Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:45:28.970Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Logic: Normative or Descriptive? The Ethics of Belief or a Branch of Psychology?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Michael D. Resnik
Michael D. Resnik*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

By a logical theory I mean a formal system together with its semantics, meta-theory, and rules for translating ordinary language into its notation. Logical theories can be used descriptively (for example, to represent particular arguments or to depict the logical form of certain sentences). Here the logician uses the usual methods of empirical science to assess the correctness of his descriptions. However, the most important applications of logical theories are normative, and here, I argue, the epistemology is that of wide reflective equilibrium. The result is that logic not only assesses our inferential practice but also changes it. I tie my discussion to Thagard's views concerning the relationship between psychology and logic, arguing against him that psychology has and should have only a peripheral role in normative (and most descriptive) applications of logic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 221 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I am grateful for the comments I have received from Alan Berger, Robert Brandon, Richard Burian, Stephen Darwall, Susan Haack, Alan Hanen, Larry Laudan, William Lycan, John Post, Joe Pitt, Jay Rosenberg, Stewart Shapiro, Lance Stell, and Stephen Stich. Versions of this paper have been read at Davidson College, Duke University, the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and Virgina Polytechnic Institute and State University.

References

Cohen, L. J. (1980), “Bayesianism versus Baconianism in the Evaluation of Medical Diagnoses”, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 31: 45–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, L. J. (1981), “Can Human Irrationality Be Experimentally Demonstrated?”, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 4: 317–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Corcoran, J. (1969), “Three Logical Theories”, Philosophy of Science 36: 153–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. (forthcoming), “The Relation between Epistemology and Psychology” in Naturalistic Epistemology, P. Machamer (ed.). Synthese Library.Google Scholar
Goodman, N. (1965), Fact, Fiction and Forecast. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hempel, C. (1965), Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Kaye, D. (1979), “The Laws of Probability and the Law of the Land”, The University of Chicago Law Review 47: 34–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleene, S. C. (1952), Introduction to Metamathematics. Princeton: D. Van Nostrand.Google Scholar
Kneale, W., and Kneale, M. (1962), The Development of Logic. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Luce, R. D., and Raiffa, H. (1957), Games and Decisions. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1960), Word and Object. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1982), Methods of Logic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stich, S., and Nisbett, R. (1980), “Justification and the Psychology of Human Reasoning”, Philosophy of Science 47: 188–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. (1982), “From the Descriptive to the Normative in Psychology and Logic”, Philosophy of Science 49: 24–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar