Aadil Kurji

How does science proceed in the strange situation in which scientists receive confirmation of their theories before they have designed their experiments? In the first act of Back to the Future, Doc Brown asks Marty to meet in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall at 1:15 a.m., because Doc has made a major breakthrough and requires Marty’s assistance. When Marty arrives, Doc reports that his latest experiment “is the big one, the one I've been waiting for all my life!” This statement takes on a new significance later in the film, when we learn that Doc had indeed been working toward this very experiment for thirty years! As we shall see, the meaning of “working toward” shifts throughout the series. To understand this, we must first investigate the separate timelines of the first film, before considering elements of the beginning of Part III.

Logic is about reasoning, or so the story goes. This thesis looks at the concept of logic, what it is, and what claims of correctness of logics amount to. The concept of logic is not a settled matter, and has not been throughout the history of it as a notion. Tools from conceptual analysis aid in this historical venture. Once the unsettledness of logic is established we see the repercussions in current debates in the philosophy of logic. Much of the battle over the ‘one true logic’ is conceptually talking past each other. The theory of logics-as-formalizations is presented as a conceptually open theory of logic which is Carnapian in flavour and grounding. Rudolf Carnap’s notions surrounding ‘external’ and ‘pseudo-questions’ about linguistic frameworks apply to formalizations, thus logics, as well. An account of what formalizations are, a more structured sub-set of modelling, is given to ground the claim that logics are formalizations. Finally, a novel account of correctness, the COFE framework, is developed which allows the notions of logical monism, pluralism and nihilism to be more precisely formulated than they currently are in the discourse.