Author Date

2025-12-15

Degree Name

Department

Mathematics

College

Computational, Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Defense Date

2026-03-20

Publication Date

2026-05-27

First Faculty Advisor

Taylor-Grey Miller

Second Faculty Advisor

Derek Haderlie

Second Faculty Reader

Derek Haderlie

Honors Coordinator

Ryan Christensen

Keywords

Metalogic, Epistemology, Clutter, Harman, Triviality

Abstract

Gilbert Harman (1986) argues that we ought not believe some logical consequences of our beliefs. To do this, he uses the Clutter Principle—that we should not clutter our minds with trivialities—and claims that some logical consequences are in some sense trivial. I show that interpreting Harman’s argument using an interest-driven sense of triviality (e.g. what Friedman calls junk) conflicts with a plausible epistemic norm. In light of this, epistemologists have turned the Clutter Principle into a norm on inquiry. This, however, loses the strength of the Clutter Principle in Harman’s argument. In this paper, I provide an alternate sense of triviality that clarifies and defends Harman’s argument. This sense of triviality is roughly that it is the novelty of information that new logical consequences provide us with that determines whether something is trivial.