I think the ability to see what is entailed by propositions and situations must be an intuitive capacity; entailment is simply knowable a priori and cannot be analyzed further. — John

That's a fascinating take. Why do you say that?

For example, "It claims states of constraint"--I'm not sure what "It" is given the way you've constructed your sentences. — Terrapin Station

"It" is "entailment", of course. And the construction of the sentences indeed entails that interpretation on any reasonable view.

"Entailment" is the subject of the first sentence. So under normal grammatical conventions, the use of the pronoun "it" continues to refer to "entailment" unless some other information is introduced.

Your reading has already been epistemically constrained by the mention of "entailment" and so the meaning of "it" is logically entailed - even if, as you point out, what could stop and protest that your understanding of "it" is not absolutely constrained. There remains still a possibility of uncertainty.

Thus you illustrate my points nicely. Even if that is the last thing you want to do.

I just can't follow you most of the time. — Terrapin Station

But that's not because I'm a poor writer. It's because you never seem to put much effort into understanding things before you tap out your replies.

I think insight is required to see entailment. It can't be just be a matter of following rules, because, for a rule to be usable, we must be able to see how to follow it, which would entail either insight or further rules about how to follow it. The latter would lead to an infinite regress, so I conclude there must be sheer insight (intuition) at work in all our thought.

I think it follows that insight is intrinsic to both analysis and synthesis. In the former we intuit how things may be broken down into parts and in the latter we can intuit how elements not obviously related to one another may possibly be related.

Insight, or rhetorical reason, which precedes the argument that entails. Like a skill that one acquires which enables identification of entailment.

Are you saying that insight is required in order to construct arguments (structures of entailment)? If so, I would agree; insight is certainly required at least as much to construct arguments as it is to follow them. The former (at least) requires both synthesis and analysis.

A: I said, "I have a dog."

If one knew everything about my dog, one would knoFw all sorts of things about how she relates to aspects of the universe... that she likes tennis balls, that she weighs 15 lbs, how far she is from Neptune, and so on. These are truths entailed by A. Is that right?

That's sort of making use of Leibniz's complete individual concept.

Your question about the dog lead me off in another direction (for a minute).

Do you think there are other types of entailment besides logical? I think entailment works within a Hegelian dialectic. A dialectical movement which preserves and negates both premises and in doing so generates a synthesis which is negatively determined. I guess what is entailed must be part of the synthesis.

Hegel dialectic has three moments:
1) understanding of the subject, its definition, what it means.
2) It cancels, negates and preserves 1) in a moment of self-sublation
3) the moment in which a new unity is grasped, the synthesis.

I also thought about entailment that might be involved in genealogical arguments, but these arguments are, it seems to me, to me more speculative reconstructions of history, which offer alternate explanations and suggest new possibilities. I not sure but don't think anything like logical or dialectical entailments are involved.

Well, I suppose one could identify entailment (say, as a recognizable pattern, possibility, or state of affairs) regardless of insight on what entails or why. An ability to identify the relation is sufficient.

Recognition of patterns equals intuition, no?

"It" is "entailment", of course. And the construction of the sentences indeed entails that interpretation on any reasonable view. — apokrisis

But entailment isn't something that can make claims about anything.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting for you to write any differently than you do. I'm just letting you know that your writing is often impenetrable for me.

I don't know if I agree with it in general. I am dubious about words like 'anchoring'. But in this case it seems an OK question, the answer to which, I think, is that it is anchored in our nature: we are programmed by evolution to be inclined to follow the rules of the logic game. — andrewk

Witty didn't use the word "anchoring" when he noted that rule following can't go on forever. Logical positivists sought to externalize it. Quine showed that we can't externalize it. It's apriori.

And you're committing the Evolution fallacy: "Evolution explains p" while p is used to explain evolution.

Do you think there are other types of entailment besides logical? I think entailment works within a Hegelian dialectic. A dialectical movement which preserves and negates both premises and in doing so generates a synthesis which is negatively determined. I guess what is entailed must be part of the synthesis.

Hegel dialectic has three moments:
1) understanding of the subject, its definition, what it means.
2) It cancels, negates and preserves 1) in a moment of self-sublation
3) the moment in which a new unity is grasped, the synthesis. — Cavacava

This is kind of trippy. The object of entailment isn't a proposition here. It's a pending comprehension of the dependence of the subject?

May be off track from your thoughts here, but I see a trail here leading to the object of entailment in all cases being Everything. That's also happening with my use of Leibniz's CIC to explain entailment.. and it's also the reason entailment is not a useful concept for describing truthmaking... every thing ends up being a truthmaker for every truth-bearer.

I also thought about entailment that might be involved in genealogical arguments, but these arguments are, it seems to me, to me more speculative reconstructions of history, which offer alternate explanations and suggest new possibilities. I not sure but don't think anything like logical or dialectical entailments are involved. — Cavacava

I happen to be reading Geneology of Morals right now. Ha!

I think it follows that insight is intrinsic to both analysis and synthesis. In the former we intuit how things may be broken down into parts and in the latter we can intuit how elements not obviously related to one another may possibly be related. — John

Yeah... the very concept of entailment (that things are related) has to be apriori knowledge.

I don't know whether the ability to recognise something requires intuition or insight. To intuit, or see, are modes of perception, and what sets the intentional features of the entailment relation that you intuit might just be the present brute reality of the relation. For example, a sea urchin hardly intuits anything (it has no brain), yet acts as if it would intuit the entailment of present predators (e.g. scoops up gravel to hide).

And you're committing the Evolution fallacy: "Evolution explains p" while p is used to explain evolution. — Mongrel

No.

Evolution explains q, while p explains evolution.

q is the proposition 'Humans can't help but use logic'
p is 'Logic'

p=/= q

I don't think there's any need for me to walk you through what you actually said.

Of course not. A courteous retraction of the 'fallacy' accusation would be perfectly sufficient.

Too busy to think it through then, huh? OK.

I would say that since the sea urchin is a living creature it perceives, which is the same as to say intuits, patterns, however minimally.

Also, there is a distinction between cognition and re-cognition. Although it might also be said that cognition must always already involve recognition. In any case recognition is not merely the registering of a pattern, but the knowing of that pattern as being the same as or alike to another. Such a thing obviously cannot be rationally deduced, so I conclude that it must be intuited.

Agreed. :)

Are you only claiming that evolution explains why people use logic, or are you claiming that evolution explains the form that logic itself takes?

Hooray, a polite interlocutor! Excellent, and a good day to you John!

To your question: it is the former I was thinking of. Now that you mention it, I think that evolution may possibly also have a role in the type of logic we mostly tend to use - eg a preference for including double-negative elimination in our rules rather than restricting ourselves to constructivist logic, but I am less sure of that.

Also, there is a distinction between cognition and re-cognition. Although it might also be said that cognition must always already involve recognition. In any case recognition is not merely the registering of a pattern, but the knowing of that pattern as being the same as or alike to another. Such a thing obviously cannot be rationally deduced, so I conclude that it must be intuited. — John

Pattern recognition or pattern matching is more evolutionarily basic than cognition or deduction. And it follows from inductive learning. That is Hebbian association or Bayesian prediction.

You don't even have to think to recognise. It works at the level of habit.

So intuition would be what Peirceans would call abduction - the flash of insight which counts as inference to the best explanation. It is being able suddenly to see how a deductive account could supply the correct explanation. So rather than working it out step by step, the whole of the answer can be seen as if retrospectively.

And yes, that is an advanced form of recognition or pattern matching. Studies of creative thought show how we can juggle ideas about until they suddenly snap into place - finding a suitable fit with a schema or conceptual structure already in use for something else.

So we can recognise "this current problem" as a variant of "that old familiar problem". But it is the deductive structure we recognise as having a probable fit - so rather abstract features and relations, rather than concrete details, like the feathers, beak and tail that allow us to categorise a bird as a bird in a flash of pattern matching.

Now that you mention it, I think that evolution may possibly also have a role in the type of logic we mostly tend to use - eg a preference for including double-negative elimination in our rules rather than restricting ourselves to constructivist logic, but I am less sure of that. — andrewk

Strewth. If formal logic arose within the gene pool of ancient Greece, how on earth did all of us without Mediterranean bloodlines manage to master it? Incredibly speedy convergent evolution?

Yes, I agree with you that we can recognize abstract formal patterns as well as material formal patterns. And I do think you are right in the sense you put it that recognition is more basic than cognition. It does seem kind of strange to say that, though, since re-cognition seems to mean 'cognition again'.

Thanks Andrew, I don't have a ready response to your conjecture here; I'll need to think about it more. Or perhaps it would help if you fleshed it out a bit.