Necessity

pp. 177-191

in: Jaroslav Peregrin, Doing worlds with words, Berlin, Springer, 1995

Abstract

During the preceding chapters, we have been approaching logic as the pursuit of necessary truth. Moreover, we have seen also that semantics can be understood as a matter of the same pursuit — necessary truths amount to rules governing our usage of language (they can be seen as articulating instances of consequence and hence limitations to assertibility), and as expressions acquire meaning just via being manipulated according to these rules, it is necessary truth that underlies meaning. We have taken for granted that necessary truth exists, that statements of our language can be divided into those which only happen to have their truth value and those which have their truth value fixed once for all. From this viewpoint, the necessary contingent distinction is thus absolutely crucial. It is the existence of this distinction that makes logic meaningful; and it is this distinction that makes it possible to make sense of the concept of meaning.