Sabina Dominguez Parrado

Project Title: Varieties of Context: Logical Contextualism Defended

Broadly speaking, logic is the study of correct reasoning: given an initial set of premises, logic studies whether a conclusion follows from these premises. While philosophers have traditionally claimed that there is only one correct logic for reasoning, some authors have recently challenged this idea. More specifically, they claimed that there is more than one correct logic for reasoning. This view came to be known as logical pluralism.

My project investigates a promising yet underexplored form of logical pluralism; namely, logical contextualism. Logical contextualism states that each context selects one correct logic. However, in order for logical contextualism to be a tenable view, it must clearly define the notion of context: when it comes to logic, what should we take ‘context’ to mean? The main aim of my project will be to develop a psychologically feasible notion of context capable of capturing how agents actually reason in different situations. This investigation will pave the way for a new version of logical contextualism that promises to overcome that main challenges currently faced by logical pluralism.