Reviewing the logic of social scientific claims

This paper considers three different claims to knowledge, namely, “fully descriptive”, “generally descriptive” and causal claims. These are all common in social science, and each type of claim requires more assumptions than the previous one. After discussing their methodological and logical foundations, this paper describes some of the limitations in the nature of these three claims. Fully descriptive claims suffer from non-random errors and inaccuracies in observations, and can be queried in terms of utility. Generally, in addition to observational errors, descriptive can be questioned because of the long-standing problem of induction. Even the notion of falsification might not be able to help with this. Finally, causal claims are the most problematic of the three. While widely assumed, causation cannot be observed directly. The paper combines and develops three models of what causation might be, and discusses their implications for causal claims. It points out that so far our belief in causation is still a kind of religious one, and that neither theory nor inferential statistics can help in proving or observing its existence. Finally, the paper provides some suggestions for avoiding being misled by false knowledge and reporting our research findings with tentative care and judgement.

The logical foundations of constitutional democracy between legal positivism and natural law theory

Rejecting all knowledge claims concerning right and wrong in matters practical James Buchanan concurred with legal positivism that invalid law cannot be identified by its substantive content but only by an inherited defect in its factual creation. Beyond correct creation Buchanan proposed as a quasi-natural law constraint that unanimity in the shadow of individual veto power must at least be conceivable if a norm is to be law. The emerging hybrid conception of constitutional law is symptomatic for Buchanan’s never-ending but ultimately futile efforts to incorporate Kantian ideals of interpersonal respect into constitutional economics without imposing them as personal values.

The issue of practical discourse: substantiation of moral norms

The paper provides analysis of the main problem of practical discourse — the issue of substantiation of moral standards — and addresses logical foundations of the so-called principle or law of D. Hume, according to which a logical transition from “is” to “should” is impossible, that is, from descriptive judgments to normative ones. The study shows that this law does not exclude all ethical theories, but only those that justify the norms of morality, deducing them from any realities of the external world: laws of nature, direction of evolution, objective course of history, etc. Hume only limits the methods of substantiating normative propositions, but does not exclude the very possibility of justifying them. The authors discuss various types and attempts to substantiate value judgments and propose to use a new concept of normative correctness. They also perform analysis of cognitive and non-cognitive concepts (I. Kant, C. Bayer, M. Singer, D. Rawls, P. Lorenzen, E. Tugendhad, Karl-Otto Apel, J. Habermas). The paper gives preference to the cognitive approach, and within its framework — the ethics of discourse developed by J. Habermas. The central point in the ethics of discourse is the principle of universalization, which is discussed in detail. The study shows that the principle of universalization and other provisions of the ethics of discourse seem to be well-founded, and the approach itself is the most promising of all other modern ethical undertakings. It also attests to the fact that the ethics of discourse is best suited to the spirit of genuine democracy. As the authors conclude, one way to persuade people to exercise free will and to apply the principle of universalization is through enlightenment, appealing to the mind, and demonstrating that a program to substantiate the ethics of discourse is the best in clarifying our everyday moral intuitions and defending democracy.

The Logos of law: Parmenides - Hegel - Dostoevsky. On the Speculative and Logical Foundations of the Metaphysics of Law

The monograph studies the relation between the "first philosophy" as the doctrine about the unity of thinking and existence, on one hand, and the philosophy of law as a specialised philosophical science, on the other. This paper explores the methodological and general theoretical foundations for the interpreting of the classical philosophy of law, the problems of monism and dualism in the justification of the theory of law, the relations between law and morality, law and religion, and the Absolute in law. The notion of absolute freedom as a paradigm of the classical German philosophical and legal school of thought is considered herein. It is demonstrated that in the classical philosophy of law as presented by Kant, Fichte and Hegel, this foundation is used to overcome both the paradigm of substantive natural law and the paradigm of the social contract, which remains dominant to this day. The target audience of this monograph includes researchers specialising in the history of philosophy and theory of law, legal experts, instructors, postgraduate students as well as anyone who is interested in the philosophy of law.

The 2021 Alonzo Church award for outstanding contributions to logic and computation

An annual award, called the Alonzo Church Award for Outstanding Contributions to Logic and Computation, was established in 2015 by the ACM Special Interest Group for Logic and Computation (SIGLOG), the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS), the European Association for Computer Science Logic (EACSL), and the Kurt Gödel Society (KGS). The award is for an outstanding contribution represented by a paper or by a small group of papers published within the past 25 years. This time span allows the lasting impact and depth of the contribution to have been established. The award can be given to an individual, or to a group of individuals who have collaborated on the research. For the rules governing this award, see https://siglog.org/alonzo-church-award/, https://www.eatcs.org/index.php/church-award/, and https://eacsl.org/. The 2020 Alonzo Church Award was given jointly to Ronald Fagin, Phokion G. Kolaitis, Renée J. Miller, Lucian Popa, and Wang Chiew Tan for their ground-breaking work on laying the logical foundations for data exchange. Lists containing this and all previous winners can be found through the links above.