Felappi, Giulia. ‘There is no reason for the necessity of the ultimate principles of deduction.’ Margaret Macdonald on logical necessity
2025, The Philosophical Quarterly, pqaf052
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Added by: Viviane Fairbank, Contributed by: Viviane FairbankAbstract:
This paper aims at contributing to the recent enterprise of rediscovering Margaret Macdonald’s views, by focusing on her reflections on the necessity of logic, a theme that runs through many of her papers and reviews. We will see both Macdonald’s negative views about what the necessity of logic is not (Section I), and her positive view about what it is and how it supports her claim that it is in fact irrational to ask for a reason for the necessity of the ultimate principles of deduction, such as the Principle of Contradiction (Section II). To show how her view on the necessity of logic is different from others, such as David Lewis’s, we will then consider what she would reply to current rejectors of the Principle of Contradiction (Section III).Comment: This article provides a useful introduction to Margaret MacDonald's work in the mid-twentieth century on the topic of logical necessity. It goes over several possible accounts of the grounds of logical necessity and clearly articulates MacDonald's objections to them, as well as her own positive view on the matter; the final section places MacDonald's view in a contemporary context. As such, it might relevantly be included in any intermediate/advanced course on the epistemology and metaphysics of logic.
Macdonald, Margaret. The Language of Fiction
1954, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 28 (1):165-196.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: The opening sentence of Jane Austen's novel Emma is a sentence from fiction. Emma is a work in which the author tells a story of characters, places and incidents almost all of which she has invented. I shall mean by " fiction " any similar work. For unless a work is largely, if not wholly, composed of what is invented, it will not correctly be called " fiction ". One which contains nothing imaginary may be history, science, detection, biography, but not fiction. I want to ask some questions about how an author uses words and sentences in fiction. But my interest is logical, not literary. I shall not discuss the style or artistic skill of any storyteller. Mine is the duller task of trying to understand some of the logic of fictional language; to determine the logical character of its expressions. How do they resemble and differ from those in other contexts? What are they understood to convey? Are they, e.g., true or false statements? If so, of or about what are they true or false? If not, what other function do they perform? How are they connected? These are the questions I shall chiefly discuss.
MacDonald, Margaret. Verification and Understanding
1934, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 34(1): 143–156
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Added by: Viviane Fairbank, Contributed by: Viviane FairbankAbstract:
The object of this paper is to discuss one or two points arising out of the view held by certain modern philosophers that the whole meaning of a proposition is given in a set of conditional propositions about the experiences which would verify it. Or, as C. S. Peirce said, that " the rational meaning of every propo- sition lies in the future." And for these philosophers to say that the proposition is true is just to say that if I get into certain situations I do have the prescribed experiences which verify the proposition. A proposition (or arrangement of signs)t which cannot be so verified is either tautological, e.g., the "propositions" of logic and mathematics, or it is just metaphysical nonsense. Our idea of anything is our idea of its sensible effects, and if we fancy we have any other we are deceiving ourselves with empty.... Now it may be true that the scientist does tend to identify what he understands with the means of its verification, but it is also true that verification is usually employed in science and elsewhere, not to establish the meaning of propositions, but to prove them true. This, I think, is the usual meaning of the word "verification" and a confusion between these two quite different uses of the word by positivist philosophers leads to certain paradoxical results.Comment: MacDonald's discussion and critique of the verificationist theory of meaning is clear and concise, touching on work by C.I. Lewis, Peirce, and Whitehead. It would be suitable as assigned reading for any introductory course that includes logical positivism and related issues.
MacDonald, Margaret. Necessary Propositions
1940, Analysis, 7(2): 45–51
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Added by: Viviane Fairbank, Contributed by: Viviane FairbankAbstract:
I should like to make a few comments on a recent article on necessary propositions by Mr. Norman Malcolm. Not so much because of anything specifically said by Mr. Malcolm as because his article expresses a prevalent view. Mr. Malcolm rejects what may be called the 'metaphysical' view of these propositions, viz. that they describe a special realm of necessary facts known by a kind of interior 'looking' called intuition or self-evidence. But the main concern of his paper is to reject also the later positivist view that they are 'really' verbal..., that they are rules of grammar or commands to use words in certain ways.Comment: In this short paper, MacDonald presents some objections to prominent views of logical necessity. The arguments are clear but require contextual knowledge of what was being discussed philosophically at the time, so some background would be useful.
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