Logical Form and the Limits of Thought by Manish Oza A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Philosophy University of Toronto c Copyright 2020 by Manish Oza Abstract Logical Form and the Limits of Thought Manish Oza Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of Philosophy University of Toronto 2020 What is the relation of logic to thinking? My dissertation offers a new argument for the claim that logic is constitutive of thinking in the following sense: representational activity counts as thinking only if it manifests sensitivity to logical rules. In short, thinking has to be minimally logical. An account of thinking has to allow for our freedom to question or revise our commitments – even seemingly obvious conceptual connections – without loss of understanding. This freedom, I argue, requires that thinkers have general abilities to respond to support and tension among their thoughts. And these abilities are constituted by following logical rules. So thinkers have to follow logical rules. But there isn’t just one correct logic for thinking. I show that my view is consistent with logical pluralism: there are a range of correct logics, any one of which a thinker might follow. A logic for thinking does, however, have to contain certain minimal principles: Modus Ponens and Non-Contradiction, and perhaps others. We follow logical rules by exercising logical capacities, which display a distinctive first-person/third-person asymmetry: a subject can find the instances of a rule compelling without seeing them as instances of a rule. As a result, there are two limits on illogical thinking. First, thinkers have to tend to find instances of logical rules compelling. Second, thinkers can’t think in obviously illogical ways. So thinking has to be logical – but not perfectly so. ii When we try to think, but fail, we produce nonsense. But our failures to think are often subjectively indistinguishable from thinking. To explain how this occurs, I offer an account of nonsense. To be under the illusion that some nonsense makes sense is to enter a pretence that the nonsense is meaningful. Our use of nonsense within the pretence relies on the role of logical form in understanding. Finally, while the normativity of logic doesn’t fall directly out of logical consti- tutivism, it’s possible to build an attractive account of logical normativity which has logical constitutivism as an integral part. I argue that thinking is necessary for human flourishing, and that this is the source of logical normativity. iii Acknowledgements I have a lot of people to thank. As supervisor, Gurpreet Rattan was a model of open-mindedness and a font of new ideas. I couldn’t have written this without his support, unstinting enthusiasm and wise advice. Thanks also to Philip Kremer, for teaching me logic; to Nick Stang, for guiding me through Kant and Hegel; and to both, for years of tough questions. In 2018, I had the chance to work with Florian Steinberger and Corine Besson in London; their hospitality showed me what it means to belong to an intellectual community. Special thanks go to Edward Kanterian for a few words in the margin of a tutorial essay on Husserl, in Oxford around 2009. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the seed of a dissertation! I wouldn’t have survived graduate school without Lisa Doerksen and John Bunke. Weekly conversations with them in the Green Beanery shaped how I think about everything. I’m grateful to John for reading the Introduction and chapter 4 on short notice, and to Moritz Bodner for reading chapter 2. I’d also particularly like to thank Julia Jael Smith and Jessica Wright, who’ve read and commented on nearly every chapter at some point in the last few years. I’ve learned a huge amount from friends and colleagues in Toronto and elsewhere, including, in no particular order, Emily Perry, Josh Brandt, Prach Panchakunathorn, James Gillard, Lochin Brouillard, Catherine Rioux, Atoosa Kasirzadeh, David Dyzenhaus, Arthur Ripstein, Imogen Dickie, Dominic and Tashi Alford-Duguid, G. Anthony Bruno, Rachel O’Keefe, Adam Dobkin, Nir Av-Gay, Bernie Katz, Danny Goldstick, Mark Fortney, Jessica Leech, Carlo Nicolai, Clinton Tolley, AW Moore, Damian Melamedoff, Mason Westfall, Melissa Rees, Amogh Sahu, Sophia Arbeiter, Nader Shoaibi, Zuzanna Jusińska, Antonina Jamrozik, Ngozi Okidegbe, Anne-Sophie Ouellet, Steve Coyne, Dave Suarez, Mike Blezy, Aaron Henry, Zain Raza, Hamish Russell, Rory Harder and Seyed Yarandi. I’d like to thank all the students I’ve taught at U of T for their patience and curiosity, and for teaching me how to explain things. I hope it shows. I also benefited from discussions of my work at the Ontario Quebec Hegel Organization, the American Philosophy Association, the Canadian Philosophy Association, the Wiener Forum für Analytische Philosophie, the Society for the Study of the History of Analytic Philosophy, the LEM Seminar at the Institute of Philosophy in London and the U of T Grad Forum. The work was supported by funding from SSHRC and OGS. Of course, all remaining errors are my own. Hegel wrote that to study logic is ‘to dwell and to labor in [a] realm of shadows’. Luckily, I had people to remind me to get out in the sun once in a while: my friends, my parents Amit and Sangeeta, my sister Janika, all my relatives, Maria Papachristos and her family and my dearest Richa. I can’t express how grateful I am. This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Thomas Papachristos. iv Contents 0 Introduction1 0.1 Overview . .1 0.2 Normativism and illogicality . .2 0.2.1 The problem of illogical thinking . .3 0.2.2 Back to Kant, again . .5 0.3 Logic as constitutive of thinking . .6 0.3.1 What I mean by ‘logic’ . .9 0.4 Dissertation outline . 12 I Developing logical constitutivism 15 1 Why thinking needs logic 16 1.1 Introduction . 16 1.1.1 Terminology . 16 1.1.2 Thesis and argument . 18 1.2 The holistic constraint on understanding . 19 1.2.1 Understanding requires a setting . 20 1.2.2 Deviant understanding . 25 1.3 General rational abilities . 28 1.3.1 Two unsuccessful explanations of holism . 29 1.3.2 A better explanation . 31 1.4 The expressive role of logic . 33 1.4.1 The conditional and negation . 34 1.4.2 Response to Brandom . 39 1.5 Quinean reprise . 41 1.6 Conclusion . 46 2 Disagreement and pluralism 47 2.1 Introduction . 47 2.2 Monism and Disagreement . 51 2.2.1 Type A disagreement: conflicting beliefs about logic . 52 2.2.2 Type B disagreement: using conflicting logics . 56 2.3 Pluralism and Disagreement . 58 2.3.1 Domain variance . 58 2.3.2 The minimal kit . 62 2.3.3 Recap . 66 2.4 Which logics contain MP and LNC? . 67 v 3 Logical capacities 78 3.1 Introduction . 78 3.2 Cognitivism . 79 3.3 The causal-explanatory role of logic . 83 3.3.1 Dogramaci’s associationism and the sensitivity condition . 83 3.3.2 The simple dispositional account . 85 3.4 The first-personal character of inference . 86 3.5 Logical capacities and tacit knowledge . 88 3.5.1 Do thinkers have logical knowledge? . 93 3.5.2 Logical capacities and separability . 94 4 On the limits of illogical thinking 99 4.1 Logic as constitutive of thinking . 99 4.2 The first limit on illogicality . 100 4.2.1 The vagueness of thinking .................... 103 4.2.2 The metaphysical reality of thinking . 105 4.3 The second limit on illogicality . 107 4.3.1 What makes a contradiction obvious? . 109 4.3.2 Reductio proofs . 111 4.4 Can we be certain someone isn’t thinking? . 111 II Consequences of constitutivism 113 5 Nonsense: a user’s guide 114 5.1 Introduction . 114 5.2 The engagement constraint . 116 5.2.1 Reasoning with nonsense . 116 5.2.2 Nonsense-attributions . 118 5.2.3 The minimalist account . 120 5.3 The austerity constraint . 124 5.3.1 Nonsense thoughts . 125 5.3.2 What’s wrong with nonsense? . 125 5.4 A pretence account of nonsense . 128 5.4.1 Pretence and make-believe . 128 5.4.2 Logical form and partial understanding . 130 5.4.3 Pretentious nonsense: the general idea . 132 5.4.4 Examples of pretentious nonsense . 133 5.4.5 Objections and replies . 136 5.5 Conclusion. Is there a transparent level of sense? . 138 vi 6 The value of thinking and the normativity of logic 140 6.1 Introduction . 140 6.2 Logical self-constitution . 144 6.2.1 The constitutivist account of practical reason . 145 6.2.2 The constitutivist account of logical normativity . 146 6.3 A problem for constitutivism and two unsuccessful responses . 148 6.3.1 The absence of value problem . 148 6.3.2 The dialectical response . 149 6.3.3 The need to think . 150 6.4 The value of thinking . 152 6.4.1 Possible views of the value of thinking . 153 6.4.2 Thinking and human flourishing . 155 6.5 Vexing issues about logical normativity . 159 6.5.1 Three questions about logical rules . 160 6.5.2 The implausible consequences of the Simple Formulation . 161 6.5.3 Bridge principles . 164 Bibliography 170 vii 0 Introduction . and for all her illegalities an enemy of misrule. Anne Carson 0.1 Overview What is the relation of logic to thinking? Why should we think logically, and what happens if we don’t? Is it even possible to think illogically? These are the questions this dissertation seeks to answer.