more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
If logic and mathematics being true by convention says the primitives can be conventionally described, that works for anything, and is empty; if the conventions are only for those fields, that's uninteresting; if a general practice, that is false.
Gist of Idea
Claims that logic and mathematics are conventional are either empty, uninteresting, or false
Source
Willard Quine (Truth by Convention [1935], p.102)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.102
A Reaction
This is Quine's famous denial of the traditional platonist view, and the new Wittgensteinian conventional view, preparing the ground for a more naturalistic and empirical view. I feel more sympathy with Quine than with the other two.
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] |