Robby Finley, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Maine
Abstract: Recent work in philosophy of logic has focused on whether it is possible to revise logic and how one could justify such revisions. In order to justify a revision of logic, it seems like you should consider arguments for revision, but you must presuppose some logic to evaluate any such arguments. In this talk, I will first introduce a framework for theory choice in logic that suggests such justifications are abductive. Recent defenders of such a framework have argued that logic is “unexceptional” and theory choice in logic is analogous to scientific theory choice. I argue that this is not quite right: the correct process ay be abductive, but logic nevertheless has unique theoretical virtues that motivate theory choice. To do so, I turn to some cases of disagreement about logic from debates within the foundational crisis in mathematics. These reveal competing views about the role and virtues of logic that can help us formulate a better abductive framework.
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