The Problem with ‘the Background Logic Problem’
Jonas R. Becker Arenhart · Philosophica Critica · 2020
Anti-exceptionalism is the view that logic is, among other things, responsive to a posteriori evidence.This brings three questions to the fore: i) what is evidence in logic?ii) how to determine when evidence favours a particular logic, and iii) what kind of logic we use in such disputes?We argue that problem iii), when added to the thesis that natural language does have a specific logic, makes the whole project of logical theory choice untenable.The reason, we argue, is that the logic we are supposed to have vitiates any characterization of evidence, making a change of logic unlikely.We do that by considering two case studies involving adoption of paraconsistent systems, where the very idea that we have a logic operating in natural language prevent any possibility of change.We then go on and suggest, in broad lines, a version of anti-exceptionalism without the natural language logic hypothesis.