About

Roy T. Cook is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. His research focuses on the philosophy of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, aesthetics of popular art, and 17th-century philosophy. As a faculty member, he contributes to the understanding of these areas through his scholarly work and teaching, engaging with foundational questions in logic and language, as well as exploring aesthetic issues related to popular art and historical philosophical thought.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Machine Learning
• Sociology
• Epistemology
• Philosophy
• Artificial Intelligence
• Chemistry
• Biochemistry
• Linguistics

Selected publications

• A general recipe for classical recapture

  Asian Journal of Philosophy · 2026-02-17

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In this essay, I prove two general recapture theorems (the GRT and the $$\textbf{GRT}^\textsf{Dual}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>GRT</mml:mi> <mml:mi>Dual</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:math> ). Each of these states that any sub-logic of classical logic that is closed under six rules of inference is equivalent, in the relevant sense, to classical logic. After proving in each case that the six rules in question are independent of one another, and exploring a number of possible modifications or extensions of these results, I compare the results to Jc Beall’s recapture results in Beall (2011), Beall (2013a) and Beall (2013b). The GRT (and $$\textbf{GRT}^\textsf{Dual}$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>GRT</mml:mi> <mml:mi>Dual</mml:mi> </mml:msup> </mml:math> ) are shown to be more powerful and general than Beall’s more piecemeal approach.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Crazy Dice, Chance, and Counting Causes

  2025-10-29

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We develop a simple model of the underdetermination of theory by data using “crazy dice” – standardly shaped dice with non-standard labellings – and we use the model to illustrate a number of distinct ways that scientific data (the probability distributions of the dice) can underdetermine our theories of that data (claims about the shapes, labellings, number, and identity of the dice). We conclude by drawing some tentative conclusions regarding what this model has to teach us about the underdetermination of theory by data in general.

  PublisherDOI

• Crazy Dice, Chance, and Counting Causes

  Logica Universalis · 2025-07-24 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract We develop a simple model of the underdetermination of theory by data using “crazy dice” – standardly shaped dice with non-standard labellings – and we use the model to illustrate a number of distinct ways that scientific data (the probability distributions of the dice) can underdetermine our theories of that data (claims about the shapes, labellings, number, and identity of the dice). We conclude by drawing some tentative conclusions regarding what this model has to teach us about the underdetermination of theory by data in general.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• One Language, but Maybe Still Many True Logics?—A Review of <i>One True Logic</i> : <i>A Monist Manifesto</i>

  Analysis · 2025-09-11

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• (What) Is Feminist Logic? (What) Do We Want It to Be?

  History and Philosophy of Logic · 2024-01-02 · 11 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ‘Feminist logic’ may sound like an impossible, incoherent, or irrelevant project, but it is none of these. We begin by delineating three categories into which projects in feminist logic might fall: philosophical logic, philosophy of logic, and pedagogy. We then defuse two distinct objections to the very idea of feminist logic: the irrelevance argument and the independence argument. Having done so, we turn to a particular kind of project in feminist philosophy of logic: Valerie Plumwood's feminist argument for a relevance logic. Plumwood's work serves as our primary case study as we turn to the project of considering three different ways we might understand her argument and revisionist arguments like it: as a priori theorizing, as ameliorative conceptual engineering, or as instances of anti-exceptionalist approaches to logic. After arguing that the anti-exceptionalist approach seems to provide the most promising means of understanding the kind of project undertaken in a feminist challenge to classical logic, we briefly address the consequences that this might have for logic instruction. Here, we argue for the perhaps unexpected conclusion that feminist programs ought to offer more, not less, instruction in logic for those who take interest.

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• The Contradictory Clown Prince of Crime

  2024-09-06

  otherOpen access1st authorCorresponding
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• The Logic of Potential Infinity

  Philosophia Mathematica · 2024-11-10

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Michael Dummett argues that acceptance of potentially infinite collections requires that we abandon classical logic and restrict ourselves to intuitionistic logic. In this paper we examine whether Dummett is correct. After developing two detailed accounts of what, exactly, it means for a concept to be potentially infinite (based on ideas due to Charles McCarty and Øystein Linnebo, respectively), we construct a Kripke structure that contains a natural number structure that satisfies both accounts. This model supports a logic much stronger than intuitionistic logic, demonstrating that Dummett was wrong. We conclude by briefly examining ways to extend the account(s) in question to indefinitely extensible concepts such as Cardinal, Ordinal, and Set.

  PublisherDOI

• Abstraction and Modest Reflection

  Synthese Library/Synthese library · 2024-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Perspectival Logical Pluralism

  Res Philosophica · 2023 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Sociology
  • Epistemology

  Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one formal logic that correctly (or best, or legitimately) codifies the logical consequence relation in natural language. This essay provides a taxonomy of different variations on the logical pluralist theme based on a five-part structure, and then identifies an unoccupied position in this taxonomy: perspectival logical pluralism. Perspectival pluralism provides an attractive position from which to formulate a philosophy of logic from a feminist perspective (and from other, identity-based perspectives, such as critical race theory). An example of how such an account might be developed is sketched. The essay concludes by defusing an obvious objection to the perspectival approach: the claim that the correct logic (or logics), in virtue of the formal nature of logic, should be independent of considerations regarding the identity of the reasoner.

  PublisherDOI

• Logic in the second half of the twentieth century

  2023-03-24

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  By the end of the first half of the twentieth century, logic had become a mature philosophical and mathematical discipline. As happens in mature disciplines, in the second half of the twentieth century logicians developed subspecialties and narrow research programmes and, as a result, extended both in depth and in subtlety the analyses of logic that began in the first half of the century (see Logic in the early twentieth century). Topics that were of central importance during the first half of the twentieth century, including first-versus higher-order logic, the foundations of set theory, and Gödelian-style incompleteness results, continued to play an important role in the latter decades of the century (see Second and higher-order logics; Second-order logic, Philosophical issues in; Set theory; Gödel’s theorems). But important new strands of research emerged as well. One such new approach was inspired by broadening the sorts of questions raised by the classic independence results proven by Gödel and others in the early twentieth century. While those results showed that certain principles were insufficient to prove this-or-that proposition, the new Reverse Mathematics focused on determining what principles are necessary in order to prove particular propositions. Another topic of increasing importance was also inspired by Kurt Gödel’s diagonalisation lemma and the centuries-old Liar paradox. As a result, a resurgence of work on the Liar paradox emerged in the second half of the twentieth century (see Semantic paradoxes and theories of truth). This work included both theories of truth that retained classical logic, such as Alfred Tarski’s hierarchy (Tarski 1944) (see Tarski’s definition of truth), and theories of truth that eschewed classical logic in favour of non-classical systems, such as Saul Kripke’s fixed point approach (Kripke 1975). Another area that was ripe for exploration during the later decades of the century involved various ways to extend these formal systems with new resources. The most important such extension was modal logic, which involved supplementing standard logical systems with additional operators for ‘necessarily’ (□) and ‘possibly’ (◇) (see Modal logic; Modal logic, Philosophical issues in). With Kripke’s work on truth demonstrating the potential for applying non-classical logic to puzzles regarding truth, a great deal of attention was also paid to potential applications of non-classical formalisms to other philosophical problems. Notable amongst these are the exploration of non-classical logics that lie between classical logic and intuitionistic logic (the intermediate logics), the use of various non-classical logics to formalise reasoning with vague notions (e.g. ‘is bald’), and the exploration of the idea that the meanings of logical operators might be given in terms of formal proof rules governing their use (which might not lead to a set of rules that recaptures traditional classical logic) (see Vagueness). Finally, near the end of the twentieth century (and continuing into the twenty-first century), these examinations led to a predictable result: logicians have increasingly (though by no means universally) begun to embrace pluralism. This pluralism comes in a variety of forms – see Cook (2010) and Russell (2019) for useful taxonomies – but their central motivation is this: there are a lot of different things that seem to lay equal claim to the title ‘logic’. Mightn’t there be a framework that allows them to all do so?

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Frequent coauthors

• Nicholas Tourville

  Twin Cities Orthopedics

  8 shared

• Philip A. Ebert

  University of Stirling

  8 shared

• Geoffrey Hellman

  Cambridge University Press

  6 shared

• Catharine Saint-Croix

  Twin Cities Orthopedics

  4 shared

• Aaron Meskin

  University of Georgia

  3 shared

• Marcus Rossberg

  2 shared

• Erich H. Reck

  University of California, Riverside

  2 shared

• Jon Cogburn

  Louisiana State University

  2 shared

Awards & honors

• CLA Scholar of the College, July 2015 - July 2018