Logics of Consequence: Logical Inferentialism, Defeasible Reasoning, and Transitivity

The workshop "Logics of Consequence: Logical Inferentialism, Defeasible Reasoning, and Transitivity" will take place on March 3-4 at the Philosophy Department of Concordia University in Montreal. It will connect some recent developments in logic, the philosophy of logic, theory of meaning, and the philosophy of reasoning.  In particular, we will be thinking about non-transitive and non-monotonic logics in connection with logical and semantic inferentialism, the semantic paradoxes, and the nature of logic vocabulary.

Here are some of the questions we will be discussing:  What does it mean to say that some things follow from others, that some things are consequences of others?  What does consequence have to do with rules, proofs, reasoning, argumentation, assertion, denial, and the like?  Given that our everyday reasoning is virtually always defeasible, should we think of consequence as non-monotonic?  Are consequence relations always transitive?  Or should we accept failures of transitivity in order to deal with semantic paradoxes or for other reasons?  What does consequence have to do with logic and logical connectives?  Do logical connectives mean what they do in virtue of their place in a consequence relation?  Why do we want logical connectives, what is their job?