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Full Idea
Those laws and those laws only have necessary truth which we are prepared to maintain, no matter what.
Gist of Idea
Necessary truths are those we will maintain no matter what
Source
C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.367)
Book Ref
Peirce,James,Dewey etc: 'Pragmatism - The Classic Writings', ed/tr. Thayer,H.S. [Hackett 1982], p.367
A Reaction
This bold and simple claim has famously been torpedoed by a well-known counterexample - that virtually every human being will cling on to the proposition "dogs have at some time existed" no matter what, but it clearly isn't a necessary truth.
| 9357 | Excluded middle is just our preference for a simplified dichotomy in experience [Lewis,CI] |
| 9358 | There are several logics, none of which will ever derive falsehoods from truth [Lewis,CI] |
| 9361 | We have to separate the mathematical from physical phenomena by abstraction [Lewis,CI] |
| 9362 | Necessary truths are those we will maintain no matter what [Lewis,CI] |
| 9364 | Names represent a uniformity in experience, or they name nothing [Lewis,CI] |
| 9363 | Science seeks classification which will discover laws, essences, and predictions [Lewis,CI] |
| 9365 | We can maintain a priori principles come what may, but we can also change them [Lewis,CI] |