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Full Idea
When a convention is incapable of being communicated until after its adoption, its role is not clear.
Gist of Idea
If a convention cannot be communicated until after its adoption, what is its role?
Source
Willard Quine (Truth by Convention [1935], p.106)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.106
A Reaction
Quine is discussing the basis of logic, but the point applies to morality - that if there is said to be a convention at work, the concepts of morality must already exist to get the conventional framework off the ground. What is it that comes first?
| 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] |