Anti-Exceptionalism About Logic and the Regress Problem

<title>Abstract</title> <p>Anti-exceptionalism about logic holds that logic is continuous with the sciences—logical theories are not a priori, not analytically true, and not unrevisable. Methodological anti-exceptionalism specifies that theory choice in logic proceeds by abductive criteria: simplicity, strength, and fit with data. We argue that anti-exceptionalism faces a regress problem in cases of fundamental logical disagreement. When two logical theories disagree about a basic principle, the abductive criteria used to adjudicate between them are theory-laden—what counts as simpler or stronger depends on the logical background. The meta-logic used to evaluate arguments for each object-logic is itself logically contested. This structure is identical to the problem of the criterion in epistemology, where any criterion of knowledge is itself subject to epistemological evaluation. We show that the standard responses to the problem of the criterion—particularism, methodism, and scepticism—fail when transposed to logic, and that the anti-exceptionalist cannot escape the regress through meta-abduction, appeal to common ground, or quietism. The conclusion is not that anti-exceptionalism is false, but that it faces a specific, unresolved structural challenge that constrains its methodological ambitions.</p>