What is a logical diagram?
Legg, C. (2011). What is a logical diagram? Paper presented at Mini-Conference on Logical Pragmatism, The University of Auckland, New Zealand, February 25, 2011.
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/5153
Robert Brandom’s expressivism argues that not all semantic content may be made fully explicit. This view connects in interesting ways with recent movements in philosophy of mathematics and logic (e.g. Brown, Shin, Giaquinto) to take diagrams seriously - as more than a mere “heuristic aid” to proof, but either proofs themselves, or irreducible components of such. However what exactly is a diagram in logic? Does this constitute a semiotic natural kind? The paper will argue that such a natural kind does exist in Charles Peirce’s conception of iconic signs, but that fully understood, logical diagrams involve a structured array of normative reasoning practices, as well as just a “picture on a page”.
© Copyright 2011 Catherine Legg