According to linguistic conventionalism, necessities are to be explained in terms of the conventionally adopted rules that govern the use of linguistic expressions. A number of influential arguments against this view concerns the ‘Truth-Contrast Thesis’. This is the claim that necessary truths are fundamentally different from contingent ones since they are not made true by ‘the facts’. Instead, they are supposed to be something like ‘true in virtue of meaning’. This thesis is widely held to be a core commitment (...) of the conventionalist position, and the view is frequently rejected on the grounds that this thesis is untenable. I argue that this line of reasoning is mistaken. While the thesis should be rejected, it is not, I argue, entailed by linguistic conventionalism – nor was it invariably accepted by the paradigmatic conventionalists. (shrink)

Conventionalism about mathematics claims that mathematical truths are true by linguistic convention. This is often spelled out by appealing to facts concerning rules of inference and formal systems, but this leads to a problem: since the incompleteness theorems we’ve known that syntactic notions can be expressed using arithmetical sentences. There is serious prima facie tension here: how can mathematics be a matter of convention and syntax a matter of fact given the arithmetization of syntax? This challenge has been pressed (...) in the literature by Hilary Putnam and Peter Koellner. In this paper I sketch a conventionalist theory of mathematics, show that this conventionalist theory can meet the challenge just raised , and clarify the type of mathematical pluralism endorsed by the conventionalist by introducing the notion of a semantic counterpart. The paper’s aim is an improved understanding of conventionalism, pluralism, and the relationship between them. (shrink)

We build on Morgan’s deep conventionalist base by offering a pragmatic approach for achieving normative progress on sports most intractable problems (e.g. performance enhancemen...

In the paper I explore some hints one can find in an updated version of Ajdukiewicz’s radical conventionalism that may help to resolve some controversies within hinge epistemology, i.e. a family of positions that invoke Wittgenstein’s idea of groundless grounds of knowledge. In particular I put into doubt whether there is a real difference between pragmatic and transcendental justification of hinges, I reject epistemological disjunctivism, and I argue for anti-realistic reading of truth in a context determined by particular hinges (...) while retaining the classical notion of truth as a regulative idea of knowledge that governs the possible revisions of hinges. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I motivate ‘Origin Conventionalism’—the view that which facts about one’s origins are essential to one’s existence depends partly on our person-directed attitudes. One important upshot is that the view offers a novel and attractive solution to the Nonidentity Problem. That problem typically assumes that the sperm-egg pair from which a person originates is essential to that person’s existence; in which case, for many future persons that come into existence under adverse conditions, had those conditions not been realized, the (...) individuals wouldn’t have existed. This is problematic because it delivers the counter-intuitive conclusion that it’s not wrong to bring about such adverse conditions since they don’t harm anyone. Origin Conventionalism, in contrast, holds that whether a person’s sperm-egg origin is essential to their existence depends on their person-directed attitudes. I argue that this provides a unique and attractive way of preserving the intuition that the actions in the ‘nonidentity cases’ are morally wrong because of the potential harm done to the individuals in question. (shrink)

Conventionalism about promising is the view that the power to make binding promises depends essentially on the existence of a social practice or convention of promising. This paper explores an objection to conventionalism that says that—(allegedly) contra conventionalism—there is no morally acceptable world in which we lack the power of promise. Instead, normative powers theorists claim that our power of promise is morally basic or necessary. I argue that the conventionalist need not deny this claim. There are (...) several ways to develop a noncontingent conventionalism: a version of the view that can accommodate the insight that the power of promise is indispensable to morally acceptable lives. Then, I argue that the conventionalist is indeed on the hook for accommodating this insight. I wrap up by considering the state of play in the debate over conventionalism about promising. Once we note the theoretical possibility of noncontingent conventionalism, it looks like the theatre of battle shifts to the difficult question of whether “natural” morality always provides “moral necessities.”. (shrink)

What is conventionalism in philosophy of science? Basically, it is a thesis about empirical underdetermination. According to Conventionalists, there is “a slack” between our theories and experience that is to be “lined” with conventions. As the experience does not “impose” any theory, scientists are always free to choose a theory on “softer” non-evidential grounds when facing empirical underdetermination. “Conventionalism is a philosophy of freedom,” as Édouard Le Roy put it. Yet the thing to remember is that there is (...) no such a thing as the conventionalism. Reasons for empirical underdetermination that Conventionalists state are not always the same, hence it is more convenient to talk about varieties of conventionalism. The present paper is an attempt to sketch a line between two basic variants of conventionalism which are instrumentalism and constructivism. Co je konvencionalismus? V nejobecnější rovině se jedná o tvrzení o empirické poddeterminovanosti. Podle konvencionalistů existuje "mezera" mezi zkušeností a teoriemi, která může být překonána pouze pomocí konvencí. Vědci si podle konvencionalistů mohou vybrat teorie na základě měkkých kritérií, protože teorie nikdy nejsou předepisovány zkušeností. Konvencionalimus je, jak jednou poznamenal stoupenec jeho radikální varianty, Édouard Le Roy, "filozofii svobody." Konvencionalismus by však neměl být považován za homogenní proud. Konvencionalisté se v podstatných ohledech různí v názorech na příčiny empirické poddeterminovanosti, což je i důvodem, proč je příhodnější hovořit o variantách konvencionalismu. Předložený článek je pokusem vymezit dvě základní varianty konvencionalismu: instrumentalismus a konstruktivismus. (shrink)

In this paper, I take issue with a core commitment of logical conventionalism: that we impose a logic on ourselves by adopting general linguistic conventions governing our use of logical terms, thereby determining the meanings of the logical constants and which of our inferences are valid. Drawing on Kripke’s ‘adoption problem’, I argue that general logical principles cannot be adopted, either explicitly or implicitly. I go on to argue that the meanings of our logical terms, and the validity of (...) our inferences, cannot depend on our adoption of logico-linguistic conventions. (shrink)

It is shown that moral relativism ('morality is culture-specific') and moral conventionalism ('moral laws are agreements among people as to how to behave') both presuppose the truth of moral realism and are therefore false. It is also shown that every attempt to trivialize moral truth or to prove its non-existence is inconsistent with the fact that moral statements have the same truth-conditions as biological statements.

Conventionalism about personal identity over time is the view that personal identity is in some sense dependent on our beliefs, desires, social practices, or language use (collectively: on our “conventions”). This paper provides an opinionated survey of the state of the art about personal identity conventionalism. First, it offers a taxonomy of possible types of conventionalism along four different axes and discusses weak vs. strong, private vs. public, doxastic vs. non-doxastic, and realizer-relative vs. assessor-relative varieties of (...) class='Hi'>conventionalism. Second, it reviews the main sources of motivation for conventionalism about personal identity: methodological, epistemological, and normative motivations. Third, it maps out the place of conventionalism in logical space and distinguishes it from related philosophical theses: personal identity pluralism, indeterminacy about personal identity, revisionism, and self-concern relativism. Finally, some potential avenues for future research are considered. (shrink)

In what sense is the direction of time a matter of convention? In 'The Direction of Time', Hans Reichenbach makes brief reference to parallels between his views about the status of time’s direction and his conventionalism about geometry. In this article, I: (1) provide a conventionalist account of time direction motivated by a number of Reichenbach’s claims in the book; (2) show how forwards and backwards time can give equivalent descriptions of the world despite the former being the ‘natural’ (...) direction of time; and (3) argue that this offers an important middle-ground position between existing realist and antirealist accounts of the direction of time. (shrink)

Many Perdurantists have been drawn to the “Conventionalist” idea that our person-directed attitudes can determine whether or not we survive events such as teletransportation. In this paper, I suggest a novel “Contextualist Conventionalism” according to which Conventionalism is true with respect to some, but not all, contexts in which we ask “will I survive?”—instead in “reflexive” contexts, “I” reflexively refers to a thinker whose persistence conditions are mind-independent. Unlike one form of Conventionalism which implies that the reference (...) of “I” is never constrained to reflexively referring to the thinker, Contextualist Conventionalism instead implies that there are some important contexts where the “I” is so constrained. And unlike another form of Conventionalism that secures such reflexive reference by holding that the survival of the thinker is a mind-dependent matter, Contextualist Conventionalism secures reflexive reference while avoiding such a radical metaphysical commitment. (shrink)

One common objection to Conventionalism about modality is that since it is contingent what our conventions are, the modal facts themselves will thereby be contingent. A standard reply is that Conventionalists can accept this, if they reject the S4 axiom, that what is possibly possible is possible. I first argue that this reply is inadequate, but then continue to argue that it is not needed, because the Conventionalist need not concede that the contingency of our conventions has any bearing (...) on the modal status of necessary truths. It is explained why this does not compromise the Conventionalist claim that necessity – and particularly, essence – is due to conventions. (shrink)

I discuss two subjects in Samir Okasha’s excellent book, Evolution and the Levels of Selection. In consonance with Okasha’s critique of the conventionalist view of the units of selection problem, I argue that conventionalists have not attended to what realists mean by group, individual, and genic selection. In connection with Okasha’s discussion of the Price equation and contextual analysis, I discuss whether the existence of these two quantitative frameworks is a challenge to realism.

Poincaré is well known for his conventionalism and structuralism. However, the relationship between these two theses and their place in Poincaré׳s epistemology of science remain puzzling. In this paper I show the scope of Poincaré׳s conventionalism and its position in Poincaré׳s hierarchical approach to scientific theories. I argue that for Poincaré scientific knowledge is relational and made possible by synthetic a priori, empirical and conventional elements, which, however, are not chosen arbitrarily. By examining his geometric conventionalism, his (...) hierarchical account of science and defence of continuity in theory change, I argue that Poincaré defends a complex structuralist position based on synthetic a priori and conventional elements, the mind-dependence of which precludes epistemic access to mind-independent structures. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the positivist–conventionalist interpretation of the Restricted Principle of Relativity is flawed, due to the positivists’ own understanding of conventions and their origins. I claim in the paper that, to understand the conventionalist thesis, one has to diambiguate between three types of convention; the linguistic conventions stemming from the fundamental role of mathematical axioms, the conventions stemming from the coordination betweeh theoretical statements and physical, observable facts or entities, and conventions that are made possible by (...) possible revisions to theory. I claim that it is not possible to interpret the Principle of Relativity as based on one of these three types of convention. This renders the conventionalist interpretation of the Principle of Relativity untenable. The paper is part of a larger project that aims to understand the philosophical significance of the Principle of Relativity. (shrink)

Conventionalism about property is the view that all moral duties correlative to property rights depend essentially either on the existence of a convention that assigns conventional ownership of objects, or on the existence of a body of positive law that confers legal property rights. It has been objected that, if Conventionalism about property is true, then it is impossible for someone to have her property right violated by someone who is not a member of the community in which (...) her conventional property right is assigned. But it is possible. When Christopher Columbus sailed up to the island of Hispaniola in 1492, he and his sailors wronged the inhabitants by forcing them off their land. So, Conventionalism is false. This is the Outsider Challenge for Conventionalism. The Outsider Challenge (and its first premise, in particular) receives support from the Benefit Condition, according to which one can be morally obligated to comply with a conventional rule only if one benefits or has one’s interests protected by the convention of which it is a part. Despite its provenance and plausibility, however, I think that the Benefit Condition should be rejected. Doing so in a principled way allows us to square Conventionalism with our moral intuitions and, thus, address the Outsider Challenge. My main aim in this essay is to reject the Benefit Condition in one such principled way by providing a Contractualist answer to the question of when, and why, someone is morally required to respect another’s conventional property right. One is morally required to respect the conventional property rights of another when and because failing to do so would run afoul of the Principle of Established Practices (pep) – a principle for which I give a Contractualist justification. Roughly, the pep requires us to comply with sufficiently just social practices in the absence of special justification, and the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not always a sufficiently strong reason for one to violate the duties assigned by that convention. Since the fact that one’s interests are not protected by a property convention is not necessarily a special justification for violating the pep, the pep gives us reason to reject the Benefit Condition and, thus, the Outsider Challenge, too. (shrink)

Rawlsians argue for principles of justice that apply exclusively to the basic structure of society, but it can seem strange that those who accept these principles should not also regulate their choices by them. Valid moral principles should seemingly identify ideals for both institutions and individuals. What justifies this nonintuitive distinction between institutional and individual principles is not a moral division of labor but Rawls’s dual commitments to conventionalism and constructivism. Conventionalism distinguishes the relevant ideals for evaluating institutions (...) from those for evaluating actions, while constructivism explains why this distinction is morally fundamental. (shrink)

Conventionalists about promising believe that it is wrong to break a promise because the promisor takes advantage of a useful social convention only to fail to do his part in maintaining it. Anti-conventionalists claim that the wrong of breaking a promise has nothing essentially to do with a social convention. Anti-conventionalists are right that the social convention is not necessary to explain the wrong of breaking most promises. But conventionalists are right that the convention plays an essential role in any (...) satisfactory account of promising. A new conventionalism can explain this by appealing to special features of social conventions. Two of these special features have important implications for any moral requirements they mediate, such as the requirement to keep one's promises and the moral requirements attached to social or occupational roles. First, these requirements will not depend on features of a situation that are inaccessible to typical participants in the convention. Second, these requirements often cannot be tailored to fit the overly unusual circumstances of participants. (shrink)

The daring idea that convention - human decision - lies at the root both of necessary truths and much of empirical science reverberates through twentieth-century philosophy, constituting a revolution comparable to Kant's Copernican revolution. This book provides a comprehensive study of Conventionalism. Drawing a distinction between two conventionalist theses, the under-determination of science by empirical fact, and the linguistic account of necessity, Yemima Ben-Menahem traces the evolution of both ideas to their origins in Poincaré's geometric conventionalism. She argues (...) that the radical extrapolations of Poincaré's ideas by later thinkers, including Wittgenstein, Quine, and Carnap, eventually led to the decline of conventionalism. This book provides a fresh perspective on twentieth-century philosophy. Many of the major themes of contemporary philosophy emerge in this book as arising from engagement with the challenge of conventionalism. (shrink)

In the mid twentieth century, logical positivists and many other philosophers endorsed a simple equation: something was necessary just in case it was analytic just in case it was a priori. Kripke’s examples of a posteriori necessary truths showed that the simple equation is false. But while positivist-style inferentialist approaches to logic and mathematics remain popular, there is no inferentialist account of necessity a posteriori. I give such an account. This sounds like an anti-Kripkean project, but it is not. Some (...) of Kripke’s remarks even suggest this kind of approach. This inferentialist approach reinstates neither the simple equation nor pure conventionalism about necessity a posteriori. But it does lead to something near enough, a type of impure conventionalism. In recent years, metaphysically heavyweight approaches to modality have been popular, while other approaches have lagged behind. The inferentialist, impure conventionalist theory of necessity I describe aims to provide a metaphysically lightweight option in modal metaphysics. (shrink)

Conventionalism in sport philosophy has been rejected as unable to provide a theory of normativity and as collapsing in ethical relativism, but this criticism is rather imprecise about its target, which invites doubt about the legitimacy of the concept of conventionalism described by its critics. Instead, a more charitable and legitimate account of conventionalism is proposed, one that draws inspiration from conventionalism in axiomatic geometry and is able to avoid the counterarguments directed against conventionalism. This (...) new model allows for a number of non-conventional elements of sport, namely the definition of sport and certain central moral norms, while at the same time arguing that normativity in sport is not exhausted by them, which leaves athletic communities with authority over a broad range of norms. (shrink)

Distinctively mathematical explanations (DMEs) explain natural phenomena primarily by appeal to mathematical facts. One important question is whether there can be an ontic account of DME. An ontic account of DME would treat the explananda and explanantia of DMEs as ontic structures and the explanatory relation between them as an ontic relation (e.g., Pincock 2015, Povich 2021). Here I present a conventionalist account of DME, defend it against objections, and argue that it should be considered ontic. Notably, if indeed it (...) is ontic, the conventionalist account seems to avoid a convincing objection to other ontic accounts (Kuorikoski 2021). (shrink)

John Haugeland has recently attempted to provide a naturalistic account of intentionality that explains how we can (collectively) misidentify objects in the world in terms of the interplay of two types of 'recognitional' skill. Nevertheless, it is argued here that his inegalitarian conception of the two sorts of skill leaves him with a quasi-conventionalist account of our relation to the world which lacks the more robust sort of objectivity that a more holistic theory could provide.

Call the conventionalist challenge to natural rights theory the claim that natural rights theory fails to capture the fact that moral rights are shaped by social and legal convention. While the conventionalist challenge is a natural concern, it is less than clear what this challenge amounts to. This paper aims to develop a clear formulation strong enough to put pressure on the natural rights theorist and precise enough to clarify what an adequate response would require.

Izydora Dąmbska's radical conventionalism fails to support relativism and, in fact, supports its opposition. This brief encyclopedia article provides a summary of Dąmbska's argument.

Once upon a time, logical conventionalism was the most popular philosophical theory of logic. It was heavily favored by empiricists, logical positivists, and naturalists. According to logical conventionalism, linguistic conventions explain logical truth, validity, and modality. And conventions themselves are merely syntactic rules of language use, including inference rules. Logical conventionalism promised to eliminate mystery from the philosophy of logic by showing that both the metaphysics and epistemology of logic fit into a scientific picture of reality. For (...) naturalists of all stripes, this was paradise. Alas, paradise was lost. By the end of the twentieth century, logical conventionalism had been almost universally abandoned. But more recently, it has been revitalized. This chapter provides an overview of logical conventionalism and its history, clears away misunderstandings, and briefly responds to both the canonical objections to conventionalism (from Quine, Dummett, Boghossian, and many others) as well as new objections (from Field and Golan). From paradise lost, to paradise regained: logical conventionalism is back. (shrink)

Conventionalism about essence is the view that truths about what is (and isn’t) essential to things are based upon talk and thought about the world, rather than mind-independent facts. This chapter presents motivations for conventionalism, and explains how conventionalism can be (and has been) developed to accommodate essences that can only be discovered with the help of empirical investigation, like “water is H2O” or “Obama is human”. We examine a range of objections that have been raised against (...) conventionalism—often presented dismissively and decisively—and show how conventionalism has ample resources with which to plausibly respond to these challenges. (shrink)

Conventionalism about mathematics has much in common with two other views: fictionalism and the multiverse view (aka plenitudinous platonism). The three views may differ over the existence of mathematical objects, but they agree in rejecting a certain kind of objectivity claim about mathematics, advocating instead an extreme pluralism. The early parts of the paper will try to elucidate this anti‐objectivist position, and question whether conventionalism really offers a third form of it distinct from fictionalism and the multiverse view. (...) The paper then turns to anti‐objectivism about logic, and suggests that here too conventionalism offers no distinct alternative, and that there are limits on the extent of pluralism/anti‐objectivism. It also argues that these limits can't be used to argue for more extensive objectivity within mathematics, and also that they do allow for more limited pluralism within logic, e.g. as regards resolution of semantic and property‐theoretic paradoxes. (shrink)

The logical positivists adopted Poincare's doctrine of the conventionality of geometry and made it a key part of their philosophical interpretation of relativity theory. I argue, however, that the positivists deeply misunderstood Poincare's doctrine. For Poincare's own conception was based on the group-theoretical picture of geometry expressed in the Helmholtz-Lie solution of the space problem, and also on a hierarchical picture of the sciences according to which geometry must be presupposed be any properly physical theory. But both of this pictures (...) are entirely incompatible with the radically new conception of space and geometry articulated in the general theory of relativity. The logical positivists's attempt to combine Poincare's conventionalism with Einstein's new theory was therefore, in the end, simply incoherent. Underlying this problem, moreover, was a fundamental philosophical difference between Poincare's and the positivists concerning the status of synthetic a priori truths. (shrink)

Conventionalism about necessity was deemed hopeless for a long time. The philosophical landscape, however, is shifting now with recent work in modal metaphysics locating the source of necessity in some kind of convention, albeit non-linguistic. Modal neo-conventionalists claim that a proposition is necessary just when it is true and is classified as such as a matter of convention. But what is the function of adopting a convention about necessity? And what are these conventions that distinguish what is possible from (...) what is impossible, anyway? In this paper, I first offer an elucidation of the two accounts of neo-conventionalism, which I call ‘worlds-based neo-conventionalism’ and ‘axiom-based neo-conventionalism’. Then, I discuss a number of pressing questions that modal neo-conventionalism faces. The moral is that neo-conventionalists have some work to do in order for the account to be explanatorily satisfactory. (shrink)

To be a conventionalist about a specific obligation or right is to believe that the obligation or right is dependent on the existence of a social practice. A conventionalist about property, for example, believes that a moral right to property is generated by conventional norms rather than by any natural right. One problem with dominant conventionalist theories is that they do not adequately justify conventional moral claims. They can justify why it is wrong to steal, for example, but they do (...) not justify the claim that you have on me to not steal from you. As a remedy, this article develops and defends the Principle of Legitimate Expectations. Suggested by John Rawls, this principle grants individuals a moral claim to what the rules of morally justified practices entitle them. This article addresses common objections to the principle to show how it can ground a wide range of conventional moral claims. (shrink)

Conventionalism as a distinct approach to the social contract received significant attention in the game-theoretic literature on social contract theory. Peter Vanderschraaf’s sophisticated and innovative theory of conventional justice represents the most recent contribution to this tradition and, in many ways, can be viewed as a culmination of this tradition. In this article, I focus primarily on Vanderschraaf’s defense of the egalitarian bargaining solution as a principle of justice. I argue that one particular formal feature of this bargaining solution, (...) the baseline consistency requirement, may stand in tension with other features of conventionalism as an approach to the social contract and limit the scope of Vanderschraaf’s theory to societies in which de facto an egalitarian sense of justice evolves. It limits the scope of Vanderschraaf’s theory in the face of moral diversity. A similar limitation applies to Vanderschraaf’s theory of democratic political authority. Despite these minor limitations, Vanderschraaf’s theory can only be seen as a major success and significant contribution to social contract theory. (shrink)

Kant's relation to Hobbesian voluntarism has recently become a source of controversy for the interpretation of Kant's practical philosophy. Realist interpreters, most prominently Karl Ameriks, have attacked the genealogies of Kantian autonomy suggested by J. B. Schneewind and Christine Korsgaard as misleadingly voluntarist and unacceptably anti-realist. In this debate, however, there has been no real discussion of Kant's own views about Hobbes. By examining the relation of Hobbes' voluntarism to a kind of conventionalism, and through a reading of Kant's (...) most explicit discussion of Hobbes, in “Theory and Practice,“ 1 I argue that Kant's criticism of Hobbes is much more limited than it might first appear. Rather than rejecting Hobbes' voluntarism and conventionalism entirely, Kant ends up criticizing only Hobbes' understanding of the relation between these doctrines. The essay thus defends Schneewind's and Korsgaard's histories of modern moral philosophy, and raises doubts about realist readings of Kant's practical philosophy. (shrink)

This paper defends a reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics in the Lectures on the Foundation of Mathematics as a radical conventionalist one, whereby our agreement about the particular case is constitutive of our mathematical practice and ‘the logical necessity of any statement is a direct expression of a convention’ (Dummett 1959, p. 329). -/- On this view, mathematical truths are conceptual truths and our practices determine directly for each mathematical proposition individually whether it is true or false. Mathematical truths (...) are thus not consequences of a prior adoption of a convention or rules as orthodox conventionalism has it. -/- The goal of the paper is not merely exegetical, however, and argues that radical conventionalism can withstand some of the most difficult objections that have been brought forward against it, including those of Dummett himself, and thus that radical conventionalism has been prematurely excluded from consideration by philosophers of mathematics. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Conventionalism in logic".

Cultural appropriation, also called cultural borrowing, has been the topic of much discussion in recent years. Roughly speaking, cultural appropriation happens when someone outside of a cultural or ethnic group takes or uses some object that is characteristic or in some way important to the group without the group’s permission. Individuals who find cultural appropriation unproblematic have often argued that if we express moral criticism of the use of traditional Sami outfits by non-Sami, then we are logically committed to criticize (...) all kinds of habits that are clearly acceptable –such as using jeans, eating pizza or drinking tea. However, we will argue that in many cases that objection is problematic. We point out that if one social habit or practice is prohibited by existing social conventions but another is not, then there is a convention difference between the cases. The convention difference is in turn a morally relevant difference, or so we aim to show. We refer to “moderate conventionalism,” according to which existing social conventions are morally relevant facts that should be taken into account when choosing how to act, whatever the content of the conventions happens to be. The claim is analogous with the traditional view that laws have some moral relevance and binding force independent of their content. _Keywords:_ cultural appropriation, conventionalism, moderate conventionalism, convention difference. (shrink)

This paper examines methodological issues that arose in the course of the development of the inertial frame concept in classical mechanics. In particular it examines the origins and motivations of the view that the equivalence of inertial frames leads to a kind of conventionalism. It begins by comparing the independent versions of the idea found in J. Thomson (1884) and L. Lange (1885); it then compares Lange's conventionalist claims with traditional geometrical conventionalism. It concludes by examining some implications (...) for contemporary philosophy of space and time. (shrink)

What is the source of logical and mathematical truth? This book revitalizes conventionalism as an answer to this question. Conventionalism takes logical and mathematical truth to have their source in linguistic conventions. This was an extremely popular view in the early 20th century, but it was never worked out in detail and is now almost universally rejected in mainstream philosophical circles. Shadows of Syntax is the first book-length treatment and defense of a combined conventionalist theory of logic and (...) mathematics. It argues that our conventions, in the form of syntactic rules of language use, are perfectly suited to explain the truth, necessity, and a priority of logical and mathematical claims, as well as our logical and mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

The subject of this investigation is the role of conventions in the formulation of Thomas Reid’s theory of the geometry of vision, which he calls the ‘geometry of visibles’. In particular, we will examine the work of N. Daniels and R. Angell who have alleged that, respectively, Reid’s ‘geometry of visibles’ and the geometry of the visual field are non-Euclidean. As will be demonstrated, however, the construction of any geometry of vision is subject to a choice of conventions regarding the (...) construction and assignment of its various properties, especially metric properties, and this fact undermines the claim for a unique non-Euclidean status for the geometry of vision. Finally, a suggestion is offered for trying to reconcile Reid’s direct realist theory of perception with his geometry of visibles.While Thomas Reid is well-known as the leading exponent of the Scottish ‘common-sense’ school of philosophy, his role in the history of geometry has only recently been drawing the attention of the scholarly community. In particular, several influential works, by N. Daniels and R. B. Angell, have claimed Reid as the discoverer of non-Euclidean geometry; an achievement, moreover, that pre-dates the geometries of Lobachevsky, Bolyai, and Gauss by over a half century. Reid’s alleged discovery appears within the context of his analysis of the geometry of the visual field, which he dubs the ‘geometry of visibles’. In summarizing the importance of Reid’s philosophy in this area, Daniels is led to conclude that ‘there can remain little doubt that Reid intends the geometry of visibles to be an alternative to Euclidean geometry’;1 while Angell, similarly inspired by Reid, draws a much stronger inference: ‘The geometry which precisely and naturally fits the actual configurations of the visual field is a non-Euclidean, two-dimensional, elliptical geometry. In substance, this thesis was advanced by Thomas Reid in 1764...’, 2 The significance of these findings has not gone unnoticed in mathematical and scientific circles, moreover, for Reid’s name is beginning to appear more frequently in historical surveys of the development of geometry and the theories of space., 3Implicit in the recent work on Reid’s ‘geometry of visibles’, or GOV, one can discern two closely related but distinct arguments: first, that Reid did in fact formulate a non-Euclidean geometry, and second, that the GOV is non-Euclidean. This essay will investigate mainly the latter claim, although a lengthy discussion will be accorded to the first. Overall, in contrast to the optimistic reports of a non-Euclidean GOV, it will be argued that there is a great deal of conceptual freedom in the construction of any geometry pertaining to the visual field. Rather than single out a non-Euclidean structure as the only geometry consistent with visual phenomena, an examination of Reid, Daniels, and Angell will reveal the crucial role of geometric ‘conventions’, especially of the metric sort, in the formulation of the GOV. Consequently, while a non-Euclidean geometry is consistent with Reid’s GOV, it is only one of many different geometrical structures that a GOV can possess. Angell’s theory that the GOV can only be construed as non-Euclidean, is thus incorrect. After an exploration of Reid’s theory and the alleged non-Euclidean nature of the GOV, in 1 and 2 respectively, the focus will turn to the tacit role of conventionalism in Daniels’ reconstruction of Reid’s GOV argument, and in the contemporary treatment of a non-Euclidean visual geometry offered by Angell. Finally, in the conclusion, a suggestion will be offered for a possible reconstruction of Reid’s GOV that does not violate his avowed ‘direct realist’ theory of perception, since this epistemological thesis largely prompted his formulation of the GOV. (shrink)

Morgan has argued that attitudes to the medicalisation of sports are historically conditioned.While the history of doping offers contested versions of when the sports world turned againstconservative forces, Morgan has argued that these attitudes are out of step with prevailingnorms and that the World Anti Doping Agency's policy needs to be modified to better reflectthis. As an advocate of critical democracies in sports, he argues that anti-doping policy mustacknowledge and reflect these shifts in order to secure their legitimacy. In response, (...) wecritically present the World Anti-Doping Agency's policy that incorporates the Prohibited Listof Substances and Methods for athletes. We evaluate the validity of the therapy-enhancementdistinction in relation to its role in both justifying and sustaining the operation of theProhibited List. In particular, we focus on the case of thyroxine, which has been the subjectof controversy in athletic doping. While thyroxine is not currently banned, critics haveclaimed that its use in the absence of a relevant pathology is tantamount to doping. Wechallenge Morgan's claim that a conventionalist defence of the therapy-enhancementdistinction is the best available, and his conclusion that this properly supports a morepermissive stance towards performance-enhancing drug use. Furthermore, we reject hisconventionalist support for democratic line drawing in relation to doping and in particular thestatus of thyroxine with regard to the prohibited list. We offer a modified defence of the statusquo, a qualified, naturalist account of health and disease, where athletes may be prescribeddrugs that are genuine responses to medical necessity that do not, or do not typically, threatenthe goods of athletic excellence. (shrink)

In Plato's Cratylus, Hermogenes contends that the correctness of names is conventional. Appealing though this claim sounds to modern ears, it does not meet with approval in the Cratylus. Why? I argue that the conventionalism promoted by Hermogenes is discredited by unacceptable relativist implications because it incorporates the mistaken assumption that correct names are individuated exclusively by their phonetic composition.

ABSTRACTIn a recent article in this Journal, Eric Moore criticized an earlier essay of mine published in this same Journal on two fronts. On the first, he criticized my criticisms of broad internalism for relying on abstract moral principles too far removed from the practice of sport to adjudicate normative conflicts in which disputants cannot agree on what is the purpose of sport. On the second front, he criticized my reliance on what he called Rorty’s “controversial” views of truth and (...) rationality to back up my criticisms of broad internalism. I find both criticisms forceful but not persuasive. In my reply, therefore, I defend both use of Rorty’s and other similar historicist takes on rational justification and my criticisms of broad internalism principles-based approach to normative inquiry in sport. (shrink)

Reichenbach, Grünbaum, and others have argued that special relativity is based on arbitrary conventions concerning clock synchronizations. Here we present a mathematical framework which shows that this conventionality is almost equivalent to the arbitrariness in the choice of coordinates in an inertial system. Since preferred systems of coordinates can uniquely be defined by means of the Lorentz invariance of physical laws irrespective of the properties of light signals, a special clock synchronization—Einstein's standard synchrony—is selected by this principle. No further restrictions (...) conerning light signal synchronization, as proposed, e.g., by Ellis and Bowman, are required in order to refute conventionalism in special relativity. (shrink)

This article focuses on the conventions that sustain social interaction and argues that they are central to Simon's decision-making theory. Simon clearly identifies two kinds of coordination by convention: behavioral mores that shape human actions, and shared mental models that govern human perceptions. This article argues that Poincaré–Carnap's conventionalism provides powerful support for Simon's theory; it contends that this theory offers a more convincing account of decision and coordination than Lewis' concept of convention. Simon's approach to applying conventionalist logic (...) to social interaction emphasizes the normative role played by mental models in solving coordination problems and considers rationality in terms of both cognitive and moral considerations. By connecting conventional phenomena to social identifications, Simon stresses the resulting complexity of coordination problems. (shrink)

The statements traditionally labelled “necessary,” among them the valid theorems of mathematics and logic, are identified as “those whose truth is independent of experience.” The “truth” of a necessary statement has to be independent of the truth or falsity of experiential statements; a necessary statement can be neither confirmed nor refuted by empirical tests.The admission of genuinely necessary statements presents the empiricist with a troublesome problem. For an empiricist may be defined, in terms of the current idiom, as one who (...) adheres to some version, however “weak,” of a principle of verifiability. One, that is, who claims that no statement can have cognitive meaning unless its truth depends, however indirectly, upon the truth of experiential statements; unless it can be provisionally confirrned or refuted by empirical tests. Allowing that some necessary statements have cognitive meaning, then, would be to provide a prima facie case against the validity of the principle of verifiability. (shrink)