• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.323-347
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• 2012

After Byeongdeok Lee(2008) argued against the so-called uncontested principle (UP), Song(2008) and Choi(2011) gave arguments against Lee(2008) and instead for UP. One important point to mention in their arguments is that they all accept that UP is justifiable in deduction. First, I show that there are some problems in their arguments. Next, I show that UP itself is not justifiable in deduction; it is only justifiable under some (restrictive) conditions.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.375-392
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• 2012

In a previous paper I argued that the denial of the uncontested principle results in the denial of modus ponens. In his reply Byeong Deok Lee explicitly says that he does not deny the validity of modus ponens though he still does not accept the uncontested principle. In this paper I show that his view is untenable.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.251-272
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• 2012

Recently Professor Lee has suggested the analysis of the indicative conditional based on Sellars-Brandom's inferentialism. In this paper, I raise three questions. First, Professor Lee seems to misunderstand Sellars-Brandom in that he considers only the analytically valid arguments as materially valid inferences. Second, Professor Lee seems to misunderstand Sellars-Brandom in that whereas Sellars-Brandom talks about the common features of all kinds of conditionals including counterfactual conditionals, Professor Lee takes it as the analysis of the indicative conditional only. Third, either Professor Lee's analysis is incompatible with Sellars-Brandom inferentialism or his analysis is too general.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.197-217
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• 2014

In my previous papers, I have argued that the so-called 'Uncontested Principle' does not hold for indicative conditionals based on inductive reasoning. This is mainly because if we accept that a material conditional '$A{\supset}C$' can be inferred from an indicative conditional based on inductive reasoning '$A{\rightarrow}_iC$', we get an absurd consequence such that we cannot distinguish between claiming 'C' to be probably true and claiming 'C' to be absolutely true on the assumption 'A'. However, in his recent paper "Uncontested Principle and Inductive Argument", Eunsuk Yang objects that my argument is unsuccessful in disputing the Uncontested Principle. In this paper, I show that his objections are irrelevant to my argument against the Uncontested Principle.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.269-300
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• 2018

In his recent three papers, Joohan Lee defends the following three theses. First, an ordinary term 'believes' is polysemous in that it can refer to three different types of mental attitudes; that is, it can refer to a belief as an involuntary mental disposition, or a pragmatic acceptance as a voluntary mental action, or an epistemic acceptance as a different voluntary mental action. Second, a person's pragmatic acceptance of a proposition is his voluntary mental action which takes it to be true for pragmatic reasons, despite the fact that there is no adequate epistemic evidence for the proposition, whereas a person's epistemic acceptance of a proposition is his voluntary mental action which takes it to be true for epistemic reasons, despite the fact that there is a pragmatic reason to the contrary. Third, mental attitudes to which epistemic norms apply are epistemic acceptances as voluntary mental actions, rather than beliefs as involuntary mental dispositions. If these theses are correct, then they will have important implications for contemporary epistemology. In this paper, however, I argue that Joohan Lee is not successful in defending these theses.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.87-115
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• 2013

In my previous article "The Uncontested Principle and Wonbae Choi's Objections", I argued that the validity of modus ponens (as a deductive inference) is compatible with the claim that the Uncontested Principle is controversial. In his recent paper "The Uncontested Principle and Modus Ponens", Wonbae Choi criticizes my view again by making the following three claims: First, even though I do not take an inference of the form 'If A then (probably) C. A. $\therefore$ C' as an instance of modus ponens, this form of inference can be taken to be such an instance. Second, there is no grammatical indicator which allows us to distinguish between an indicative conditional based on a deductive inference and an indicative conditional based on an inductive inference, so that inferences based on these conditionals should not be treated as different types of inferences. Third, if we allow an indicative conditional based on an inductive inference, we thereby violate the so-called 'principle of harmony', which any logical concept should preserve. In this paper, I reply that his criticisms are all implausible.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.125-150
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• 2019

A coherence theory is adequate as a theory of justification only when justification as conceived by the theory is truth-conducive. But it is not clear how coherentist justification is truth-conducive. This is the alleged truth-conduciveness problem of coherentism. In my 2017 paper, I argued that a certain version of the coherence theory, namely a Sellarsian coherence theory combined with the deflationary conception of truth, can cope with this problem. Against this claim, Kiyong Suk argues in his recent paper that my proposed solution fails on the grounds that there is no practical way of distinguishing between intersubjective justification and objective justification. The purpose of this paper is to clarify my view by way of explaining why Suk's criticism is not correct. In particular, I argue that his criticism is based on a wrong assumption, namely that for one to be objectively justified in believing something, one's justification must be qualitatively transformed into the status of having objective justification from the status of having intersubjective justification.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.347-375
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• 2012

In my article published in 2008, I offered an inferentialist account of indicative conditionals. In her recent paper, Professor Seawha Kim raises three objections. First, I misunderstand Sellars-Brandom in that I take only concept-constitutive inferences as materially valid inferences. Second, Sellars and Brandom talk about the common features of all kinds of conditionals including counterfactual conditionals, but I construe their view as the analysis of the indicative conditionals only. Third, either my analysis is incompatible with Sellars-Brandom inferentialism or my analysis is too general. In this paper I argue that Seawha Kim's objections are all based on insufficient understandings of Sellars's and Brandom's views. First, it is Sellars's view that materially valid inferences are restricted within concept-constitutive inferences. Second, neither Sellars nor Brandom proposes a specific theory about the indicative conditional. Instead, they argue for the expressive role of the conditional. What I accept from their views is this expressive role of the conditional. The detailed proposals about the indicative conditional in my aforementioned article are my own. Third, the differences among conditionals have no direct bearing on Sellars-Brandom inferentialism. In addition, the meaning and role of the conditional expression 'if-then' do not require more than what I have argued for it.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.217-241
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• 2015

Brandom upholds the anaphoric theory of reference. On this theory, reference is a relation of anaphoric dependence between linguistic items rather than a substantial relation between linguistic items and non-linguistic objects. In addition, 'refers' is a pronoun-forming operator, which is used to form anaphorically indirect descriptions such as 'the one referred to as "Leibniz"'. Recently, Arbid $B{\aa}ve$ raises three objections against this theory. First, the anaphoric theory distinguishes between ordinary descriptions and anaphorically indirect descriptions in terms of iterability. But this condition is not an adequate ground for asserting that anaphorically indirect descriptions form a distinctive semantic category. Second, sentences containing a pronoun such as 'he' and sentences containing an anaphorically indirect description such as 'the one referred to as "Leibniz"' have different modal statuses. Consequently, indirect descriptions are semantically different from paradigmatic anaphors. Third, on the anaphoric theory, expressions of the form 'a' and the corresponding indirect descriptions of the form 'the one referred to as "a"' are intersubstitutable. But we can make an equivalent claim by using the more general semantic concepts such as equivalence and intersubstitutability, instead of using notions such as 'anaphor' and 'antecedent'. So the anaphoric theory is explanatorily idle. In this paper I argue that these objections do not pose a serious problem for the anaphoric theory of reference. I argue thereby that the anaphoric theory of reference is a promising theory which provides us with the right understanding of the expression 'refers'.