FALL 2014 Lecture Series (No.1): Revising Logic

Date & Time: Monday, 22 Sept., 3:30-5:30 p.m.

Venue: Rm 201, Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences Education, NYMU

About the theme

Much ink has been spilled over the last few decades in disputes between advocates of “classical logic”—that is, the logic invented by Frege and Russell, and polished by Hilbert and others—and advocates of non-classical logics—such as intuitionist and paraconsistent logics. One move that is commonly made in such debates is that logic cannot be revised. When the move is made, it is typically by defenders of classical logic. Possession, for them, is ten tenths of the law. The point of this paper is not to enter into substantive debates about which logic is correct—though relevant methodological issues will transpire in due course. The point is to examine the question of whether logic can be revised. (And let me make it clear at the start that I am talking about deductive logic. I think that matters concerning non-deductive logic are much the same, but that is an issue for another occasion.) Three questions, then, will concern us:
1. Can logic be revised?
2. If so, can this be done rationally?
3. If so, how is this done?
(extracted from 'Revising logic' by G. Priest provided in the reading material below.)

About the speaker

Prof. Graham Priest is Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Centre, and a regular visitor at St. Andres University who is known for his defense of dialetheism and his in-depth analyses of the logical paradoxes.

Reading material

Priest, Graham 'Revising logic'