JC Beall

Jc Beall is an American philosopher, currently the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at University of Connecticut, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tasmania.

Beall is best known in philosophy for contributions to philosophical logic (particularly non-classical logic) and to the philosophy of logic. Beall, together with Greg Restall (a Melbourne logician and philosopher), was a pioneer of a widely discussed version of logical pluralism, according to which any given natural language has not one but many relations of logical consequence (not one but many logics). Beall is also widely known for advocating a glut-theoretic theory (see: dialetheism) of deflationary truth (Spandrels of Truth (2009)). He is the chief advocate for a very conservative glut-theoretic theory of language: namely, that only the so-called semantic predicates (e.g., truth) bring about gluts (true claims that are also false).

Beall’s post-2013 views advocate a gluts-and-gaps theory of language, advocating not only the possibility of gluts but also gaps (untrue claims that are not false). Against the standard no-gap tradition in glut theory (most famous in the philosopher Graham Priest’s work) Beall advocated a gluts-and-gaps theory of language (‘Transparent Disquotationalism, 2005 ), but eventually rejected that approach in 2009 (for reasons Beall gives in Chapter 5 of Spandrels of Truth). The post-2013 work reflects a drive towards a more balanced gluts-and-gaps philosophical view.

The latest (post-2013) work draws a stark line between logic, as a fundamental closure relation on true theories, and theories of good reasoning or rational acceptance-rejection behaviour. (In this respect, Beall’s views are in line with those of American philosopher Gilbert Harman.) Beall’s current views use the distinction between logic and acceptance-rejection behaviour (or, as Harman calls it, change-in-view behaviour) to explain how logic itself may be very weak while much of our theorizing — and theories in general — exhibit a classical-logic-like appearance. (See especially Beall’s ‘Free of Detachment’ paper in the journal Nous, a paper that was selected by The Philosopher’s Annual as one of the best papers in Analytic Philosophy for the year 2013.)