Are the Laws of Logic Propositions?
Justin Taylor has posted a link to the Anderson-Welty paper. Predictably enough, the comments weren’t too inspiring, but one criticism (by Derek DeVries) invited a reply:
The laws of logic are rules. And these rules can, but need not, be stated on proposition form according to which they would be truth-apt. The laws of logic, in themselves, are not the kind of thing that has any truth value; only propositional statements expressed in the some language is capable of having any truth-value. Thus, saying that the laws of logic are truths is false, or sloppy at best. Therefore, the conclusion that the laws of logic are metaphysically dependent on the existence of God does not follow necessarily. The argument is deductively unsound.
I posted the following reply:
Your criticism is dealt with (implicitly) on page 4 of the paper. Just substitute “truths about the laws of logic” for “laws of logic” and the argument goes through just as well. If there’s at least one necessary truth, that’s enough for the argument. Do you want to deny that there are any necessary truths?
Derek posted a reply, which deserves further comment. However, since I don’t want to clutter Justin’s combox with technical discussion, I’m copying Derek’s reply here, with my comments interspersed: …
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