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From the Descriptive to the Normative in Psychology and Logic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Paul Thagard
Paul Thagard*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities University of Michigan-Dearborn
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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe a methodology for revising logical principles in the light of empirical psychological findings. Historical philosophy of science and wide reflective equilibrium in ethics are considered as providing possible models for arguing from the descriptive to the normative. Neither is adequate for the psychology/logic case, and a new model is constructed, employing criteria for evaluating inferential systems. Once we have such criteria, the notion of reflective equilibrium becomes redundant.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 24 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

For helpful discussions, I am grateful to Richard Nisbett, Daniel Hausman, the Philosophy Department at the University of Waterloo, and Fellows of the 1981 Summer Institute on Philosophy and Psychology. I have benefited from unpublished writings on ethics by Daniel Hausman and Peter Railton. I am also grateful to the University of Michigan Program in Cognitive Science for generous support.

References

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