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    Externalism, internalism and logical truth

    Besson, Corine (2009) Externalism, internalism and logical truth. The Review of Symbolic Logic 2 (1), pp. 1-29. ISSN 1755-0203.

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    Abstract

    The aim of this paper is to show what sorts of logics are required by externalist and internalist accounts of the meanings of natural kind nouns. These logics give us a new perspective from which to evaluate the respective positions in the externalist--internalist debate about the meanings of such nouns. The two main claims of the paper are the following: first, that adequate logics for internalism and externalism about natural kind nouns are second-order logics; second, that an internalist second-order logic is a free logic—a second order logic free of existential commitments for natural kind nouns, while an externalist second-order logic is not free of existential commitments for natural kind nouns—it is existentially committed.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Historical Studies
    Depositing User: Corine Besson
    Date Deposited: 19 Oct 2012 10:10
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:58
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/5188

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