Studies in the Philosophy of Logic and Knowledge

Questions about knowledge, and about the relation between logic and language, are at the heart of philosophy. Eleven distinguished philosophers from Britain and America contribute papers on such questions. All the contributions are examples of recent philosophy at its best. The first half of the book constitutes a running debate about knowledge, evidence and doubt. The second half tackles questions about logic and its relation to language.

Eleven papers by distinguished British and American philosophers are brought together in this volume. Five of the contributors engage in effect in a running debate about knowledge. How does knowledge relate to evidence? How reliable need one be to have knowledge? Once sceptical doubt has been introduced is there any untainted evidence to show that it is misplaced? Does verificationism succeed in showing that scepticism is untenable? Or is there a natural propensity for belief which explains why we are not in fact sceptics? The other six tackle questions about logic and its relation to language. Can one give a 'realist' account of logical truth without supposing that logic has a subject-matter? How do theories of descriptions fare when tested by their handling of functions? How can indirect speech report someone's use of words like 'this'? Does our language count for or against adopting second-order logic? These papers, given in the British Academy Philosophical Lectures series, are all examples of recent philosophy at its best.

John McDowell: Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge; Simon Blackburn: Knowledge, Truth, and Reliability; Crispin Wright: Facts and Certainty; Edward Craig: Advice to Philosophers: Three New Leaves to Turn Over; Thomas Baldwin: Two Types of Naturalism; Timothy Smiley: The Theory of Descriptions; Christopher Peacocke: Understanding Logical ConstantsL A Realist's Account; R. M. Sainsbury: Indexicals and Reported Speech; J. E. Altham: Reported Indexicals; James Higginbotham: On Higher-Order Logic and Natural Language; David Bostock: On Motivating Higher-Order Logic