Exhuming the criticism of the logicist

McDermott has recently explained his fundamental philosophical shift on the methodology of artificial intelligence (AI) and has further suggested that the shift is both necessary and inevitable. The shift results from a perception that a trend towards overformalisation has detached the real problems from the research results. McDermott's criticism is an enlightened exhumation of the criticisms of the seventies and explains new ways in which the logical methodology can be abused. I argue that McDermott's criticism should not discourage the use of logic, but force a timely reexamination of its fundamental role in AI.