Deviance and Vice: Strength as a Theoretical Virtue in the Epistemology of Logic†
I'm grateful for helpful discussion from the audience at the 2017 Rutgers Epistemology Workshop, a Thursday Seminar at Australia National University in July of 2017, a presentation at the 2017 Australasian Association of Philosophy conference at the University of Adelaide, and discussion at Iowa State University in September 2017. Thank you in particular to Christian Barry, JC Beall, Stephen Biggs, Geoff Brennan, Liam Kofi Bright, Alex Byrne, Dave Chalmers, Janice Dowell, Alvin Goldman, Dan Marshall, David M. Miller, Paul Oppenheimer, Graham Priest, Dave Ripley, Alex Sandgren, Miriam Schoenfield, David Sobel, David Sosa, Nic Southwood, Katie Steele, Daniel Stoljar, Una Stojnić, and James Willoughby. I'm also grateful for the time and discussion allowed to me by a two month visiting fellowship in the RSSS at the ANU.
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Abstract
This paper is about the putative theoretical virtue of strength, as it might be used in abductive arguments to the correct logic in the epistemology of logic. It argues for three theses. The first is that the well‐defined property of logical strength is neither a virtue nor a vice, so that logically weaker theories are not—all other things being equal—worse or better theories than logically stronger ones. The second thesis is that logical strength does not entail the looser characteristic of scientific strength, and the third is that many modern logics are on a par—or can be made to be on a par—with respect to scientific strength.
