A Counterfactual Analysis of the Concepts of Logical Truth and Necessity

Philosophical Studies 125 (3):277-303 (2005)
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Abstract

This paper analyzes the logical truths as (very roughly) those truths that would still have been true under a certain range of counterfactual perturbations.What’s nice is that the relevant range is characterized without relying (overtly, at least) upon the notion of logical truth. This approach suggests a conception of necessity that explains what the different varieties of necessity (logical, physical, etc.) have in common, in virtue of which they are all varieties of necessity. However, this approach places the counterfactual conditionals in an unfamiliar foundational role.

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Marc Lange
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Citations of this work

Invariance as a basis for necessity and laws.Gila Sher - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 178 (12):3945-3974.
The extent of metaphysical necessity.Daniel Nolan - 2011 - Philosophical Perspectives 25 (1):313-339.
Counterfactuals and the analysis of necessity.Boris Kment - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):237–302.
Relativity in a Fundamentally Absolute World.Jack Spencer - 2022 - Philosophical Perspectives 36 (1):305-328.

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References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Two Dogmas of Empiricism.W. Quine - 1951 - [Longmans, Green].
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1965 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
From a Logical Point of View.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1953 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Logical foundations of probability.Rudolf Carnap - 1950 - Chicago]: Chicago University of Chicago Press.

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