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<p>In her 1990 book, Andrea Nye famously called for the abolition of logic, citing feminist reasons. I offer a reinterpretation of her position in contemporary terms, as ‘tradition-rejection anti-exceptionalism’ about logic, i.e., a variant of logical anti-exceptionalism that puts into question the exceptional properties of logic, such as topic-neutrality and self-evidence. This move, I argue, makes Nye’s account more inviting. Further, I claim that most of Nye’s points are supported by insights from contemporary feminist research in metaphysics and epistemology. I thus propose that we adopt a feminist radical anti-exceptionalism about logic. Like Nye, we should direct our attention to the feminist critique of logic as a scientific/philosophical discipline, not just logic as a formal system. Tied to this, it is also important, I argue, that we don’t define feminist logic only in terms of “feminist topics”. Finally, I show that accounts of logic (mostly) in line with the proposed view can already be found in logical abductivist literature – so we needn’t abolish logic after all.</p>

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A radical anti-exceptionalism about logic, for feminist reasons

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月4日

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  • Ivan Restović

摘要

In her 1990 book, Andrea Nye famously called for the abolition of logic, citing feminist reasons. I offer a reinterpretation of her position in contemporary terms, as ‘tradition-rejection anti-exceptionalism’ about logic, i.e., a variant of logical anti-exceptionalism that puts into question the exceptional properties of logic, such as topic-neutrality and self-evidence. This move, I argue, makes Nye’s account more inviting. Further, I claim that most of Nye’s points are supported by insights from contemporary feminist research in metaphysics and epistemology. I thus propose that we adopt a feminist radical anti-exceptionalism about logic. Like Nye, we should direct our attention to the feminist critique of logic as a scientific/philosophical discipline, not just logic as a formal system. Tied to this, it is also important, I argue, that we don’t define feminist logic only in terms of “feminist topics”. Finally, I show that accounts of logic (mostly) in line with the proposed view can already be found in logical abductivist literature – so we needn’t abolish logic after all.