Understanding each other across the divide

Shutting down an argument by saying, “It’s only logical!” is often no more than a highly subjective opinion disguised as logic, argues philosopher Patrick Girard.

In his latest book A Logician’s Code of Conduct, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press (July 2026), the associate professor of philosophy at the University of Auckland wonders what would happen if instead, we used logic (the study of patterns of reasoning) as a tool for understanding how other people reason.

His book examines how the language of logic is often used to shut down disagreement, and how to avoid doing that.

When someone says an opposing view is “not logical”, Girard says, it’s often less about formal logic than about dismissing the person making the argument.

“Used this way, logic can become a test of who is considered a reasonable thinker.”

He says a criticism of logic, made for decades by feminist, queer and post-colonial theorists, is that supposedly ‘neutral’ standards of reasoning can exclude people whose experiences or worldviews do not fit them.

“Think of how women have traditionally been associated with emotion rather than reason, or how people of colour have been denied the status of human beings, let alone that of people who know things. They have knowledge, but we don't recognise it.”

Rather than defending logic against that criticism, Girard asks how it can be put to better use.

“The book is about using logic to become a better communicator, and more importantly, a better listener,” he says.

His proposed ‘code of conduct’ is based on two principles: Be honest about the logical assumptions behind your claims, and only appeal to negotiated standards suited to the enquiry.

“What the code asks, in the end, is that we treat each other as coherent reasoners.”

He says this approach is just as useful for ordinary disagreements as it is for more esoteric academic debates.

Girard believes the idea, expressed in Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope, that the world is suffering from an “empathy deficit,” and that all we have to do is 'walk awhile in each others’ shoes to understand each other', is too challenging for most of us.

"Empathy asks you to understand what it would feel like to be someone whose life is nothing like yours. That's a lot to ask, and you might end up stealing their shoes instead of stepping into them. Logic asks for less: Work out what the other person is saying, and see how it holds together.”

Then try suspending your judgement of what people believe and pay attention to how they organise their lives around it, Girard suggests.

One of the book’s central examples is the controversial Peter Ellis case, which brought tikanga Māori into New Zealand common law.

Girard examines it as “an encounter between worldviews".

In 1993, Peter Ellis, a childcare worker at Christchurch’s Civic Crèche, was convicted of sexual offending against seven children. He maintained his innocence and spent about seven years in prison, dying in 2019 while his final appeal to the Supreme Court was still pending.

The appeal went ahead anyway, in part because of what tikanga Māori says about the continuing importance of relationships and restoring mana after death. In 2022, the Court ultimately quashed all of Ellis’s remaining convictions, citing a substantial miscarriage of justice.
 

For Girard, the case shows how two different ways of reasoning, one based on rules, the other on relationships, can meet without one having to displace the other.

“Common law asks one set of questions, while tikanga brings a different understanding of relationships, responsibility and what remains at stake after death.”

And he believes logic can work in the same way.

“Not by insisting on a single universal standard of reasoning, but by helping us understand how another person’s position makes sense on its own terms,” he says.

In this way, he says, disagreement doesn’t always require one side to abandon its way of reasoning.

The book grew in part from a colleague wondering why he was “bringing politics” into the equation, he says.

“Which made me think about who logic is for, and who gets to decide what counts as reasonable argument. In this divided world, I think we need to do a better job of understanding each other. My book shows how logic can be ‘rehabilitated’ to create communication across divides,” he says.

A Logician’s Code of Conduct is aimed at a general reader who wants to navigate difficult disagreements, as well as academics working across logic, philosophy and critical theory.

It’s now available online and in print.