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So what do readers think of logic?

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT

With over 1600 votes in our latest poll, 51% deemed it a "central, foundational part of the discipline," and another 12% thought it "a major area of research."  A further 23% though it "useful" when "integrated with traditional philosophical questions":   so fully 86% chose the most favorable options.  5% chose "minor area of research," and only 9% thought it should be banished to the math department.

UPDATE:  Philosopher Christy Mag Uidhir (Houston) points out that the favorable opinion of logic is hard to square with the relative paucity of logicians in most philosophy departments.  I can imagine some explanations for this state of affairs, but I'm curious what readers think?

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9 responses to “So what do readers think of logic?”

  1. Daniel Propson

    I imagine many people voted that logic is a "central, foundational part of the discipline" despite the fact that they wouldn't think it worth stocking a phil. department with logicians. There would be no possibility of philosophy without basic logic, after all. But I'm sure many philosophers think that we could do philosophy just fine without the sort of abstruse speculation that goes on at modern conferences on logic.

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  2. Eric

    I wonder if it can be explained by the fact that the term 'logic' is ambiguous between formal logic and philosophical logic. That is, many who took the poll may have had the latter notion in mind as well as the former, which would seem to help explain the disparity between the poll results and the 'relative paucity of logicians in most philosophy departments.'

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  3. Ed

    I think many philosophers who think it is still necessary to teach logic do not think that a department needs to have a logician to teach it. But this is a bad idea. We need to teach students that logic is an area of philosophy and logical theories should not be taught as mere methods of philosophy (although they can be that) but are theories about correct reasoning and about language. To do that, a teacher of logic should be well-versed in modern logical debates and about the variety of logical systems. In other words, philosophy departments need logicians and/or philosophers of logic.

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  4. Michael B

    My utter guess is that there are a few reasons. First, logic has a long tradition, being invented by Aristotle, in the West at least, and has never really not been studied at any time. It seems important, even if not your field.

    Second, many of the big relatively-recent names did work in or around logic: Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Dummett, Kripke, Lewis etc. It was worthy of their time and lots of work came out of its study.

    Third, it's one of the few things we always write/read when marketing the subject – 'teaches you to think logically etc.' so probably it's a badge of pride ('logical thinker' is hardly an insult).

    Fourth, it's an easy area to point to when someone says philosophy is useless or never makes progress: 'But all computers require logic etc.' Job done.

    Fifth, by being shared with mathematicians and computer scientists, it's a bit of a talisman against all the woolly-headed nonsense that the hippies in other humanities departments do, right? We're basically mathematicians without numbers, or physicists without labs, (or computer scientists without computers, or…). So we don't merely trade opinions but we prove who is and is not right using cold, hard logic. Sweet.

    Sixth, a fair old amount of basic philosophical training might get bundled under 'logic', including learning informal fallacies and general critical thinking. Which I would take as the bread-and-butter of philosophical thinking and maybe no few others would too.

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  5. Michel X.

    Re: Mag Uidhir's observation: I suspect that it probably has a lot to do with just how *much* (i.e. what amount of) logic is thought to be central and foundational (especially at the undergraduate level). If one's idea of what's necessary is just FOL, then a department doesn't really need a full-on logician, just someone capable of teaching FOL (and maybe a couple extra logical goodies).

    I can't imagine it's all that difficult to find someone specializing in another area who is also very capable of teaching FOL, or FOL+1, so I would expect that many departments feel comfortable taking a 2-in-1-type candidate. (Unless we're limiting ourselves to research-oriented departments, in which case I'm not sure to what extent Mag Uidhir's observation really holds.)

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  6. Andrew

    I take it that most if not all of Michael B's reasons are such that, if a voter had one of them as her reasons for voting for logic as a central, foundational part of the discipline, the voter would just be mistaken. Of course, that could very well be the case for some of the voters. However, more charitably, this poll perhaps shows that some of the voters think of "central, foundational part of the discipline" as "central, foundational part of the core philosophy curriculum." However, I would have thought that a central, foundational part of the discipline would be a central, foundational part of the amount of *research* in which philosophers partake. If that is so, then I have strong doubts that logic holds as high a place as this poll shows, mainly for the reason that Mag Uidhir points out.

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  7. Christy Mag Uidhir

    My take is that philosophers consider Logic a central, foundational part of the discipline only when viewed as an inert field from which to extract and acquire a knowledge base and skill set considered central and foundational for all philosophical enquiry, and when viewed as an independent field of contemporary philosophy, I take it that most folks consider Logic to be an at best minor outlying area of philosophical research (and at worst just mathematics), which would explain the relative absence of logicians from philosophy departments. It's Logic-instruction not Logic-research that philosophers consider a central, foundational part of the discipline.

    NOTE: By "logician" I don't mean philosophers who work in various logic or math-heavy areas of Metaphysics, Epistemology, or Language; rather, I mean philosophers primarily working in and publishing at the forefront of contemporary Philosophical or Mathematical Logic.

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  8. Michael B

    One more thing that struck me, if I may: most of the worst options in previous polls have been along the lines of, 'This area is just mental masturbation'. But the worst option for logic was 'Belongs in the math dept.' I suppose one who voted for this option might regard math as mental masturbation (at least, logic) but I read it as not like the other worst options. I.e. not as 'This is just BS', rather 'This is a legit field of inquiry but not a philosophical one'.

    I don't object to this option and Brian has not posted any evidence that anyone else has, so I wonder if that in itself reflects on the perception of the readership re. the importance of logic.

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  9. David Wallace

    Compare set theory in mathematics. I should think that pretty much all mathematicians would call set theory "a central, foundational part of the discipline": any first-year undergraduate will learn its basics; anyone going on will at least brush against the Axiom of Choice. But contemporary *research* in set theory is relatively divorced from the rest of contemporary maths research (and doubly so, from the rest of the mathematics taught at undergraduate level): most of the set theory used in the latter is pretty elementary and you *don't* have to be a set-theory researcher to teach it. A small maths department might well decide not to hire in set theory even while recognising that elementary set theory needs to be taught to all undergrads in maths.

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