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Summary
Summary
In Rationality and Logic, Robert Hanna argues that logic is intrinsically psychological and that human psychology is intrinsically logical. He claims that logic is cognitively constructed by rational animals (including humans) and that rational animals are essentially logical animals. In order to do so, he defends the broadly Kantian thesis that all (and only) rational animals possess an innate cognitive "logic faculty." Hanna's claims challenge the conventional philosophical wisdom that sees logic as a fully formal or "topic-neutral" science irreconcilably separate from the species- or individual-specific focus of empirical psychology.Logic and psychology went their separate ways after attacks by Frege and Husserl on logical psychologism--the explanatory reduction of logic to empirical psychology. Hanna argues, however, that--despite the fact that logical psychologism is false--there is an essential link between logic and psychology. Rational human animals constitute the basic class of cognizers or thinkers studied by cognitive psychology; given the connection between rationality and logic that Hanna claims, it follows that the nature of logic is significantly revealed to us by cognitive psychology. Hanna's proposed "logical cognitivism" has two important consequences: the recognition by logically oriented philosophers that psychologists are their colleagues in the metadiscipline of cognitive science; and radical changes in cognitive science itself. Cognitive science, Hanna argues, is not at bottom a natural science; it is both an objective or truth-oriented science and a normative human science, as is logic itself.
Author Notes
Robert Hanna is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of Kant and the Foundations of Analytical Philosophy.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
How can the rationality of logic be established? Any argument to support logic will require logic, and either a circle or a vicious infinite regress will result. But to give up on logic leads to skeptical irrationalism. Many have taken up Platonism to defend the necessity of logic, but this book argues that this is unacceptable. Hanna (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder) argues instead that the rationality of logic can be justified by locating it, or at least a simple "protologic," as an innate mental structure belonging to any animal that can be reckoned rational: since it is innate, then since one must think this way, then one ought to think this way--that is the rational thing to do. The argument is intricate, taking up themes in metaphysics, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic, and more. But innateness is one thing, truth another: what is it about the world that makes innate logic true? What is the logical form of the world? Thus, the study neglects the issues raised in G. Bergmann's Logic and Reality (CH, Sep'65). Also neglected is the work of W. Sellars in his Science, Perception and Reality (CH, Mar'64). But the study is well written, and the intricate argument always well signposted. Reasonable bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers. F. Wilson University of Toronto
Table of Contents
| Preface and Acknowledgments | p. ix |
| Introduction | p. xi |
| 1 Psychologism Revisited | p. 1 |
| 2 E pluribus unum | p. 29 |
| 3 The Logocentric Predicament | p. 53 |
| 4 Cognition, Language, and Logic | p. 77 |
| 5 The Psychology of Reasoning | p. 115 |
| 6 Our Knowledge of Logic | p. 155 |
| 7 The Ethics of Logic | p. 201 |
| Notes | p. 233 |
| Bibliography | p. 285 |
| Index | p. 309 |
