Logic and the Editor
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11924124 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jay A Labinger (0000-0002-1942-9232, Beckman Institute at Caltech; California Institute of Technology, 139–74, Pasadena, California 91125, USA; fax: +1 626 449 4159, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 91-92 |
| Publication date | 2004-02-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Studies of Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0306312704041341 |
| OpenAlex | W2043565856 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 2 |
Gabriel Stolzenberg’s thoughtful and, on the whole, complimentary review of The One Culture? (Stolzenberg, 2004) (the latter adjective implies the former, of course!) leaves me little if anything to rebut, and not much more to say. But I would like to comment on one of his remarks: It [the conversation] too contains misreadings and faulty logic, more than I thought the editors would tolerate. But most of it seems to be due to incompetence, or at least, carelessness, rather than to biasing habits of thought. Furthermore, many second-round misreadings of first-round statements are exposed in the third round, usually by the person misread. (Stolzenberg, 2004: 78) The implication of the first sentence is that, as editors, we might (should?) have done more to clean up our contributors ’ acts. I find that suggestion more than a little surprising, considering how Stolzenberg focuses on the likelihood of misreading – even acknowledging the possibility that some of his own interpretations, in the review, result from misunderstandings. How then can he (or anyone) be sure that what he thinks is author X’s misreading, or a misuse of logic, isn’t in fact his misreading of X, or his own unconvincing logical argument? For example, Stolzenberg devotes a significant amount of energy to pointing out the logical flaws in the claim that relativism is self-contradictory. That claim has also been attacked by others, perhaps most thoroughly by Barbara Herrnstein Smith (1997) in a recent book. I personally favour the Stolzenberg/Smith position, but obviously many – not only Bricmont and Sokal in Labinger and Collins (2001), but also the philosophers Stolzenberg mentions, Boghossian and Nagel – do not. Haven’t they seen these counterarguments? Surely they have. How then can they persist in their ‘faulty logic’? Incompetence? Carelessness? These would be very difficult accusations to sustain, it seems to me. And, of course, charges of faulty logic can be (and are) turned around and applied in the other direction, with much the same (lack of) impact. One reasoner’s faulty logic is another’s knockdown argument
Argument (complex analysis · Epistemology · Linguistics · Metaphysics · Paraphrase · Reductio ad absurdum · Sentence · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science
| Citations per year | 0.05 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2004 - 2004 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |