AUC Philosophica et Historica (Acta Universitatis Carolinae Philosophica et Historica) is a multidisciplinary academic journal focused on the humanities with more than 50 years of tradition.
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AUC PHILOSOPHICA ET HISTORICA, Vol 2022 No 1 (2022), 7–25
Is there any logic at all?
Pavel Arazim
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/24647055.2025.1
published online: 28. 02. 2025
abstract
Though to this point not as popular as logical pluralism or logical monism, logical nihilism has become a serious position in the philosophy of logic and a new alternative in the disputes about the notion of a logical system being right. We will review some basic moments of the discussions that have occurred so far and try to propose a viable version of logical nihilism. Some of the aspects of the doctrine as it has been proposed, mainly by Gillian Russell need revision but overall it proves plausible and well suited in particular to incorporation into inferentialist and expressivist accounts of meaning and logic. From a more general point of view, logical nihilism shows how essential it is to appreciate the pragmatic significance of logic and acknowledge that logical practice bestows its legitimacy on logical theory and not the other way round. Appreciating this, together with lessons about the open-ended nature of meaning of even logical vocabulary, leads to a more dynamic conception of logic.
keywords: logical nihilism; rule generality; determinacy
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