{"id":9622,"date":"2012-06-20T11:35:55","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T11:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/06\/20\/are-the-laws-of-logic-empirical-generalizations\/"},"modified":"2012-06-20T11:35:55","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T11:35:55","slug":"are-the-laws-of-logic-empirical-generalizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/06\/20\/are-the-laws-of-logic-empirical-generalizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the Laws of Logic Empirical Generalizations?"},"content":{"rendered":"

London Ed raises the question<\/a> whether logic is empirical.  <\/span><\/p>\n

That puts me in mind of  the old idea of John Stuart Mill and others that the laws of logic are empirical generalizations from what we do and do not perceive. Thus we never perceive rain and its absence in the same place at the same time. The temptation is to construe such logic laws as the Law of Non-Contradiction — ~(p & ~p) — as generalizations from psychological facts like these. If this is right, then logical laws lack the a priori<\/em> character and epistemic \u2018dignity\u2019 that some of us are wont to see in them. They rest on psychological facts that might have been otherwise and that are known a posteriori<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

London Ed might want consider this reductio ad absurdum:<\/em> <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1. The laws of logic are empirical generalizations. (Assumption for <\/span>
reductio<\/em>) <\/span>
2. Empirical generalizations, if true, are merely contingently <\/span>
true. (By definition of \u2018empirical generalization\u2019: empirical generalizations <\/span>
record what happens to be the case, but might not have been the case.) <\/span>
Therefore, <\/span>
3. The laws of logic, if true, are merely contingently true. <\/span>
(From 1 and 2) <\/span>
4. If proposition p is contingently true, then it is possible <\/span>
that p be false. (Def. of \u2018contingently true.\u2019)Therefore, <\/span>
5. The laws of logic, if true, are possibly false. (From 3 and 4)Therefore, <\/span>
6. LNC is possibly false: there are logically possible worlds in which \u2018p&~p\u2019 is true. <\/span>
(From 5 and the fact that LNC is a law of logic.) <\/span>
7. But (6) is absurd (self-contradictory): it amounts to saying that it is logically possible that the very criterion of logical possibility, namely LNC, be false. Corollary: if <\/span>
laws of logic were empirical generalizations, we would be incapable of defining \u2018empirical generalization\u2019: this definition requires the notion of what is the case but (logically) might not have been the case.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London Ed raises the question whether logic is empirical.   That puts me in mind of  the old idea of John Stuart Mill and others that the laws of logic are empirical generalizations from what we do and do not perceive. Thus we never perceive rain and its absence in the same place at the same time. … Continue reading “Are the Laws of Logic Empirical Generalizations?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-empiricism","category-logica-docens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}