The Realism-Antirealism Debate in the Age of Alternative Logics

363 Pages·2012·3.13 MB·English

by  Shahid Rahman

Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science 23
Shahid Rahman
Giuseppe Primiero
Mathieu Marion Editors
The Realism-
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in the Age of
Alternative Logics
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The Realism-Antirealism Debate in the Age
of Alternative Logics
LOGIC,EPISTEMOLOGY,ANDTHEUNITYOFSCIENCE
VOLUME23
Editors
ShahidRahman,UniversityofLilleIII,France
JohnSymons,UniversityofTexasatElPaso,U.S.A.
EditorialBoard
JeanPaulvanBendegem,FreeUniversityofBrussels,Belgium
JohanvanBenthem,UniversityofAmsterdam,TheNetherlands
JacquesDubucs,UniversityofParisI-Sorbonne,France
AnneFagot-Largeault,CollègedeFrance,France
BasvanFraassen,PrincetonUniversity,U.S.A.
DovGabbay,King’sCollegeLondon,U.K.
JaakkoHintikka,BostonUniversity,U.S.A.
KarelLambert,UniversityofCalifornia,Irvine,U.S.A.
GrahamPriest,UniversityofMelbourne,Australia
GabrielSandu,UniversityofHelsinki,Finland
GöranSundholm,UniversiteitLeiden,TheNetherlands
HeinrichWansing,TechnicalUniversityDresden,Germany
TimothyWilliamson,OxfordUniversity,U.K.
Logic,Epistemology,andtheUnityofScienceaimstoreconsiderthequestionoftheunityofscience
in light of recent developments in logic. At present, no single logical, semantical or methodological
frameworkdominatesthephilosophyofscience.However,theeditorsofthisseriesbelievethatformal
techniqueslike,forexample,independencefriendlylogic,dialogicallogics,multimodallogics,game
theoreticsemanticsandlinearlogics,havethepotentialtocastnewlightonbasicissuesinthediscussion
oftheunityofscience.
Thisseriesprovidesavenuewherephilosophersandlogicianscanapplyspecifictechnicalinsightsto
fundamentalphilosophicalproblems.Whiletheseriesisopentoawidevarietyofperspectives,including
thestudyandanalysisofargumentationandthecriticaldiscussionoftherelationshipbetweenlogicand
thephilosophyofscience,theaimistoprovideanintegratedpictureofthescientificenterpriseinallits
diversity.
Forfurthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/6936
· ·
Shahid Rahman Giuseppe Primiero
Mathieu Marion
Editors
The Realism-Antirealism
Debate in the Age
of Alternative Logics
123
Editors
ShahidRahman Dr.GiuseppePrimiero
UniversitédeLille,UdL3 FWO,GhentUniversity
CNRS,UMR8163:STL Blandijnberg2
F-59653Villeneuved’Ascq Ghent
France Belgium
[email protected]
IEG
OxfordUniversity
Oxford
UK
[email protected]
MathieuMarion
UniversitéduQuébecàMontréal
Départementdephilosophie
SuccursaleCentre-Ville8888C.P.
H3C3P8Montreal
QC,Canada
[email protected]
ISBN978-94-007-1922-4 e-ISBN978-94-007-1923-1
DOI10.1007/978-94-007-1923-1
SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergLondonNewYork
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2011937177
(cid:2)c SpringerScience+BusinessMediaB.V.2012
Nopartofthisworkmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmittedinanyformorby
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TothememoryofPaulGochet

Preface
In the preface to the first volume of LEUS, the editors of the series pointed out,
withinthecontextofthefailureofthepositivistprojectoftheunityofscience,the
differencebetweenscienceasabodyofknowledgeandscienceasprocessbywhich
knowledgeisachieved.Infact,theeditorssuggestedthatabanonthelogicalana-
lysisofscienceasadynamicprocess,whichintraditionalphilosophywasovertaken
by‘gnoseology’,producedagapbetweensciencesandlogic(includingphilosophy
of science). In gnoseology the main notion was the one of judgement rather than
that of proposition. Judgement delivered the epistemic aspect of logic, namely the
relationbetweenan(epistemic)agentandaproposition.Thisrepresentedthebasis
of the Kantian approach to logic, which seemed to be in conflict with the post-
Fregeanapproachwhereonlyrelationsbetweenpropositionsareatstakeandwhere
theepistemicaspectisseenasoutsidelogic.
As it happens quite often in philosophy, the echoes of the old traditions come
backandpointtothemistakesoftheyoungericonoclastmovements.Thisisindeed
thecaseintherelationbetweenlogicandknowledgewheretheinclusionorexclu-
sionoftheepistemicmomentaslinkedwiththeconceptofpropositionprovokeda
heateddebatesincethe1960s.Theepistemicapproaches,whichstartedtocallthem-
selves, following Michael Dummett, ‘antirealism’,found their formal argument in
themathematicsofBrouwerandintuitionisticlogic,whiletheotherspersistedwith
the formal background of the Frege-Tarski tradition, where Cantorian set theory
is linked via model theory to classical logic. This picture is, however, incomplete.
Alreadyinthe1960sJaakkoHintikkatriedtojoinbothtraditionsbymeansofwhat
is now known as ‘explicit epistemic logic’, where the epistemic content is intro-
ducedintotheobjectlanguageasanoperatorwhichyieldpropositionsfrompropo-
sitionsratherthanasmetalogicalconstraintonthenotionofinference.Thedebate
hadthusthreeplayers:classicallogicians,intuitionisticlogicians(implicitepistemic
logic) and epistemic logicians (explicit epistemic logic), though the mainstream
continued to think that the discussion reduces to the discussion between classical
andintuitionisticlogic.
The editors of the present volume think that in these days and age of Alterna-
tive Logics, where manifold developments in logic happen in a breathtaking pace,
this debate should be revisited. In fact, collaborators to this volume took hap-
pily this challenge and responded with new perspectives on the debate from both
vii
viii Preface
the explicit and the implicit point of view, challenging it from the newly arisen
perspectives in logic. This volume aims therefore at presenting standard issues of
therealism-antirealismdebateinanewlight,shedfromthepointofviewofdiffer-
entphilosophicalperspectives.ItisthereforeappropriatethatweopenwithPatrick
Allo’s contribution, which analyses the meaning of ambiguous connectives (and
in particular of disjunction) from a logical pluralistic viewpoint, in which content
is explained in terms of informativeness. Logical pluralism can be understood as
the larger conceptual umbrella under which one finds today many different under-
standingsoftherealism-antirealismdebate.ThiscertainlystillgrowsonDummett’s
arguments against truth-conditional semantics, which Neil Kennedy reconstructs
and critically analyses; in general, it refers to well known forms of semantic anti-
realism, which Sanford Shieh characterizes by means of the distinction between
epistemically-based and conceptually based ones, and it still triggers today huge
debatessuchastheoneonMooreanvalidities,thatJonCogburnreconstructsinview
ofthedifferentoldandnewinterpretations.Butantirealismtodayprofitsoftheinflu-
encesofmanydifferentbackgrounds:thisisthecaseforexampleofMartin-Löf’s
typetheory,whichisconceptuallyandhistoricallylocatedwithinthelargerframeof
theoriesoftruthandjudgementinGöranSundholm’scontribution,andwhichmeets
forthefirsttimebeliefrevisiondynamicsinGiuseppePrimiero’spaper.Departure
from classical principles of reasoning is therefore possible in different forms, and
whereas Denis Bonnay and Mikaël Cozic place the justification of radical forms
of anti-realism in the context of the (to them still unjustified) shift to linear logic,
JosephVidal-Rossetsuggestsalargerphilosophicalframefortheunderstandingof
radical antirealism. Many are therefore the new branches of logic that are called
upon in this volume to face non-classical issues raising from an antirealistic pers-
pective: this is the case of modal logic in the interpretations by Reinhard Kahle
andEliaZardini;theanti-realisticinspireddefenceofrealistmathematicsbyGreg
Restall, where (implicit) antirealism is understood as a means to defend logical
pluralism: the extension to Paraconsistency, via a defence of a suitable negation
connective in the Kripke-Hintikka reconstruction of intuitionistic logic, suggested
byGrahamPriest,whichvirtuallydialogueswiththedialogicalinterpretationofthe
sameconnectivegivenbyShahidRahman.Therelationofantirealismtodialogical
logicandgamesemanticsappearsalsoinMathieuMarion’scontribution,whereitis
consideredhowtomakeDummett’sManifestationArgumentworkwithinthisnew
programme,anditisarguedthataderivedThesisfits(withappropriatereformula-
tions) within game semantics. Stephen Read, takes the proof theoretical approach
tologicoftheantirealiststochallengetheepistemicconstraintsoftheintuitionists
and Francesca Poggiolesi analyses properties of anti-realistic definitions starting
fromtheclassicalrequirements imposedbyLesniewski.Truthisofcoursealways
an open field for new interpretations: Alexandre Billon considers the notion of
assessment-sensitive truth to provide solutions to semantic paradoxes and Maria
Frapolli presents a prosentential account of truth showing that our comprehension
of truth and the use we make of truth expressions are strictly independent of our
viewsabouttherelationbetweenmindandworld.
Preface ix
Someyearshavepassedfromtheinitialproposaltocollectanumberofcontribu-
tionsfromscholarsthatarereconsideringtherealism-antirealismdebatefromnew
philosophical,logicalandmetaphysicalperspectives.Thishasledtodifferentline-
upsofbothauthorsandeditors.Whatwehopetohaveachievedthroughthisprocess
is to have selected significant contributions on the different aspects of research on
anti-realismdonetodayatacademiclevel,arepresentativebodyofworkthatcanbe
ofreferenceandinspirationforfurtheradvancementsinthisfield.
Montreal,Canada MathieuMarion
Ghent,Belgium GiuseppePrimiero
Lille,France ShahidRahman
December2010