ABSTRACT
Viewing the laws of logic as a matter of reflective equilibrium is likely to change our general views of what logic is, how it relates to natural language and what is the relative role of its sub-disciplines such as proof theory and model theory. Proof theory, according to us, directly systematizes the fundament of logic. Model theory, on the other hand, spells out semantic relations which, though they are often taken as more basic than inferential ones and grounding them, presuppose, and elaborate on, the inferential ones. Logical rules or laws, which are the output of the process of reflective equilibrium, surely differ from those that are an input to it. The fact that logical laws always result from the process of reflective equilibrium, in which the data concerning the usage of logical expressions are confronted with tentative principles articulated by logicians, entails that the laws are based on the data.
