Abstract: Logic and Rationality; Disagreement and Evidence – Greg Restall

The resurgence of fact talk in political and public discourse — primarily seen in the rise of so-called “fact-checking” websites—is welcome phenomenon, but what does it signify, and why should we welcome it? I’ll attempt to explain how care and attention to talk of facts and reasons can play a vital role in our public discourse, even in the midst of significant differences in matters of public policy or private opinion.

Greg Restall is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland in 1994, and has held positions at the Australian National University and Macquarie University, before moving to Melbourne in 2002. His research focuses on formal logic, philosophy of logic, metaphysics, and philosophy of language, and even some philosophy of religion. He has published over 80 papers in journals and collections, and is the author of three books, An Introduction to Substructural Logics (Routledge, 2000), Logic (Routledge, 2006), and Logical Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2006; with Jc Beall). His research has been funded by the Australian Research Council, and he is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.