Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book establishes the core thesis concerning the inseparability of logic and natural language. It discusses the concept of the form of an argument and outlines an answer to the question of what makes logically correct arguments special. The book draws a systematic picture of the processes and relations which constitute the bulk of logical analysis and fix the related terminology. It shows that explicit logical rules emerge, in a bottom-up way, from the spontaneous formation of the language games; that, however, their establishment is essentially bolstered by the conscious reflecting on this process in a top-down manner. This 'dialectic' kind of movement is characteristic of the reasoning that leads towards a reflective equilibrium, which amounts to adjusting data in light of conjectured principles while, at the same time, adjusting the principles in light of the data.