John Etchemendy Research Articles

The overgeneration argument(s): A succinct refutation

The overgeneration argument attempts to show that accepting second-order validity as a sound formal counterpart of logical truth has the unacceptable consequence that the Continuum Hypothesis is either a logical truth or a logical falsehood. The argument was presented and vigorously defended in John Etchemendy’s The Concept of Logical Consequence and it has many proponents to this day. Yet it is nothing but a seductive fallacy. I demonstrate this by considering five versions of the argument; as I show, each is either unsound or lacks a troubling conclusion.

Logic, Metalogic and Neutrality

The paper is a critique of the widespread conception of logic as a neutral arbiter between metaphysical theories, one that makes no `substantive’ claims of its own (David Kaplan and John Etchemendy are two recent examples). A familiar observation is that virtually every putatively fundamental principle of logic has been challenged over the last century on broadly metaphysical grounds (however mistaken), with a consequent proliferation of alternative logics. However, this apparent contentiousness of logic is often treated as though it were neutralized by the possibility of studying all these alternative logics within an agreed metalogical framework, typically that of first-order logic with set theory. In effect, metalogic is given the role of neutral arbiter. The paper will consider a variety of examples in which deep logical disputes re-emerge at the meta-level. One case is quantified modal logic, where some varieties of actualism require a modal meta-language (as opposed to the usual non-modal language of possible worlds model theory) in order not to make their denial of the Barcan formula self-defeating. Similarly, on some views the intended model theory for second-order logic can only be given in a second-order metalanguage—this may be needed to avoid versions of Russell’s paradox when the first-order quantifiers are read as absolutely unrestricted. It can be shown that the phenomenon of higher-order vagueness eventually forces fuzzy logical treatments of vagueness to use a fuzzy metalanguage, with consequent repercussions for what first-order principles are validated. The difficulty of proving the completeness of first-order intuitionistic logic on its intended interpretation by intuitionistically rather than just classically valid means is a more familiar example. These case studies will be discussed in some detail to reveal a variety of ways in which even metalogic is metaphysically contested, substantial and non-neutral.

Etchemendy and Bolzano on Logical Consequence

In a series of publications beginning in the 1980s, John Etchemendy has argued that the standard semantical account of logical consequence, due in its essentials to Alfred Tarski, is fundamentally mistaken. He argues that, while Tarski's definition requires us to classify the terms of a language as logical or non-logical, no such division is guaranteed to deliver the correct extension of our pre-theoretical or intuitive consequence relation. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, Tarski's account is claimed to be incapable of explaining an essential modal/epistemological feature of consequence, namely, its necessity and apriority. Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848) is widely recognized as having anticipated Tarski's definition in his Wissenschaftslehre (or Theory of Science) of 1837. Because of the similarities between his account and Tarski's, Etchemendy's arguments have also been extended to cover Bolzano. The purpose of this article is to consider Bolzano's theory in the light of these criticisms. We argue that, due to important differences between Bolzano's and Tarski's theories, Etchemendy's objections do not apply immediately to Bolzano's account of consequence. Moreover, Bolzano's writings contain the elements of a detailed philosophical response to Etchemendy.

A Fallacy about the Modal Status of Logic⋆

In John Etchemendy's book, The Concept of Logical Consequence, several arguments are put forth against the standard model-theoretic account of logical consequence and logical truth. I argue in this article that crucial parts of Etchemendy's attack depend on a failure to distinguish two senses of logic and two correlative senses of being something a logical question. According to one of these senses, the logic of a language, L, is the set of logical truths of L. In the other sense, logic is a theoretical discipline whose aim is to characterize logical properties and it can be identified with the set of sentences on what, and why, the extension of the set of logical truths (and the extension of the relation of logical consequence) of a particular language (or of a certain class of languages) is. Some particular claims by Etchemendy about the status assigned to the axiom of infinity in the model-theoretic account are criticized and shown to be erroneous because of that conflation.

Heterogeneous Reasoning and Its Logic

Let me start by saying that I had the privilege of witnessing the birth of Jon Barwise's new research on heterogeneous logic and its subsequent developments. I entered the Stanford philosophy graduate program in the Fall of 1987, became Barwise and Etchemendy's first research assistant on the project of diagrammatic/heterogeneous reasoning during summer of 1989, and under their guidance completed my thesis, “Valid reasoning and visual representation,” in August, 1991. With this experience I would like to focus on the more personal and informal aspects of Jon's research on heterogeneous logic which may not be conveyed by his articles. (Accordingly, I have written this paper without footnotes or other references except to Jon's work.) The present article can only hint at the depth and the influence of Jon's work in this area.In the first section, I single out an important feature of the project on heterogeneous logic Jon founded together with John Etchemendy about 15 years ago. I title it “resolving conflicts” since the research, I strongly believe, grew out of Jon's personal attitude toward how to resolve a tension between opposite extremes.The second section focuses on how teaching logic itself was shaped as part of Barwise and Etchemendy's research agenda. It is worthwhile noting that their textbookLanguage, Proof, and Logicconstitutes part of their research and, hence, the success of the book vindicates the goal of the overall project.

John Etchemendy. The concept of logical consequence. An unaltered republication of JSL LVII 254. The David Hume series of philosophy and cognitive science reissues. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford 1999, also distributed by Cambridge University Press, New York, vii + 174 pp.

John Etchemendy. <b>The concept of logical consequence</b>. An unaltered republication of JSL LVII 254. The David Hume series of philosophy and cognitive science reissues. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford 1999, also distributed by Cambridge University Press, New York, vii + 174 pp.

Ray on Tarski on Logical Consequence

In “Logical consequence: A defense of Tarski” (Journal of Philosophical Logic, vol. 25, 1996, pp. 617–677), Greg Ray defends Tarski"s account of logical consequence against the criticisms of John Etchemendy. While Ray"s defense of Tarski is largely successful, his attempt to give a general proof that Tarskian consequence preserves truth fails. Analysis of this failure shows that de facto truth preservation is a very weak criterion of adequacy for a theory of logical consequence and should be replaced by a stronger absence-of-counterexamples criterion. It is argued that the latter criterion reflects the modal character of our intuitive concept of logical consequence, and it is shown that Tarskian consequence can be proved to satisfy this criterion for certain choices of logical constants. Finally, an apparent inconsistency in Ray"s interpretation of Tarski"s position on the modal status of the consequence relation is noted.

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy, The language of first-order logic, including the IBM-compatible Windows version of Tarski's world 4.0. Third edition of LVIII 362. CSLI lecture notes.no. 34. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford 1992. also distributed by Cambridge University Press, New York, xiv + 319 pp. + disk.

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy, The language of first-order logic, including the IBM-compatible Windows version of Tarski's world 4.0. Third edition of LVIII 362. CSLI lecture notes.no. 34. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford 1992. also distributed by Cambridge University Press, New York, xiv + 319 pp. + disk. - Volume 64 Issue 2

On a fallacy attributed to tarski

The purpose of this paper is to examine some passages of Tarski‘s paper ’On the concept of logical consequence’ and to show that some recent readings of those passages are wrong. John Etchemendy has claimed that in those passages Tarski gave an argument purporting to show that the notion of logical consequence defined by him (as opposed to some pretheoretic notion of logical consequence) possesses certain modal properties. Etchemendy further claims that the argument he attributes to Tarski is fallacious. Some of Etchemendy’s critics have granted him that Tarski did give an argument purporting to show that the defined notion possesses certain modal properties ; but they have claimed that Tarski’s argument was not a fallacious one. I will show that both Etchemendy and his critics are wrong; in the relevant passages, Tarski did not offer (nor did he intend to offer) an argument that the defined notion of logical consequence possesses any modal properties

Logical Truth and Tarskian Logical Truth

This paper examines the question of the extensional correctness of Tarskian definitions of logical truth and logical consequence. I identify a few different informal properties which are necessary for a sentence to be an informal logical truth and look at whether they are necessary properties of Tarskian logical truths. I examine arguments by John Etchemendy and Vann McGee to the effect that some of those properties are not necessary properties of some Tarskian logical truths, and find them unconvincing. I stress the point that since the hypothesis that Tarski's definitions are extensionally correct is deeply entrenched, the burden of proof is still on the shoulders of Tarski's critics, who have not lifted the burden.

Tarski, Truth, and Semantics

No one denies that Tarski made a major contribution to one particular problem about truth, namely, the resolution of the semantic paradoxes—although, of course, there is disagreement about whether he provided the correct solution. But some philosophers have suggested that Tarski also made a significant contribution to another project, that of providing semantic theories for natural languages. Hartry Field (2001), for example, credits Tarski with transforming the problem of reducing truth to physicalistically acceptable notions into that of reducing “primitive denotation”. And Donald Davidson (1984c) founded an entire approach to semantics by arguing that a theory of meaning for a language may take the form of a Tarskian definition of truth. But, according to John Etchemendy Etchemendy (1988),1 in so far as Tarski’s work does contribute to empirical semantics, this “is little more than a fortuitous accident”. There are both conceptual and historical issues here. The conceptual question is whether reading Tarski’s work on truth as it must be read, if it is to have any relevance to semantics, requires misunderstanding the character of his mathematical work. The historical question is whether Tarski intended his work to be so read. Etchemendy’s view is that Tarski was primarily concerned to resolve the semantic paradoxes. Yet

Tarski on Logical Consequence

This paper examines from a historical perspective Tarski's 1936 essay, "On the concept of logical consequence." I focus on two main aims. The primary aim is to show how Tarski's definition of logical consequence satisfies two desiderata he himself sets forth for it: (1) it must declare logically correct certain formalizations of the $\omega$-rule and (2) it must allow for variation of the individual domain in the test for logical consequence. My arguments provide a refutation of some interpreters of Tarski, and notably John Etchemendy, who have claimed that his definition does not satisfy those desiderata. A secondary aim of the paper is to offer some basic elements for an understanding of Tarski's definition in the historical logico-philosophical context in which it was proposed. Such historical understanding provides useful insights on Tarski's informal ideas on logical consequence and their internal cohesion.

The Language of First-Order Logic, including the Macintosh Program Tarski's World.

Journal Article Book Reviews Get access The Language of First-Order Logic, including the Macintosh program Tarski’s World. Second Edition. By Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. ( Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991. Pp. 297. Price not given.) Doug Goldson, Doug Goldson Queen Mary and Westfield College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Steve Reeves Steve Reeves Queen Mary and Westfield College Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 44, Issue 175, April 1994, Pages 272–275, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219757 Published: 01 April 1994

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. The language of first-order logic, including the program Tarski's world. Includes version 3.0 of LV 370(2). CSLI lecture notes, no. 23. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford 1990, also distributed by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago, xiii + 259 pp. + disk. - Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. The language of

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. The language of first-order logic, including the program Tarski's world. Includes version 3.0 of LV 370(2). CSLI lecture notes, no. 23. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford 1990, also distributed by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago, xiii + 259 pp. + disk. - Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. The language of first-order logic, including the Macintosh program Tarski's world. Second edition of the preceding. CSLI lecture notes, no. 23. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford 1992 (© 1991), also distributed by the University of Chicago Press, Chicago, xiv + 297 pp. + disk. - Volume 58 Issue 1

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. The liar. An essay on truth and circularity. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford1987, xii + 185 pp.

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. The liar. An essay on truth and circularity. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford1987, xii + 185 pp.

John Etchemendy. The concept of logical consequence. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1990, vii + 174 pp.

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The Concept of Logical Consequence.

Journal Article Critical Notices Get access The Concept of Logical Consequence. By John Etchemendy. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990. Pp. 174. Price £19.95.) W.D. Hart W.D. Hart University College, London Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 41, Issue 165, October 1991, Pages 488–493, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220083 Published: 01 October 1991

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. Turing's world. Kinko's Academic Courseware Exchange, Santa Barbara1986, viii + 68 pp. + disk. - Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. Tarski's world. Kinko's Academic Courseware Exchange, Santa Barbara1987, vii + 85 pp. + disk.

Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. Turing's world. Kinko's Academic Courseware Exchange, Santa Barbara1986, viii + 68 pp. + disk. - Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. Tarski's world. Kinko's Academic Courseware Exchange, Santa Barbara1987, vii + 85 pp. + disk.

Book Reviews

Journal Article Book Reviews Get access The Liar. An Essay in Truth and Circularity. By Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. xii+185. £15.00. W. D. HART W. D. HART University CollegeLondon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Mind, Volume XCVIII, Issue 391, July 1989, Pages 451–453, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XCVIII.391.451 Published: 01 July 1989

The Liar--An Essay in Truth and Circularity.

Journal Article Book Reviews Get access The Liar – An Essay in Truth and Circularity. By Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. xii + 185. Price £15.00.) Bob Hale Bob Hale University of Lancaster; University of St. Andrews Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 39, Issue 154, January 1989, Pages 118–122, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220358 Published: 01 January 1989