Book Review of Jody Azzounis Tracking Reason Essay -- Azzouni

Jody Azzouni, Tracking ReasonIn many ways, Tracking Reason resembles Jody Azzounis previous book,Deflating Existential Consequence. The subject effect of each lies at the interfaceof metaphysics, system of logic, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy oflanguage. The style is both entertaining and clear. The positions argued for ar so controversial as to sound almost insane. And save the arguments providedare illuminating, and manage to make the positions seem almost like commonsense. Both books are worth recital both for specialists and those interestedin a clarifying (if idiosyncratic) take on these issues.In the previous book, Azzouni argued for a type of fictionalism about mathematics.But rather than following Hartry Field in denying the indispensabilityof mathematics, he simply argues that the indispensability of a form of discourse(and even the truth of existentially quantified sentences) is not a sign of ontologicalcommitment. This position helps motivate some of the pos itions in thecurrent book, but I think it isnt necessary.Tracking Reason advances several separate, but related positions in its tripleparts. However, for some reason the caption has them in the wrong order -Part I argues for a special deflationary account of truth (and deals at lengthwith the semantics and regimentation of natural language) Part II argues thatthe role of mathematical proof is to indicate a derivation in some mechanicaldeduction system and Part III argues that these two positions are (despiteappearances) compatible with a non-syntactic view of consequence as a type oftruth-preservation. Parts I and II are relatively independent, and I think moveprofitably be say on their own. Part III depends mo... ...f semantics (topological and Kripke) that are sound andcomplete for S4 modal logic. The fact that we only know of one semanticsfor propositional logic has misled us into thinking that its models are moresignificant than they really are.As I mentioned earlier, this book is modular enough that it may be worth indication parts of this book independently of the whole thing. Although Azzounisays that much of the material of the nine chapters of this book derives from ten3papers (cited in the introduction to each of the three parts), they seem to havebeen edited and unified enough that a reader interested in just one topic mayprefer to read the relevant Part (I or II) of this book rather than the separatepapers that it is based on. But for anyone interested in the relationships betweentruth, proof, and consequence, I recommend reading the entire thing.