The accident of logical constants
Citations Over Time
Abstract
Work on the nature and scope of formal logic has focused unduly on the distinction between logical and extra-logical vocabulary; which argument forms a logical theory countenances depends not only on its stock of logical terms, but also on its range of grammatical categories and modes of composition. Furthermore, there is a sense in which logical terms are unnecessary. Alexandra Zinke has recently pointed out that propositional logic can be done without logical terms. By defining a logical-term-free language with the full expressive power of first-order logic with identity, I show that this is true of logic more generally. Furthermore, having, in a logical theory, non-trivial valid forms that do not involve logical terms is not merely a technical possibility. As the case of adverbs shows, issues about the range of argument forms logic should countenance can quite naturally arise in such a way that they do not turn on whether we countenance certain terms as logical.
Related Papers
- Formality in Logic: From Logical Terms to Semantic Constraints(2014)
- → Metalogical properties, being logical and being formal(2004)4 cited
- Reanalysis of the Truth Conditions of Logical Truth:in response to comrade Meixiang(2010)
- → Logical Form and Syntactic Structure(2018)
- → Logical Form, Truth Conditions, and Adequate Formalization(2020)