Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Melvin Fitting, Philip Kitcher and Adrian Bardon

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3 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 6. Classical Logic
Classical logic is our preconditions for assessing empirical evidence [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: In my terminology, classical logic (or at least, its most central tenets) consists of propositional preconditions for our assessing empirical evidence in the way we do.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: I like an even stronger version of this - that classical logic arises out of our experiences of things, and so we are just assessing empirical evidence in terms of other (generalised) empirical evidence. Logic results from induction. Very unfashionable.
I believe classical logic because I was taught it and use it, but it could be undermined [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: I believe the laws of classical logic, in part because I was taught them, and in part because I think I see how those laws are used in assessing evidence. But my belief could easily be undermined by experience.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: Quine has one genuine follower! The trouble is his first sentence would fit witch-doctoring just as well. Kitcher went to Cambridge; I hope he doesn't just believe things because he was taught them, or because he 'sees how they are used'!
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 8. Logic of Mathematics
Classical logic is deliberately extensional, in order to model mathematics [Fitting]
     Full Idea: Mathematics is typically extensional throughout (we write 3+2=2+3 despite the two terms having different meanings). ..Classical first-order logic is extensional by design since it primarily evolved to model the reasoning of mathematics.
     From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §1)