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Full Idea
If logic is to proceed mediately from conventions, logic is needed for inferring logic from the conventions. Conventions for adopting logical primitives can only be communicated by free use of those very idioms.
Gist of Idea
Logic isn't conventional, because logic is needed to infer logic from conventions
Source
Willard Quine (Truth by Convention [1935], p.104)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.104
A Reaction
A common pattern of modern argument, which always seems to imply that nothing can ever get off the ground. I suspect that there are far more benign circles in the world of thought than most philosophers imagine.
| 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] |