What's So Special About Logic? Practices, Rules and Definitions

December 4, 2019

Abstract: Over the last century or so, the discipline of logic has grown and transformed into a powerful set of tools and techniques that find their use in fields as far apart as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, electrical engineering and linguistics. Is there anything distinctive about logic and its results, or is it just another kind of abstract mathematics, or another kind of empirical scientific theory? In this talk I’ll explain why the distinctive subject matter of logical theory means that the tools of logic (proofs and models) can play a special role in our thought and in our talk. This explanation will turn crucially on our practices of assertion and denial, and how it can constrain those practices by using rules and definitions.

The talk is the 21st Annual Alice Ambrose Lazerowitz/Thomas Tymocko Logic Lecture at Smith College.
The slides for the talk are available here.

about

I’m Greg Restall, and this is my personal website. ¶ I am the Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, and the Director of the Arché Philosophical Research Centre for Logic, Language, Metaphysics and Epistemology ¶ I like thinking about – and helping other people think about – logic and philosophy and the many different ways they can inform each other.

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contact

Social media: @consequently@scholar.social.
Personal email: greg@consequently.org.
St Andrews profile.
My office is in Edgecliffe, The Scores.