Revising the Logic of Operations as a Relevance Logic: From Hypothesis Testing to Explanation

Abstract

Piaget’s last writings, particularly those coauthored by Garcia [Piaget and Garcia, 1974, 1989, 1991], contain both a coherent constructivist account of explanation in science [Piaget and Garcia, 1989] and specific suggestions for revising the logic of operations as a logic of meanings, based on the relevance logic of Anderson and Belnap [1975] – see Piaget [1980] and Piaget and Garcia [1991]. The aim of the present article is to demonstrate the interdependence of these two significant developments in Piaget’s later work, by examining the merits of Piaget’s revised logical competence model as a logic of causal explanation. Whereas the logic of operations is sufficient as a logic of hypothesis testing, its basis in truth-functional logic provides too narrow a treatment of semantic issues to properly model causal explanation, a form of thought characterized by a strong interdependence of form and content. The logic of meanings, as an intensional logic, rejects the reduction of meaning to truth conditions and introduces issues of relevance and context into logic.

The Macrostructure of Informal Arguments: A Proposed Model and Analysis

“…Although it may not be possible to represent linkage per se within a deductive system, relations of subordination involving full dependence can be represented by way of an entailment relation. Entailments have the form of a conditional statement in propositional logic (Ricco, 1993). Thus, facility with conditional reasoning may aid in the identification and analysis of subordinate relations.…”

“…The symmetry in participants' judgements of argument structure in Experiment 3, for example, suggests an appreciation of this last rule. A logic of internal relations would differ from propositional or predicate systems in that it concerns the macrostructure of arguments and would not be reductionist (Harris, 1987;Ricco, 1993). Arguments are reducible to combinations of inter-premise relations, but these are not further reducible (within the logic) to combinations of propositional connectives and atomic statements.…”

Action Perspectives on Human Development

“…Structural implications correspond largely with an entailment account of necessary implications as advanced in relevance logic (Anderson & Belnap, 1975). Interestingly, Piaget in his late work has espoused a relevance logic point of view to elucidate the notion of necessity and its ontogenetic acquisition (Piaget, 1986(Piaget, , 1987Piaget & Garcia, 1983Ricco, 1993; see also Overton, 1990). Interestingly, Piaget in his late work has espoused a relevance logic point of view to elucidate the notion of necessity and its ontogenetic acquisition (Piaget, 1986(Piaget, , 1987Piaget & Garcia, 1983Ricco, 1993; see also Overton, 1990).…”

The Architectures of Latino Sexuality

“…Upholding an erotic relation to Chicago that signals disorganizational potential amidst rigid geopolitical ideologies of sexual constraint, the story records what John Paul Ricco fittingly calls the "forms of sociality, sexuality, and spatiality that betray architecture." 28 Released in 2004 (the same year The Sexual Organization of the City was published), Chicago gay Latino filmmaker Tadeo Garcia's shoestringbudget film On the Downlow offers a view of masculinity and sexuality in its representation of two Latino men from rival gangs who fall in love. Shot on location in the South Side Chicago neighborhoods of Little Village and Pilsen, On the Downlow vividly captures the intertwined elements of desire and painful disclosure shared by Isaac (Tony Sancho) and Angel (Michael Cortez).…”