Could Evolution Explain Our Reliability about Logic?

Abstract

We are reliable about logic in the sense that we by-and-large believe logical truths and disbelieve logical falsehoods. Given that logic is an objective subject matter, it is difficult to provide a satisfying explanation of our reliability. This generates an epistemological challenge, analogous to the well-known Benacerraf-Field problem for mathematical Platonism. This challenge—which I call “the reliability challenge for logic”—is one of the most pressing problems in the epistemology of logic. One initially plausible way to answer this challenge is to appeal to evolution by natural selection (or to a related mechanism). The central idea is that being able to correctly deductively reason conferred a heritable survival advantage upon our ancestors. However, there are several arguments that purport to show that evolutionary accounts cannot even in principle explain why we are reliable about logic. This paper shows that there is no reason to think that evolutionary accounts cannot in principle explain our reliability about logic.

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