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Single Idea 16486

[filed under theme 5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic ]

Full Idea

The non-mental world can be completely described without the use of any logical word, …but when it comes to the mental world, there are facts which cannot be mentioned without the use of logical words.

Gist of Idea

The physical world doesn't need logic, but the mental world does

Source

Bertrand Russell (An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1940], 5)

Book Ref

Russell,Bertrand: 'An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth' [Penguin 1967], p.88

A Reaction

He adds that logical words are not needed for physics, but are needed for psychology. I love Russell's interest in the psychology of logic (in defiance of the anti-psychologism of Frege). See also the ideas of Robert Hanna.

Related Idea

Idea 11058 Logic is explanatorily and ontologically dependent on rational animals [Hanna]

The 18 ideas with the same theme [logic as a completely self-contained subject]:

19370 'Blind thought' is reasoning without recognition of the ingredients of the reasoning [Leibniz, by Arthur,R]
16486 The physical world doesn't need logic, but the mental world does [Russell]
14452 All the propositions of logic are completely general [Russell]
10048 There is no clear boundary between the logical and the non-logical [Tarski]
11062 Logic is a priori because it is impossible to think illogically [Wittgenstein]
3746 Logic seems to work for unasserted sentences [O'Connor]
13845 The various logics are abstractions made from terms like 'if...then' in English [Hacking]
2442 Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor]
15404 Technical people see logic as any formal system that can be studied, not a study of argument validity [Burgess]
14187 If logic is topic-neutral that means it delves into all subjects, rather than having a pure subject matter [Read]
10690 Formal logic is invariant under permutations, or devoid of content, or gives the norms for thought [Beall/Restall]
13232 Logic studies arguments, not formal languages; this involves interpretations [Beall/Restall]
22246 A train of reasoning must be treated as all happening simultaneously [Recanati]
10638 A pure logic is wholly general, purely formal, and directly known [Linnebo]
10781 A 'pure logic' must be ontologically innocent, universal, and without presuppositions [Linnebo]
11058 Logic is explanatorily and ontologically dependent on rational animals [Hanna]
11072 Logic is personal and variable, but it has a universal core [Hanna]
13850 In modern logic all formal validity can be characterised syntactically [Engelbretsen/Sayward]