Conventional Necessity and the Contingency of Convention

Dialectica 41 (1‐2):79-95 (1987)
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Abstract

SummaryI defend a conventionalist view of logical and mathematical truths against the criticisms of Quine and Stroud. Conventionalism is best formulated by appealing to sense‐conferring rules governing important logical and mathematical expressions. Conventional necessity can be understood as arising from these rules in a way that is immune to Quine's and Stroud's criticisms of the earlier formulation of conventionalism, in which stress was incorrectly laid on axiomatic systems of logic.RésuméJe soutiens, en dépit des critiques de Quine et de Stroud, une conception conventionnaliste des vérités logiques et de vérités mathématiques. La meilleure façon de formuler le conventionnalisme est de faire appel à des règies conférant un sens à?on;importantes expressions logiques et mathématiques. La nécessité conventionnelle peut être comprise comme provenant de ces règies par des voies qui ne donnent pas prise aux critiques de Quine et de Stroud ag ľégard de ľancienne formulation du conventionnalisme, dans laquelle ľaccent était mis, a tort, sur les systèmes axiomatiques de la logique.ZusammenfassungGegen Quines und Strouds Kritiken verteidige ich eine konventionalistische Auffassung der logischen und mathematischer Wahrheiten. Der Konventionalismus wird am besten durch Berufung auf bedeutungsstiftende Regeln, die den Gebrauch wichtiger logischer und mathematischer Ausdrücke bestimmen, formuliert. Konventionelle Notwendigkeit kann als von diesen Regeln hervorgebracht verstanden werden – und das zwar auf eine Art, die sie vor Quines und Strouds Anfechtungen schützen. In der von diesen kritisierten, früheren Fassung wurde zu unrecht das Gewicht auf axiomatische Systeme der Logik gelegt

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Neil Tennant
Ohio State University

Citations of this work

How Tolerant Can You Be? Carnap on Rationality.Florian Steinberger - 2015 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (3):645-668.
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References found in this work

Convention: A Philosophical Study.David Kellogg Lewis - 1969 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
From a Logical Point of View.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1953 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
The ways of paradox, and other essays.Willard Van Orman Quine (ed.) - 1976 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Anti-realism and logic: truth as eternal.Neil Tennant - 1987 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The collected papers of Gerhard Gentzen.Gerhard Gentzen - 1969 - Amsterdam,: North-Holland Pub. Co.. Edited by M. E. Szabo.

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