Abstract

This paper seeks to formulate a novel account of the Adoption Problem in the philosophy of logic, which holds that “certain basic logical principles cannot be adopted because, if a subject already infers with them, no adoption is needed, and if the subject does not infer in accordance with them, no adoption is possible” (Padró 2015, 41–42). I focus on the most prominent argument in favour of this thesis, namely the “Harry Hypothetical” presented by Padró (2015, 2020).
In section 2, I introduce the Adoption Problem in the context of Saul Kripke’s (2022) arguments against logical theory choice, and I present the Harry Hypothetical alongside its common interpretations. In Section 3, I provide a generalization of the Harry Hypothetical, and show exactly how the result of any such hypothetical will depend on one’s theory of reasoning—including, crucially, what one means by “logical inference.” In Section 4, I use the observations from Section 3 to provide a new interpretation of Padró’s argument: I show that there is a fundamental incompatibility between the Inferential Cognitivist account of inference and her account of rational adoption, and that this incompatibility is what makes adoption impossible in the Harry Hypothetical. In Section 5, I conclude that, despite its divergence from Padró’s original intentions, this interpretation of the Harry Hypothetical teaches us an important lesson about logical theory choice, namely the epistemological fundamentality of one’s reasoning practice.