Logical Expressivism and Carroll's Regress

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 86:35-62 (2019)
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Abstract

In this paper, I address a key argument in favour of logical expressivism, the view that knowing a logical principle such as Modus Ponens is not a cognitive state but a pro-attitude towards drawing certain types of conclusions from certain types of premises. The argument is that logical expressivism is the only view that can take us out of Lewis Carroll's Regress – which suggests that elementary deductive reasoning is impossible. I show that the argument does not hold scrutiny and that logical cognitivism can be vindicated. In the course of the discussion, I draw substantially on a comparison with a similar argument in meta-ethics, for moral expressivism.

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Corine Besson
University of Sussex

Citations of this work

Logical Form and the Limits of Thought.Manish Oza - 2020 - Dissertation, University of Toronto

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References found in this work

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Philosophical investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein & G. E. M. Anscombe - 1953 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 161:124-124.
Tractatus logico-philosophicus.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1922 - Filosoficky Casopis 52:336-341.
On conditionals.Dorothy Edgington - 1995 - Mind 104 (414):235-329.

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