A Contextual Account of Explanation in Logic

Evelyn Erickson

doi:10.5007/1808-1711.2024.e98374

Authors

Evelyn Erickson Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7710-8245

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2024.e98374

Keywords:

Logic, Epistemology, Explanation, Anti-exceptionalism, Bas van Fraassen

Abstract

Recent approaches to the epistemology of logic, under the title of “anti-exceptionalism about logic”, explicitly adopt what is asserted to be the method of theory choice and the correct account of explanation in the sciences. Without embracing such a doctrine, but still keeping within a broad anti-exceptional trend, the current discussion proposes a contextual theory of explanation in logic, based on Bas van Fraassen’s framework of why-questions, which neither claims that logic is a science, nor relies on the metaphysical assumption of a validity-phenomenon to give account of the methodology of logic.

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