Logic & Cognition Workshop

The roots of logic go back to antiquity, where it was mostly used as a tool for analyzing human argumentation. In the 19th century Gottlob Frege, one of the founders of modern logic and analytic philosophy, introduced anti-psychologism in the philosophy of  mathematics. In the following years anti-psychologism, the view that the nature of mathematical truth is independent of human ideas, was one of the philosophical driving forces behind the success of mathematical logic. During the same period in the 19th century, also modern psychology (Helmholtz, Wundt) was born. However, Frege’s notion of anti-psychologism often stood in the way of a potential merge of the disciplines and led to a significant separation between logic and psychology research agendas and methods. Only since the 1960s, together with the growth of cognitive science inspired by the ‘mind as computer’ metaphor, the two disciplines have started to interact more and more. Today, we finally observe an increase in the collaborative effort between logicians, computer scientists, linguists, cognitive  scientists, and psychologists.

We plan to discuss the empirical research motivated by logical theories as well as logics inspired by experimental studies. As a result, we hope to contribute towards an increase in collaboration between logicians and cognitive scientists.