Event Detail

Do logically valid arguments necessarily preserve truth? Certain inferences involving informational modals and the indicative conditional reveal that truth preservation and good deductive inference come apart. Given this split, I argue for an alternative to the standard truth preservation view on which logical validity and good deductive inference extensionally coincide: logic is a descriptive science that is fundamentally concerned, not with truth preservation, but with the structure of information. Along the way, I defend modus ponens against a recent attack by Kolodny and MacFarlane [2010].