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A Counterfactual Analysis of the Concepts of Logical Truth and Necessity

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the logical truths as (very roughly) those truths that would still have been true under a certain range of counterfactual perturbations.What’s nice is that the relevant range is characterized without relying (overtly, at least) upon the notion of logical truth. This approach suggests a conception of necessity that explains what the different varieties of necessity (logical, physical, etc.) have in common, in virtue of which they are all varieties of necessity. However, this approach places the counterfactual conditionals in an unfamiliar foundational role.

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Correspondence to Marc Lange.

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Lange, M. A Counterfactual Analysis of the Concepts of Logical Truth and Necessity. Philos Stud 125, 277–303 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-005-7774-0

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