Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:18:29.602Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 1 - Heidegger’s Phenomenology and the Normativity of Logic

from Part I - Normativity, the Phenomenology of Assertions, and Productive Logic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2022

Filippo Casati
Affiliation:
Lehigh University, Pennsylvania
Daniel Dahlstrom
Affiliation:
Boston University
Get access

Summary

Is logic intrinsically normative? Given that we often make errors in reasoning, one might hold that logic is not about how we do think but about how we ought to think. However, logical laws say nothing about thinking. How does logic gain normative traction on psychological processes such as belief formation or reasoning? To answer this question, the chapter begins by examining the debate between descriptivists, who hold that logic simply describes truth-preserving entailment relations, and normativists, who hold that logic is intrinsically normative. Husserl was a descriptivist, and Heidegger’s early work follows him. But Heidegger’s phenomenological account of the truth-predicate as grounded in the comportment of assertion, and his analysis of the “hermeneutic as” that grounds such comportment, affords a different perspective on the debate. Logic provides constitutive norms for the practice of reason-giving, a kind of rationality – being answerable to others – that is not an essential property of, but is nevertheless demanded by, Dasein’s being as “care.” The chapter concludes by showing how Heidegger’s phenomenological approach can affirm the main claims of descriptivism while insisting that “the reign of logic” in philosophy “disintegrates into the turbulence of a more original questioning.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Heidegger on Logic , pp. 13 - 33
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×