Abstract

There seems to be something mysterious about applications of for- mal systems, including those of logic, to empirical reality 1 . If logic is to be applied to empirical situations, like those described in an ordinary lan- guage, then { it seems to some people { its statements cannot be necessary, or analytic, propositions. However, they are both applicable and necessary. This supposed puzzle constitutes a signicant part of the problem of philo- sophical foundations of logic 2 . To this mind of the present writer, there is no mystery of applications, since any empirical, or even ostensive, predicate can be involved in cer- tain meaning postulates, e.g. \No red is green", which are both empirical and necessary propositions; empirical as they involve ostensibly dened predicated; necessary, as it is enough to know their meaning to state, their validity. The case of logical theorems can be considered at the same footing, logical constants being treated as dened ostensively. Nevertheless, not an individual state of mind but the actual state of scholarly discussions makes something a problem; in the present state of foundational discussions on logic, the \mystery of applications" preserves its vitality, hence any new way of dealing with it proves welcome