SWIP-Analytic 2017 Graduate Student Essay Prize Winner Presentation

Marion Boulicault (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Katherine Ritchie (City College of New York)

Please join us for Marion Boulicalt's presentation of 'The Contingency of Logical Necessity' on April 21st from 11am-1pm in the NYU Philosophy Department (5 Washington Place, New York, NY, Room 202). Marion is the winner of the SWIP-Analytic's 2017 Graduate Student Essay Prize. Registration is not required, and all are welcome. Katherine Ritchie of CUNY's City College will be providing comments.

Abstract: According to a standard account, logical relations between propositions exist independently of contingent facts, norms and practices. David Bloor challenges this standard account by arguing that, rather than existing independently of contingent facts, logical relations arise from them: “logical necessity is a moral and social relation” (1983, 121, emphasis added). In this essay, I examine Bloor’s argument for this bold claim. After first considering and rejecting an objection raised by Ian Hacking, I propose an alternative objection to Bloor’s social account of logical necessity. However, I end by suggesting that this objection poses a parallel justificatory problem for the standard account of logical necessity. In other words, both the standard and the social account of logical necessity suffer from parallel problems of justification.