Sharon Berry, "Knowledge of Logical Coherence and the Mathematical Access Problem"

Sharon Berry
Oakland University
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Zoom Internet Event

Knowledge of Logical Coherence and the Mathematical Access Problem

Many philosophical programs exist for explaining mathematical accuracy in terms of knowledge about logical coherence. Thus, they suggest a way of reducing access worries about mathematics to access worries about knowledge of logical coherence. But is this reduced problem solvable? In this talk I will argue for a positive answer to this question by developing a toy model for how creatures like us could have acquired good a priori methods of reasoning about logical coherence. Overall I will argue that mathematicians’ ability to recognize logically coherent posits  is ultimately no more vulnerable to access worries than knowledge of possibility with respect to objective laws of chemistry or physics.