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I was reading an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about Hans Reichenbach 1, and I have a specific question about it that I would like to ask. There, it is said that:

Reichenbach was quite explicit that logic is not empirical. “The rules of logic cannot be affected by physical experience.” (p. 102). His logic with Indeterminate as a value of propositions is the same as logic with “not empirically meaningful” as a value. In Reichenbach's view that is the logic, as it were, with or without quantum mechanics.

However in an article by Wesley Salmon called "Carnap, Hempel and Reichenbach on Scientific Realism", he appears to indicate that Reichenbach did propose that logic was empirical through logical empiricism since the article begins this way:

"Carnap, Hempel, and Reichenbach, the three leading figures in the movement of logical empiricism, were born in Germany"

Does this mean that Reichenbach eventually changed his opinion and considered that logic was empirical?

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  • No. It means they were empiricists except for logic. – Clyde Frog May 22 at 13:46
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    Logical empiricism does not mean to assert that logic is empirical. The philosophical movement was called Logical Empiricism because it aimed at a modern form of Empiricism that used modern mathematical logic as a tool to analyze philosophical problems. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA May 22 at 13:59
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Logical empiricism was a movement in philosophy that started with Reichenbach and some friends in Vienna in the 1920s. The adjective "logical" was a reference to the new formal logic developed Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Ramsey, etc. Not to the idea that logic is empirical. Read more https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-empiricism/

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