Logical pluralism also pluralistic logic and pluralistic logicism is the
philosophical
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
view that there is more than one correct
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
. It stands in contrast to
logical monism which argues that there is a single unique logic. There are different standards both for what counts as a logic and what exactly it means for a logic to be "correct", however, most debates about logical pluralism defined logic as a theory of validity. In other words, logic is the study of what constitutes a
valid inference. Following from this definition, "correctness" has been defined in terms of whether or not a logic offers ''the'' correct form of valid inference. Logical pluralism holds that multiple different types of valid inference (i.e., at least two different consequence relations) can be correct.
Forms of logical pluralisms have been around since the first half of the 20th century, if not earlier. Perhaps most famous of these early models is found in the work of
Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism.
...
.
Newfound interest in logical pluralism was sparked by the work of philosophers
Jc Beall
Jc Beall is an American philosopher working in philosophy of logic and philosophical logic, who since 2020, holds the O’Neill Family Chair of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He was previously the Board of Trustees Distinguished Pr ...
and
Greg Restall
Greg Restall (born 11 January 1969) is an Australian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews.
He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Restall is known for his research on logic and theories ...
, culminating in their 2006 book, ''Logical Pluralism''.
[Jc Beall, Greg Restall, 2006, ''Logical Pluralism'', Oxford: Oxford University Press.]
References
External links
*
Logic
{{logic-stub