Abstract

The overgeneration argument attempts to show that accepting second-order validity as a sound formal counterpart of logical truth has the unacceptable consequence that the Continuum Hypothesis is either a logical truth or a logical falsehood. The argument was presented and vigorously defended in John Etchemendy’s The Concept of Logical Consequence and it has many proponents to this day. Yet it is nothing but a seductive fallacy. I demonstrate this by considering five versions of the argument; as I show, each is either unsound or lacks a troubling conclusion