Bergen Logic Seminar: Against Logical Chauvinism

Against Logical Chauvinism

Logical Chauvinism is the thesis that there is one single philosophically primary goal to logic. A different way to put it is that there is only one canonical application to logic. As we will show in this paper, the thesis is widely assumed, implicitly or explicitly, in the literature on the philosophy of logic. However, it has not been argued for extensively. That is a significant shortcoming, given that Logical Chauvinism makes a substantial claim about the nature and scope of logic, and one of the consequences of endorsing the thesis is that it rules out a particular kind of logical pluralism, namely logical instrumentalism. In this paper, we argue against Logical Chauvinism. The argument we put forth here aims to show that we have no principled reason to assume there to be just one primary goal or application to logic. Rather, we claim that it is actually more plausible that there actually is a variety of goals, purposes and applications to logic, without one of them enjoying primacy over the others.