference, probity of evidence, auditability of inference and assiduousness of conjecture). In this context, one can reinterpret Popper’s concern with criticism, openness, refutation and conjecture, as deriving not (as he thought) directly from the needs of logic, but, indirectly, from the need of scientists to create epistemological soundness. (shrink)

Preface -- 1. Propositional logic : proofs from axioms and inference rules -- 2. First order logic : proofs with quantifiers -- 3. Set theory : proofs by detachment, contraposition, and contradiction -- 4. Mathematical induction : definitions and proofs by induction -- 5. Well-formed sets : proofs by transfinite induction with already well-ordered sets -- 6. The axiom of choice : proofs by transfinite induction -- 7. applications : Nobel-Prize winning applications of sets, functions, and relations -- 8. Solutions (...) to some odd-numbered exercises. (shrink)

This book reports on cutting edge research concerning social practices. Merging perspectives from various disciplines, it discusses theoretical aspects of social behavior along with models to investigate them, and also presents key case studies. Further, it describes concepts related to habits, routines and rituals and examines important features of human action such as intentionality and choice, exploring the influence of specific social practices in different situations.

CHAPTER I The Spirit and Method of Logic Natural Logic There is a natural logic as well as a rational one, just as there is both a mother tongue and a ...

According to Kant’s Universal Law Formula, maxims that cannot be conceived as universal laws denote duties of perfect obligation. In the recent literature, two versions of the Contradiction in Conception test have received the most attention. When acting on a maxim would violate a perfect duty, according to the Logical Contradiction Interpretation (LCI), universalizing the maxim would make it literally impossible to perform the action as described in the original maxim. According to the Practical Contradiction Interpretation (PCI), the locus (...) of the contradiction is as follows: the agent acts on the maxim in order to achieve some purpose, but were the agent’s maxim universalized, the purpose would be unattainable. Having examined the most widely accepted versions of both interpretations, I argue that i) PCI cannot generate contradictions for the maxims of any actions that violate perfect duties beyond those generated by LCI, ii) despite claims of its proponents, PCI cannot solve the vexing problem of relevant descriptions that Kant’s account faces, and iii) other arguments in favor of PCI are at best inconclusive. I therefore conclude that since LCI better coheres with the text, sympathetic interpreters should focus their efforts on LCI, not PCI. (shrink)

In the Tractatus, it is stated that questions about logical formatting cannot be meaningfully formulated, since it is precisely the application of logical rules which enables the formulation of a question whatsoever; analogously, Wittgenstein’s celebrated infinite regress argument on rule-following seems to undermine any explanation of deduction, as relying on a logical argument. On the other hand, some recent mathematical developments of the Curry-Howard bridge between proof theory and type theory address the issue of describing the “subjective” (...) side of logic, that is, the concrete manipulation of rules and proofs in space and time. It is advocated that such developments can shed some light on the question of logical formatting and its apparently unintelligible paradoxes, thus reconsidering Wittgenstein’s verdict. (shrink)

This book describes how scientists bring their own interests and passions to their work, illustrates the dynamics between researchers and the research community ...

Applied sociology will be understood in the following discussion as a unique and original form of sociology; i.e., in its logic and practice distinguished from traditional sociology it is understood as an explanatory body of knowledge and an intellectual discourse about intentional/purposeful social action and behavior. The application of sociology proper to such substantive fields as family, art, law and sport, commonly called applied sociology, which reproduce the body of sociological knowledge just a second time, is not part of (...) such understanding. Applied sociology in its original sense has its own logic in which purpose, implementation and the process of social-problem solution are crucial. It will in the end lead to an applied action or implementation theory. It is, to paraphrase Lazarsfeld, the methodology of “sociology in action” (1960). (shrink)

This book reports on cutting-edge research concerning social practices. Merging perspectives from various disciplines, including philosophy, biology, psychology and cognitive science, and economy, it discusses theoretical aspects of social behavior along with models to investigate them, and presenting key case studies as well. Further, it describes concepts related to habits, routines, and rituals and examines important features of human action, such as intentionality and choice, exploring the influence of specific social practices in different situations. Based on a workshop held on (...) April 2022 at the World Congress on Universal Logic (UNILOG 22), in Crete, and including additional invited chapters, the book offers fresh insights into the fields of social practice and the cognitive, computational, and philosophical tools to understand them. (shrink)

Market-like devices that enact quantification and monetization processes (QM) underpin a growing number of valuation practices, but the widespread take-up of QM has given rise to the ‘cooptation charge’: for all the good intentions and results produced by those who deploy QM, they are complicit in reinforcing problematic neoliberal tendencies. A political discourse-theoretical perspective, combined with a pragmatist scholarship that has made significant advances in our understanding of QM, suggests that the cooptation charge relies on an overly simplified picture of (...) both QM and neoliberalism. However, while we acknowledge this as an important advance, we argue that the normative, political, and ideological significance of QM remains surprisingly underspecified. We still lack a convincing theoretical framework that provides a more rounded multi-dimensional critical perspective within which to navigate the evaluative dilemmas produced by these increasingly widespread techniques, including cooptation worries. Drawing on the logics approach of the Essex school of political discourse theory, we develop a framework that brings together the strategic, normative, and ideological dimensions that otherwise tend to be treated separately in the literature, allowing a fuller assessment of such technologies. (shrink)

The relation between truth and violence is explored through the logic of sacrifice presented in the Book of Job. Job, as an arbitrary sacrificial victim, learns the truth of the violence perpetrated against him. Such violence is also shown to be constitutive of Western reasoning, including its practices of the truth.

This paper’s aim is to help winnow out some ideas about the role of formal logic in human doings at large. I start by discussing some metaphysical presuppositions of logical theory; specifically, I attempt to work towards a clearer understanding of the role of modalities, together with the notions of meaning and truth, in mainstream logical theory. I then appeal to a modal formal semantics (Brandom, 2007a) in order to outline the cognitive role of logical constants in (...) general. From these discussions I conclude that any view of formal logic, and its core concepts, which does not involve a grasp of what we do with them will be found to be distorted. (shrink)

The Handbook of the Logic of Argument and Inference is an authoritative reference work in a single volume, designed for the attention of senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in all the leading research areas concerned with the logic of practical argument and inference. After an introductory chapter, the role of standard logics is surveyed in two chapters. These chapters can serve as a mini-course for interested readers, in deductive and inductive logic, or as a refresher. Then follow two chapters (...) of criticism; one the internal critique and the other the empirical critique. The first deals with objections to standard logics (as theories of argument and inference) arising from the research programme in philosophical logic. The second canvasses criticisms arising from work in cognitive and experimental psychology. The next five chapters deal with developments in dialogue logic, interrogative logic, informal logic, probability logic and artificial intelligence. The last chapter surveys formal approaches to practical reasoning and anticipates possible future developments. Taken as a whole the Handbook is a single-volume indication of the present state of the logic of argument and inference at its conceptual and theoretical best. Future editions will periodically incorporate significant new developments. (shrink)

I share my experiences teaching Practical Logic with a focus on good reasoning as eliminating alternative conclusions. This unites the various topics traditionally taught in such courses in a way that I have found to be extremely effective.

This paper constitutes my philosophy of teaching. I aim to model self-examination of teaching practice with the use of philosophical actionresearch. I use the method of triangulation and a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to validate and to strengthen my assertions. The analysis was grounded on empirical information, relevant current literature, and reflection. I argue that self-examination of practice is a worthy exercise for educators. When conducted systematically, self-examination efforts should not be regarded as merely subjective. It (...) can be harnessed as a tool to improve an educator's academic performance and personal wellbeing. It should rather be viewed as a basic or foundational discipline to sustain one's growth and love for teaching. The reflections on experience, insights, and the external validation one gathers in the process are worth the challenge. An examined life becomes worth living. (shrink)