Warrant theory explains how propositions gain logical acceptance
Warrant Theory
Logic in Computer ScienceArtificial Intelligence
Summary
Logic is about when it’s right to accept or reject statements, but this paper looks at that from a new angle called warrant theory. Warrant means having good reasons to use statements in arguments, different from just believing something is true. The authors study how statements earn this right to be used logically and how accepting or rejecting them works together. They explain logic as the rules for when it’s proper to accept ideas and how those ideas connect or conflict with each other through reasoning.
What this means in practice
- •For automated reasoning developers: Design logical systems that precisely govern when propositions can be legitimately accepted or rejected based on inferential entitlement.
- •For formal verification engineers: Improve formal proofs by incorporating a framework that distinguishes inferential legitimacy from mere truth or belief.
A theory result. No direct application yet.
Authors
Khashayar Irani
Abstract
In this paper, we develop warrant theory as a philosophical discipline concerned with the inferential legitimacy of propositions within logical analysis. Warrant theory reconceptualises logic as a normative framework governing the conditions under which propositions may be introduced, accepted, rejected, and inferentially employed. Warrant is understood as inferential entitlement and is distinguished from truth, belief, and other psychological attitudes, while its relation to inferential use and meaning is examined. Warrant-theoretic analysis is then developed as a systematic method for investigating how propositions acquire inferential standing, how that standing develops, and how inferential positions interact through relations of dependence, compatibility, incompatibility, and exclusion. Acceptance and rejection provide the bilateral vocabulary for representing positive and negative inferential positions and the consequences and commitments associated with them. Finally, these elements are brought together in a warrant-theoretic definition of logic as the formal and normative study of the conditions under which propositions may be legitimately accepted or rejected and of the inferential transitions that such legitimacy warrants. On this account, logical consequence and logical failure are understood through the presence, preservation, or absence of inferential entitlement, thus locating the philosophical subject matter of logic in the systematic governance of inferential legitimacy.