Allied to sameness and difference are the concepts of compatibility or incompatibility, which underlie what Aristotle has called the three ‘laws of thought’ – identity, non-contradiction and exclusion-of-the-middle. How do we apprehend things (percepts, intui…
Concepts and theories are hypothetical constructs. They cannot (for the most part) be proven (definitely, once and for all), but only repeatedly confirmed by experience. This is the positive side of adduction, presenting evidence in support of rational con…
Returning to logic – our insight [earlier] into the nature of negation can be construed to have formal consequences. The negative term is now seen to be a radically different kind of term, even though in common discourse it is made to behave like any…
Since (or insofar as) the “geometrical model” of theory justification involves arbitrary axioms, it is ultimately conventional. If the first principles (“axioms”) of a body of alleged knowledge cannot apparently be justified by experience, but have …