Local or Global Logical Revision: On “What the Problem of Adoption Does Not Show” by Camillo Fiore

Abstract

The Adoption Problem (AP) was a postponed issue for some years (Kripke, 2024; Padró, 2015; Birman, 2024). This problem highlights certain difficulties surrounding the adoption of rules of inference: If anti-exceptionalism is wrong, is it possible to adopt an alternative logic? What is the point of the revision of logic in epistemology?
During 2022 Kripke, Padró and Barrio held seminars on AP. The latter two edited the first thematic section on this subject in the journal Análisis Filosófico. It contains “What the Adoption Problem Does Not Show” by Camilo Fiore, subject of this critical note, in which Fiore holds two theses: 1) AP is compatible with the thesis that logica utens is revisable; 2) to assess whether an agent can revise their logic, it is best to consider a different definition of adoption, e.g. weak adoption, according to which Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens are sometimes adoptable. It then states that (1) and (2) are independent.
In this article I will criticize the independence between (1) and (2). To this end, I will point out that thesis (1) and (2) are supported by the examples of Carrie and Barry, respectively, and that the type of logical revision involved in both is the same and local. Therefore, (1) and (2) are not independent. Next, I argue that it is impossible to satisfy another kind of logical revision, e.g. global revision. Therefore, the interdependence between (1) and (2) is not due to the examples proposed.