Logic, it is said, is normative - logic tells us something about how we ought to think or reason. However, it’s not obvious why we should think logically, or which rules or which theory we are meant to follow. In the following chapters, I provide a novel view of logical normativity which aims to answer these vexing questions. I defend the view that logical normativity can be understood on the basis of a conception of logic according to which its laws are fundamentally descriptive, what I call th…
Read moreLogic, it is said, is normative - logic tells us something about how we ought to think or reason. However, it’s not obvious why we should think logically, or which rules or which theory we are meant to follow. In the following chapters, I provide a novel view of logical normativity which aims to answer these vexing questions. I defend the view that logical normativity can be understood on the basis of a conception of logic according to which its laws are fundamentally descriptive, what I call the laws of truth conception of logic. But I also defend the view that logical normativity can be understood on the basis of a conception of logic according to which its laws are fundamentally prescriptive, what I call the laws of thought conception of logic. The resulting view is what I call logical normativity dualism, the idea that logic is normative in both of these distinct yet complementary ways.
