What is Logical Validity?
Hartry H. Field · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2015
The chapter argues that it can't be the role of model theory or proof theory to explain the concept of validity. The bulk of the chapter is concerned with two views of how the concept of validity (at least, the one employed in classical logic and in those non-classical logics that are genuine rivals to it) is to be explained. One explanation is in terms of necessary truth-preservation; the chapter argues that while this account works excellently within a wide range of cases, it fails very badly outside of that range. The other explanation is in terms of the conceptual role of validity, focused in particular on the role of validity in governing what we accept and reject; the author has proposed something like this before, but the version offered here is much more fully developed. Views of this sort raise some delicate questions about the normativity of logic, and its objectivity; the chapter discusses such questions in terms of an analogy between validity and objective chance.