Abstract

In Reason and Analysis, Prof. Brand Blanshard criticises the logical empiricist view regarding necessary statements, including the laws of logic. He distinguishes four component these of this view: (I) Necessary statements--here, the laws of logic--are resolutions or reports of linguistic usage. (II) They are conventions. (III) They are analytic (tautologies). (IV) They say nothing about the world. In this paper I first show that Prof. Blanshard is essentially right in his criticisms of (I), (II), and (IV); but that he has done nothing to show that (III) is incorrect with regard to the laws of logic. Then, second, I attempt to show that even though (I), (II), and (more importantly) (IV) are false, (III) is true. That is, the laws of logic are tautologies, and yet, in a sense to be distinguished, they say something about the world