more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Quine argues that logic could not be established by conventions, since the logical truths, being infinite in number, must be given by general conventions rather than singly; and logic is needed in the meta-theory, to apply to individual cases.
Gist of Idea
Logic needs general conventions, but that needs logic to apply them to individual cases
Source
report of Willard Quine (Truth by Convention [1935]) by Georges Rey - The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction 3.4
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.7
A Reaction
A helpful insight into Quine's claim. If only someone would print these one sentence summaries at the top of classic papers, we would all get far more out of them at first reading. Assuming Rey is right!
| 13251 | Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax [Carnap] |
| 18709 | Laws of logic are like laws of chess - if you change them, it's just a different game [Wittgenstein] |
| 12394 | If the result is bad, we change the rule; if we like the rule, we reject the result [Goodman] |
| 20296 | Logic needs general conventions, but that needs logic to apply them to individual cases [Quine, by Rey] |
| 8998 | Claims that logic and mathematics are conventional are either empty, uninteresting, or false [Quine] |
| 8999 | Logic isn't conventional, because logic is needed to infer logic from conventions [Quine] |
| 9000 | If a convention cannot be communicated until after its adoption, what is its role? [Quine] |
| 19289 | Maybe conventionalism applies to meaning, but not to the truth of propositions expressed [Hale] |