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Logic is Metaphysics (2011) [pdf] (philpapers.org)

75 points by lainon 11 hours ago | hide | past | web | favorite | 33 comments

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jc763 10 hours ago [-]

>Does the number seven exist? Does the red color exist? What evidence do we have to
answer these questions? What are the truth conditions for ∃x P(x) when P(x) stands for a
number or a property? To respond to these questions is to set an ontology, and setting an
ontology is to do metaphysics. This is exactly what Quine does when he states some reasons
to include numbers and to exclude properties from the domain of our variables.
Good paper.
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westoncb 7 hours ago [-]

Seems like from that it's just framework construction. It may have the same internal
structure as an ontology, but to say the statements have any external correspondence
(to the metaphysical; I'm using 'external' loosely) would require an extra step.
I can set an ontology where `thingamajiggers` are the only entity (so I guess the
only truth condition for '∃x P(x)' is that P(x) is a thingamajigger), and I guess if you
want to you can say I'm doing metaphysics at that point, though it does seem a little
pointless to do so.
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danbruc 8 hours ago [-]

I am not sure whether I really understand what the author argues for, probably because I
read the paper in a rush. Does he argue that [the choice of] a logic is in some sense
equivalent to [a choice of] what kind of entities exist?
If that is indeed the case, I would tend to disagree. While we often think of logic as a
provider of undisputable truth, I am not sure that this is justified. There is more than one
type of logic and they lead to different conclusions or contradict each other in the general
case. Therefore it seems to me that the obvious thing to say is that logic is a human
construct we use to reason about the world, it does not reflect universal truths but was
invented and constructed in a way to be useful to deal with our world.
In consequence it is obviously very likely that logic and metaphysics are strongly correlated,
but that would hardly be any deep insight but just a consequence of the way we constructed
or choose the logic we use. If the logic I use to deal with the world makes a prediction about
the world, for example the existence of a certain entity, then that entity might actually exist
if may logic is a good match for the world, but I see no reason why the entity would have to
exists, my logic could just be a bad choice.
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jjaredsimpson 7 hours ago [-]
What I took away:
If you want to say 'Santa Claus doesn't exist', you can't write a formula ~E x.
x=Santa Claus. Because then you are conceding in your logic that some object Santa
Claus exists.
So there is some connection between the structure of sentences we can construct in
our logic and metaphysical claims. We should then try to understand differences in
metaphysical claims by finding differences in logics.
The author then tries to show this for the metaphysical claim, 'Statements are true or
false independent of whether they can be verified.' Instead of arguing about what is
truth, what does it mean for a proposition to be verified. We can instead as about the
differences in the logic. Because to even talk about truth and existence we need a
logic first.
So don't think there is a claim that choice of logic forces claims about real world
existence. I think is the more subtle connection, that choice of logic forces a choice
about rules of inference.
Real world claims would need to be based on introducing propositions (which are
independent of the logic?) and then using rules of inference (which are dependent on
the logic).
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danbruc 6 hours ago [-]

I think we mostly understand the paper the same way. Still this seems utterly
unremarkable to me, but maybe I am still just missing the important point. If
you want to come up with a language to talk about the world, a logical system
in this case, you make choices. You decide if you want to be first order or
higher order, whether you want temporal facts, what you allow your variables
to range over, which inference rules to use, and what predicates you allow. Or
whatever else.
If you only want to talk about physical things, you may be able to get away
with existential qualification. If you also want to deal with concepts like Santa
Claus you probably have to be more sophisticated because now »exists« is an
overloaded term in your domain and throwing the same existential qualifiers in
front of everything won't yield results that can be meaningfully translated to
statements about the world.
In the end you have the world, you have a model of the world in your logic,
and you have some kind of mapping between the world and your model, most
likely even on a meta level. Not only do objects in your logic have to be related
to objects in the world, but the very structure of your logic, its inference rules,
the allowed constructs, and so on, have to map to some of the structure of how
the world works. So as I said, it should come at no surprise that differences in
logic have to be equated with differences in the world you are modelling, but
the real significance of that, if any, is still beyond me.
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empath75 6 hours ago [-]

It seems to me that it’s possible to use logic while having no belief at all
as to whether that logic has any connection to reality — it could simply
be an exercise in symbol manipulation with no meaning at all, which is
the formalist position.
A formalist would have no problem using a logical system that implies a
particular belief about existence while not holding that belief at all.
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danbruc 6 hours ago [-]

 Sure, but if you are only doing string manipulation with your logic,
then you are doing mathematics and not philosophy. There is
absolutely nothing wrong with that but it also says nothing about
the relation between logic and metaphysics.
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Twisol 6 hours ago [-]

So this is a bit of a tangent, but your Santa Claus example really clarified
something I've been reading about recently. I'm reading Lloyd's "Foundations
of Logic Programming", which essentially explains the fundamentals behind
logic languages like Prolog. We write programs using uninterpreted functions[0]
to represent our data, and define predicates to drive the program. The idea of
using the Herbrand universe is that it gives a convenient universal starting
point: if the program has a model in some universe, it will have a model in the
Herbrand universe, and if the program does not have a model, it cannot have a
model in the Herbrand universe.
Your Santa Claus example helped me understand why the Herbrand universe is
only useful if you restrict yourself to clauses (disjunctions under universal
quantification). The Herbrand universe consists of all objects one has named
(and objects one can form with function symbols, but we have none of those
here), so it must necessarily falsify "~E x. x = Santa Claus". It's easy to find a
model where this statement is true (take the empty universe, or the universe
which contains only the Tooth Fairy), but there is no model of this statement in
the Herbrand universe.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterpreted_function
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ethn 7 hours ago [-]

The platonic "Santa Claus" does exist, so it's completely valid. The statement
"Santa Claus doesn't exist" is stating there is no judgement from experience
which adheres to the concept of Santa Claus.
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danbruc 6 hours ago [-]

The platonic "Santa Claus" does exist, so it's completely valid.
Most if not all people would would certainly agree that the idea or
concept of »Santa Claus« exists in some way. But when you qualify it
with »Platonic« you are implying - intentionally or not - a quite specific
view about the nature of abstract objects and that will decrease the
number of people agreeing with this statement substantially.
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omon 6 hours ago [-]

Not really it's a common noun, which just means non-physical
objects which exist in some way, even if Nominalist. You're
confusing platonic with Platonic realism which are different things.
But perhaps he should edit it to be more clear if the mistake is
quite common, albeit perhaps meaning espoused by capitalization
has been forgotten.
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danbruc 6 hours ago [-]

In German we do not have that distinction between the
different capitalizations, at least not that I am aware of,
and the usage of platonic is probably essentially limited to
platonic love and relationships. Something learned about
the subtleties of the English language.
 reply

mcbits 5 hours ago [-]

We don't have that distinction in English, either.
Words derived from names just tend to lose their
capitalization over time and may gradually be diluted
in meaning as people use them without
understanding their origin.
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ethn 1 hour ago [-]

Bold, passive, and mistaken accusation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_noun
But I do see how it could be confused with
platonic love, albeit I'm comfortable using it
without clarification in the appropriate
contexts. You're right, in German all nouns are
capitalized.
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danharaj 7 hours ago [-]

A philosophical discussion of logic in this decade should at least be aware of the Curry-
Howard isomorphism and Linear Logic. This paper makes a passing mention of this by
treating the law of excluded middle. I would say that denying that law has led to the most
fruitful developments of logic in the last century.
Philosophy without technical input is sophistry, technical developments without philosophy
end up answering questions of no interest. Girard is an entertaining source of both
philosophical and technical insight: On the meaning of logical rules I : syntax vs. semantics
http://girard.perso.math.cnrs.fr/meaning1.pdf
Per-Martin Lof's ideas are also important: ON THE MEANINGS OF THE LOGICAL CONSTANTS
AND THE JUSTIFICATIONS OF THE LOGICAL LAWS https://uberty.org/wp-
content/uploads/2017/06/Martin-Lof83.p...
This only scratches the surface.
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omon 6 hours ago [-]

Wholly irrelevant, the paper is specifically concerned with recovering a dialectic
between W. O. Quine and M. Dummett. Even if the question was the more general, "Is
Logic Metaphysics?", knowledge of formal logics isn't even of concern. It's trivial that
we can construct a plethora of axioms with their own definitions, the problem
remains: to even adhere to those definitions one is exercising another intuitive logic—
even in the case of computation which is an engineered construction to proxy this
very intuition, otherwise we would have never been concerned with the linear
properties necessary for computation to begin with.
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TheOtherHobbes 3 hours ago [-]

"Intuitive" being another word for "subjective."
The experience of truth and logical consistency is entirely subjective. We can
build networks of concepts that trigger the experience in ourselves and in
others, but that doesn't make them objectively true - it makes them
subjectively persistent and shared.
We acquired a cat recently, and it's interesting that her experience of basic
spatial relationships is very different to ours.
She doesn't have the same experience of physics that we do. She sometimes
gets confused by inside vs outside, and her experience of moving objects
seems to be different to ours. She also gives the impression of experiencing
hands and feet as disconnected objects, and not part of a gestalt "human".
We have no guarantees that from an alien point of view, our own experience of
physics and of relationships doesn't have equivalent limitations. If the
limitations exist, we're not aware of them. But to the extent that our cat's view
of the world is probably recognisable by other cats, she's not aware of her
limitations either.
It's more of a stretch, but not impossible, that our experience of logical
abstraction and consistency may also have limitations. There may be non-
human viewpoints where the basic subjective qualia of truth and consistency
are more coherent, reliable, and inclusive than our own.
None of this can be proved, but it seems optimistic to me to believe that our
version of logic is as good as logic can possibly be.
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omon 49 minutes ago [-]

Yet we're able to discuss topics with each other, this is the basis of
Poincare's Inter-subjective reality. There must be some commonalities of
experience which allows us to map our whole experiences between each
other. We are definitively limited to our experience, it is impossible to
discuss or probe anything outside of it when the entire world and its
phenomena is only dictated through experience to us.
Experience is a language which makes meaning from the not-experience.
As Bohr put it, "We're all suspended in language."
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danharaj 3 hours ago [-]

What I'm saying is that linear logic is exactly a technical exploration directly
pertinent to the questions Quine and Dummett considered. And who cares if
the paper is specifically about Quine and Dummett? What's the point of
resuscitating such a dialogue without informing it of modern developments? To
do so seems like frolicking in the graveyard. But much like philosophy of
mathematics (with some exceptions like [0]), philosophy of logic to me at least
seems like it prefers dusty bones to fresh developments (if 40 years is fresh...).
At the very least, modern logic and its myriad connections to other fields could
shed light on whether it's even worth bothering to adjudicate the interplay of
Quine and Dummet's metaphysical arguments. They might be completely
irrelevant at this point in our understanding except as historical footnotes.
Linear logic is in many ways a logic of logic. Both classical and intuitionistic
logic can be decomposed into finer components in linear logic, which distills
logical ideas into purer components of philosophical interest, like the
exponentials. The links between linear logic and processes like computation
makes it a much more interesting starting point for a discussion of metaphysics
and logic: Its technical results tell us that not every bespoke Broccoli logic
makes sense, that one can directly study the conditions of possibility of logic. It
even has connections to fundamental physics [1].
> It's trivial that we can construct a plethora of axioms with their own
definitions, the problem remains: to even adhere to those definitions one is
exercising another intuitive logic—even in the case of computation which is an
engineered construction to proxy this very intuition, otherwise we would have
never been concerned with the linear properties necessary for computation to
begin with.
How are we to investigate this intuitive logic without probing the technical
structure of logic and finding out what is really its essence? It's not,
emphatically not trivial that one can cook up a bunch of axioms. Logic doesn't
 come from axioms, I think we agree about that, they are just an exigent way
to surface it. There are most definitely inappropriate formulations of logic. For
example, S4 is an OK modal logic of necessity and possibility but S5 is hardly a
logic at all because it doesn't have cut elimination, the technical correlate of
deduction.
I think this attitude just serves to marginalize philosophy of logic. Technique
and philosophy must be in dialogue or both will be marginalized.
[0] https://www.urbanomic.com/book/synthetic-philosophy-of-conte...
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/0903.0340
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omon 53 minutes ago [-]

The author cares about that, it's his abstract. In the same way a scientist
would care about the precision and conclusions of results obtained from
an older study--you are forced to use the original researchers had. Of
course you can verify it with new tools, but what's the point if the
research is systemically flawed to begin with?
The childhood quote hammered into our ears continues to ring true: "If I
have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."- Newton
I agree that newer technical formal languages describing our own
methods of sound predicate are useful, but that's excessive and even
pretentious in this case. Would you use quantum computation to verify
the result of addition on a classical computer? It adds nothing, especially
when it is quantum computation that is being construed to emulate
classical computation!
>How are we to investigate this intuitive logic without probing the
technical structure of logic and finding out what is really its essence?
Its essence cannot be discovered, there are "exigent way[s] to surface
it", but like experience, it's atomic. In the end the models will just
become more comprehensive in terms of formalizing experience. Yet the
experience of logic is the essence; how are you able to describe what
makes up experience in terms of experience? If this is the purpose of
these "tools" (it's not) then they ought not to be limited by objects of
human experience, as the noumenon (the negation of experience) is not
even guaranteed to be symbolic to objects of perception—by definition
they are not.
I would be flummoxed to find fundamental physics constructed,
described, and extended from axioms through logic had no connection
with logic.
Philosophy of logic continues to discuss other logics, it is only that this
particular article that it's of no concern to.
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empath75 6 hours ago [-]

> Philosophy without technical input is sophistry, technical developments without
philosophy end up answering questions of no interest.
This is such a great formulation.
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danharaj 6 hours ago [-]

I should say, definitely not mine. I don't know where I got it, or where they got
it.
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qntty 8 hours ago [-]
Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into logic, physics and ethics. Metaphysics was
categorized as logic.
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woodandsteel 5 hours ago [-]

Logic, to be of any use in the real world, must in some important ways match the reality of
the world. So any system of logic assumes a metaphysics. And going the other way, reality
must be such as to be able to have creatures who can think logically.
This is one instance of a larger principle, namely the inherent mutual interconnectedness of
the various areas of philosophy. So for instance, epistemology depends on reality being such
that it can be known, and we can know about that reality only the sorts of things that a valid
epistemology can determine. Similar mutual relations exist between every two main areas of
philosophy.
This mutual interconnectedness is a key reason for Neurath's insight that in philosophy you
can't tear it all down and change it radically, but only modify it.
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carapace 7 hours ago [-]

The first step in any logic is to make a distinction. This act is within the mind. The world
itself is unknown except as sensory experience. Leaving aside the so-called "Hard Problem of
Consciousness" for the sake of discussion, the fact that distinction happens in our heads
means that all of our logic is contingent (as opposed to inherent) if our thinking is wholly
internal to our brains.
However... none other than Kurt Gödel believed that thinking about e.g. infinities involved a
kind of perception of a "higher" world.
"Science does not remove the Terror of the Gods."
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dmfdmf 9 hours ago [-]

Logic is based on the principle of non-contradiction (identified by Aristotle). The principle, in
all its various forms, is used to guide valid thinking (i.e. truth) because contradictions cannot
exist which is its tie to metaphysics.
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pmoriarty 9 hours ago [-]

"Logic is based on the principle of non-contradiction"
That's merely one type of logic. There are others which can deal with contradictions.
See the Wikipedia entries on Paraconsistent logic[1] and Dialetheism[2].
Logicians enjoy coming up with new logics that have any desired or interesting
properties. They are not limited to staying within the bounds of classical logic.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialetheism
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hiker 9 hours ago [-]

The key to understanding logic constructively goes through type theory, not philosophy.
I'll just leave this here
https://78.media.tumblr.com/bfc158b432199a3e4f5de2ddc1bd7381...
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curuinor 9 hours ago [-]

 The progenitor of types was Russell, who considered himself a philosopher.
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mbid 6 hours ago [-]

So you think the key for understanding constructive logic is to understand some
peculiar syntax for a fragment of it. Ridiculous, but sadly quite typical among type
theory cultists.
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Sangermaine 8 hours ago [-]

>goes through type theory, not philosophy.
You’re going to be very surprised when you look up the origins of type theory.
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arto 9 hours ago [-]

Source, pretty please?
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shawn 9 hours ago [-]

https://books.google.com/books?id=LkDUKMv3yp0C&pg=PA11&lpg=P...
Homotopy Type Theory: Univalent Foundations of Mathematics
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