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Full Idea
In trying to make sense of the role of convention in a priori knowledge, the very distinction between a priori and empirical begins to waver and dissolve.
Gist of Idea
Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge
Source
Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], VI)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Ways of Paradox and other essays' [Harvard 1976], p.122
A Reaction
This is the next stage in the argument after Wittgenstein presents the apriori as nothing more than what arises from truth tables. The rationalists react by taking us back to the original 'natural light of reason' view. Then we go round again...
| 13829 | If logical truths essentially depend on logical constants, we had better define the latter [Hacking on Quine] |
| 13010 | In order to select the logic justified by experience, we would need to use a lot of logic [Boghossian on Quine] |
| 9001 | Frege moved Kant's question about a priori synthetic to 'how is logical certainty possible?' [Quine] |
| 9002 | Elementary logic requires truth-functions, quantifiers (and variables), identity, and also sets of variables [Quine] |
| 9003 | Set theory was struggling with higher infinities, when new paradoxes made it baffling [Quine] |
| 9004 | If set theory is not actually a branch of logic, then Frege's derivation of arithmetic would not be from logic [Quine] |
| 13681 | Logical consequence is marked by being preserved under all nonlogical substitutions [Quine, by Sider] |
| 9005 | Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge [Quine] |
| 9006 | Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping [Quine] |