Logical pluralism and linguistic relativism: A hypothesis about the relationship between logic, language and thought

JORGE SANTOS; ALBA MASSOLO; DURANTE, SANTIAGO GABRIEL

FILOSOFIA UNISINOS

Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos

Año: 2024

1519-5023

This paper aims to connect two debates about the relation among language, reasoningand thought that belong to different theoretical and disciplinary fields, but that areclosely linked. On the one hand, the philosophical debate about logical pluralism. And,on the other hand, the linguistic debate around the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. We proposea hypothesis compatible with a version of logical pluralism and linguistic relativism thatmake it possible to explain the differences between thoughts expressed in differentlanguages. This hypothesis, at the same time, supports the possibility of understandingand even translating different logical and linguistic variants. From a position akin tological expressivism, we claim that there exists a proto-logic underlying all naturallanguages. The minimal logical operators proper of this proto-logic can be made explicitin a precise way in different formal systems. This gives rise to logical pluralism. Wealso offered an empirically informed philosophical argument in favor of this hypothesis.