How the laws of logic lie

Journal article

Russell, Gillian K.. (2023). How the laws of logic lie. Episteme. 20(4), pp. 833-851. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2024.4
AuthorsRussell, Gillian K.
Abstract

Nancy Cartwright's 1983 book How the Laws of Physics Lie argued that theories of physics often make use of idealisations, and that as a result many of these theories were not true. The present paper looks at idealisation in logic and argues that, at least sometimes, the laws of logic fail to be true. That might be taken as a kind of skepticism, but I argue rather that idealisation is a legitimate tool in logic, just as in physics, and recognising this frees logicians up to use false laws where these are helpful.

Keywordslogic; anti-exceptionalism; modeling; science; Nancy Cartwright; idealisation; laws of logic; natural language; simulations
Year01 Jan 2023
JournalEpisteme
Journal citation20 (4), pp. 833-851
PublisherCambridge University Press
ISSN1742-3600
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2024.4
Web address (URL)https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/episteme/article/how-the-laws-of-logic-lie/597360D7EDE29334103B267E07645018
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range833-851
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Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online07 Mar 2024
Publication process dates
Accepted22 Jan 2024
Deposited05 Sep 2024
Additional information

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.

Place of publicationUnited Kingdom
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