Logic Is Not a Social Contract
In the latest edition of Talk Heathen , a project of the Atheist Center of Austin (ACA), host Eric Murphy suggested in a conversation with a self-described "agnostic theist" that logic is nothing more than a useful social contract rather an inescapable feature of the world, thought, and language. As he put it (at about 1:16:30). We're both operating on a set of assumptions. One of those assumptions is that the laws of logic hold.... I'm granting that to you in order to have this conversation and you're granting that to me in order to have this conversation. Moving from there, we can behave in a logical manner. Yes, it sucks we can't prove the laws of logic because we would need the laws of logic to prove it, but that doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. It just means we understand and accept that we have a core set of assumptions that we're allowing each other to have in order to move forward in talking about the world. In precise te...