Logical Conventionalism

Abstract

This chapter argues that logical truth, validity, and necessity in any language can be fully explained in terms of the language’s linguistic conventions. More particularly, it is demonstrated that unrestricted logical inferentialism is a version of logical conventionalism by arguing for conventionalism in detail and answering various objections involving the role of metasemantic principles and semantic completeness in the conventionalist argument. The chapter then discusses how this account relates to the deflationist accounts offered by Field and others, before turning to the metaphysics and normativity of logic, which it discusses on conventionalist grounds. Overall, this chapter shows that conventionalism leads to a naturalistically acceptable and philosophically plausible theory of logic.